After years of financial turmoil, Edgars needed more than a new platform to turn its fortunes around - it needed a digital strategy capable of reviving the brand, rebuilding awareness, and winning back customers in one of the most competitive, price-sensitive retail markets in the country. Following Edgars' migration to Shopify in June 2024, TDMC built a Google Ads strategy that put AI to work across the entire funnel - from Smart Bidding tuned to each stage of the customer journey, to Performance Max driving bottom-funnel revenue, to Demand Gen re-engaging a previously disengaged audience. By June 2025, total sales had grown 75% year-on-year, with cross-network revenue up over 61%.
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Executive Summary
02
Introduction
Edgars is one of South Africa's best-known fashion and department store names - and also one of its most publicly tested, having weathered several years of real financial difficulty. When the brand migrated from Magento to Shopify in June 2024, it wasn't just a platform change; it was the foundation for a genuine comeback. TDMC was mandated to drive that comeback through e-commerce, with a brief that went beyond performance marketing into brand revival itself.
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The Problem
The brand image needed to be rebuilt.
Years of financial turmoil had left a mark, and any marketing strategy had to work as hard at rebuilding trust as it did at driving sales.
Awareness of Edgars' full range was limited.
With a focus needed on the brand's core fashion offering, the challenge wasn't just getting in front of customers - it was reminding them of everything Edgars actually had to offer.
Consideration and acquisition had to happen in a tough market.
Competing for customer attention in a price-sensitive category meant every campaign had to work hard to earn both consideration and conversion, not just reach.
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The Solution
TDMC built the strategy around Google's full portfolio of AI-powered tools, using them in concert to reach customers at every stage of the funnel rather than relying on any single tactic to carry the campaign.
Smart Bidding tuned to every stage of the funnel
Smart Bidding was applied across every Google Ads campaign, with the strategy shifting to match intent at each stage - Target CPV for video awareness and consideration, Maximise Clicks for Demand Gen traffic, Maximise Conversions and Conversion Value for Paid Search, and Maximise Conversion Value with target ROAS for Performance Max. Audience expansion and optimised targeting were layered on top, extending manually built audiences with genuinely relevant users - strengthening delivery without losing focus on the customers most likely to convert.
Search built to match real shopper intent
Search campaigns ran exclusively on Responsive Search Ads, using a wide variety of headlines and descriptions to let messaging adapt to what actually resonated with each user, rather than locking the campaign into a single fixed message. Given the breadth of Edgars' product range and how specific fashion shoppers tend to be in their searches, broad match targeting was used deliberately - allowing campaigns to serve against hyper-specific fashion search terms rather than relying solely on a predefined list.
Performance Max as the revenue engine
Performance Max competed across the full funnel, but a value-based bidding setup kept its focus firmly on bottom-funnel performance - and it became the single strongest revenue contributor across the entire Google Ads account.
Demand Gen to re-engage a disengaged audience
To rebuild consideration among customers who'd drifted away from the brand, Demand Gen placed high-quality creative in high-value placements, paired with a Maximise Clicks strategy to drive traffic directly to site. The creative did double duty - premium enough to support the brand revival, while price-focused messaging kept affordability front and centre for a value-conscious audience.
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Results
The strategy didn't just support Edgars' comeback - it became one of its clearest proof points.
- 75% growth in total sales in June 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
- 61.14% growth in cross-network revenue year-on-year, as measured in GA4.
- 1.88% growth in paid search revenue year-on-year, building steadily on an already strong channel.
- Sustained, positive performance growth across the full year, not just a single strong month.
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Conclusion
For a brand working to rebuild trust after a genuinely difficult few years, performance marketing had to do more than drive short-term sales - it had to prove the comeback was real. By integrating Google's AI-powered tools across the entire funnel and pairing that strategy with Edgars' move to a modern, scalable Shopify foundation, TDMC helped turn a platform migration into a measurable business turnaround - one built to keep compounding as Edgars' momentum continues to grow.
