Personalization and customization are major components of what makes the Lids brand stand out, especially as the specialty retailer caters to sports fans by selling all kinds of hats and fan gear displaying their favorite professional and collegiate sports teams. Lids has taken personalization to the next level, particularly through its marketing campaigns with the help of customer data platform from AgilOne (recently acquired by Acquia).
With the implementation of the AgilOne CDP, Lids has bolstered its omnichannel capabilities to identify specific characteristics of online shoppers — such as the products they view and buy, or behaviors such as when they shop — and apply them to the in-store experience so that it can understand which locations they purchase in and the frequency/timing of purchasing. These data points ultimately enable the retailer to create more personalized and relevant marketing messaging.
“If you’re an Indianapolis Colts fan, you don’t want us sending you New England Patriots-related messaging,” said Wendy Mudis, VP of Marketing at Lids, in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “If someone only buys NBA products from us, then does it make sense to keep bombarding them with an NFL message? Just knowing more about our customers and their preferences for teams, leagues and styles — Do they wear fitted hats, adjustable hats or do they only buy knit hats? — it really gives us a visibility that we didn’t have before. We’ve seen that targeted messaging from our marketing translate into increased sales into the stores.”
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For example, geolocation-based campaigns allow Lids marketers to run email, direct mail and SMS outreach to drive traffic to customers’ closest physical locations. Additionally, Lids can send promotional messages to groups that are identified as more likely to buy the promoted products in the near future, and create further incentives based on that cohort. Abandoned cart campaigns trigger email and targeted ad campaigns when a customer leaves a cart or browsing session.
With the AgilOne CDP, Lids also hopes to improve on its cross-selling capabilities. If a shopper is interested in buying an MLB team hat, the retailer would like to learn more about whether the consumer would also be interested in buying Minor League Baseball products that are affiliated with their favorite major league team as well.
CDP Identifies When In-Store Conversions Start With A Facebook Ad
Using a CDP platform also enables Lids to learn more about consumers through another major marketing channel: Facebook. The AgilOne Facebook Offline connector sends data through the CDP to document when an in-store purchase results from a Facebook ad. Generally, this is very hard to track, but the CDP enables marketers to correctly see the identity of the customer and attribute that offline transaction correctly, according to Mudis.
“We really had no idea how much influence social had with in-store traffic and revenue,” said Mudis. “Once we had AgilOne in place we were able to submit our offline conversions back to Facebook and really see the revenue associated with these ad spends, and it has been tremendously successful.”
Mudis noted that the Lids marketing team now has a member dedicated to customer segmentation within Facebook.
“Segmenting audiences for online or in-store buying behavior is pivotal for us,” Mudis said. “The distinction for an in-store shopper versus an online shopper is that the in-store shopper wants the experience of touching, feeling and trying on the hats. We have in-store customization. We’re looking to grow that segmentation capability even further to see what drives them in store — is it because they want to get the latest headwear and then have it customized in-store? That’s a segment of an audience that we can track and continue to focus on, if we can understand the motivation of what they’re coming in store to buy.”
