# Case Studies | Crank

Source: https://wearecrank.com/case-studies

What twenty-seven account audits and Crank's own managed accounts found, real findings, real figures, every one traced to a source.

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Case Studies

# What the accounts actually showed

Findings drawn from Crank's own audits and managed accounts, every figure traced to a source document or a database record. Every account described plainly rather than named, so the findings can be stated in full.

All26Ecommerce17Lead Generation8

All industries26Beauty & Personal Care11B2B & Industrial Software7Retail, Leisure & Consumer Services8

Key challenge

[![Beauty and skincare case study: A Smaller Gap Between a Known Audience and a Cold One, and What It Meant](/images/case-studies/beauty-device-led.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and skincareEcommerce2023–2026A Smaller Gap Between a Known Audience and a Cold One, and What It MeantUser-generated content returned 37 per cent more than standard creative on prospecting. In a separate format test, click price and acquisition cost fell together, 51 and 34 per cent, rather than moving in opposite directions, and the 58 per cent conversion fall during peak trading was traced to a site fault concentrated in the morning, so no budget was pulled from campaigns that were actually working.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-skincare-audience-gap-2023-2026)[![Beauty and home fragrance case study: The Retailer Whose Cheapest Clicks Were Its Most Expensive Sales](/images/case-studies/home-fragrance-retail.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and home fragranceEcommerce2016The Retailer Whose Cheapest Clicks Were Its Most Expensive SalesShopping and brand search could be funded on their true unit cost rather than click price, and the mobile gap became identifiable as an experience problem rather than a media one, with visitors who'd been prompted to return giving a defensible, evidenced reason to keep funding demand creation rather than cut it.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-home-fragrance-measurement-2016)[![Beauty and home fragrance case study: The Site Relaunch That Cost Half the Revenue While Traffic Barely Moved](/images/case-studies/home-fragrance-ecommerce.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and home fragranceEcommerce2018The Site Relaunch That Cost Half the Revenue While Traffic Barely MovedThe diagnosis moved off media and onto the site, which is where the money was actually being lost, and media budget was not cut in response to a problem it had not caused.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-home-fragrance-replatform-2018)[![Beauty and wellbeing case study: When Neither the Catalogue Nor the Checkout Could Be Seen](/images/case-studies/beauty-wellbeing.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and wellbeingEcommerce2017When Neither the Catalogue Nor the Checkout Could Be SeenAll five faults were fixed. Revenue recovered from basket abandonment activity rose 150 per cent, which was only possible once the basket persisted between sessions, and basket completion then reached 91 per cent for existing customers and 72 per cent for new ones, against a blended 62.2 per cent before the work.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-wellbeing-tracking-checkout-2017)[![Men's grooming case study: The Account Where 'At Best a Guess' Was the Verdict on Attribution](/images/case-studies/mens-grooming.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Men's groomingEcommerce2017The Account Where 'At Best a Guess' Was the Verdict on AttributionCorrectly identifying the delivery-cost pattern as a trading decision rather than a broken tag was itself the immediate value of the audit, it stopped a working system being expensively 'fixed' for a fault that didn't exist. The audit also set out the specific route back to reliable attribution, for once its measurement recommendations are followed through.Read the full story →](/case-studies/mens-grooming-attribution-2017)[![Beauty and skincare case study: Three Separate Failures, None Visible From Inside the Advertising Platform](/images/case-studies/beauty-skincare.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and skincareEcommerce2024Three Separate Failures, None Visible From Inside the Advertising PlatformCoverage was restored, a starved campaign acquiring customers at £13.94 was funded properly against one running freely at nearly double the cost, and the account had 303 additional monthly sales of modelled headroom at £16.02 each once the daily budget stopped switching off the best-performing days.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-skincare-operational-audit-2024)[![Gaming case study: Ten Things Wrong, None Visible From Inside the Advertising Platform](/images/case-studies/gaming.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)GamingEcommerce2026Ten Things Wrong, None Visible From Inside the Advertising PlatformWith conversions counted correctly and returned in full, recorded cost per acquisition fell and return on spend rose, the account had been understating its own performance, not overstating it. Separating new from existing customers gave the business, for the first time, a real acquisition cost to plan against.Read the full story →](/case-studies/gaming-full-audit-2026)[![Skincare case study: The Customer Database That Was One Setting Away From Being Usable](/images/case-studies/skincare-creative.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)SkincareEcommerce2026The Customer Database That Was One Setting Away From Being UsableRevenue grew significantly and return on spend fell, because more of the budget was deliberately going toward winning new customers, who cost more per sale than selling again to someone who already buys, the arithmetic of the choice, not a decline in performance. The brand grew overall volume as a result, and is positioned for greater customer value over time.Read the full story →](/case-studies/skincare-consent-retention-creative-2026)[![Luxury department store case study: A Growing Top Line Was Hiding a Worsening Unit Cost](/images/case-studies/luxury-department-store.