Case Study: Chico’s Drives Awareness, 
Sales Via Display Ads

PROBLEM: Chico's, a cross-channel retailer of women's apparel and accessories, wanted to drive online awareness and ultimately sales for its three brands: Chico's, White House|Black Market and Soma Intimates.

SOLUTION: Hired a display ad program company to change the perception of Chico's and White House|Black Market's offerings, and to drive initial awareness of Soma Intimates.

RESULTS: An online display ad program based on behavioral retargeting has delivered a return on ad spend averaging $4 for every $1 spent. Chico's has also seen the success of its display program lead to a 15 percent improvement overall in its search marketing efforts. A pixel-free site integration has sped up the consumer shopping experience and significantly increased the number of shopping behaviors visible across the three Chico's sites.

Chico's was a company in transition at the end of 2009. It was coming off a turnaround year that had seen its net sales grow 8.3 percent, comparable store sales increase 6.1 percent and direct sales jump 39.3 percent. But the women's apparel retailer believed there was more market share for it to grab, particularly online. The challenge was to drive awareness for its three brands, each of which was evolving in its own right.

To help it accomplish its goals, Chico's hired Akamai, a web services and ad content provider. By using behavioral retargeting via online display ads from Akamai, Chico's has been able to serve up more relevant content and offers to its online visitors, leading to more conversions. The retailer looks at from where shoppers enter its website (e.g., an email, search engine, social media site) and where they spend the most time on the site (e.g., product pages for a specific category), then displays relevant and timely banner ads based on that data.

"We don't want to just drive traffic, we want to drive qualified traffic," said Jenn McClain, Chico's vice president of e-commerce marketing. "It's about figuring out what the customers coming to the site are responding to. We want to make sure that when they come to our websites via display ads that we're dropping them off somewhere that's relevant to them, which will continue to drive conversions."

Optimizing for Peak Sales Periods
By analyzing campaign results and optimizing its ad display program daily, Chico's has been able to reach consumers with the right message at each stage of the purchase funnel. Akamai has developed ad campaigns to help Chico's advertise not simply to its past website visitors, but to those in-market apparel shoppers who have never visited the retailer's sites in the past. Chico's has been able to work within narrow windows of opportunity and shifting budgets during peak sales periods — i.e., the holidays — to help it gain new customers and incremental sales.

"Akamai has helped us meet our advertising ROI goals in all different times of the year, and especially during peak holiday and promotional periods," said McClain. "Their talent in dialing spend up or down based on what we're looking to accomplish has been a major help."

Additionally, Chico's has noticed a direct correlation between its display ad program and the effectiveness of its branded keyword terms. In fact, it's seen a 15 percent overall improvement in its search marketing program.

Chico's has also recently migrated to a completely pixel-free integration with Akamai that will enable it to see all user behaviors on its sites. This will allow Chico's to gain visibility into the behavior of an additional 55 percent of its audience. This move has helped Chico's bolster the effectiveness of its ad display program by targeting more shoppers with the right message at various stages of the purchase funnel.