Orange Romania: Boosting Black Friday sales with cutting-edge segmentation strategies

The Challenge

Black Friday is an intensely competitive period in marketing — high stakes, significant investments, and well-established e-shops aggressively vying for consumer attention. This is even more true for Orange, operating in a highly competitive telecom landscape where every player is fighting for the same Black Friday wallet.

• Cut through fierce Black Friday noise in the Romanian e-commerce market
• Compete against well-established e-shops with deep pockets
• Reach users at very different stages of buying intent within the same window
• Justify aggressive Black Friday investment with measurable ROAS
• Drive transaction volume on Orange e-shop without burning budget on the wrong audiences

Our Approach

Analyzing historical search campaign data revealed that search queries indicate how close a user is to making a purchase — categorizing them into Prospecting, Pondering or Shopping stages. We hypothesized that addressing each category differently would lift campaign effectiveness, so we built a strategic funnel inside the overall shopping funnel, segmenting campaigns by the user’s proximity to conversion.

1. Intent-based segmentation: classified search demand into Prospecting, Pondering and Shopping stages based on query signals.
2. Tailored budgets and messaging per stage: Prospecting users received Black Friday discount info to push them further up the funnel; Pondering users saw the benefits of buying from Orange to support their decision; Shopping users were nudged with discounts and perks to close the sale.
3. hannel-stage fit: Google Search Ads targeted Prospecting and Pondering groups, directing them to a dedicated landing page for further exploration; Shopping Ads served detailed product info to users ready to buy.
4. Integration into a wider paid ecosystem — Paid Search, PMax and Demand Strategic funnel-within-the-funnel: aligning bid, creative and destination to each stage instead of using one blanket Black Friday push.