One-Shot Wonder
Smartphoto is one of the pioneers of digital photo and personalised gifts with a picture, with digital photos printed at one of the most advanced European laboratories on real, high-quality photographic paper or any personalised gift. Despite their strong market position and quality offerings, they faced the common ecommerce challenge of converting one-time purchasers into repeat customers, with many customers making a single purchase for a specific occasion but not returning for subsequent orders. Smartphoto was interested to see if integrating programmatic direct mailings could increase customer engagement and overall conversions, particularly in driving that critical second purchase that typically indicates long-term customer value.
The Perfect Shot
Smartphoto partnered with Paperplanes and Bpost to test a programmatic direct mail strategy focused on triggering relevant, personalised physical media to customers who had recently purchased on the Smartphoto website to encourage them to make a second purchase. A seamless, direct tech integration onto the Smartphoto website allowed Paperplanes to automatically identify customers who would receive the card, with the technology also providing A/B testing of creative variants and setting of a control group to measure incremental attribution for the campaign. The strategy tested personalised creative featuring products and categories customers had previously engaged with against standard generic creative to quantify the impact of personalisation on conversion rates.
Fully Developed
The campaign delivered impressive results, with 5.7% of mailed customers going on to make a second purchase, representing a 30% uplift versus typical conversion rates and proving the effectiveness of physical touchpoints in driving repeat purchase behaviour. Mailed customers demonstrated significantly higher engagement once they received mail, spending 50% more in their baskets and 6% longer on-site, indicating the quality of traffic driven by direct mail. The mailed group generated strong sales from the start, with Paperplanes able to attribute 100% of these sales as incremental uplift generated from the mailing rather than organic return behaviour. Most significantly, personalisation made all the difference, featuring products and categories that customers had previously engaged with created a remarkable 350% uplift in conversion versus standard generic creative, powerfully demonstrating that relevant, individualised product recommendations dramatically outperform one-size-fits-all messaging in driving repeat purchases for personalised photo and gift products.
