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PARTNER
CMO Superstores
INDUSTRY
Building Materials / Ecommerce
COMPANY SIZE
51-200 Employees
HEADQUARTERS
Plymouth, UK

About

CMO Superstores operates across the building materials market, serving a broad mix of homeowners and small-to-medium-sized tradespeople through its ecommerce stores.
PPC Manager Jack Barlow manages PPC and affiliate activity across eight of the company’s ecommerce stores, overseeing paid media performance across the portfolio.

The challenge: driving growth for a new ecommerce store

When CMO Superstores launched its new Brick Superstore website, the immediate priority was to start driving relevant Search and Shopping traffic and generate its first conversions.

Rather than working towards a fixed conversion or ROAS target during the initial launch period, the team focused on making sure campaigns were reaching customers through relevant search terms and beginning to generate sales.

Microsoft Advertising was part of the strategy from the outset. Across CMO Superstores’ other stores, the channel would typically account for around 15–20% of paid search spend, with performance generally comparable to Google. As Jack explains,

“Typically Bing makes up 10–20% of our spend on other stores, with comparable ROAS and conversion rate values to Google.” 

For Brick Superstore, the team wanted to let the performance of the new activity determine how budget should be allocated rather than assuming the same split would apply.

The strategy: focusing investment on high-potential categories

CMO Superstores started by identifying the product categories it believed had the greatest potential based on price, customer value proposition and margin opportunity.

The strategy included:

  • Prioritising high-potential product categories based on customer value and margin opportunity
  • Launching targeted Search and Shopping campaigns across Microsoft Advertising
  • Using tightly focused keywords to capture relevant searches
  • Closely monitoring search queries to maintain traffic quality
  • Using Maximise Clicks bidding to support the initial launch
  • Launching Microsoft Advertising alongside Google, rather than waiting to establish performance elsewhere first


The approach allowed the team to start learning from Microsoft Advertising immediately and identify where the strongest opportunities were emerging.

The results: Microsoft Advertising emerges as a strong growth channel

During the initial May–June period, Microsoft Advertising delivered particularly strong results for the new store.

Without disclosing CMO Superstores’ absolute performance figures, the results included:

  • More than twice as many conversions as Google
  • Twice the revenue generated by Google
  • Nearly four times the ROAS of Google
  • More than twice the conversion rate of Google


The results were particularly notable because Microsoft Advertising achieved this while receiving less investment than Google during the period.

For Jack, the performance challenged what he had typically seen when launching activity across CMO Superstores’ other ecommerce stores:

“Having seen the activity from starting on most of our stores, I’ve never seen Bing be the one that finds the strongest performance from new.”
The early results also highlighted the quality of the audience CMO Superstores was reaching through Microsoft Advertising. Jack explains that the team has “always found [the Bing audience] to be a little more on the trade side for our ads,” an important consideration for a business serving both DIY customers and tradespeople.

The impact: increasing investment in Microsoft Advertising

The performance didn’t just deliver additional sales; it changed how CMO Superstores allocated its paid search budget for Brick Superstore.

Based on the early results, the team increased Microsoft Advertising’s share of budget to around 30%, compared with the 15–20% typically allocated across its other stores.

Bing results here have led to us investing 30% of our budget for Brick Superstore into Bing, rather than the standard 15–20%

Jack Barlow, PPC Manager, CMO Superstores

Performance has continued to evolve as the new store has grown. Google has more recently moved ahead on conversion rate, but the value of the Microsoft Advertising audience has remained evident. Jack adds:
“More recently Google conv rate has surpassed Bing, but the quality of the Bing audience stands, with AOV meaning that ROAS is still 50% higher on Bing.”
This continued ROAS advantage reinforces the role Microsoft Advertising is playing in the wider paid search mix for Brick Superstore.

The takeaway: give Microsoft Advertising the opportunity from launch

One of the biggest learnings for CMO Superstores was not to base the potential of new Microsoft Advertising activity solely on previous experience. Despite running the platform across multiple ecommerce stores, Brick Superstore delivered stronger performance than the team initially expected.

Jack’s advice is to give Microsoft Advertising the opportunity to prove what it can deliver from the outset:

“Don’t assume performance and budget pacing from Bing for new activity based on your previous campaigns/clients results, ensure you spend the time to launch Bing on new activity from the beginning too, and give it a reasonable budget.”
For CMO Superstores, this approach uncovered a stronger opportunity than expected and ultimately led the team to increase the proportion of budget invested in Microsoft Advertising.
As a ClickTech Channel Partner, CMO Superstores also had access to ongoing support with platform issues, allowing the team to stay focused on its wider strategy of increasing sales volume.

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