CSA Exclusive: Farfetch optimizes digital marketing content
A London-based online luxury fashion retailer is taking the notion of “speaking to the customer” to a new, technology-enhanced level.
Seeking to optimize the brand language it uses in its digital marketing campaigns to enhance customer engagement, Farfetch decided to implement technology from artificial intelligence (AI)-based SaaS solutions provider Phrasee. In addition to improving the language of its digital marketing communications, Farfetch also sought to ensure continuity and clarity.
Finding Phrasee to be the only SaaS brand language optimization provider that captured the brand tone of voice, which was especially important to Farfetch’s goals, the retailer decided to initially pilot the Phrasee Engage solution, which creates optimized, on-brand content for use across email, push, and SMS text broadcast campaigns.
Initially, the company started testing Phrasee Engage to optimize the subject lines in its broadcast campaigns - marketing messages the retailer sends to a chosen group of customers or subscribers, such as promotional messages to promote purchasing a specific item.
After seeing positive results from Phrasee Engage, Farfetch started piloting Phrasee React, which leverages real-time brand language optimization to create personalized short-form content for trigger and lifecycle campaigns across email, push and SMS.
Trigger and lifecycle campaigns are communications that are automatically sent based on a subscriber's particular action or behavioral pattern. These can include welcome messages to a customer after signing up or post-purchase. These campaigns included its welcome emails, abandoned basket, browse, and wishlist.
“Farfetch markets to a large, global customer base and we can't pretend to predict the behaviors of millions of users based on human instinct alone,” Nadya Matthias, Farfetch head of CRM. “Handing over such a visible part of our brand expression to a machine definitely felt uncomfortable for some. The key has been to provide strict tone of voice guidance and more human supervision at the start.”
Specific results from the Farfetch Phrasee rollout include a 7.4% average uplift in email opens, 25.1% average uplift in click rates per campaign in broadcast campaigns. In trigger & lifecycle campaigns, the company has seen 31.1% average uplift in open rate and 37.9% average uplift in click rates across its abandoned browse, basket, and wish list campaigns.
“We have experienced high levels of customer engagement, with record numbers of new customers driving increased year-over-year transactions,” said Matthias. “Language optimization plays a key role in this consumer journey – generating more opens, clicks, and conversions across the board. After optimizing our email campaigns, Farfetch is looking to optimize across the full customer journey, including push and social campaigns.”
Farfetch acquires luxury beauty retailer
Farfetch is enhancing its brand communications as it expands its business. In January 2022, the company announced it will acquire upscale, cult-fave beauty retailer Violet Grey for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition comes ahead of the launch of beauty on the Farfetch marketplace, which is scheduled for later in the year. Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.