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Luxury department storeEcommerce2022A Growing Top Line Was Hiding a Worsening Unit CostThe cross-department activity was built and deployed, and cross-department trading improved as a result, though the size of that improvement isn't separately documented, so it's stated here as direction rather than a number. Unit cost also became visible underneath the growing top line, so a rising cost per customer could no longer hide behind rising revenue.Read the full story →](/case-studies/luxury-department-store-behavioural-2022)[![Beauty and skincare case study: What Happens When Growth Is Deliberately Chasing New Customers, Not Just Revenue](/images/case-studies/lash-growth-serum.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and skincareEcommerce2023–2025What Happens When Growth Is Deliberately Chasing New Customers, Not Just RevenueUser-generated content returned 81 per cent better than standard creative, confirmed on a repeat test. The blended fall was explained rather than left hanging: Meta conversion moved from 5.0 to 4.0 per cent as prospecting rose, and Google click costs rose 43 per cent under discounting pressure, and in one comparison, click cost rose 102 per cent while the cost of a new customer fell 48.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-skincare-acquisition-growth-2023-2025)[![Professional skincare case study: Why the Blended Return Was the Least Useful Number in the Account](/images/case-studies/clinical-skincare.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Professional skincareEcommerce2023–2026Why the Blended Return Was the Least Useful Number in the AccountRevenue grew 79 per cent to £960,000\. Standard creative beat user-generated content here, confirming that format has to be proven per account rather than assumed from what has worked elsewhere, though the test itself was underfunded, which is itself part of the finding. The ecommerce team is now focused on understanding lifetime value, working toward what an acquired new customer is worth.Read the full story →](/case-studies/professional-skincare-retention-split-2023-2026)[![Consumer services selling high-value appointments case study: The Decline That Wasn't a Marketing Problem](/images/case-studies/appointment-booking.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Consumer services selling high-value appointmentsEnquiry-led2017The Decline That Wasn't a Marketing ProblemA steep performance decline traced back to a business decision, consultation locations cut from ten to four, that had been analysed as a marketing problem until the change was surfaced. Independent of the tracking fix, this business could already state its enquiry-to-order rate and average order value, letting revenue be modelled directly from enquiry volume rather than guessed.Read the full story →](/case-studies/high-value-appointments-mediated-2017)[![Financial technology case study: Sixty-Four Enquiries, £3,000 of Spend, and £360,000 of Opportunity](/images/case-studies/fintech.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Financial technologyEnquiry-led2022Sixty-Four Enquiries, £3,000 of Spend, and £360,000 of OpportunitySixty-four enquiries at £46.88 each — roughly half the published cost for the sector. More to the point, those enquiries produced two direct sales opportunities worth over £360,000, against £3,000 of total spend.Read the full story →](/case-studies/fintech-first-campaign-opportunity-value-2022)[![Speciality chemicals case study: What a Business's First Digital Campaign Actually Costs to Build](/images/case-studies/speciality-chemicals.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Speciality chemicalsEnquiry-led2025What a Business's First Digital Campaign Actually Costs to BuildCost per enquiry ranged four-fold between five campaigns run side by side on the same platform to the same market, from £226 to £886, turning one blended average into a clear case for which product was worth scaling and which was worth stopping. £53,176 of the £55,000 budget was spent, and the shortfall against the original forecast is the honest expectation to set for a business with no historical data to base one on.Read the full story →](/case-studies/speciality-chemicals-first-time-advertiser-2025)[![Data infrastructure software case study: A Two-Year B2B Programme, and the Same Finding Twice](/images/case-studies/data-infrastructure.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Data infrastructure softwareEnquiry-led2025–2026A Two-Year B2B Programme, and the Same Finding TwiceA warm audience of 78,661 people, built at a penny each, stopped expiring unused and became the starting point for the next campaign rather than something rebuilt from zero each time. Splitting it into named companies also gave sales a route to organisations that had engaged without ever enquiring, reach that had appeared nowhere in the enquiry count.Read the full story →](/case-studies/data-infrastructure-b2b-two-year-programme)[![Social impact software case study: The Channel That Looked Eight Times Cheaper and Was a Third More Expensive](/images/case-studies/social-impact-software.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Social impact softwareEnquiry-led2026The Channel That Looked Eight Times Cheaper and Was a Third More ExpensiveBudget decisions gained a different basis to move on, cost per qualified enquiry rather than cost per enquiry, which reverses the ranking of the two channels. Across £16,481 of spend, 128 enquiries produced 31 marketing-qualified contacts and one sales-qualified, roughly ten weeks to the first real opportunity, the expectation that stops a working campaign being cancelled at week six.Read the full story →](/case-studies/social-impact-software-qualification-2026)[![Commerce software case study: The Month a Quarter of the Traffic Disappeared and Enquiries Tripled](/images/case-studies/commerce-software.