Footasylum outperforms industry with AI-driven social marketing strategy

By Peak on May 7, 2019

Leading footwear fashion retailer Footasylum PLC (‘Footasylum’) is reaping the reward of being an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven retailer, reporting a return on advertising spend (ROAS) that’s 30 times higher than the industry average of 286% per cent.

Leveraging its partnership with Peak, the pioneer of the AI System, Footasylum introduced AI and machine learning algorithms into their social media advertising campaigns. Taking this approach has led to an 8400% return on ad spend, 30 times more than the industry average and 10 times higher than Footasylum’s standard marketing ROAS.

Footasylum used Peak’s Customer AI to create a predicted customer view of people most likely to be engaged with, and be in the market for, Footasylum’s products. These customer segment profiles are then used to target lookalike audiences via social media in order to acquire new customers to the Footasylum brand.

Recognising that every business is different, Peak worked closely with the Footasylum marketing team to tune the Customer AI solution to exactly fit their business. This approach helped ensure the outcome generated a massive uplift in ROAS. Tom Summerfield, Head of Commerce at Footasylum, commented:

“We’re gaining a lot from being an AI-driven retailer, and the results of our recent social advertising campaigns speak volumes. AI and machine learning are complementing our marketing efforts perfectly, allowing us to speak to customers at the right time when they are ready to make a purchase, and scaling communication back when they aren’t.

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“The aim is to increase efficiency and effectiveness and only invest in marketing at the right time to make a big impact, which is a core part of our strategy moving forward. We’re now excited to expand our use of Peak and find out how AI can influence other areas of the business.”

The result follows the news that Footasylum is experiencing a 28% increase in email revenue from AI-driven hyper-personalised marketing communications. The ROAS uplift is just another step in Footasylum’s journey to becoming the next generation of data-driven retailers. Richard Potter, CEO of Peak, said:

“So many challenges faced by retailers today can be unlocked by using data to really understand behaviours and build relationships with their customers.

“Footasylum is a great example of a retailer using data and AI to drive forward innovative new marketing methods to engage with customers in the right way, at the right time, with the right offer. These results are only the start of their story, and it’s brilliant to see their customers responding so well to new tactics and technologies.”

Peak’s AI System is an entirely new category of product used by a host of companies including Footasylum, Global Radio and Speedy Hire.

“Our first-of-its-kind AI System is future-proofing business by providing both the technology and capability to be successful with AI,” Richard added. “It aligns with business strategy to drive growth, enhance profitability and build sustainable competitive advantage from data.

“The Peak system generates a rapid and significant ROI for its users, as we can see with Footasylum. Many of our customers are already experiencing such returns, and critically within a short time to value of weeks not years, as with traditional data initiatives.”