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In this case study, we will refer to the client as “Client A” to maintain confidentiality. Client A is a leading enterprise-level company in the smart home technology sector, known for the quality of its products. This case study details the results of a B2C campaign strategy developed and executed by Data Axle on behalf of its client, Client A.
Exceeded client ROI by 23% and ROAS by 37%
Client A, a leading smart home technology company, aimed to transform its acquisition strategy to boost conversions, drive engagement, and increase customer lifetime value. Due to strict internal privacy restrictions, the marketing team faced a significant hurdle in scaling its acquisition campaigns. These restrictions prevented the use of customer data to develop personas and other insights, forcing their marketing team to seek alternative privacy-compliant data sources that deliver the insights, audience, and results they aimed to achieve.
To address these challenges, Client A sought a partner to help develop an impactful omnichannel campaign for Earth Day, aiming to connect with a highly specific, environmentally conscious audience. Successfully solving the data and scalability challenges by reaching and engaging with this particular audience was critical to the success of their broader acquisition strategy.
Client A sought a partner that could provide the necessary data, strategic insights, and execution services to streamline their marketing efforts and reduce their overall cost per acquisition (CPA). They chose Data Axle as a data provider and strategic partner based on its unique capabilities, such as aggregating consumer insights and proven success with other companies in the home energy space.
“Having that one vendor who could aggregate the data, create the targeting segmentation information, and then provide it to their in-house agency team for a campaign…having that turnkey capability is what really drove our decision to work with Data Axle.”
Data Axle’s extensive licensed third-party data on over 250 million consumers, combined with its house marketing agency, enabled Client A to work with a single vendor, from data acquisition to campaign execution. This approach resulted in the necessary cost synergies.
The campaign focused on increasing smart thermostat purchases in April 2023 by helping prospects reduce their energy burden and save money. Data Axle addressed the complex nature of Client A’s needs through its strategic framework of success, which integrates Data, Intelligence, and Activation to achieve the desired Performance.
By leveraging this framework, Data Axle could scale the campaign effectively, ensuring that the messaging and creative elements were consistently and efficiently deployed across multiple channels, resulting in a seamless and successful outcome.
Client A had a specific audience in mind for its impactful Earth Day initiative. Earth Day, first celebrated in the U.S. in 1970, has become a cultural touchstone embodying values that resonate deeply with environmentally conscious consumers. Earth Day’s focus made it the perfect occasion for Client A to connect with its ideal audience. However, identifying and reaching these consumers was the first critical step.
Once those prospects were identified, developing a clear strategy to reach them and ensure the messaging resonated was essential. To achieve this, Data Axle leveraged Client A’s first-party consumer data to create geotargeted prospect audiences based on joint initiatives by Client A and energy providers. By geotargeting based on the energy provider’s territory ZIP codes, Data Axle ensured that campaigns reached the entire addressable universe of qualified prospects within each energy provider’s territory. Additionally, Data Axle added broad homeowner segments to capture all homeowners in these territories.
Data Axle employed the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning advancements to enhance the targeting strategy by developing predictive acquisition models. These models allowed for the addition of granular homeowner segments with specific attributes, such as shoppers, tech enthusiasts, environmentally conscious individuals, and heavy coupon users, providing deeper insights into Client A’s ideal prospects.
While Client A started with a particular target audience in mind, Data Axle’s sophisticated approach allowed for expanding its total addressable market (TAM). By overlaying interest data on the identified consumers eligible for Client A’s Earth Day promotions, Data Axle successfully expanded the TAM from 5.9 million to 15.9 million consumers, an increase of 207%.
With the expanded audience segments in place, Data Axle focused on crafting a messaging strategy tailored to each segment’s unique characteristics. To protect anonymity, the actual creative visuals for Client A are not displayed; however, the strategic thought process and the key themes that guided Data Axle’s creative work are detailed below:
Given the highly granular segmentation, precise messaging was essential to engage each target segment effectively. Data Axle developed creative themes tailored to the unique characteristics of each segment, ensuring that the messaging aligned with the specific needs and interests identified during the audience development.
Homeowners Data Axle crafted themes centered around lifestyle, product, and comfort to highlight three major benefits for homeowners in 2023.
Techies Each theme spotlighted advanced features of the thermostat to appeal to tech enthusiasts eager to experience the latest innovations.
Price-conscious shoppers (heavy coupon users) Emphasized discounted price points across all themes to attract deal-seeking prospects and encourage them to take advantage of the offer.
Data Axle implemented a rigorous testing strategy to ensure the messaging resonated with each segment, analyzing themes, CTAs, sizes, and messaging. This strategy enabled more informed optimizations throughout the Earth Day campaign flight. A creative matrix was also developed to outline the number of creative versions needed to meet Client A’s goals, ensuring a comprehensive and effective campaign execution.
Getting granular with an omnichannel approach to Earth Day Building on the detailed audience segmentation and creative strategies, Data Axle developed a personalized, omnichannel campaign centered around Earth Day and environmental consciousness, leveraging the ZIP-code-based custom audience segments previously outlined. The campaign featured energy-specific offers and price points tailored to different geofenced segments.
Data Axle designed the omnichannel campaign strategy to engage prospects with highly relevant messaging across multiple touchpoints, guiding them to the final conversion event. This comprehensive approach included display ads, programmatic audio, a mix of social networks, and digital “out-of-home” placements. Data Axle’s strategists carefully selected each channel to deliver targeted messaging and optimize the conversion journey.
Data Axle implemented a cohesive testing strategy to maintain flexibility and maximize impact, using it to conduct A/B tests and additional audience segmentation testing throughout the campaign. Data Axle’s team tested specific segments against broader audiences and explored various creative formats, including videos, animated content, and static digital ad units. This agile approach and attention to detail allowed for real-time adjustments and optimization, ensuring the campaign remained aligned with goals and responsive to performance insights.
The campaign’s success was measured through prospect engagement and click-through rates (CTR). Display advertising emerged as the top performer, exceeding Data Axle’s benchmark CTR goal by an impressive 563%. Meta also performed strongly, achieving a CTR that was 405% over the goal.
Client A benefited from near-real-time performance visibility through dashboards created by Data Axle. These dashboards provided visual insights into audience performance, creative effectiveness, and platform metrics, enabling Client A to make informed decisions and share updates across platforms. This data-driven approach underscored Data Axle’s belief that data is knowledge and knowledge is power.
Data Axle’s collaboration with Client A highlights the transformative impact of leveraging data, AI, and predictive modeling to drive marketing success. Through precise audience targeting, innovative data-driven creative strategies, and rigorous testing, Data Axle demonstrated its capability to meet and exceed the dynamic needs of this Fortune 500 client.
Data Axle’s relentless focus on achieving results was the key to success in this partnership. By integrating omnichannel planning with a robust optimization framework, Data Axle adapted to the evolving demands of the campaign and delivered exceptional performance and value. This commitment to results solidified Data Axle’s reputation as a trusted and indispensable partner.
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