Tarte describes how it uses a cloud-based marketing vendor to tailor its website and marketing messages to shoppers.

Cosmetics retailer Tarte Inc. doesn’t want to have to ask its customers more than once for their email address, and when it does ask, it wants to intrude on shopping visits as little as possible.

Email capturing and personalization services are key reasons Tarte uses marketing software provider BounceX. The software allows Tarte to know if a website visitor  has already provided her email address to Tarte, even if she is not signed in to the site, says Stephanie Urban, the director of digital marketing for Tarte. The ability to access that information means Tarte is not annoying the shopper with a request for something she has already provided, she says.

BounceX taps into the data by using a propriety technology it calls Device Graph that links a retailer’s customer relationship management system to any known device in the vendor’s cloud-based database.

If a consumer has not given Tarte her email address, the retailer has several triggers in place for when to make the request. For example, Tarte will have an input box appear if it detects the consumer’s mouse moving toward the top of her browser. The box will ask for her email address and Tarte will send her a discount code.

Tarte also routinely uses BounceX for A/B testing its marketing messages, Urban says.

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“For visitors who have abandoned our site after adding items to their cart, we run a variety of cart recovery campaigns,” she says. “We A/B test the messaging, placement and creative strategies when she returns to site, and optimize toward the campaigns which are more likely to drive conversions. We can serve the message via overlays, annotations or banners.”

BounceX also can update message boxes on product pages, depending on how many consumers have visited the page. For example, if a product is receiving more views than average that day, Tarte may generate a message that tells the shopper she is a looking at a popular product, Urban says.

The vendor also knows when a consumer purchases a specific product and when she will likely need a refill, based on how long it takes for that product to run out. This predictive ability allows Tarte to use that information to feature those products to particular shoppers in emails and on its website, says Julia Spano, senior director of content and brand marketing at BounceX.

Tarte drives urgency with shoppers with a countdown clock on its homepage of when a certain promotion ends. The retailer outsources this to BounceX because the vendor has robust analytics and can run more intricate A/B tests and see the impact it has on conversion, Urban says. This marketing approach increases conversion, Urban says, without revealing specifics. Internet Retailer estimates Tarte’s conversion at 1.31% in 2016, according to Top500Guide.com.

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It took Tarte a few months to get BounceX up and running on its site and only one or two employees were involved, Urban says. She would not disclose how much BounceX charges, only that it is a monthly fee based on the retailer’s traffic and revenue. BounceX says the cost is associated with the revenue increase it provides to clients.

Tarte is No. 310 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 1000 and had an Internet Retailer-estimated $91.6 million in 2016 web sales, according to Top500Guide.com.

BounceX recently raised $31 million in capital to invest in product performance, the company says. The funds will be used to make acquisitions that will expand the company’s engineering resources. The vendor says it also will invest in its proprietary database and Device Graph to support its clients.

 

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