RETAIL
Home Depot
Flyers have long been the holy grail for retailers. The Home Depot has relied on this tried-and-true tactic to drive customers in stores for decades, and despite the shift to digital, many people still rely on them to plan their weekly shopping trips. But printed flyers don’t offer retailers any insight into where their customers are along their buying journey, or what products they’re interested in, making it difficult to understand customers’ needs and offer the most relevant products.
2019 OMMA AWARD WINNER
Online Advertising Creativity
Best Interactive Creative
OBJECTIVE
The Home Depot knew that if they wanted to stand out from the competition and make smarter investments, they needed to transform the legacy marketing tactic in a way that would help them understand audience interest and intent, so they could leverage those insights in future campaigns, and move prospects down the purchase funnel.
STRATEGY AND EXECUTION
The home improvement retailer partnered with an engagement management platform to develop an interactive display campaign, combining three category events — kitchen, flooring, and bath — into a single ad unit. Upon user initiation, the ad expanded to reveal high-impact creative that was divided into the three separate categories, and offered their audience multiple ways to interact.
The ad featured hotspots, so users could learn more about bathroom accessories and flooring products; photo galleries of custom and in-stock cabinet options; and an interactive slider that revealed dramatic kitchen transformations.
The creative was also built with the platform’s True Intent tracking code, which measured how each user interacted with products and features in the ad, and on The Home Depot’s website, delivering in-depth audience data to their Data Management Platform in real-time. This allowed them to segment their most engaged audiences into project-specific categories, so they could retarget them with shoppable ads filled with the most relevant products.
To mimic the flyer experience, they integrated their eCommerce API into the platform so they could dynamically serve up-to-date pricing, promos, and ratings alongside every product — and that led to stunning results.
RESULTS
Users who engaged with the expandable ad unit spent an average of 23 seconds in the ad, which is 64 percent longer than those who engaged with the previous year’s campaigns. Thanks to all that extra time users spent in the ad unit, the upper funnel portion of the campaign saw a 200 percent increase in the number of products clicked in ad, which had a real impact on their bottom line. The 2020 campaign increased their YOY sales by 45 percent and lowered their cost-per-acquisition by 65 percent, resulting in a return on ad spend 6X higher than the previous year.
261%
increase in user interactions
65%
reduction in cost-per-acquisition
33%
increase in return on
ad spend