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Commerce softwareEnquiry-led2020The Month a Quarter of the Traffic Disappeared and Enquiries TripledThe following month, traffic fell 25 per cent and enquiries rose 218 per cent, a quarter of the traffic disappeared in the same month that produced the best enquiry volume on record, which reported on volume alone would have read as a failure.Read the full story →](/case-studies/commerce-software-integrated-campaign-2020)[![Consumer leisure case study: The Budget Increase That Was Actually a Cut](/images/case-studies/leisure-budget-analytics.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Consumer leisureEcommerce2024The Budget Increase That Was Actually a CutAn additional £1 million of second-quarter paid search was forecast to return £4.4 million in revenue and £1.6 million in contribution, a net benefit of £2.6 million after the spend itself, against a do-nothing scenario showing around £7 million of revenue lost in the same quarter.Read the full story →](/case-studies/consumer-leisure-budget-marginal-return-2024)[![Consumer leisure case study: The Budget Argument With No One Able to Settle It](/images/case-studies/leisure-budget-meeting.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Consumer leisureEcommerce2024The Budget Argument With No One Able to Settle ItThe recommendation gave the business a route to make the budget argument answerable by one person against one profit and loss, instead of negotiated between two functions with competing incentives.Read the full story →](/case-studies/consumer-leisure-brand-marketing-structure-2024)[![Outdoor clothing case study: Growing Revenue, Falling Conversion, and Forty-One Ideas With No Order to Do Them In](/images/case-studies/outdoor-clothing.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Outdoor clothingEcommerce2017Growing Revenue, Falling Conversion, and Forty-One Ideas With No Order to Do Them InThe business had a ranked plan rather than a list of observations, with an owner and a next step against each item. The three highest-priority initiatives carried £1.37 million identified in revenue opportunities for the trading team to implement, at the lowest edge of the scorecard's own benefit bands.Read the full story →](/case-studies/outdoor-clothing-audit-prioritisation-2017)[![Executive education case study: A Quarter of Confirmed Enquiries Had No Matching Analytics Record, and It Took Six Separate Causes to Explain It](/images/case-studies/executive-education.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Executive educationEnquiry-led2019A Quarter of Confirmed Enquiries Had No Matching Analytics Record, and It Took Six Separate Causes to Explain ItSeventy-seven per cent of confirmed touchpoints had a matching form submission and 74 per cent a matching goal completion. The shortfall resolved into six separate root causes, each individually diagnosed and each individually cheap to fix — including a hash used instead of a question mark in email links, and campaign names that differed between the two systems.Read the full story →](/case-studies/executive-education-crm-analytics-gap-2019)[![Beauty and skincare case study: Three Brands, Three Years of Peak Trading, and the Year Spending More Bought Less](/images/case-studies/beauty-peak-trading.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Beauty and skincareEcommerce2023–2025Three Brands, Three Years of Peak Trading, and the Year Spending More Bought LessEarly access separated the brands consistently. In the most recent year the two brands that ran it returned 2.5 and 3.1 times spend, against 1.4 for the brand that did not. And across the group, the year spend rose hardest was the year return roughly halved.Read the full story →](/case-studies/beauty-group-peak-trading-three-years)[![Cross-account case study: Five Retailers Measured Whether Content Readers Buy More. The Answer Depends on Which Kind of Content.](/images/case-studies/retail-content-engagement.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Cross-accountEcommerce2017–2022Five Retailers Measured Whether Content Readers Buy More. The Answer Depends on Which Kind of Content.Editorial and expertise content pointed in different directions on different accounts. Functional content — site search, wishlists, offers and gift guides — beat the site average on every account that measured it, usually by several times over.Read the full story →](/case-studies/content-engagement-five-retailers-cross-account)[![Prestige beauty case study: The Channel Giving the Deepest Discounts Was the Most Profitable One](/images/case-studies/prestige-beauty.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Prestige beautyEcommerce2018The Channel Giving the Deepest Discounts Was the Most Profitable OneDiscount depth predicted almost nothing. The channel taking 43 per cent of all discounts was also the most profitable per order. The device with the deepest discount had the lowest profit. And the campaign with the smallest discount fell furthest below the average profit per order.Read the full story →](/case-studies/prestige-beauty-promotion-profitability-2018)[![Wine and spirits case study: The Category Everyone Was Investing In Was One Per Cent of the Demand](/images/case-studies/wine-spirits.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Wine and spiritsEcommerce2021The Category Everyone Was Investing In Was One Per Cent of the DemandWine generated 1.3 million searches a month. Wine investment generated 1,530 across 79 keywords — less than one per cent of the category, with the single best term drawing 300 searches. People were looking for wine first and investment a distant second.Read the full story →](/case-studies/wine-spirits-merchant-demand-sizing-2021)[![Content management software case study: From Broad Targeting to Named Accounts, and a 26x Change in Lead Volume](/images/case-studies/content-management-software.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax)Content management softwareEnquiry-led2020From Broad Targeting to Named Accounts, and a 26x Change in Lead VolumeLeads grew 26x to over 900 a month, cost per lead fell 69 per cent, and revenue doubled year on year — delivered by a team embedded inside the business's own marketing function, which kept strategy, execution and account targeting aligned as the programme scaled across three regions at once.Read the full story →](/case-studies/content-management-software-abm-programme-2020)

