Heading into the 2017 Holiday Campaign, Nordstrom was looking to increase its new customer acquisition. In order to begin the campaign, Nordstrom’s marketing team developed 10 creative messages including ‘Give Cozy,’ ‘Gifts Under $50,’ ‘Give Beauty,’ and ‘Give Tech’ to test amongst the new customer profiles and audience segments. Nordstrom then tested each creative across each new customer profile and audience segment to determine how each performed. From there, the data fed into a large feedback loop that managed insights in real-time, allowing for optimization of creative messaging during the first few days of the campaign, and data-driven decision making across campaigns, audience segments and messages. Ultimately, Nordstrom was able to determine how each message performed against the control as well as how each creative resonated with each new audience segment, men and women who are non-Nordstrom shoppers.

Nordstrom’s marketing analytics team utilized machine learning algorithms to better understand different customer journeys. From there, the team defined behavior-based customer segments that were merged with real-time signals to define customer audiences. Nordstrom created look-a-like models to target prospective customers with holiday messaging with the goal of learning what types of product messages resonate best with potential shoppers. The implementation of IdentityLink allowed Nordstrom recognized existing customers across online and in-store shopping experiences and excluded them from this acquisition campaign. Nordstrom’s team then optimized ongoing efforts to improve match rates, maximized focus on the new customer audiences, and connected the dots through their existing data. Nordstrom linked the demand-side platform (DSP) in real-time to the creative decisions generated by the dynamic creative engine while using internally designed audience segmentation to create this cohesive campaign.

Nordstrom defined a target audience of non-Nordstrom customers who were identified as likely targets for acquisition. With IdentityLink, Nordstrom was able to collect data across all of its brands in real-time, build an audience model with key attributes of Nordstrom customers, and eliminate known customers. During the campaign, the dynamic creative engine tested 10 creative assets within defined audience segments to determine the optimal customer experience. The performance data from this campaign flowed into a feedback loop to improve bid decision making, audience segmentation/modeling, and creative design and experimentation. Nordstrom then leveraged learnings from the first days of the campaign, and applied them to augment the creative that was served to new target audiences. Nordstrom optimized media buys and gained deeper understanding of what messages resonate with customers most. Nordstrom discovered mindful and engaging ways to deliver delightful, personalized experiences for both potential and existing customers.