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Beyond the Rack drives mobile conversions with personalized retargeting

NEW YORK ? A Beyond the Rack executive speaking at the Mobile Marketing Summit: Holiday Focus 2014 said the retailer has seen a significant impact on conversion rates and lifetime value from the personalization of retargeting ads.

The executive highlighted this news as well as other ways that the retailer?s mobile experience is evolving during the session titled ?Beyond the Rack: Mobile at the Center of All Commerce and Marketing.? Beyond the Rack is also readying the launch of a fully optimized tablet Web experience and an application for Android users to further drive mobile sales during the upcoming holiday season.

?With Facebook, we do a significant amount of mobile Web retargeting with custom audiences,? said Richard Cohene, director of marketing at Beyond the Rack, Montreal. ?We don?t do a lot with apps right now, but we are starting to test that.

?The concept of remarking in the app is someone is shopping for a shirt, leaves the Web site and within the app, we serve you creative for that shirt and deep link you back to the product page,? he said.

?We saw a two-times increase in click-through rates on remarketing on Web when we switched to dynamic content.?

Mobile Marketer organized the Mobile Marketing Summit: Holiday Focus 2014. 

First steps
Beyond the Rack is a membership-based online shopping club that has grown quickly since its launch in 2009.

The retailer?s first step into mobile was its launch of a mobile Web experience in June 2012. The responsive experience built with Mobify resulted in mobile users seeing bigger, clearer images and text, with the ability to scroll up and down.

The better user experience produced a dramatic increase in conversions, which has been 0.3 percent prior to the launch and the retailer is currently running a plus-one percent.


The retailer also began to make some optimizations to make the Web experience more friendly for tablet users but sees significant room for improvement here.

?We?d like to launch a fully tablet-optimized mobile Web experience,? Mr. Cohene said. ?We made it friendly but we didn?t build it specifically for an iPad.

?There are things we can do with Safari that makes for the ability to build out something that is a lot of nicer than transporting desktop over,? he said. ?We hope to launch it soon.?

Optimizing email
Another step was to optimize emails for mobile. This was a priority since emails drive a significant portion of the retailer?s daily revenue and so many opens were happening on mobile.

The payoff was clear.

The first mobile-optimized emails delivered saw an 18 percent increase in click-through rates just because the text and images were legible, per Mr. Cohene.

?I strongly encourage you to mobile optimize emails,? Mr. Cohene said. ?It is going to get a better click-through rate, better engagement.?

Mobile app benefits
Beyond the Rack sees approximately 60 percent of its revenue coming from desktop and 30 percent from mobile and tablet.

While mobile Web and email experiences seemed like a no-brainer, the retailer was less sure about the need for a mobile app. The ultimate decision to give it a try has paid off, with the app driving revenue for the retailer.

There are three unique benefits that a mobile app provides.

One is that a brand gets to rewrite the customer experience and build to the best of its ability and imagination with native apps.

For example, Beyond the Rack?s mobile app enables users to complete a purchase in three clicks. As a result, the retailer has seen increases in conversions on the mobile device compared to mobile Web.

Another benefit of mobile apps is the ability to leverage push notifications. Beyond the Rack sends out one generic push to users every day with strong results.

?We?ve seen a tremendous amount of revenue come through that in terms of driving people back into the app and making them shop,? Mr. Cohene said.

The third benefit of mobile apps pinpointed by Mr. Cohene is the ability they give brands to own a piece of real estate on a user?s home screen. For Beyond the Rack, this gives users another reason to consider it the next time they are interested in shopping.

Customer acquisition
When Beyond the Rack did a soft launch for the app and quickly saw thousands of downloads everyday.

Results from the app include that existing members who download the app spend 10 percent more per month.

With these results in mind, the retailer started looking at ways to acquire customers through the app and market the app to existing members.

The results were strong as well, with Beyond the Rack discovering that the cost per acquisition in the mobile app is lower than through traditional channels. For example, it is cheaper for the retailer to acquire a new customer through Facebook click-to-download apps compared to traditional search in Facebook.

Going forward, Beyond the Rack will put a significant amount of its effort into driving app downloads.

One way it does this is by using Apple?s smart banner technology, which shows a banner ad promoting the app to users on the mobile Web site who do not already have the app on their device. When the retailer first deployed the strategy, it saw a 4,000 to 5,000 jump in downloads per day that lasted for about a month.

Adding value
Today, Beyond the Rack sees approximately 5 percent of revenue from its tablet app and 5 percent from its iPhone app.

The retailer is also developing an Android app in recognition of the fact that about 30 percent of mobile Web sales are Android right now. 

?It is our job as marketers, creators and developers to find that inspiration to create mobile products that add value to peoples lives, that gives time back and puts smiles on people?s faces,? Mr. Cohene said. ?Hopefully in our retail way we are doing that at Beyond the Rack. 

?We have to keep pushing limits,? he said.

?Going head first into the mobile experience is key. It is better to wait a year and come out with something outstanding rather than wait six months and come out with something mediocre.?

Final Take
Richard Cohene is director of marketing at Beyond the Rack, Montreal