## More findings from the evidence base

Single findings, from accounts too small a slice of the evidence for a full story on their own, but real, sourced, and worth stating plainly.

Food and beverage · 2021

### A consent-handling bug corrupted a year of traffic data

Without an accepted cookie, no persistent ID was set, so every page view created a brand-new visitor. Direct traffic share climbed from 18% to 70% of the whole site over the year, not a measurement gap, but data actively manufacturing a false picture.

Footwear retail · 2019

### A rare example of customer segmentation done properly, before any campaign was built

Most accounts in this evidence base have no separation between new and existing customers at all. This one had four segments, new, active, lapsed, and in-store-only, each with tracked year-on-year movement, forecasted revenue, and a named action.

Home and garden retail · 2020

### The headline conversion number was wrong by eleven per cent

The site's conversion goal fired on reaching a page, not on completing a transaction. It recorded 158,000 completions against 142,000 actual transactions in the same period, the number the account was being judged against was overstated before any campaign decision was made.

Technology infrastructure · 2026

### The same advert cost three times as much depending where it ran

Three campaigns promoting the same product, on the same platform, over the same five weeks: Europe cost $3.81 a click, North America $2.36, Asia $1.31\. In the same account, narrow B2B lead generation into Asia and India cost $18.96 and $18.12 a click against $5.86 into Latin America, geography moved price roughly threefold, and audience narrowness moved it further still, in the opposite direction.

Business systems consultancy · 2026

### Half the enquiries were not people you could sell to

Every contact from two months of automated-campaign enquiries was reviewed by hand. Of 68 enquiries, 11 were a real company with a relevant job title. Headline cost per enquiry was around £58; cost per genuine business enquiry was £385.

Workforce software · 2023

### Qualification came back at 70%, and revenue never did

Of 35 enquiries, 25 were confirmed valid, an unusually good 70% qualification rate. But pipeline value and deal value were never filled in, so a cost of £255 per valid enquiry couldn't be judged against what a customer was worth. Separately, of 368 people who opened the same business's enquiry form, only 35 finished it, a 9.5% completion rate, with cost per open at £11.13 and cost per finish at £182.

Data security software (B2B) · 2024

### A format that won at one B2B account lost, by more than double, at another

Document ads had beaten single-image ads by a wide margin at a data-infrastructure account. At this data-security account, the opposite happened: single-image ads produced enquiries at £303 against £712 for document ads, same platform, same month. Separately, fifteen named target accounts were tracked individually for engagement rather than reported as one blended figure, genuine account-based measurement, rare in this evidence base.