Big ambitions with big barriers

Most CPG brands have reached a critical turning point. As foot traffic plummets and eCommerce grows, investing in a direct-to-consumer model holds the key to remaining relevant and competitive within the changing landscape.

Company X, a consumer products company that owns some of the world’s best known personal care brands, knows this all too well. Yet, one brand in particular was struggling to emulate the same success that it achieves in a retail store setting.

As is the case for many CPG brands going digital for the first time, the eCommerce website resembled a static product brochure, lacking any content catered to the needs of its audience to help them reach buying decisions.

Yet, this wasn’t because the brand didn’t have relevant content. Far from it, in fact. The brand had a collection of engaging videos, educational articles, and inspiring social posts that were stuck in silos across its different marketing channels.

At the same time, Company X had no way to access real time customer data for the brand. Which meant the team had no insight into how best to optimize the buying experience across the website. Everything was based on opinion, not reality.

But with ambitions to not just grow sales but transaction volume, order frequency, and the number of items purchased too, something needed to change.

Seeking out richer experiences that sell

Company X soon realized that by integrating the brand’s high-performing content from its social channels and campaigns on its website, it could deliver a richer shopping experience and improve its sales. So, the team set about finding a solution.

Problem was, the team wasn’t sure what they were looking for. While they had great brand expertise, they were limited in their direct-to-consumer knowledge. To ensure all problems were resolved by the solution, the team compiled a checklist of requirements.

Another priority was for the solution to be highly automated. The brand only had limited resources within its eCommerce and marketing teams, so a platform that could do a lot of the legwork for them was essential.

Finally, the chosen platform had to integrate quickly and easily with the team’s existing marketing technology. Integrations with Magento and Episerver were a must-have.

During the team’s research, they came across Knexus Visual Commerce Platform. After confirming the solution could meet their needs – and more – a partnership was formed.

How this leading brand uses visual commerce

By implementing visual commerce, the brand team has unlocked their content from channel silos, achieving one complete view of every new and existing asset that can be used across individual buying journeys – without moving content to one place or disrupting existing processes.

That includes how-to videos from YouTube, articles and insights on its blog platform, and a wealth of Instagram content both from the brand and its influencers.

Each asset is automatically categorized with relevant tags and enriched with content intelligence so it can be paired with the right person and products to influence sales.

Across the homepage, product pages, and category pages, visitors are greeted with fully personalized content which is selected in real time, based on relevancy for the individual and sales impact.

Each video, post, and article has also been made shoppable through machine learning, which means buying journeys are much easier and more enjoyable. Through content monetization, the brand now uses content to achieve a meaningful commercial impact on sales.

Despite starting with minimal first party data, the platform enabled the team to develop unique profiles for each visitor in real time, testing and optimizing the delivery of personalized buying experiences at a capacity no human can compete with.

The longer the visual commerce platform runs on the brand’s website, the better its results become. Even when left alone, it continues to strengthen its intelligence around the content and customers so that the right content is always delivered at the right time.

Unlocking better buying moments for life

With Knexus in place, the brand has been able to deliver highly personalized and contextually relevant content experiences that support their customers. As a result, eCommerce sales have improved by 32%.

By unlocking the brand’s social and marketing content, enriching it with intelligence, and integrating it across individual buying journeys, the team has been able to create much richer shopping experiences. Drop-offs are down by 14% and engagement up by 37%.

In addition, the loyalty of the brand’s customer base has also strengthened. Conversion rates have grown by 5% while the average order value has risen by 18%. The brand’s website content is not only highly relevant, but instantly shoppable too.

In fact, a time saving of 66% has been achieved through a real-time approach which reduces planning, execution, and maintenance, while there has also been a 60% reduction in resources due to streamlining and eliminating manual processes for good.

Through visual commerce, the brand has achieved a scalable and repeatable approach to the delivery of one-to-one buying experiences – for one customer or one million.