Better targeting is helping Russian online fashion retailer Lamoda increase sales.
Lamoda began integrating Dynamic Yield Inc.’s personalization software into its site in January 2015, and year-over-year revenue increased $11 million through September, which is a 10-15% gain, says Benjamin Ludigs, the e-retailer’s chief revenue officer. The software lets retailers personalize what a consumer sees when he visits a site on an individual level based on such factors as how a shopper was referred to a site, past purchase data, which pages he has viewed on a particular site and which types of products he has clicked on.
“What we wanted to do was give the customer a more personalized experience so they would engage more with our platform,” Ludigs says. A team at Lamoda studied how shoppers interacted with the retailer’s website, and tried to match the audience with relevant ads the company was running.
“We could say ‘OK, we see a lot of people that go to a certain step on our page and then they drop out, let’s target them specifically with this message,’” he says. For instance, if a shopper already has something in their basket and Lamoda wants to sell that customer more products, the retailer will send a message saying, “Buy an additional item and get 10% off your purchase.” These messages can be delivered in a variety of different forms, including as a pop-up when a shopper visits a site or embedded into the site itself as part of a promotional module.
As Lamoda gathers more browsing and shopping history with consumers, the messages shoppers receive will evolve, says Liad Agmon, CEO of Dynamic Yield. A consumer’s journey can be broken down into three parts, he says: There are the unknown users, who have no prior history with a brand; users with browsing history, who have visited a site but not bought from it; and users with purchase history, who have bought from a site before and represent an opportunity for repeat business.
The more personalized and relevant the interaction, the more effective it is, Agmon says. “In retail, it immediately translates to the bottom line.” he says.
Lamoda, No. 126 in the 2016 Internet Retailer Europe 500, felt the impact. “You could see conversion increases from as small as 5% to doubling for some campaigns,” Ludigs says. “Overall, our conversion rate significantly improved in 2015.” A Dynamic Yield spokesman declined to specify a dollar figure as to how much the services cost, saying only that it is “volume-based.”
Ludigs says he plans to add new ways to trigger personalized campaigns based on such factors as products that will be arriving in the future, available sizes or the company’s inventory levels.
“This will give us the opportunity not only to increase our customer focus by providing a personalized experience, but also to use our available merchandise in the most effective way,” he says.