Woodbridge-based garden centre chain Notcutts and Ipswich digital agency Crafted are celebrating a national retail marketing award for an innovative Christmas campaign.

Notcutts, which has 18 garden centres around the country, and Crafted, its online marketing partner since 2010, picked-up the award for Best Use of Search – Retail at the UK Search Awards.

The accolade recognised Crafted’s creation of a Santa’s Grotto Street View as part of a search marketing campaign for Notcutts during the 2013 festive period.

Crafted, which specialises in web and software development, search marketing, conversion rate optimisation and user experience, used the seasonal display at the Notcutts branch in Norwich to create the virtual tour, enabling Christmas shoppers to explore Santa’s hide-out on Google Maps.

Besides gaining product reviews on prominent blogs, the campaign led to a 30% boost in organic revenue over the festive period.

The creative walk-through was also featured on a number of technology websites and even caught the attention of Google, which shared the Street View to its 4.5million Google Maps followers on social media.

Ian Miller, search director at Crafted, said: “The UK Search Awards are the industry’s largest and most respected awards, so we’re delighted to take home the retail accolade, especially with the likes of Argos and Hewlett Packard also vying for the title. Notcutts are a fantastic brand to work with, and I’m proud of my team for all their hard work.”

Adam Butler, website manager at Notcutts, added: “Crafted’s creativity and hard work ensured that Notcutts.co.uk was visible to our target audience over the competitive Christmas period. The Santa’s Grotto Street View campaign exceeded all targets and we were delighted with its effects on revenue.”