Altrex has been a supplier of stairs, ladders and scaffolding for over 70 years and is the market leader in the Benelux. With the expansion of the sales team in Germany, Altrex wants to broaden and improve its online marketing activities. "For this reason we started looking for a reliable partner to expand our business crossborder," says Laurence Jansen, online marketer at Altrex. "Also with an eye on the future!"
"We really started at zero in terms of online marketing in Germany," Laurence explains. "There was a beautiful, corporate website with a healthy growth ambition, but at that point it stopped there." Together with Dexport, Altrex started setting up German advertising campaigns and search engine optimization. The main goal of this is to connect people with the brand and then refer them to a dealer.
Sales through dealers
Altrex does not have its own webshop, but works intensively with dealers, such as hardware stores, wholesalers and rental companies. This has advantages and disadvantages for online marketing. Laurence: "The cooperation with dealers is very pleasant, but it is difficult to track the success of our online marketing efforts."
It works very well to connect the German customer with Altrex through advertisements and SEO. Laurence: "We focus on customer acquisition, but don't always have a grip on whether we activate this customer. Measuring repeat purchases is also complex, but it is a nice challenge to retrace the return on your online investments." What is directly measurable, however, is traffic to the website. In 2021, that grew by 142% compared to 2020.
Omnichannel approach
Altrex has big plans for the German market and, together with Dexport, is constantly expanding its online marketing activities. In addition to advertising in Google, there are now Microsoft Ads, social media advertising (both for remarketing and branding), professional email marketing automations and content marketing. Laurence: "We steer towards an omnichannel approach, both online and offline, so that everything fits together seamlessly."
The goal is to get visitors excited about the brand in the orientation process and then bond them with our dealers. Laurence: "We have noticed in recent years that we are getting more and more inquiries coming from our non-branded campaigns as well as through the intensification of our SEO efforts."
Reliable crossborder partner
The emphasis for the future will continue to be on sales through dealers. With the help of the strong online visibility, it is becoming increasingly easy to be included in the assortment at new wholesalers, DIY stores and other resellers.
Laurence is very appreciative of working with Dexport. "We were looking for a reliable partner to increase our crossborder growth. Dexport has the expertise to achieve that growth, which we like. Then when you see a 142% growth in traffic, I get very excited! We are going to build on that together."
