Image 1: Carrefour adopts AiDeal solution to accelerate hesitant buyer’s conversion rate
This demonstrates that the strategic use of coupons is key to winning new customers and attracting patronage from existing customers which comes in handy when a brand is trying to build brand loyalty where repeat patronage is rewarded. From the performance growth of new/existing customers, the threshold for new customers has to be lower than existing ones, presenting better conversions. Based on Carrefour’s case, the sprint range of discount conversion should be between “the threshold + USD$10”; marketers can adjust the threshold based on their experience to achieve optimal profit growth.Image 2: Compare AiDeal's conversion rate between new members and existing buyers
In response to the vigorous development of online shopping platforms and significant changes in consumer behavior in recent years, Carrefour launched its online store in 2015 in Taiwan and further set up a dedicated digital and e-commerce department to speed up its advancement in digital technology and strengthen its competitiveness. Regarding its marketing strategies, Carrefour Taiwan first adopted Appier’s cross-screen solution to increase the platform’s brand awareness and the number of visitors and then enhanced transactions and optimized Cost Per Conversion (CPC) by combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. However, with the rise of small and large e-commerce platforms and the saturated retail market, even a retailer like Carrefour, having operated in Taiwan for over 30 years, has to execute online marketing to precision, in order to solidify sales of newly acquired stores. Especially during the current pandemic, Carrefour could pivot its business models into online shopping and delivery seamlessly, to grow its zero-touch economy.
The pandemic has driven Carrefour's online shopping scale to triple in 2020, with over 2 million online member subscriptions(1). After the Taiwanese government announced the Level 3 COVID-19 alert on May 12, 2021 , the daily order volume of Carrefour Taiwan’s online shopping platform exceeded 23,000 per day in the first two weeks(2) . The tremendous growth reveals that digital marketing will be a critical capability for the success of retail business.
● Budget control: Marketing budgets would be blown out of proportion if using mass advertising as a tool, and even then, it could not achieve the desired performance.
● Brand value retention: Spamming newsletters/coupons to all users would be blocked by mail systems and ignored by users, which is not an effective method of engaging customers, and lowers the brand value.
● Campaign bombard: Consumers are fatigued by the endless marketing campaigns from the retail industry and email newsletters would be fighting for the attention of the customer in a very competitive online retail environment. Appier uses three solutions to help Carrefour deal with the above challenges:
● Targeting high-value customers : To focus on potential customers with higher purchasing power, Appier filtered the interest combinations related to buying scenarios and purchases, such as cooking, party, and hypermarket. Additionally, the AI system analyzed “the user profiles/interests of those new members who registered in the last 30 days” to find similar potential users for reaching a higher Ad Click-Through Rate (CTR).
Image 3: Appier combines "interest phrases" and "existing user profile analysis" to target high-value customers
● Visitor retargeting : The global average ad CTR in e-commerce is only 2.6%, showing the tremendous business potential in online sales. To assist the client in allocating advertising budgets effectively, Appier utilized AI to analyze visitors’ behaviors on the site, listing millions of combinations to predict high-value customers who have higher buying potentials for retargeting.Image 4: Retargeting to users who haven't yet registered or purchased to improve their motivation of revisits or accelerate conversion
● Accelerate the conversion of hesitant buyers: Supermarkets/Hypermarkets are the sectors with the fiercest competition. Focusing on the new/existing website members to send coupons with AiDeal was the most effective and showed the optimal ability to control promotion budgets timely based on current customers’ buying power. After all, supermarkets/hypermarkets have to operate year-round; the key to standing out is controlling costs and encouraging sales, allowing them to boost sales in high seasons and stimulate consumption in low seasons.Image 5: From the conversion rate performance driven by AiDeal to see the retail industry's low-peak season operation strategy (Part of the campaign schedule)
Jess Huang, Carrefour’s E-commerce Project Manager, “AiDeal’s highly flexible hesitant buyer solution perfectly tackled retailers’ pain points in operation, turning brands from passive into proactive positions, deploying the room of profits timely, and avoiding the impact on overall profits from spamming coupons to all users. Moreover, with the retargeting advertising leading our strategy, Carrefour was able to gain customers and end up with better marketing budget allocation. With the support from the Appier team, we could design complementing digital strategies based on intelligence that fits our marketing needs in different campaigns, allowing Carrefour to come out tops in a competitive online retail environment.”
For more success stories, please visit Appier's Success Stories page .
(1) Mirai Business Research Institute, Future Commerce (Dec. 13, 2020) Carrefour shifts its physical retail to online, performance overview.
(2) Chinatimes (June 1, 2021) Free shipping, same-day delivery, plenty of choices, direct delivery to customers' tables from supermarkets.