UP TO 45% INCREASED CONVERSION RATE USING AUTOMATED CAMPAIGNS

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THE CHALLENGE

Toys “R” Us stores are known worldwide as the “ultimate destination for kids, big

and small!” Using the advanced customer segmentation, customizable email design,

and real-time marketing automation of the Emarsys B2C Marketing Cloud, Toys “R”

Us brought the success and renown of their brick-and-mortar stores to their online

experience.

SUCCESS STORY: TOYS “R” US

UP TO 45% INCREASED

CONVERSION RATE USING

AUTOMATED CAMPAIGNS

The Toys “R” Us brick-and-mortar store model has made them a hugely profi table brand. Toys “R” Us employs friendly staff who are always there to welcome customers, get to know them personally, and help them fi nd and try out new products every time they visit. This personal touch is the hallmark

of Toys “R” Us’ success, but seemed impossible to replicate online and at scale. Keeping online customers engaged required constant manual input from the small e-commerce team. Their emailing system was unwieldy

and kept them limited to generic emails, distributed in bulk and only optimized for desktop users. Customer intelligence was limited to monitoring email clicks and opens, with only one automated campaign that wished loyalty card holders a happy birthday. To increase customer engagement,

the e-commerce team knew they needed tools that would give them more information about customers and allow them to create engaging, accessible, and targeted campaigns.

Increased average order value for repeat purchases Increased

conversion rate

Team productivity and effi ciency

40%

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Toys “R” Us reassessed their e-commerce strategy, and recognized that to succeed online they needed a solution that would enable both campaign creation and automation, while also delivering deep customer intelligence. They identifi ed the Emarsys B2C Marketing Cloud as a unifi ed platform that delivered on all of their business needs, while providing their team with a single dashboard covering every aspect of managing customer engagement.

Emarsys paired Toys “R” Us with a dedicated Client Success team, and together they created a roadmap to drive online purchases and encourage customers to become repeat buyers, while decreasing team workload. The plan included creating actionable customer segments, designing engaging and personalized emails, and deploying a series of campaigns using real-time marketing automation.

THE SOLUTION

Toys “R” Us used Smart Insight to segment their customers based on behavior. Customers received diff erent emails depending on their:

Splitting customers into these segments allowed Toys “R” Us to create real-time triggers based on ERFM insights (Engagement, Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value), taking into

ADVANCED CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

AUTOMATION + CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE + RESPONSIVE DESIGN

• Level of online engagement.

• Recency of their last purchase.

• Frequency of visits to the online store.

• Amount of money spent online.

“Our goal is to connect with our guest in a more personalized manner. Emarsys

enables us to execute highly eff ective, automated marketing campaigns

in order to achieve this goal. Thanks to Smart Insight, we are able to

intelligently and strategically communicate with our customer base.”

Todd McElmurray, European e-Commerce Marketing Director

Toys “R” Us had previously sent batch emails to all the contacts in their database. It didn’t matter if they were loyal customers, or had just signed up without ever making a purchase. Everyone – even top spending customers on the verge of defecting – got the same email.

The Emarsys Client Success team advised that shifting to automated email distribution, based on interaction triggers, would signifi cantly increase not only open and click rates, but also conversion to purchase.

The Toys “R” Us e-commerce team built a series of campaigns, each triggered by a diff erent customer interaction and with off ers tailored to the customer segment.

REAL-TIME AUTOMATION

The Automation Center, part of the Emarsys B2C Marketing Cloud, with a real-time automated marketing program built using the drag-and-drop components.

consideration each customer’s CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value) and position in the Customer Lifecycle (Leads, First-Time Buyers, Active Customers, Defecting Customers).

Personalization is important, but not all customers are equal. To increase revenue, it’s critical to know more than just who you’re messaging. You have to be able to identify where your customer is in their purchasing cycle, what the right off er is to keep them engaged or get them to convert, and balance that cost against their lifetime value. For instance:

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Customers receive a welcome email with a printable incentive voucher when they sign up for a loyalty card instore. This email bridges the gap between the online and in-store experience. Customers receive a welcome email with a printable incentive voucher when they sign up for a loyalty card instore. This email bridges the gap between the online and in-store experience.

Customers who purchased online, or used their loyalty card in-store, were sent a post-purchase “Thank You” email. Paired with a survey asking for feedback on their experience, this shifted online communication from being purely transactional into a relationship building channel.

ENGAGEMENT

Loyalty card holders receive a discount incentive on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.

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MONETARY VALUE

FREQUENCY

Regular customers receive seasonal sale notifi cations and information about the latest toys hitting the shelves.

Toys “R” Us

automatically off ers free delivery to customers whose purchases are above a specifi c price threshold.

RECENCY

The Customer Lifecycle dashboard shows both those customers have purchased recently, and those who are at risk of defecting.

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weren’t optimized for mobile or tablet view. It was impossible to tell if customers weren’t clicking through because they weren’t interested in the off er, or because of the device they were using.

Using Emarsys’ drag-and-drop widgets, the e-commerce team was able to create fully responsive email designs. Now, Toys “R” Us can communicate with their customers whenever

and wherever, regardless of screen size.

With customizable designs, the e-commerce team was also able to create the same personalized and immersive experience customers were used to having in-store. The new email campaigns weren’t just easy to read, they were fun, and completely embodied the Toys “R” Us brand.

Toys “R” Us now employs the above strategy in six European countries. According to the Toys “R” Us Commerce

Director, using the automated lifecycle email campaigns has decreased production time and increased the in-house team’s effi ciency fourfold.

Since switching to the Emarsys platform, the automated programs have signifi cantly increased engagement: open rates have nearly tripled, and click-through rates have increased 5.5 times over. The Welcome Program, created for in-store loyalty program signups, generated a 41.6% open rate and 9.6% click-through rate.

Better yet, the average order value from defecting buyers increased by 23%, and repeat buyers by 39.7%.

The data proved the success that implementing automation and customer intelligence could deliver, even with a small team. With a strong lift in revenue enabled by their fi rst campaigns, Toys “R” Us have decided to increase their use of the Emarsys B2C Marketing Cloud to cover the entire customer lifecycle.