increase in revenue YoY
increase in traffic YoY
of orders through paid Search are from new customers
“Google Ads – and Search in particular – have helped us become the brand known for dungarees. They’ve allowed us to reach people that love the products we have, but haven’t been able to find anywhere else.”
Lucy Greenwood, Co-founder, Lucy & Yak
Google was the go-to platform for online sales
By 2018, Lucy & Yak began using Google Shopping and Search ads – helping to bring stylish, comfortable dungarees to the masses.
“We knew Google was the go-to for online sales,” says Lucy. “Shopping ads meant we could showcase our products, while Search meant we could target anyone searching for dungarees.”
As Lucy & Yak scaled – opening its first brick-and-mortar store in Brighton in 2019 – so too did its use of Google Ads; particularly, Performance Max campaigns.
Approach: Invest in Search and Performance Max campaigns
By summer 2022, Lucy & Yak had expanded to the US and Australia. And it had launched Performance Max.
“We quickly found with Performance Max that we could be more specific with our creatives,” explains Kelsey Wood, Paid Search Manager at Lucy & Yak. “We could group our products in different groups targeted to certain audiences, showcasing different styles and prints. And it allowed us to be granular in our messaging.”
This was good news for an eco-conscious clothing brand with broad appeal. Alongside Performance Max, Lucy & Yak increased investment in its Search and Shopping campaigns. Broad match terms were expanded, title word combinations were tested, and different ad formats and imagery were implemented. The team also worked on ensuring paid and organic Search ads were two separate channels with clear, independent objectives.
“Our customer base is varied with multiple sub-tribes. So Search offers us a platform to get our products out there to people searching all sorts of key terms relevant to us: ‘sustainable’, ‘comfort’, ‘gender neutral’, ‘plus size’. We tweaked our paid ads so that they added traffic to our organic ads, rather than compete. Together with Shopping ads, it’s allowed us to surface the right products to the right person.”
Steph Powell, Lucy & Yak’s Head of Customer Marketing
Results: Increase in sales, traffic and orders from new customers
Since launching using Google’s AI-powered ad solutions, and scaling Google Ads budget, Lucy & Yak has seen strong results. Expanding broad match terms led to a 209% boost in traffic – and a 233% increase in revenue – year-over-year. The transition to Performance Max also drove a 32% uplift in revenue thanks to an improvement in conversions.
Today, 54% of Lucy & Yak’s orders through paid Search are from new customers, with Google Ads also helping to drive traffic and sales in the US and Australia.
“Performance Max hasn’t only helped our conversions – it’s grown our general brand awareness,” says Steph. “That helps people find and discover the brand alongside international growth – that explains the growth. And paid Search has given us the opportunity to elevate the brand and find people in the market for our products.”
Growing together with Google
Lucy & Yak plans to open more brick-and-mortar stores in the UK, with Google Ads leveraged for omnichannel shopping.
“We could use Google Ads for more localised targeting, with local inventory ads that point to what products are available in which Lucy & Yak shops – driving traffic online and in-store,” says Steph.
Lucy says Google Ads have been an integral part of Lucy & Yak’s journey, not only enabling the brand to grow but also spreading awareness of its sustainability and ethical credentials: from its supply chain transparency, to its buyback scheme that means any Lucy & Yak item can be exchanged in return for a voucher to spend in-store or online.
“We’ve also used Google Trends and seen that the popularity of dungarees has been steady for a long time,” says Lucy. “Google has enabled us to reach more people that love dungarees but haven’t been able to find them anywhere else. Now, people know us as the go-to dungaree brand.”
