Hemswell Antique Centres

By Liam Lally | 26th January 23

An introduction that has turned into an 14+ year digital partnership

February 2011 Introduction

Early February 2011, we received a call from one of our trusted web design companies, TJS Web Design in Horncastle setting up an introduction to their long term client, Hemswell Antique Centres.

We met with Robert Miller, Managing Director of Hemswell Antique Centres and were blown away by the size and scale of the business. Well over 10,000 antiques on site, spread across three buildings (the Guardroom wasn’t launched until 3 years later in January 2014), making Hemswell the largest Antique Centres across Europe.

Hemswell had a website but wanted to drive more traffic to the site AND eventually drive more footfall through the front doors of their Antique Centres buildings.

After a great meeting it was agreed that Zaddle would work on setting up a Google Search Ads campaigns targeting hundreds of Antique categories that existing on the website, allowing people to find specific items that were in the category or period they were interested in.

After the success of the Google Ads Search Ads campaigns, we suggested YouTube advertising to reach people within a certain demographic (age & location), as well as targeted people by their interest category. This was to drive brand awareness across their demographic with a view to increasing the footfall to their centres.

Since then, the YouTube advertising has gone from strength to strength, racking up over 13.3 million impressions and 4.76 million views of over 30 seconds of their videos, which have included event promotions, Christmas promotions and chats with Antique Experts seen on BBC antique programs.

Lockdown

March 2020 to March 2021 was a tough time for every business reliant on footfall, as lockdown meant these buildings would be devoid of visitors for months on end. But instead of feeling sorry for themselves, Robert & his team doubled down on making their antiques accessible to buy online with a technical SEO audit, followed by the launch of a brand new e-commerce website and a local SEO audit & management for their three Google Business Profiles listings (ensuring these would rank high locally when the inevitable rush to get back to “normal” was unleashed).

Once visitors returned, they have continued to go from strength to strength, navigating economic uncertainty as Global and National governments changed.

With the launch of the e-commerce website, Google Shopping Ads were added to their digital marketing activities, as well as Meta (Facebook & Instagram) advertising. Standard shopping campaigns on Google were combined with Performance Max campaigns to maximise reach and return on ad spend.

Trusted Partnership

The thing we enjoy the most about working with Rob and his team, is the trust placed in our expertise. Robert is always willing to listen (and try) new ideas and new features available across the digital landscape.

Most recently, Microsoft Bing Ads were added to the marketing mix to see whether we could get increased conversions at lower costs.

And all of these activities are reported on a bespoke Looker Studio dashboard which has been build by us to show live data on the performance of the website, the advertising and their social media activities. Data from this is pulled into their Dealer Pack, which shows potential dealers the huge value in taking a dealer section within one of their buildings.

Marketing Services Provided By Zaddle

• Google Search Ads
• Google Shopping Ads
• Google Display Advertising Including Remarketing
• Technical SEO Audit
• Local SEO Audit & Management
• Microsoft Bing Ads
• Bespoke Google Looker Studio Reporting
• YouTube Advertising
• Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Advertising
• Social Media Training (for the marketing team)
• LinkedIn Training (for Robert)

We are extremely proud to be a trusted digital partner with Robert and his team at Hemswell. It is a pleasure to see them go from strength to strength and adapt many different innovations over that time to ensure they remain the strongest provider of Antiques across Europe and the World.