Driving digital revenue growth for Appreciate Group through CRO

Appreciate Group is an online retailer that supplies gift vouchers and gift cards for many of the UK’s leading brands including Marks & Spencer, John Lewis and B&Q. Operating under their B2B and B2C brands, High Street Vouchers and Love2Shop, they knew there was a shift happening in the way that consumers were using gift vouchers, and wanted to take the traditional gift card format digital using an app.

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Their website was already delivering, so it was all about making a great website brilliant and measuring that improvement. Strategic marketing consultancy, Project50, who working in partnership with Appreciate Group, briefed us specifically with this remit in mind.

We used a mixed-methods approach to our research meaning blended methods across quantitative and qualitative research to generate insights and identify the most pressing problems to solve, prioritising improvements that would deliver additional revenue.

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Using the insights gained from the research, we identified that clarity around the products and the brand proposition were some of the big problems to solve. We refreshed their brand based on what users wanted to see, creating a new visual style for the site and a refined proposition.

With the list of opportunities identified, we could then undertake a programme of website improvements, with each being designed and A/B tested to quantify impact before being fully rolled out. We were able to build a total of 20 experiments and get them all live on the site within 4 months.

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Everything was measured and reported against the original baseline commercial metrics. Measurement quantified the value being generated and meant that we knew where we were against revenue targets for the programme of work at any point.

The work delivered a programme ROI of 1:31, generating a potential 7 figure revenue increase within a 9-month window.

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The brand refresh also had a positive impact on customer behaviour. Customers felt the new brand had more credibility, and when tested against pages using the old brand we saw an uplift in average order value of 57% in one experiment.

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We used conversion rate optimisation methods as a way to push forward product development, reducing risk through experimentation. For a partner where the website generates a significant part of their revenue, we were able to prove, with evidence, that changes were going to have a positive impact on performance before they went live.