Empress Mills

Agile Paid Strategy Fuels Long-Term Growth for Empress Mills

Paid Media
Strategy

Performance Max unlocked market growth in 3 months
Paid activity maintained strong organic market share

The Diagnosis

Turning organic strength into profitable growth.

Empress Mills, a long-standing Door4 client and specialist in fabric and haberdashery retail, has been on a decade-long journey of digital evolution. With strong organic visibility already secured, the challenge was to translate this reputation into sustained, profitable e-commerce growth in a margin-sensitive market.

Paid media needed to complement—not compete with—organic performance, while scaling reach and revenue in an increasingly competitive landscape. The brief wasn’t simply about short-term fixes, but about building an adaptable paid media strategy that could deliver consistent returns, evolve with changing platforms, and secure Empress Mills’ position as a digital leader.

The Approach

A decade of partnership and adaptation.

Over more than ten years of collaboration, Door4 has worked closely with Empress Mills, and the recent initiative aimed to introduce paid media activity in line with shifting market conditions and platform changes. From early Shopping campaigns through to the adoption of Google’s Performance Max, our strategy has always been grounded in commercial clarity: focusing on profitable return on ad spend (ROAS), protecting the strength of Empress Mills’ organic rankings, and ensuring paid media acted as a growth engine rather than a cost centre.

The partnership has been defined by agility and continuous learning. Regular performance reviews, feed optimisation, A/B testing of ad copy, and proactive keyword management have allowed both paid and organic channels to grow in harmony. By maintaining a clear focus on the client’s commercial priorities, we’ve been able to evolve strategy at the right pace, balancing bold shifts with the need for long-term stability.

The Execution

Optimising campaigns for performance and stability.

Execution was defined by agility and continual optimisation. We restructured campaigns around Performance Max, refined product feeds, and enhanced ad copy to better match buyer intent. Regular A/B testing ensured campaigns remained efficient, relevant, and conversion-focused.

By treating paid and organic as a single ecosystem, we avoided cannibalisation and maximised return across channels. Over time, the partnership expanded into a cycle of iteration: embedding learnings, testing new campaign types, and adapting as market conditions shifted. This long-term, insight-led process meant Empress Mills didn’t just recover from early setbacks; it built a scalable, profitable model for sustained digital success.

The Success Criteria

Profitable results, sustained over the long term.

The results were immediate and long-lasting. Within three months of pivoting to Performance Max, paid campaign performance improved sharply, unlocking traffic and revenue growth without sacrificing organic visibility. ROAS became a guiding benchmark, ensuring paid activity remained profitable even as spend scaled.

Over the following three years, this foundation has evolved into a consistent growth engine, delivering year-on-year improvements, sector leadership online, and predictable, profitable returns from both paid and organic channels.

The Conclusion

Evolving into a category leader

Today, Empress Mills is recognised as a digital category leader in fabric and haberdashery. The business has a scalable paid acquisition model that complements its organic strengths, ensuring resilience in a highly competitive space.

The partnership with Door4 continues to evolve, with future opportunities in CRO and diversification into channels like Bing, Meta, and TikTok. The success of this initiative has not only strengthened Empress Mills’ commercial performance but also provided a blueprint for other specialist retailers looking to balance paid and organic growth.