Missing Pieces
Furn is a UK-based online home furnishings retailer offering stylish cushions, bedding, and homeware products. Despite strong product offerings and growing online traffic, they faced significant challenges with abandoned baskets and customers failing to return after initial purchases, representing substantial lost revenue opportunities. Their digital-only remarketing strategies weren’t effectively recovering these high-intent prospects or encouraging repeat purchases for considered home décor items, particularly as customers became increasingly selective about digital communications in the crowded homeware ecommerce market.
Adding the Finishing Touches
Furn partnered with Paperplanes to launch a programmatic direct mail pilot in April 2022, implementing three targeted campaigns: abandoned basket recovery (with 5% discount incentive code GIVEMEFIVE), removed from basket follow-ups, and next best purchase opportunities for recent customers. Over 3,514 A4 letters in C5 envelopes were deployed, each featuring simple, clear creative showcasing products customers had abandoned or personalised recommendations from Paperplanes’ recommendation tool. The campaigns employed an 80% test, 20% control split to measure incremental impact, with customers mailed once within a 30-day period to avoid over-saturation whilst maintaining consistent engagement across the consideration period.
Comfort Complete
The campaign delivered exceptional results from launch, with abandoned basket campaigns achieving a 9.9% conversion rate and removed from basket reaching 6.5%, whilst next best purchase generated 2.3% conversion. Mailed customers proved 40% more likely to return to Furn after receiving physical touchpoints, with engagement metrics showing they stayed 33% longer on-site than non-mailed counterparts and achieved a 5.8% direct return rate, reducing reliance on expensive paid channels. The campaign generated £8,146 in total mailed sales with an impressive £4.84 incremental ROAS overall, rising to £8 to £1 for abandoned basket campaigns specifically. Most notably, 5% of mailed customers made repeat purchases, demonstrating direct mail’s effectiveness in building long-term customer value beyond immediate basket recovery, with 43% of total sales from the mailed universe directly attributed to Paperplanes.
