Case Study

How Carphone Warehouse Capitalise on strategic market opportunities

Carphone Warehouse specializes in the mobile phones and telecommunications market. The company have 2,400 stores across Europe, and are a market leading provider in mobile telecoms.

Carphone Warehouse employs Adthena for strategic competitive intelligence, so they can be more efficient and impactful with their advertising budgets. One way Carphone Warehouse does this is by monitoring opportunities and gaps in the competitive landscape — something that provided them with a fresh opportunity to capture market share during the launch of a highly anticipated new iPhone handset.

Key Results

  • Result
    Increase in MoM market share driven by strategic planning insights
  • Result
    Uplift in orders
  • Result
    Reduction in cost-per-acquisition

The Challenge

Carphone Warehouse retail a large variety of handsets, and need to ensure customers are able to explore and discover products. The company uses competitive intelligence to ensure that their advertising budget is managed efficiently, and is effective in reaching customers.


The Solution

Carphone Warehouse decided to leverage their intelligence to push relevant keywords on both text ads and Google Shopping. The results were significant. In the space conceded by the other competitor, Carphone Warehouse were able to generate a 50% boost in clickshare growth.

The uplift generated a +8% increase in CTR, and this translated into a +53% uplift in orders from generic RLSA campaigns, and a 23% drop in cost-per-order.

The Insight

Carphone Warehouse continue to utilize competitive intelligence to identify market gaps and opportunities.

Gap analysis and market opportunities

Adthena’s gap analysis features helps Carphone Warehouse identify when competitor activity changes, and where there may be opportunity in the market. It also empowers discovery of new search term opportunities.

Competitor marketing intelligence and analysis

Adthena’s Strategic Planning enabled Carphone Warehouse to monitor ad spend and performance in their market. It helped the brand see how visible competitors are across either text and PLA ads, and informs their own ad spend strategy.

During the launch of the new iPhone XR handset, with competitive intelligence Carphone Warehouse were able to identify that a major competitor had dramatically reduced paid search spend on both text ads and PLA prior to launch.

Carphone Warehouse looked to capitalize on this opportunity in order to generate an uplift in clicks, and ultimately to increase sales during the launch of this handset.