www.ctshirts.co.uk

The Charles Tyrwhitt brand has been synonymous with quality men’s shirts since it was founded 1986. Originally concentrating on mail-order, the business opened the doors of its flagship store in London’s Jermyn Street in 1997. It has since been joined by eight other stores worldwide including locations in Paris, Oxford and New York. The company has also seen considerable success online over the last decade and the Charles Tyrwhitt website www.ctshirts.co.uk has helped the online arm of the business to drive some 60% of total revenue.

Like many businesses, the Charles Tyrwhitt goal when branching out into online retailing was simply to drive traffic to their site. Search Marketing Manager Frank Sendler says, “The primary goal in the beginning was basically to increase sales. That became more structured when we decided we wanted to sell but we wanted a higher ROI at the same time and make a healthy profit. And then an additional goal was added: customer acquisition.” Central to this customer acquisition goal was to build on Charles Tyrwhitt’s brand recognition. The potential for using the Google Display Network to further the brand was immediately apparent. Sendler went about creating both text and display ads that would be hosted on relevant websites across the vast Google network. “The display advertising”, he says, “gives us a much broader presence for our brand.”

However, the Charles Tyrwhitt approach did not neglect the second and most important part of their AdWords objective: sales. Their campaigns were structured to target customers in every phase of the buying cycle – from the first glimpse of the Charles Tyrwhitt logo to the actual purchase itself. The Display Network was key to both the brand building and the sales goal. Sendler outlines, “We have two purposes for the Display Network: one is to achieve higher brand recognition; the other is to increase sales...So we use display advertising on the Display Network and then search ads at the end of the buying cycle.”

This formula for acquiring customers has had great returns for Charles Tyrwhitt. They are now the largest makers of shirts for Internet retailing in England. Sendler is in no doubt about the role that AdWords and the Display Network have played in this expansion. “AdWords played a significant role because it is the most efficient sales channel for us with the best return-on-investment. But it is also very effective in acquiring new customers. At the moment about 40% of our AdWords sales come from new customers.”

In a business where customer acquisition is so important, this continual growth of the Charles Tyrwhitt customer base cannot be understated. Furthermore, the benefits of the Display Network branding drive are not only apparent in their online sales but in there offline business also. Sendler explains, “Sometimes customers find us on the net and don’t really know who we are and call into the shop…So it all plays into a multi-channel picture. It definitely helps the company growth overall.” “AdWords”, Sendler concludes, “has the broadest reach and drives the highest quality of traffic to our website.”