Exclusive: Deckers Brands sees the future of marketing

When it comes to marketing spending, Deckers Brands is doing more with less.



The Goleta, California-based vertical apparel retailer is performing advanced predictive analytics on the performance of different marketing activities for its North American direct-to-consumer Ugg specialty footwear business. This includes an e-commerce site, as well as 45 stores.



“We’re using technology from ThinkVine for marketing mix optimization modeling,” Jim Davis, VP of consumer engagement for Deckers Brands, told Chain Store Age in an interview. “We feed in spending information and interaction information for different online and offline activities, such as sponsorships, events and public relations.”



The hosted ThinkVine solution predicts the sales output from marketing efforts across store, digital and wholesale channels. The analysis is calibrated to Ugg’s specific history of revenue output from different marketing programs.



“We use it to predict future revenue variations in marketing spend,” explained Davis. “Primarily, the data is used for annual planning. We set budgets based off revenue targets and optimize channel spend by month.”



Deckers is able to measure the real, incremental ROI of its Ugg marketing spend across all channels at the end of each month. Based on results, the company can alter its strategies, input the new information into the ThinkVine platform, and obtain updated predictive analytics.



ThinkVine delivers a full SaaS-based solution to Deckers and performs hosted analysis, using data and specific parameters provided by the retailer. Deckers is currently connecting the hosted platform to its internal Rocket Fuel digital marketing and data analytics solution and Kenshoo search engine marketing application.



Since going live with ThinkVine in late third quarter 2015, Deckers has improved conversion rates on its Ugg brand marketing efforts online, in-store and out-of-home (such as signage in malls). Deckers has been satisfied enough with these and other results that is plans to expand the use of ThinkVine to analyze Ugg marketing in Europe, as well as marketing of its Hoka One One specialty footwear brand in the U.S.



“The biggest impact on our brand marketing has been increasing impressions more than 15% year-over-year,” said Davis. “At the same time, we’ve been able to reduce marketing spend by 8%.”