Greek fashion brand Favela has a physical presence in Athens, Greece and also supplies wholesale designer clothing, accessories and footwear, nationwide. The company has been using Google AdWords and Google Analytics since it launched its e-shop, around three years ago, and since then, has achieved results beyond its wildest dreams, since then.

Mrs Helen Zaharopoulou, Spokesperson for the company, says, “Using Google tools is very important for our online activities. For us, no other communication channel is as cost-effective”. There has also been a significant increase in the number of sales from Cyprus, where the brand has no physical presence and can only reach its audience online.

Following the boost in sales, the company has already hired new employees to help it respond to the increased demand.
AdWords contribution to the company’s growth is so huge, that it not only increased online sales, but also drove more clients to the physical store. As a result, a new store was opened recently.

In the last 12 months (September 2015 to August 2016) online sales have grown by 124.84% YoY, while online revenue has shot up by 99.72%

All these with an increase of only 25.73% in marketing cost!

We achieved these remarkable results by taking advantage of the increase in internet usage from mobile devices. We soon noticed that more and more people use their mobile phones to search, browse and even purchase goods. So, Favela made changes to the e-shop that would make it more user-friendly to mobile devices and facilitate online purchases. When this was done, we invested in mobile campaigns by raising and reallocating budgets. As a result, mobile sessions exceeded desktop sessions and now, more than 65% of site visits come from mobile devices.

At the beginning, the results in sales were not clear. We had an increase in sales and revenue, but orders allocation between devices was changing slowly. Customers were browsing the site from their mobile device, but they were finally placing orders from their desktop. Favela came up with new site changes, facilitating the checkout procedure, and we reallocated budgets more aggressively on mobile devices. As we had predicted, revenue from mobile devices increased dramatically, and last two months it exceeded revenue from desktops.

By investing into mobile advertising and making extensive use of ads extensions, such as enabling click-to-call actions and providing accurate information for the stores (from working hours, to driving directions, etc), there was also an increase in store visitors that led to the opening of a second physical store.

Now the company keeps growing online and offline and is making moves towards new international markets.

Keeping in mind that all these happened in the hostile economic environment of the Greek crisis, it appears that investing in mobile advertising (using the appropriate tools and leverage from the expertise provided by the right professionals) could be a way to grow business, against all odds.