Challenge

Galeries Lafayette operates in a complex paid media environment: a vast product catalog, strict profitability goals, and a need to balance scale with precision.

With no direct competition on branded terms but high CPCs across categories, the challenge was dual: control acquisition costs (COS) across all channels, and identify product-level opportunities without cutting too aggressively into long-tail value.

At the same time, an ongoing replatforming effort raised the stakes for organic visibility. With structural changes to the site underway, maintaining organic performance during and after the transition became critical. 

The brand needed a strategy that could protect organic traffic, optimize media investment, and unlock scalable, incremental growth, without compromising business volume.

Strategy

On Google Ads, Primelis restructured the entire Paid Search engine to focus on real-time product performance. Using a dynamic segmentation approach, campaigns were optimized around both media signals (clicks, conversions) and business KPIs (revenue, margin).

A cross-brand strategy was also deployed to address brand cannibalization and reduce non-incremental spend on low-competition queries.

On Social, the focus shifted to creative diversity and audience expansion. With increasing investment in Meta, efforts centered on integrating UGC, expanding reach, and measuring true incrementality, particularly through GeoLift tests.

In parallel, the organic roadmap was tightly integrated into the platform migration plan. Strategic features were progressively deployed to maintain organic visibility, preserve rankings, and set the foundation for post-migration growth. The combined strategy ensured continuity across channels while improving the efficiency and resilience of the overall acquisition model.

Execution

The organic workstream was tightly aligned with the replatforming roadmap. Key strategic elements were progressively integrated into the new platform environment to preserve organic visibility and ensure a stable recovery post-migration.

On the paid side, Shopping campaigns were restructured through a dynamic segmentation approach. Product-level steering allowed for more granular control of spend allocation, aligning media investment with performance signals across the catalog.

The entire Shopping setup was transitioned to Performance Max following structured A/B testing. This shift was designed to leverage broader inventory access and more flexible formats, optimizing campaign delivery and media efficiency across surfaces.

On social, Meta investment was scaled with a focus on structuring audiences and diversifying creative. This included the integration of UGC through influencer partnerships, ASC+ amplification, and value-based bidding. These efforts aimed to strengthen engagement and improve alignment between creative performance and audience intent.

All figures reflect performance growth in 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Impact

The collaboration delivered a step-change in performance governance. Budget was reallocated with precision, scaling what worked and pruning what didn’t,without blunt cuts.

By bringing product-level logic into campaign design and using statistical measurement for media incrementality, Galeries Lafayette achieved higher profitability on a stable revenue base.

In a context of rising acquisition costs and platform volatility, this was not just optimization,it was strategic insulation.