Simba’s mission has always been to bring great sleep to the globe. Through technological expertise and innovation, Simba designs sustainable products that solve sleeping problems. Analysing data from 10m+ sleepers and building over 70 prototypes, they re-invented the mattress by creating the unique Simba Hybrid® range of products, all 100% recyclable and made in zero waste facilities in the UK.
esbconnect has a rich, scaled and addressable data set of millions of consumers, built around the email address. With a proprietary customer acquisition platform and a fully opted-in and GDPR compliant database, esbconnect helps brands extend their reach to millions of potential new customers and retain them through first party data builds, data-driven email sends and Inbox Extend (utilising its addressable data sets in social, programmatic, postal and TV).
Here’s how Awin connected Simba with esbconnect to create an email campaign strategy that would help Simba achieve its goals and drive landmark performance.
The challenge
In August 2023, ahead of Q4’s peak, Simba’s aims were two-fold: to identify its most effective creative assets (imagery, sales copy etc.) and to measure the effectiveness of personalised messaging.
To achieve these goals, Simba planned a series of email campaigns using different combinations of their assets to test which performed best. By creating these targeted sends to multiple audiences, Simba planned to build a comprehensive testbed of customers using their various messaging options.
Utilising the email channel also allowed key success metrics such as email opens and clicks to be evaluated, objectively identifying the best combination of assets. This strategy also provided Simba with valuable data to inform future partnerships and campaigns.
esbconnect were suggested by Awin as an ideal partner to facilitate this campaign and achieve Simba’s goals. Their first-party data provided the audience segmentation necessary for the test to succeed alongside the ability to split test and feedback on each of those audiences. esbconnect’s data also provides in-depth information on individuals’ attributes and behaviours which could be used to further optimise the activity.
The solution
After briefing esbconnect on their audience, Simba agreed on a 500,000 user campaign over the course of 10 days. Each consumer received a cadence of two emails with a final retargeting send to everyone who had read or clicked the email:
- 1st email – introducing consumers to the brand
- 2nd email – driving engagement
- Retargeting email – creating urgency to purchase
Simba provided five images: four using the same assets as their new TV ad, but each with individual copy and the fifth using BAU imagery with a sale message. esbconnect provided five different subject lines, optimised for each version of the send.
To measure each of the email’s effectiveness, esbconnect advised net click through rate (nCTR = clicks / delivered emails) as the key success metric as email open rates are heavily skewed by the user’s device or browser.
The results
The campaign generated the following results, benchmarked against esbconnect’s own engagement data from the same vertical as Simba:
- Open rate: 59% (benchmark is around 33%).
- CTR: 0.54% (benchmark is around 0.72%).
- nCTR: 0.32% (benchmark is 0.24%)
- Clicks: 5k
- Revenue: £25k
- ROI: +300%
Beyond just the performance figures though, Simba were also able to gather invaluable insights on how audiences interacted with their campaign. For instance, their best performing messaging didn’t include the term ‘sale’ in it.
Shoppers aged between 30-50 were most likely to engage with the campaign, with females more inclined to open an email but males more likely to actively engage and click through to the Simba website.
There were even nuances in which assets performed best. Those with clear creative and direct copy that featured a percentage off rather than an amount discount did particularly well, while lighter coloured imagery did better than darker.
With this level of insight at their disposal Simba not only saw value in the campaign for driving sales and awareness but also in its ability to help them better understand how their intended audience responded to their own marketing assets.
“It’s incredibly convenient to have Awin assist in recruiting partnerships similar to esbconnect. Their extensive knowledge and strong relationships with partners streamline everything, from the onboarding process to launching campaigns. The Awin team excels at providing excellent support in this regard.”
Estelle Dugué, Partnerships Lead
