LONDON, UK – Online retailer JD Williams has adopted Monetate’s experience marketing technology to create highly personalised, relevant experiences to differentiate the brand from competitors and enhance conversion and loyalty.
JD Williams, the UK’s leading direct home shopping company, had previously been using an optmisation solution, however with diminishing returns from optimisation alone, the retailer quickly realised that it needed to adopt personalisation to improve customer engagement and conversion, and turned to personalisation platform provider Monetate who were able to solve a number of business challenges.
With a goal of creating bespoke experiences for different segments of the database, JD Williams initially identified five customer groups on which they wanted to focus their personalisation efforts. Monetate’s easy to use platform enabled the eCommerce team to quickly start creating personalised experiences for these audiences at scale and without reliance on 3rd parties. Additionally, with JD Williams in the process of moving onto the Hybris eCommerce platform at the time, Monetate gave the business great agility to trade and merchandise the site while IT resources were engaged in the replatforming process. The company was able to easily make changes to the site without having to wait for alterations to be hard-coded into a new update.
Finn Christo, Group eCommerce CRO Manager at JD Williams said “The personalisation platform has enabled us to get started in a really quick an easy way. We have been impressed with the business impact that Monetate has had in such a short time and are looking forward to the next stages of the project.”
Like many retailers JD Williams has seen a significant shift towards mobile traffic across their brands. Using Monetate, the brand was able to address this change, creating personalised experiences for visitors using mobile and tablet devices.
The brand saw impressive new visitor conversion uplift of 18 per cent within the space of two weeks – demonstrating the value of personalisation to the business. Further results from the change included:
- Overall conversion uplift of 8 per cent
- Revenue per session uplift of 12 per cent
- Add to basket uplift of 4 per cent
- Average order value increase of 5 per cent
Along with seeing quick results above and beyond expectations, the technology has also had an unexpected, but positive impact on the internal team. Having used Monetate for almost a year the company has seen a change in culture as it has bought departments together, enabling JD Williams to become more agile. Christo continued “The level of excitement in the business is inspiring. We have full support. The executive team understand that by moving the needle by just a tiny fraction the ROI is huge. Monetate lets us move that needle. The changes we have made already are projected to increase revenues this year by over £1 million.”
The next steps on the path to personalisation are for the business to integrate its CRM data, containing large amounts of valuable customer information into the Monetate platform, giving it great scope for far deeper levels of personalisation. Anne Steer, Director of Marketing at JD Williams’ parent company, N. Brown Group, commented “Personalisation and the ability to deliver, individual relevant experiences are the single most important thing that will help us deliver business success.”
Mike Harris, VP EMEA at Monetate, said: “JD Williams has made significant strides with its personalisation strategy providing a more engaging and relevant offering for both new and existing customers. Monetate’s platform is dedicated to supporting JD Williams with its increasing desire to deliver excellent customer service and a seamless shopping experience for all.”