How MaxiAxi increased email sales by 14% with Spotler

MaxiAxi was founded in 2009 with the dream of making quality lighting and sound equipment accessible to everyone. It is a go-to place for audiovisual equipment, ranging from the best speakers for your home to entire light shows and karaoke sets that raise the bar for any party. In addition to consumer electronics, MaxiAxi is also a supplier of professional light and sound equipment to businesses.

MaxiAxi is part of the Tronios group, one of Europe’s largest players in the field of audiovisual products. It imports a large number of its own brands. Tronios’s objective, ‘ Value for money,’ makes It a seamless fit to MaxiAxi’s objective: providing audiovisual equipment at the right price.

The challenge

In addition to the best price, MaxiAxi is focused on providing the best possible service to its customers. Ever since the beginning, the company has made an effort to be at the forefront of developments in customer service. MaxiAxi guarantees fast delivery to your home or to a conveniently located collection point, free shipping, and free returns.

To further improve the online store’s service level, MaxiAxi began looking for a solution that would provide product advice tailored to individual customers’ wishes and needs. This demand for personalisation kicked off a search for a suitable Customer Data Platform (CDP). The initial CDP partner selected for this job had not yet achieved the results MaxiAxi had in mind.

“It just took too much time to gain the needed know-how to work with this platform and setting up campaigns was always a challenge.”
– Sven van Laar, General Manager at MaxiAxi

At this point, Spotler’s Customer Data Platform was introduced to MaxiAxi by their marketing automation partner, Bookerz. The user-friendly interface was exactly what MaxiAxi was looking for in a CDP. Not long after the introduction, Bookerz was commissioned to lead implementation efforts.

A personal touch to every email

Using the CDP MaxiAxi, they outlined their goal to provide the various target groups with recommendations based on their behaviour, suitable to their individual preferences. This is achieved in several ways, where the main focus is put on using marketing automation within the email marketing domain.

When implementing Spotler into the technology stack for MaxiAxi, Bookerz used its own multichannel integration adapter. This adapter makes data sharing between different sources easy.

Data from the online store is shared with Spotler and then matched to the website data collected by Spotler. Using the CDP, automated triggers can be created. These triggers are sent back to the Bookerz Multichannel adapter, which accurately directs them towards MaxiAxi’s email platform. Using the multichannel adapter, MaxiAxi seamlessly integrated into the marketing technology stack in no time at all.

Matching customers’ cookies to their email addresses is vital to sending email triggers via Spotler. The Bookerz multichannel adapter automatically provides Spotler with all email addresses and their associated consent levels. Unique IDs are then added to all outgoing email campaigns in Copernica. When a link in the email is clicked, a match is immediately created between the cookie and the visitor’s email address.

From that moment on, the website behaviour can be used to send automated email triggers to the connected email platform. Within these triggered emails, personalised product blocks are shown to users, filled with recommendations based on browsing and on-site click behaviour.

Improved open rates and conversion-enhancing campaigns

In addition to adding personalised product blocks, MaxiAxi has taken the email channel as a whole to the next level. Personalised Spotler product sets are displayed above the footer of each email campaign. These blocks are pre-designed and pulled from a live feed, so each email includes product recommendations tailored to the recipient.

One customer might receive an email showing specific products from a category of interest, while another receives recommendations based on a maximum amount they are likely to spend. To maximise relevance, individual-level recommendations can exclude previous purchases. This way, a customer does not receive any recommendations they already own. After adding these personalised blocks to our campaigns, turnover from all opened emails has increased by 14%!

This success is based on the following triggers and product recommendations used by MaxiAxi in the email domain:

1. Browser abandonment campaign

When a customer leaves the website without adding items to the shopping cart, a personalised email is sent. This email shows all the last viewed products, along with a set of recommended products below.

2. Cart Abandonment Campaign

The customer enters this journey when a product is added to the shopping cart. If no order has been placed within 1 hour and the customer has left the website, a trigger is sent to the ESP. An email will then be sent to the customer, dynamically loading all products from the shopping cart and including personal product recommendations based on their site browse and click behaviour. Results show that more than 24% of customers make a purchase within 3 days of receiving this email.

3. Cross-sell campaign

Together with Bookerz, MaxiAxi has set up a number of Cross- and Upsell campaigns that are specifically designed for to promote products within product groups. After a predetermined number of days (which is flexible and can be determined per event), customers will receive emails with tips, tricks and manuals about their purchased product.

These emails also feature recommended products based on the customer’s profile and always match the product group used in the campaign. Using the dynamic product sets in Spotler allows you to filter the inventory level of the displayed products. This ensures that the displayed offer is always up to date and available for purchase.

4. Second choice products

MaxiAxi’s target audience includes fans of ‘second-chance’ items. These items have been returned by other customers but are still in mint condition. Choosing the second-chance option ensures an extra competitive price for the customer. This campaign is sent automatically every month, using products that are automatically updated and sourced from a dynamic product set.

To ensure Spotler’s algorithms can be filtered for second-chance products, custom fields were used. Using these custom fields, the product feed source indicates to Spotler whether a product is available as ‘second-chance’. Dynamic filtering can be applied to the product set based on these custom fields. This ensures the algorithms always calculate the most suitable second-chance product for the email recipient. A great showcase of the Spotler platform’s flexibility.

Always looking for improvements

MaxiAxi continues to innovate in marketing automation.

“With Spotler’s Customer Data Platform, we see many opportunities to set up great marketing campaigns together with Bookerz in the coming years”