6pm.com Says it’s Time to Advertise, Learn About ShoppersPublished: December 2010 | By Yahoo!
Online fashion retailer sets sights on branding and consumer targeting with Yahoo! Smart Ads
In
a digital space where online retailers are commodities, 6pm.com wanted
to brand itself as the go-to bargain fashion website. To stand out from
the crowd, it used Yahoo! Smart Ads to get its brand messaging in front
of customers, with targeted ads that serve dynamic creatives. The
results? A return-on-ad-spend of more than 2,300%.
The Challenge
6pm.com,
which is operated by well known online retailer Zappos.com, sells
luxury and brand-name apparel, shoes, bags and other accessories at
bargain prices. “Our customers are serious brandaholics,” explains
senior brand marketing manager Michelle Thomas.
In a crowded
online retail industry, shoppers can quickly search for their favorite
name brands on the site with a search and a click. To accessorize and
stand out from commodity web sites that compete on price alone, 6pm.com
wanted to position itself as a go-to for fashionable bargains. New deals
every day give the “brandaholics” a guilt-free fix of savings up to 75%
off.
“Display advertising is a great solution for our
positioning and branding strategy,” Thomas says. “It allows us to get
our messaging and product selection in front of the customer in a way we
can’t always do with search.”
Connecting the right customer with
the right product is a lot tougher in display than in search, though. A
search user tells an advertiser exactly what she wants—if she searches
for “luxury shoes,” she’ll get several options for different shoe
brands. But with display, how do you know which product and messaging to
show to the consumer—especially when there are thousands of products in
6pm.com’s inventory to choose from?
No one wants to waste ad
dollars selling a down jacket to a Miami resident, or a tank top to
someone stuck in a New England winter. So 6pm.com used Yahoo! Smart Ads
to show consumers only the items and offers that they would care about
the most.
The Solution
In a 12-week campaign,
6pm.com used Yahoo! Smart Ads and Yahoo!’s extensive database of
demographic data to deliver targeted ads to consumers. Smart Ads
combines Yahoo!’s targeting and optimization technologies with
customizable ad templates to dynamically create and serve the most
relevant ads to consumers, based on a variety of targeting data. Yahoo!
Smart Ads can match a certain tennis shoe to one consumer and a
particular purse to another consumer based on factors such as age,
gender, geography and behavioral intent.
For this campaign,
Yahoo! partnered with PointRoll’s dynamic ad platform to mix and match
different creative elements. The various creative combinations and data
inputs can lead to tens of thousands of different ad executions. 6pm.com
had targeted ads in several of its product categories, including
women’s bags, men’s athletic shoes, sunglasses and sales items. It also
tested a few call-to-action messages, such as shipping discounts and
sales incentives.
“With Yahoo! Smart Ads, PointRoll and Yahoo!
really worked together to get our brand and targeted messaging in front
of customers who are most likely to buy our products,” says Thomas.
The Results
6pm.com
tracked results from customers who interacted or saw the ad, and found
that the sales it generated totaled in the millions and
return-on-ad-spend was more than 2,300% during the campaign. “The sales
figures show the power of Yahoo!’s data capabilities to find the right
customer and serve them the right ads,” says Thomas. “And although
search has always been a part of our strategy, this shows that display
can be an effective way to brand ourselves and also drive sales.”
6pm.com
also found some surprising results. For one, it revealed that men are
brandaholics, too: “There was more of a male presence than we had
anticipated,” explains Thomas. Men’s items accounted for roughly 45% of
sales, the same as women’s items. Sunglasses and accessories accounted
for the remaining 10%.
“These types of findings will help 6pm.com
plan its marketing going forward,” Thomas says. “Finding out who our
customers are, and what they respond to, can help us do a better job in
the future of matching customers to products, and messages to our
customers.”
6pm.com Says it’s Time to Advertise, Learn About Shoppers
About 6pm.com and PointRoll:
6pm.com
is where brandaholics get their guilt-free daily fix on the brands they
crave—shoes, clothing and accessories—at savings of up to 75% off every
single day.
PointRoll enables marketers to create, deliver and
measure rich ad experiences with pioneering technology in expandable
banner ads, in-banner videos and numerous other ad features.
Download this case study.
Yahoo! Advertising offerings are unique, we have the science, art, and scale to meet any campaign objective – our informed sales force can assist you in structuring your campaign. Contact us today.