Case Study

Countdown future-proofs data ambitions with Tealium CDP

Challenge:

Leading New Zealand supermarket chain, Countdown, has a firm commitment towards innovation that will enhance the shopping experience for its valued customers. With a focus upon providing the very best in choice, value and convenience, the retailer sought to ambitiously transform its enterprise to scale insight-led customer-centric growth. Yet, its existing tools weren’t sufficiently versatile, agile or scalable to empower the brand to forge a new era in retail CX innovation.

Solution:

Looking towards the future, Countdown set out to transform the way data is used across every facet of the business. The retailer recognised the need for a flexible solution to rationalise its tech stack, improve audience segmentation and accelerate conversions. By engaging Tealium as a trusted CDP partner, Countdown efficiently established a unified data foundation that delivered an indelible impact throughout the organisation.

Results:

Amid evolving privacy laws and third-party cookie loss, Countdown prudently implemented Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI) to extend the value of the Tealium platform. In turn, the retailer effectively harnessed first-party data to achieve an outstanding 70% improvement in the Facebook match rate. This enabled Countdown to accelerate advertising performance, increase return on advertising spend (RoAS), enhance conversions and boost bottom-line growth.

Forging a New Era in Retail CX Innovation

Leading New Zealand supermarket chain, Countdown, has a laser focus upon providing the very best in consumer choice, value and convenience. The retailer endeavoured to ambitiously transform its enterprise to scale insight-led customer-centric growth. Central to its enterprise transformation was the need to modernise its martech stack to forge a new era in retail CX innovation.

Three Pillars of Success

Countdown set out to transform the way data is used across every facet of the business, whilst integrating existing technology investments for operational excellence. The retailer recognised the need for a flexible solution to rationalise its tech stack, improve audience segmentation and accelerate conversions. Accordingly, Countdown appointed Tealium as a trusted CDP partner to efficiently establish a unified data foundation and deliver an indelible impact throughout the organisation.

With Tealium CDP, Countdown sought to achieve its predetermined three pillars of success; namely:

  • Revenue growth driven by personalisation through real-time enriched single customer view activation.
  • Cost savings by eliminating integration projects using pre-built and expert-supported connectors.
  • Increased agility through a single source of truth to inform responsive and automated decision making.

Countdown’s clarity in their CX vision was an essential element of organisational success. The retailer knew exactly where they wanted to be, and what they wanted to achieve from the CDP, alongside identifying the quick wins that could pave the way for greater success. Importantly, cross-functional buy-in and collaboration would be key to accelerating returns.

Simplifying Complexity to Ensure Universal Adoption

Post-Tealium CDP implementation, Countdown sought to achieve quick wins to demonstrate the power of the platform. Activating simple and effective use cases proved the most efficient route to demonstrating the immense value of scaling CDP-enabled data initiatives across the business.

Countdown’s quick win use cases included:

  • Website banner suppression based on an individual’s browsing and shopping habits.
  • Suppression of the ‘install the mobile’ banners within emails based on customers’ installation and use of the app.
  • Paid media exclusions that identified mobile and non-mobile users for more accurate targeting based on uptake.
  • Boost awareness campaign through paid media pinpointing customers eligible to receive ‘Boost Offers’.
  • Ranked customer specials tailored to predictions of the special offers customers were most likely to purchase.

Upon establishing the ability to hyper-personalise content across all digital channels, Countdown ensured to gain internal buy-in by demonstrating the effectiveness of enhanced and competitively differentiated CX enabled by Tealium CDP.

Our vision was to bring all stakeholders along the CDP journey from the outset. In creating blueprints for initial use cases, the team analysed projects holistically, identifying who would benefit today and who might benefit in the future.

With the rise of first-party data, Tealium’s solution activated privacy by design principles to empower us to compete on a robust foundation of trust. From an operational standpoint, Tealium was integral to integrating our martech stack for masterful and modernised data management.

We believe that Tealium has enabled us to serve our valued customers optimally as the digital economy evolves.

Mark Wolfenden

Digital & Loyalty Director — Countdown

Building Retail Resilience

With a successful high-touch CX strategy founded upon a trusted customer view, stakeholders acquired a clear understanding of how data is collected and used throughout the data supply chain. Consequently, Countdown could quantify the value derived from data initiatives in line with its strategic goals.

Amid evolving privacy laws and third-party cookie loss, Countdown implemented Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI), which extended the value of the Tealium platform. In turn, the retailer effectively harnessed first-party data to achieve an outstanding 70% improvement in the Facebook match rate by targeting users that demonstrate a high purchase intent. Countdown further leveraged the benefits of Tealium’s unique integration with Meta’s CAPI to improve advertising performance and increase return on advertising spend (RoAS), whilst enhancing conversions and boosting bottom-line growth.

Additionally, website banner suppression yielded cost reductions and accelerated ROI, whilst demonstrating the unlimited value offered by Tealium’s industry-leading CDP.

Establishing the Foundation for Ever-Increasing Value

Countdown’s initial objective in implementing Tealium’s powerful CDP was to transform into the resilient data-driven enterprise of the future.

Forging a forward-looking and collaborative partnership, Tealium empowered Countdown to instil cross-functional confidence in the CDP’s ability to serve as a consolidated and trusted data source. Consequently, initial successes yielded incremental value to provide the justification for scaling data initiatives across the organisation.

Future Focus on Rewards and Loyalty

In a hyper-dynamic market, incentivisation is essential to customer retention and loyalty. To address this requirement, a key upcoming initiative will unify omnichannel data sources to optimise Countdown’s Rewards website. In enhancing the Rewards website experience, Countdown envisions delivering enriched, authentic and augmented experiences for its most loyal customers.

With the benefit of insight-led, automated and real-time decisioning, loyalty customers will receive an ever-increasing personalised rewards and offers programme – a vital differentiator amid loyalty’s next frontier.

Tealium’s future-ready CDP has fortified Countdown’s enterprise resiliency, and provided the basis from which to realise its sophisticated data ambitions for exceptional retail CX.

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