Campaign Summary
Based near Oldbury-on-Severn in Bristol, Bitcade are one of our great success stories of 2020. With very little search presence and a website in need of a revamp, in 12 months Superb Digital have delivered a 296% increase in leads and a 335% upturn in revenue for the Bristol-based retro arcade machine manufacturer, through a combination of PPC, SEO and a slick website redesign.
“We have seen a huge increase in revenue since partnering with Superb.”
JACK ENGLAND, DIRECTOR, BITCADE
335%
Increase in revenue
£624K
Additional revenue generated in year two
166%
Increase in conversion rate
296%
Increase in leads
Superb Digital has been excellent in taking our business to the next level with their in-depth knowledge of SEO and PPC marketing. The team are always around to answer questions without too much marketing BS! Highly recommended.
Jack England, Director, Bitcade
About Bitcade
Founded in 2017, Bitcade is the UK’s largest producer of custom-built arcade machines. Based just outside of Bristol, their current line of machines come beautifully decorated in a colourful and bombastic range of retro designs and feature high definition screens and built-in emulators with a staggering over 2900 games pre-loaded, including classics like Street Fighter 2, Pac Man, Space Invaders and Puzzle Bobble.
Results
By the end of the first month of running both Google Text and Shopping Ads, sales from the website had leapt 181%. Over the next couple of months, we honed the campaign further, driving down the cost per acquisition (CPA) and gradually increasing revenue by further 30% on top of the initial jump.
When it came to our organic SEO campaign, rankings and revenue increased consistently over the course of the first six months. Then came lockdown. Fortuitously for Bitcade, retro arcade machines became one of those products ideally positioned that appealed to a demographic spending endless weeks of being at home. The rise in organic rankings couldn’t have been better timed.
Sales subsequently surged throughout the summer of 2020, which put Bitcade in a very strong position going into 2021, something that wouldn’t have been possible without the last 12 months or so of digital marketing growth.
At the time of writing, Bitcade dominates the search results pages across a number of highly competitive keywords, including “arcade machines” and the company’s revenue has been transformed, nearly quadrupling in 18 months.
The campaign has been so successful that we’ve been nominated for three awards at the UK Search Awards 2021 off the back of it. These are:
- BEST USE OF SEARCH – RETAIL / ECOMMERCE (SEO): SMALL
- BEST USE OF SEARCH – GAMING
- BEST INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN (SMALL)
Revenue Growth
Oct 2019 – Nov 2021
Google Ads Spend vs Ads Revenue
Oct 2019 – Nov 2021
The Challenge
When Bitcade approached us in 2019, they had seen consistent, albeit limited, growth for the last two years. It was increasingly apparent to the company’s founder, Jack England, that weak search presence was holding them back from an untapped source of new sales.
From our initial site audit that the website build would pose a bit of a challenge. For one, Bitcade had no blog, which is a major tool in building onsite authority and relevance.
Knowing how much work was involved in redesigning the website and building an SEO campaign from the ground up, one of the biggest challenges for us from the outset would be earning the trust of Jack in order to secure the ongoing investment needed to help Bitcade reach its true potential.
The Implementation
After establishing proof of concept and strong returns in Google Text Ads and Google Shopping (see results below), one of the key hurdles to success for us from the outset was getting the website redesigned. The original build, whilst entirely functional, had a certain DIY appeal to it and ultimately this would be hurting conversions due to poor UX.
The end result was a company website that looks more professional and modern, with a user experience that is significantly improved through a more intuitive interface and navigation menus.
As with all Shopify sites, we installed the custom fields plugin so we could begin adding richer and more descriptive content into Bitcade’s service pages, including a detailed buyers guide to arcade machines that now sits on all their main product collection pages.
After optimising service pages with relevant information and a common FAQ, the ongoing content production would take focus on Bitcade’s blog. We assigned a copywriter with a passion for gaming, who has been instrumental in putting together the rich variety of engaging content that now fills the site’s blog pages.
With a growing body of great blog content on the site, we began our link building campaign around month four, calling on our extensive network of lifestyle and gaming bloggers to place links in their existing content as well as writing guest blogs for publication on these sites.
Check out our Bitcade press release coverage on Business Leader and Insider Media by clicking the links.