Case study · Fortnum & Mason · Paid · Retail

Cost per customer cut from £62 to £19.

We restructured search, shopping and social around margin and season, so a heritage retailer acquired new customers efficiently through its busiest trading period.

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The brief

Acquire new customers efficiently through peak.

Fortnum & Mason trades hardest in a short, crowded window when every retailer is bidding. Cost per new customer had climbed to £62 as spend chased last-click revenue rather than the customers worth having. The brief was to bring acquisition cost down and scale confidently through the peak season without buying unprofitable volume.

The move

We shifted the account from chasing revenue to buying margin. Bidding was rebuilt around contribution rather than last-click sales, so the platforms optimised toward customers who were actually profitable. Creative and audiences were tuned for peak demand, and measurement was cleaned up so every decision ran on a signal the team could trust. Efficient buying then let us scale into the season rather than pull back.

The result

A third of the cost, scaled through the busiest weeks.

£19
Cost per customer, from £62
3.3×
Efficiency gain
Peak
Season scaling held

Cost per customer across the engagement

New customer acquisition cost, GBP

£62 → £19
£70£55£40£25£10 £62£48£35£25£19 StartWk 4Wk 8PeakEnd

New customer acquisition cost across search, shopping and social through the peak trading season.

£62→£19
Cost per customer
3.3×
Efficiency gain
Peak
Season scaling
Margin
Bidding signal
Search
Shopping & social
Clean
Measurement
What we did

Bought margin rather than last-click revenue.

  • Rebuilt bidding around contribution margin, so the platforms optimised toward profitable customers rather than last-click sales
  • Tuned creative and audiences for peak season demand, matching the message to how people buy in the busiest weeks
  • Cleaned up measurement so every decision ran on a signal the team could trust
  • Scaled into the season with confidence, because efficient buying made more volume profitable rather than costly

Cut your cost per customer before peak.

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