Banana Republic

Success Story

Finding new shoppers like the best shoppers

Banana Republic used Lookalike Audiences modeled after its most loyal customers to increase its customer base during the competitive holiday season. The result: a nearly 4X higher-than-expected return on ad spend.
  • ~4X higher return on ad spend
  • top channel for new customer acquisition during the holiday season
  • 60% higher click-through rate with Lookalike Audiences

Their Story

Coveted clothes for stylish professionals

Banana Republic opened in 1978 and quickly grew into a global brand focused on delivering modern fashion for professionals. Dedicated to helping customers achieve both professionally and personally, the company offers versatile apparel that can be styled for any occasion.

Their Goal

Reaching younger customers

Banana Republic has a large and loyal customer base, but it’s also an aging one. The retailer wanted to reach a younger buyer demographic that would be new to the brand. It also hoped to increase its return on ad spend (ROAS) during the competitive holiday season. Custom Audiences was the perfect tool to help Banana Republic find its current customers on Facebook. Lookalike audiences helped the retail chain expand its reach by finding new shoppers with attributes similar to its younger customers.
The Custom Audiences and lookalike targeting tools are compelling because they integrate social graph data with traditional behavioral and demographic information. The added social profile data means that Facebook can help us reach a target audience based on our top customers, not just anybody that converts on our website. We can then tailor our offers and messaging to drive results.
Emily Schubert, Director Digital Channel Marketing, Gap Inc. GID

Their Solution

Targeting top customers

Banana Republic had seen success with online retargeting programs, but hadn’t yet launched a pure online acquisition campaign to reach customers that were new to the brand. Facebook, with its massive reach and scale, was the ideal platform to help the retailer reach holiday shoppers.

Campaign development

To execute this acquisition campaign effectively, the retailer worked hand-in-hand with digital performance based agency Booyah! Advertising as well as its internal ecommerce, CRM, creative, measurement and brand teams. This collaboration allowed Banana Republic to identify characteristics of consumers who tended to buy more from the retailer, and create compelling ads that would speak to these target segments.
To reach the right people during the holiday season, Banana Republic used:
Custom Audiences: The retailer divided its customers into various segments.
  • Lapsed: those who have not purchased from Banana Republic in the last 12 months, but had purchased at least twice in the 12 months prior
  • Prospects: those who had never purchased from Banana Republic, yet were on Banana Republic’s email list
  • Top tier: those who had spent over a designated threshold in the past 12 months
Lookalike Audiences: Lookalike Audiences allowed Banana Republic to create a target audience of people who may not have purchased from Banana Republic before, but had attributes and online behaviors similar to the retailer’s top tier customers.
Banana Republic also used Facebook’s keyword targeting to reach women who liked fashion, media and travel. To drive additional holiday sales, the retailer presented each of its Custom Audiences with tailored offers.

Campaign delivery

The campaign began on November 13, 2013 and ran until early January 2014. It tested various creative within the ads and targeted several different segments of male and female shoppers. The advertising team also carefully measured each ad set to see which messages and images drove higher click-through rates. The team found that:
  • Placing the Banana Republic logo at the top of ads increased visibility and drove more conversions
  • Winter wear images delivered more engagement than festive holiday clothes
  • For images, product close-ups performed better than models
  • Action-oriented calls to action, such as “GET THE LOOK,” drove higher click-through rates than more passive copy, such as “Dressed to celebrate”
Banana Republic tested various placements, including link ads and photo ads. The company also experimented with desktop and mobile News Feed placements, as well as ads that appear in the right column of Facebook.

Products used

Goals

Their Creative

Modeling messages

Banana Republic designed its creative to attract attention as people were scrolling through its Facebook News Feed. Choosing photo ads and link ads, the retailer tested different creative images and messages.
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Their Success

Stylish results

The campaign was very successful:
  • Nearly 4X higher return on ad spend than other display advertising channels
  • Facebook was a top-performing channel for new customer acquisition during the holiday season
  • 60% higher click-through rate using Facebook Lookalike Audiences compared to other display media
Facebook’s Custom Audiences was a way for us to identify our best customers, lapsed customers and prospects, and then build Lookalike Audiences specifically against each group. Facebook also has massive reach. Once we were able to prove that this test worked, we were able to scale to where it actually brought in enough incremental sales to contribute to the bottom line.
Ann Cleveland, Global Media, Banana Republic