Making Every Message Matter

Problem

Blaze Pizza faced several challenges in the summer of 2023: 

• Loyalty transactions per month were steadily decreasing.
• A significant portion of existing loyalty members had never purchased.
• New loyalty sign-ups had slowed.
• Marketing automation technology was limited with the current martech stack.
• Internal resources to manage and execute were limited.

As August has been a slow month for Blaze historically, Leadership saw an opportunity to evaluate the effect loyalty and CRM could have on driving sales.

Solution

Our team decided on a month-long “Summer Send-Off” celebration with various exclusive offers for loyalty members. The decision was based on survey feedback indicating members preferred a choice of offers. Loyalty members were segmented into thirteen categories using Punchh’s (Blaze Pizza’s loyalty platform and partner of Response Labs) Smart Segments, considering factors like recency, frequency, and total spending. A data-driven approach involved preliminary testing of eight offers against a 10% control in June and July 2023, developing an offer strategy tailored to each segment. Despite challenges in offer infrastructure configuration, the team leveraged Punchh’s capabilities but also highlighted the need for additional marketing automation technology. The production and execution involved creative input from Response Labs and Blaze Pizza teams, with a weekly cycle of refining the process based on data analysis for future initiatives.

Result

When the campaign was completed on August 31, 2023, we had surpassed our goal by generating over 15% in incremental net sales. The results were also 14% higher than the previous month, July 2023, and 12% higher than the previous year, August 2022. Loyalty check-ins also increased 21% month-over-month and 1% year-over-year netting out at a 22% incremental lift from the Summer Send-Off campaign. 

Problem

Prospective customers and sales decreased over two years across the entire weight-loss industry. The decrease in prospects increased competition, driving up costs for awareness advertising and driving a need for more innovative concepts than ever before.

Solution

Response Labs helped HMR gain more value from existing customer data. Previous digital advertising strategies included direct publisher buys and targeting based on second-party data from platforms like Google and Facebook. We transitioned HMR digital advertising to 100% lookalike audiences from their first-party data via programmatic media with The Trade Desk.

Result

A  50% increase in customer acquisition YoY. By combining the industry-leading intelligence of The Trade Desk with the rich data of their existing customers, HMR was able to mitigate high CPM prices from competition and consumer uncertainty to increase customer acquisition by 50% versus the previous year.

Problem

Part of maintaining a relationship with a client is finding ways to help them succeed in a variety of circumstances, even when fewer resources are available. We were challenged to achieve ambitious lifts in revenue and leads, despite a 30% decrease in budget from the prior year.

Solution

Response Labs employed a diversified media mix (full-funnel, cross-channel) and incorporated The Trade Desk, where campaigns leveraged granular targeting capabilities without sacrificing impactful reach.

Result

A  10% increase in revenue and a 2% increase in leads YoY.

Problem

As a new brand, Kradle CBD for Dogs was just gaining traction in the marketplace. Awareness growth and an aggressive sales target meant the brand was willing to spend on digital marketing to generate sales. However, an initial campaign showed low sales results from a high spend, without clear or accurate attribution of sales to marketing dollars. The most prominent metric available when we partnered with the business was cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and the value was at an unacceptably high level.

Solution

We immediately revamped Kradle’s attribution to properly track campaign channel and messaging performance. From there, we set up and launched targeted audiences filled with past site visitors, lookalikes, and CBD-friendly customers. In addition, we launched Kradle’s first programmatic campaign, driving millions of impressions, surpassing industry benchmarks on CTR and CPC, and building a robust remarketing audience.

Once we reached campaign stability on the paid platforms, we also revamped the product pages on Kradle’s website, closing gaps in the customer experience that impacted conversions, and added email journeys promoting repurchase and retention.

Result

A  90% reduction in CPA in the first three months after launching the new media campaign. Combined, the digital marketing efforts resulted in a consistent 10-14% increase in sales month over month with more efficient spending. We also increased the on-site conversion rate from 0.49% to over 2.0% at peak campaign performance.

Problem

In an analysis of a segment of top Outback customers, we found that most had never ordered online. We needed to engage them via online ordering as much as in-restaurant dining.

Solution

The hypothesis was that these loyal diners were more inclined to dine in and may be averse or concerned with ordering Outback online. Therefore, we created an email campaign that laid out the exact steps necessary to order online, breaking down barriers to adoption. We then tested that messaging against a control of the standard promotion of e-commerce.

Result

66% higher conversion rate for recipients of the new message. They also spent $10 more on average per online order. Even more interesting was when we tested a video tutorial of the steps to ordering instead of the written out copy, conversion dropped. It was clear that this audience was more receptive to clear and simple instructions.

Problem

Customers in the My Hannaford Rewards loyalty program engaged less and less with email communications. The excitement of the program launch was over, and their interest in the emails was waning.

Solution

We hypothesized that these customers were not interested in email but would still engage if contacted in a channel they preferred. Therefore we began introducing new touchpoints within the customer journey that leaned on SMS and push, particularly to customers not opening or clicking the emails.

Result

A 236% week-over-week increase in engagement activity following the introduction of a push notification into an existing campaign. For another campaign, we focused on SMS and immediately saw 74% more unengaged email subscribers who received a text message convert versus those who did not. 

Problem

While we hope a new website will bring with it improved statistics, that is not always the case. Following the launch of a fresh, new website, the conversion rate of homeowner leads began to drop. All the post-launch boxes were checked: SEO looked good, site speed was improved, and content was fresh and relevant. Still, the new lead conversion page was not converting.

Solution

We reviewed the changes made to the page and the form before launch, and while all the fields were the same, we felt the new interface may not be as user-friendly as we thought during design and development. We quickly mocked up a revised page and ran an A/B test against the page we had just launched.

Result

An 85% improvement in conversions via the revised page with an adjusted form, video feature, and new copy, as compared to the page that had recently launched. From then on, we began to hypothesize and test minor changes for ongoing optimization regularly and continue to see conversion rates improve.