The Problem: Unauthorized Ads Disrupt s.Oliver’s Online Shopping Experience
Hijacking Rate: s.Oliver 21.71% | comma 19.52% | LIEBESKIND BERLIN 20.45%
From its humble beginnings in 1969 as a 25-square-metre boutique shop, German fashion company s.Oliver Group has grown into one of Germany’s top omnichannel fashion retailers.
The s.Oliver eCommerce team continuously invests in solutions to optimize the online customer journey to improve conversion and maximize profitability. But a significant percentage of consumers visiting their site were being disrupted by unauthorized product ads, pop-ups, and banners that lured them to competitor brands and promotions. Traffic hijackers profit from bundling these ad injections into browser extensions, apps, and many other free software programs installed by consumers online. Since they run entirely on the consumer’s device or browser, these ad injections are able to divert site visitors away and skim eCommerce revenue without being detected by enterprises.
When Namogoo reached out to Tobias Neuburger, Head Of E-Com Business Development at s.Oliver, his team had not yet been made aware of this consumer-side problem. To verify the scale and impact of ad injections on their customer journey and sales funnel KPIs, s.Oliver ran an A/B test with Namogoo’s Customer Hijacking Prevention Solution.
The Solution: Delivering the Designed Customer Journey Uninterrupted
With Namogoo’s real-time detection of consumer-side ad injections, the s.Oliver team discovered that 21.71% of shoppers visiting soliver.eu were exposed to unauthorized ads, and were able to see the impact on their customers’ behavior throughout their journey.
“You focus on telling a unique story to your customers and making sure they get that brand experience on your eCommerce website. But the data shows you something is happening on your site you were not aware of, and gives you a clear picture on why less orders are being placed, and why gross profit is smaller than expected due to these injected ads.”
Tobias and the team also saw the impact on their traffic of blocking these disruptions, with conversion rates for these customers lifting immediately. All KPI results were verified with s.Oliver’s own analytics platform.
The Business Impact: Maximizing Conversion & ROI Across All of the Group’s Brands
After eliminating Customer Journey Hijacking with Namogoo’s solution, s.Oliver has seen their overall conversion rate on s.Oliver’s eCommerce sites increase by 5.41%, while their comma and LIEBESKIND BERLIN brand sites are lifting conversion by 3.92% and 5.62% respectively.
Namogoo’s consumer-side data also revealed to the s.Oliver team that their hijacked visitor segment was much more engaged than the rest of their population, and therefore more likely to download free extensions and software carrying ad injections. This segment converted even higher when ad injections were taken out of their experience.
“Once you understand how many of these customers are affected by ad injections and why, it’s no longer surprising to see that when you block them, you get more engagement on your site and less visitors exiting, and therefore more end up purchasing.”
Conclusion
s.Oliver Group continues to monitor the impact of preventing Customer Journey Hijacking with Namogoo’s solution on their sales funnel. The eCommerce team are pleased that what began as a shocking discovery has come full circle and shown how their most engaged customers react when receiving the customer journey they work so hard to deliver.
