How Datart Beat Its Own Revenue Targets

March 14, 2021
• Author: Richard Dyntera

Datart logo

 

Datart employed ROIVENUE’s data-driven attribution analysis to measure the true impact of each channel on overall campaign performance. Following our analysis, which identified over and under-invested channels, Datart reallocated budgets and started capturing incremental growth. 

 

The background

Datart, a leading electronics retailer, had grown to a stage where its legacy analytics solution had hit its limit. There was ample anecdotal evidence that buyers' journeys in the electronics vertical were becoming more and more complex. However, with campaign evaluation happening on a last-click basis, it was impossible to get a data-based view of actual journeys. And because of this, understanding each channel’s true impact, and allocating budgets to maximize overall performance, wasn’t feasible.

 

A particular case in point, was the display channel. While very effective in driving brand awareness, the channel had very few conversions when evaluated with last click attribution. Consequently, the ROI of the display channel appeared to be very poor when compared to other channels.

 

The performance marketing team was faced with a tough decision. Did they want to: reallocate the display budget to channels that were bringing conversions? Or, continue to work off the assumption that all those impressions do contribute to the overall outcome?

 

At this point, Datart decided to transition to a more robust analytics solution. One that would provide insights into multichannel journeys, as well as, the true contribution of channels and campaigns. ROIVENUE was chosen on the grounds of its expertise in data-driven attribution.

 

The approach

Given the situation with display, this was where we focused our initial optimization efforts. We started by establishing the channel’s real impact on conversions.

 

Employing Markov 2nd order statistical model, we confirmed that the display channel plays a much bigger role in the overall buyer's journey than last click would credit it for. That was not surprising. 

 

The big surprise was the order of magnitude measured by the channel’s ROI. According to Markov 2nd order, the true ROI of Display was 3,61 instead of 0,54 reported by last click.

 

Had Datart’s marketing team followed the conclusion offered from last click attribution, they would have shut down a very profitable channel

 

Channel optimization

Once we established that display contributes to the overall performance and is quite profitable, we proceeded with maximizing the channel’s potential. But, if we wanted to put more money behind display, we had to take it away from other channels.

 

This is where the Budget Optimizer comes into the picture. It is ROIVENUE’s proprietary algorithm that gives recommendations for budget allocation based on one’s marketing goals.

 

Because we didn't want to increase the our overall ad spend, we needed to find resources that we could invest into the display channel, we configured Budget Optimizer to identify channels and campaigns where budget reduction would have no or small impact on the overall revenue. The so-called over-invested channels.

 

One of the channels that appeared to be over-invested was Google Product Listing Ads (PLA). Budget Optimizer suggested that a decrease in investment of 31,2K CZK would result in a revenue decline of only 6,4K CZK. Clearly a very profitable optimization opportunity.

 

The marketing team took a closer look at the PLA channel and hypothesized that CPCs in some categories may be unnecessarily high. A test in one product category was conducted to prove or disprove the hypothesis. 

 

CPCs were reduced and two channel performance metrics were closely monitored: impression share and cost/revenue ratio.

 

What happened was that the Budget Optimizer was right. While CPC was reduced by 30%, impression share held steady. As a result cost/revenue ratio declined, which means the campaign itself became more profitable. 

 

Maximizing display’s potential

This approach was repeated across other channels that Budget Optimizer identified as over invested, and savings were reallocated to display to maximize its potential. 

 

In fact, the overall investment into display grew by more than 300% year over year, driving not only brand awareness, but contributing to overall revenue growth as well. Such a dramatic shift would have been impossible to pull off on gut feeling alone. One needs to have robust data, and properly test each step, in order to influence internal buy in.

 

Conclusion

Through its data-driven attribution model, ROIVENUE provided the necessary insights to understand the true impact of display, in the context of multi channel journeys. Instead of reducing investment in the channel, Datart actually discovered an opportunity for incremental growth.

 

Predictive analytics of Budget Optimizer highlighted over invested channels and identified budgets that could be used to optimize display. Overall re-allocations of marketing investments among channels led to a higher revenue from campaigns with the same total budget.

 

“Thanks to Roivenue’s data-driven attribution we know exactly how each channel in our portfolio works. We were finally able to justify display spends for our top management. Based on Budget Optimiser, we shifted budgets quite significantly and beat our own revenue targets”

 

Tomas Kral

Online Performance Manager HP Tronic Group

 

Those of you who follow the Czech e-commerce space know that Datart had a phenomenal 2020. We’re pleased that ROIVENUE had an opportunity to contribute to this success. 

 

Interested in driving incremental growth like Datart did?

Just book a personalized demo with ROIVENUE. We’re eager to show you how to leverage data-driven attribution to make more money from campaigns.