Camelot lifts ROAS 150% for Michaels with Skai’s Budget Navigator, Custom Metrics, and omnichannel activation tools

The Michaels Companies is the largest arts and crafts specialty retailer in North America (based on store count) providing materials, project ideas, and education for creative activities and DIY decorating. With over 1,200 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, Michaels is a leader of the $22 billion creative economy and has a devoted following of craft enthusiasts and artists who rely on the brand to supply their raw materials.

With the onset of COVID-19, demand for hobby activities such as arts and crafts has only grown. Yet as demand spiked, nationwide store closures forced the retail giant to quickly adapt from a predominantly brick-and-mortar operation to a savvy ecommerce platform. 

Camelot, the brand’s digital marketing agency, needed to shift its strategy from driving in-store sales to online sales.

The agency turned to Skai for help developing an evolving strategy to address the rapidly shifting market and a tool to keep budgets on pace for their 1,000+ stores.  

Working closely with the agency, Skai’s Client Success team crafted a customized solution to support an OmniROAS strategy, incorporating both online and offline sales: a strategy that would remain effective as the pandemic evolved and stores began to reopen. 

Skai’s Custom Metrics, an optimization strategy, paired with Smart Shopping, was the perfect solution for The Michaels Companies’ OmniROAS goal. It allowed the agency to integrate both online data (commerce orders) and offline data (in-store visits) from two different sources (the Skai pixel and Google), to achieve a target ROAS.

Pre-pandemic, the client had come to rely on Skai’s Budget Navigator for forecasting and controlling spend. Yet at the time, the tool was not compatible with Google Smart Shopping. Skai developed a customized solution for the agency, ensuring Budget Navigator could work with Smart Shopping, giving the client the advantage of auction time bidding along with the ability to optimize spend for their campaigns. Driven by machine learning, Budget Navigator allocates your budget for you so you get your best performance. Being able to set pacing gave them even more control to push trends they saw performing better, giving them the right boost, at the right time.

Despite a global pandemic and a major strategic shift, Camelot was able to achieve a 152% spike in year-over-year ROAS for Michaels during the first few months of COVID-19 (April – June 2020). Even more telling, the retailer’s year-to-date ROAS increased 65% (February – August 2020) compared to 2019.

The Michaels Companies, Inc. is North America’s largest specialty provider of arts, crafts, framing, floral, wall décor, and seasonal merchandise for Makers and do-it-yourself home decorators. The Company operates more than 1,275 Michaels stores in 49 states and Canada. Additionally, the Company serves customers through digital platforms including Michaels.com and Canada.michaels.com. The Michaels Companies, Inc. also owns Artistree, a manufacturer of high-quality custom and specialty framing merchandise. Learn more at www.michaels.com.

Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media is a privately-held marketing strategy and media agency founded in 1983, and headquartered in Dallas, TX. The Camelot team is comprised of some of the best marketing and media minds in the business, hailing from Fortune 500 and industry-leading companies such as AT&T, Facebook, Google, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, P&G, Snap, Southwest Airlines, Verizon, Yahoo, and YUM Brands. Camelot’s focus is to build clients’ business with a fact-based, customer-centered, market-focused approach that is enhanced by innovation and superior implementation. Learn more.