Business Challenge
Browser injected ads taking shoppers away from Puma to competitor sites
Puma, one of the world’s largest sport & lifestyle brands, noticed its online shoppers dropping off from product pages. While aware of browser-injected ads, there was some initial skepticism regarding the size of the problem, and the overall impact ads could be having on Puma shoppers. The contextual nature of these ads, luring shoppers with discounts, combined with the seamless nature at which insert themselves onto a page, leaves shoppers distracted, confused, and curious–clicking the ads 70% of the time.
The browser injected ads compromised the on-site shopping experience for Puma customers and also increased their overall exit rate. When BrandLock met Puma, the meeting resulted in a quick analysis of the online store. This led to Puma discovering that a number of browser-injected ads were, in fact, deploying on its category, product, and check-out pages. They also noted that more than 11% of their traffic was exposed to these ads.
Puma also realized that the injected ads were not aimed at hacking its site. The ads only served to lure shoppers away from completing purchases, redirecting them to competitor sites, in order to make affiliate fees on the traffic. The problem isn’t going away on its own because consumers aren’t complaining – the ads benefit them, leading them to better deals on the very same product. Retailers simply don’t see these ads, thus the skepticism that this is even a problem. It’s this combination of shopper benefit + being an invisible problem to retailers that allows folks on the Dark Web to make money unencumbered; simply by stealing traffic and getting paid for it.
BrandLock solution
BrandLock & Puma A/B test to measure the impact of browser injected ads
Puma agreed to work with BrandLock on a pay-for-performance model to measure the impact of browser-injected ads. (Brandlock charges a small % on the revenue lift delivered, as measured by Puma.) BrandLock and Puma then set about on 12 months of continuous A/B testing under the following plan:
- Single variant testing framework – BrandLock ‘on’ vs ‘off’
- Randomized grouping – Visitors are assigned at random to two groups (control and protected)
- Data Integrity – Results flow directly to Puma’s Google Analytics. (Brandlock never touches the data or results.)
- Revenue per session – #1 Metric to measure the impact of removing browser injected ads across all devices (combines AOV and CR into 1 metric that directly impacts P&L) The test began by adding just one line of code to Puma’s tag management solution, inserting Brandlock’s Javascript.
The A/B test on Puma began with a simple 50-50 traffic split. The visitors were randomly categorized into two groups – control (exposed to browser injected ads) and protected (browser injected ads disabled by BrandLock Shield).
The first month of the A/B test resulted in:
- Control Group – 2.91% conversion rate
- Protection Group – 3.13% conversion rate
From the second month, Shield began protecting 90% of Puma’s traffic, leaving only 10% to the ‘control group’ where the ads were allowed to run their course.
Impact
Puma removes browser injected ads to increase revenue with BrandLock Shield
The results of the A/B test seamlessly began to flow into the analytics platform of Puma – Google Analytics. This made it easier for the brand to also monitor the impact of removing browser-injected ads with BrandLock Shield.
In the first month, Puma noticed a +3.13% increase in the overall site conversion rate for the protected group. By the next month, the conversion rate lifted to +5.11% for these protected shoppers.
After 12 months of continuous A/B testing, Puma successfully decreased its exit rate, increased on-site conversions, and its revenue per session. They also found that shoppers in the protected group were more engaged with what the store had to offer.
With BrandLock Shield, Puma achieved:
- + 7.1 % increase in revenue per session
- + 7.4 % increase in conversion rate
- – 10 % decrease in bounce rate
- + 11.4 % increase in orders per visit
