Data-driven approach boosts digital for Sam's Club

Generating traffic and results from online to offline is the goal of 100 out of 100 retailers, but how to do it effectively? The project developed by Cadastra, a global company providing technology, marketing, consulting, data, and analytics solutions, for Sam's Club, a membership-only retail warehouse club operated by Walmart Inc., points out some important paths: the intensive use of cookieless data, agile work methodologies, and advanced media distribution technologies. With this, in a relatively short period, through an innovative strategy, Cadastra helped increase new leads by 105% through digital channels, along with a growth of 10 percentage points compared to the previous year. This result contributed to boosting Sam's Club's physical sales, being one of the highlights of the quarterly report of the Walmart Group in the first quarter of 2023.

"Our main objective was to increase the acquisition of new members via digital channels, but in the case of Sam's Club, there is not a total segregation between online and offline, as consumers' digital interactions with the brand often lead to visits to physical stores, and vice versa. Therefore, we delved deep into the situation and promoted enhancements throughout the entire digital journey, with emphasis on data and media areas," says Alyne Miyagawa, Associate Partner and Director of Business & Strategy at Cadastra.

"The consumer's attention is currently very dispersed across various media, making it very difficult to reach the right person on the right platform at the right time. However, by maximizing the potential of digital media tools, including automation, AI, and integrating online and offline data, it is possible to reach consumers with a higher propensity to join, as well as to develop relationships to maintain recurrence," explains Claudia Vilhena, Senior Director of Membership, CRM, CX, Data, and Loyalty at Sam's Club.

In terms of data, the main challenge was, based on the behavior and characteristics of the current base, to identify which consumer profile is most likely to become a member without using cookies and considering LGPD regulations. Using a data lake and market databases, Cadastra created affinity lists from the most engaged portion of the member base to seek similar profiles on social networks and digital media in general (there are even in-house resources dedicated to this area). This way, it was possible to reach this audience through continuously optimized campaigns.

This complex work could only be carried out through the merger of specialized knowledge from various disciplines (marketing, media, creation, technology, SEO, CRM, data, analytics, business, UX, etc.) and a posture of continuous development and testing. For this, Cadastra adopted a squad martech format with its own agile framework (CAF - Cadastra Agile Framework) that accesses knowledge from various disciplines and chapters (departments) for a unified impact delivery. In addition to the framework, this format includes systematic events, processes, and rituals for work execution with constant adjustment and improvement.

Monitoring data and consumer insights also led to another initiative. A page with content related to products, about special coffees, was created on the wholesaler's website (a great interest of the most engaged members), which generated significant organic relevance for the brand, reaching a profile of consumers interested in Sam's Club's value proposition, which has a strong focus on own and exclusive imported brands.

"This entire project also has a strong consultative character, in order to identify the main bottlenecks and then orchestrate the various disciplines and teams involved. As a result, we achieved greater integration and even more solid results," concludes Alyne, from Cadastra.

Article originally published in Abramark.