Oh, Baby! Munchkin Doubles E-commerce Productivity
When the baby products innovator decided to expand its direct-to-consumer business model, it needed to ramp up its online marketing. But using innovative technology wasn’t as easy as it appeared, until Munchkin found Tealium.
Challenges
- Slash time and cost of launching new vendor solutions
- Meet accelerated launch dates with all vendor tags firing reliably
Solution
- Use Tealium iQ™ tag management system for simplicity, speed, and savings
- Maximize investments through a unified data layer
Results
- Boost e-commerce productivity by 2x
- 220 percent higher revenue gains
- Realize 30-day ROI on Tealium iQ
Patented click-lock sippy cups, baby gates that close automatically, safety spoons that alert parents when food is too hot for baby, and now Tealium for tag management—great ideas abound at Munchkin, Inc., the award-winning designer and manufacturer of baby and toddler products. Just as Munchkin products are designed to make life easier for parents, Tealium makes life easier—and more productive—for the company’s e-commerce team. “Tealium technology dramatically simplifies integration of third-party vendor tags and has doubled our productivity,” says Jonathan Bradbury, director of global e-commerce at Munchkin. “Tealium also puts our e-commerce team in control of digital marketing solutions, giving us greater capacity to select and deploy new solutions to maximize brand exposure and drive high-profit revenue through munchkin.com.”
“We just have this one line of JavaScript…”
Munchkin boasts a reputation for developing market-leading products. But Bradbury explains that a superior product is just one element of e-commerce success: “Having a great product to sell is fundamental in generating revenue through a web site. But it’s also critical to create a good user experience and to bring visitors—lots of them—to that experience.” Prior to 2014, Munchkin sold products through drug, grocery, and mass-market stores—such as Target and Wal-Mart—with its munchkin.com web site primarily dedicated to engagement and corporate messaging. In mid-2013, the company initiated a project to replatform the site to significantly expand its direct-to-consumer business channel. Key to meeting project milestones was the ability to quickly turn on new vendor tags. An experienced e-commerce marketer, Bradbury says that budget and schedule constraints dictated the need for a tag management solution: “We had to set up all of the basic tags required for any web site, as well as a number of more complex, high-value tags, including an omnichannel personalization solution. But while nearly every vendor suggested that setting up their tag meant plugging in just one line of JavaScript, deployment was seldom that simple, particularly if we wanted to leverage the full functionality of the solution.” Without tag management technology, Bradbury’s only options would have been to solicit internal IT developers to hardcode tags into each page, or, if the IT team lacked available resources or expertise, contract the job to an outside vendor. Both options were time- and cost-prohibitive. The challenge for Munchkin’s small e-commerce group was to find an affordable and easy solution that would allow the team to meet its aggressive launch date with all critical tags firing reliably.
Tealium for Speed, Savings
Turnkey integration with more than 700 major online vendors, usability of the tag management console, and rapid ROI compelled Munchkin’s management team to select the Tealium iQ system. Bradbury says it was an easy decision: “We estimated that the cost of deploying a single tag ranged between $3K–$5K, depending on tag complexity and whether or not we were able to tap internal resources for the hardcoding. Based on our launch schedule and solution set, we determined the Tealium solution would deliver a 30-day return on investment. “Tealium proved to be an essential component of Munchkin’s successful site launch in January 2014. We accomplished all of our deployment objectives, on time and within our budget constraints—a feat that would have been impossible without Tealium technology.” Today, the Munchkin e-commerce team utilizes Tealium iQ to manage more than a dozen vendor tags on the munchkin.com site.
2x More Productive
Bradbury reports that Tealium iQ doubles the e-commerce team’s productivity. He says, “Going through the Tealium iQ interface, we’re able to implement and test new tags in less than half the time—and at less than half the cost—then it would have taken working through IT or outside contractors. We now do in one day what required 20 hours on average in the past.” The Munchkin e-commerce team is also in the process of expanding and replatforming the company’s global web presence, including sites serving the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Canada, and Japan. Bradbury expects to leverage the munchkin.com tag implementation, replicating the Tealium tag profile from the U.S. site for a much faster rollout of international sites. “Since time is definitely money,” he states, “the savings are considerable across so many sites.”
220% Higher Revenue
“At Munchkin, we pride ourselves on adding innovation to baby products, redefining what those products can achieve,” Bradbury notes. “My contribution as Munchkin’s global e-commerce director is bringing that same innovation to corporate web sites to build brand awareness and expand market share. To accomplish that, we strive to combine the best design, technologies, and marketing solutions in a way that enhances the visitor experience and ultimately drives conversions and revenue. “Tealium is foundational to our e-commerce efforts and success. Since the launch of the new site, our munchkin.com vendors have collectively helped us achieve upticks across all key performance indicators [KPIs], delivering a 220 percent increase in revenue, a 196 percent increase in daily revenue, a 122 percent increase in units per day, and a 111 percent increase in average order value [AOV].”
Marketers in Charge
Putting the e-commerce team in control of tag management also ensures faster campaign launches. “Tealium makes it feasible to deploy new marketing solutions that might not have been economically viable if we had to factor in the cost of hardcoding and managing the new tags,” adds Bradbury. “Just recently, for example, we wanted to take advantage of a social-sharing tool to build community and brand engagement. The tool itself is very affordable, but doing the tag integration without the benefit of Tealium would have pushed the overall cost out of reach at a time when we are laser-focused on driving immediate revenue. But Tealium made it possible for us to take advantage of a tool that, although it may not impact sales statistics in the short term, will most certainly drive conversions down the road. “As a relatively small organization, we have to be extremely conscientious about where we spend our budget. If the cost of tag deployment and management doubles the cost of the solution, for example, we’re much more limited in what we can do for marketing initiatives. Using Tealium gives us greater flexibility in developing e-commerce strategies to take advantage of new solutions, new services. We have confidence that we can continue to grow our e-commerce revenue by deploying the best solutions—even the next new thing that’s not yet on our radar.”
Support at the Speed of Business
In conclusion, Bradbury points out the important contributions of Tealium’s support staff: “The Tealium tag management solution has been easy to use, but there have been several instances when we needed assistance with a particularly complex deployment. On those occasions, Tealium made what was urgent to us equally urgent to them. They’ve been consistently available and accommodating of our extremely tight schedules and resources. “In e-commerce, you can never afford to rest on your laurels—you must always be ready to seize opportunities for expanding audience and revenue. In the past, there was always some degree of stress associated with deploying a new solution and tag. But Tealium eliminated that by streamlining tag implementation and ongoing management, freeing our team to focus on other strategic e-commerce activities.”
About Munchkin, Inc.
A privately held, global company headquartered in North Hills, California, Munchkin, Inc. creates baby products that excite, delight, and make life easier for parents. Founded in 1991, Munchkin, Inc. places great emphasis on innovation, redefining what baby products can achieve. Munchkin, Inc. has won more than 40 industry awards, including multiple wins of the coveted Target® Corporation Partner Award of Excellence and the Toys “R” Us 2012 Vendor of the Year award. Endorsed and recommended by sleep and safety experts, medical professionals, toy specialists, and parents, Munchkin products can be found at retail outlets internationally and online at www.munchkin.com.
