Marketers know that the best campaign ideas are grounded in real-life consumer habits. Data helps to narrow in on the details that make campaigns successful—timing, triggers, personalized content, etc.—but understanding how your customers generally behave is the first and most important step in building the foundation for an effective marketing campaign.
Enter Predictive Category Repurchasing, an automation recipe from WhatCounts that marries the predictiveness our product is known for with a use case that plagues so many online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Let’s dig in…
Core Problem
The best retailers understand there’s no such thing as brand loyalty; all customers are just a well-timed sale or an inconvenient experience away from getting what they need from somewhere else. Retailers can stave off churn and competition by getting in front of their customers with timely messaging—like when something is about to run out, on an important anniversary, or before it’s too late.
But what if you sell products that don’t have a defined shelf life? What if your customers shop with you regularly, but it’s hard to predict when they’ll buy from a favorite category again? After all, we don’t buy our jeans on a schedule, we only realize we need a new pair of shoes when our favorites bite the dust, and we’re not even thinking about replacing our gym bags until we catch an unfortunate whiff of it in the locker room. So what is a marketer to do when their customers have demonstrated loyalty, but in sporadic and unpredictable doses?
A Well-Timed Solution
Predictive Category Repurchasing understands that not all purchases are created equal Our proprietary algorithm analyzes your customers’ initial and subsequent repurchases, by category, and learns to trigger category-specific messaging when individual customers have an above-average likelihood of revisiting a specific category for their next repurchase, regardless of whether it’s a sneakerhead looking for their next pair of high tops, a gym rat on the hunt for their new favorite workout tee, or a golfer on the prowl for a new and better driver.
Users can select categories and subcategories for which they want to automate timely repurchase messaging. They can group similar categories together to broaden their campaign’s reach, or keep everything separate to give their campaigns a highly personalized feel. Behind the scenes, WhatCounts builds an email with personalized, category-specific recommendations that is delivered whenever a customer’s repurchase probability exceeds the average for the selected categories.
Results You Can See
Clients across different industries—from footwear to apparel to home goods—are seeing results that are worth bragging about. Sure, tens of thousands of dollars in last-touch revenue and hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue lift are great, but so is the knowledge that personalized messages, delivered at the optimal time to trigger a repurchase, are getting in front of your most valuable customers regularly throughout their lifecycle with your brand, not just on the important dates that your foundational campaigns cover.
Want to Know More?
If you’re in an industry that depends on unpredictable repurchasing behavior, like apparel and footwear, sporting goods, home decor, personal electronics, or personal media (like DVDs and books), talk to your Customer Success Manager about adding Predictive Category Repurchasing to your automation plans. If you’re not a WhatCounts customer yet and this functionality piques your interest, contact our Sales team.
