Scentiments.com embraces predictive ad displays
Scentiments.com -- a family-owned, fragrance retail business with three brick-and-mortar locations and an e-commerce site -- is taking an innovative approach to online advertising. With the help of a new predictive remarketing solution, the Coconut Creek, Fla.-based company is reaching out to customers with personalized and targeted display ads on popular Internet sites, such as NYdailynews.com.
Scentiments recently turned to Redwood City, Calif.-based MyBuys -- a provider of personalized recommendations for multichannel retailers -- to predict what online shoppers want to purchase and target them with compelling ads.
“Just as no two consumers are the same, no two ads are the same,” said Howard Wyner, president of Scentiments. “This was appealing because it really narrows in on what our customers want; they are shown products that specifically cater to their preferences and interests.”
While other remarketing solutions advertise based on the last item the consumer viewed, MyBuys takes a proactive approach by leveraging insights gathered from its experience with Web personalization. It monitors what Scentiments’ customers have been looking at online and then presents them with banner ads personalized for their taste.
With the implementation of the new service, which hit the market in May, the site experienced immediate results. In fact, Scentiments saw a 623% return on ad spend from the service soon after the solution was implemented.
“As soon as the service was turned on, more orders started to come through,” Wyner said.
However, Scentiments is no stranger to working with MyBuys. In 2008, the retailer reached out the company to generate web recommendations and email alerts for its customer base. The alerts brought consumers to Scentiments.com to find relevant, motivating web recommendations for fragrances that fit their personal preferences.
The combination continues to deliver results: The e-mail conversion rate is 16%, while overall site revenue is up 11% and sales of the most popular items are up 56%.
“We have seen an outstanding return-on-investment from MyBuys on our website and through e-mail, and now, using its comprehensive understanding of our customers to predict what they are going to buy, MyBuys is turning our ad spend into increased sales,” Wyner said.
Scentiments is also leveraging other forms of technology, including social networking, to stay competitive online.
“We’ve found great success with Facebook -- much more so than Twitter,” Wyner said. “We love that our shoppers can write on our wall, ‘like’ our products and share news about our brand with their friends without a 130-character limitation.”
Scentiments feels so strongly about the medium that it recently incorporated Facebook onto every product page to encourage shoppers to interact with them on the social networking site.
“We want our customers to interact us as we recommend, predict and keep them close to our brand and the products they want,” Wyner said. “The implementation of all of this technology has been a natural progression for us. It’s been a great step forward.”