The cosmetics line Urban Decay, which includes makeup for eyes, lips, nails, and skin, is known and admired for its edgy style. Part of the L’Oréal Luxe brand portfolio, alongside Kiehl’s, Lancôme, and Biotherm, Urban Decay products are sold online and in brick-and-mortar stores worldwide.
Challenge
“Each L’Oréal Luxe brand has its own website, based on a similar template,” explained Virginie Robert, Digital Project Manager at L’Oréal Luxe, “but each line has a different brand identity and target audience. Optimizations that might work for one won’t necessarily work for the others. That’s why we knew we needed a tool like AB Tasty.” Furthermore, since L’Oréal Luxe products are sold both on the brand’s own ecommerce website, as well as by third-party vendors, it’s especially important for their marketing teams to optimize transactions on their own site. The particular challenge for Urban Decay was increasing average basket size – both in terms of value and number of products – during sales.
A/B Test Idea
Working with Léa Benquet, their dedicated Customer Success Manager at AB Tasty, Urban Decay’s digital team decided to run an A/B test during one of their sales. They wanted to determine if a promotional banner, advertising a discount for 85 euros spent, would increase average basket size, quantity of items, and ultimately, revenue.
With the help of AB Tasty’s technical specialists, the banner – designed in an eye-catching green – was placed atop all basket pages on Urban Decay’s site. If a shopper had fewer than 85 euros in their basket, the banner was triggered, informing them of how much more they needed to spend in order to take advantage of the discount.
The banner was triggered to all shoppers with fewer than 85 euros in their basket. It reads, “Only X more euros until you can benefit from a discount on your purchase!”
Results
The promotional banner significantly increased all of Urban Decay’s KPIs: average basket size increased by 8%, the average number of items in the basket jumped by 7%, and revenue generated increased by an impressive 7%!
“We were very pleased to be able to work with Urban Decay to boost their revenue by 7% using just one A/B test. These kinds of optimizations can have a real impact on profits – over one year alone, this small change would have generated an extra 190,000 euros!” – Léa Benquet, Customer and Partners Success Manager Team Leader at AB Tasty
Takeaway Tip
Sales are particularly fruitful times to test website optimizations. Well-thought-out promotional messaging along the checkout process is key to maximizing profits.
“We were very happy with the results of this test, and we’re absolutely going to use the banner again during our next sale. The best part is that duplicating and implementing the banner design will be very easy to do, and won’t require any IT help, now that the template is all set up – this is part of the beauty of the AB Tasty platform.” – Guillaume Totis, e-Commerce Manager at Urban Decay
