About 6thStreet
6thStreet is the largest omnichannel e-commerce destination that offers high-street fashion and beauty brands in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar. As one of the most popular destinations for footwear in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, 6thStreet offers the largest collections from over 1,200 international brands and 100,000 styles. Some of their brands include Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Dune London, Charles & Keith, Crocs, Birkenstock, Skechers, Levi’s, Nike, adidas, and Rituals.
6thStreet launched its iOS and Android app in 2018 to drive additional revenue and create a better digital experience for customers. Because the Middle East is a region with heavy app usage, 6thStreet knew its users would have high expectations for the app’s simplicity and usability.
In addition, 6thStreet provides free 100-day returns — both in-store and online — as well as cash on delivery. It also offers their most-valued customers a click-and-collect option that integrates in real-time with over 2,000 stores.
Challenges
With 75% of 6thStreet’s app traffic on iOS, the release of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework substantially impacted their ad spend effectiveness and overall acquisition strategy. In particular, 6thStreet noticed app install campaigns in self-attributing networks (SANs) contributed to less engaged app users at a higher cost than before.
The users 6thStreet acquired through app install ads also tended to uninstall the app shortly after onboarding. Furthermore, the ability of ad networks to retarget iOS users had declined significantly, making it nearly impossible to re-engage existing iOS app users. To make things even more difficult, the marketing team at 6thStreet needed to tackle all these mounting challenges quickly, before the high e-commerce season of Ramadan began on April 12, 2022.
Solution
For their Ramadan campaign, the performance marketing team at 6thStreet decided to switch from app install ads to web-based ads with ad networks such as Meta, Google Ads, and TikTok. This allowed them to redirect traffic from the ads to their website instead of the app stores. Then, the team used Branch Journeys smart banners to target web visitors coming from these ad networks. They offered these web visitors discounts for in-app orders, which prompted them to install the 6thStreet app.
Journeys brought personalization into the mix of acquisition strategies for 6thStreet, which was a big app install driver, especially during the festive promotions of the Ramadan season. Having Branch Journeys baked into app install ads enabled 6thStreet to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time.
Journeys enabled 6thStreet to bridge the gap between their web and app with personalized messaging, design variations, and sales offers. 6thStreet’s results were in line with Branch’s data, which shows that personalizing the user experience with Journeys can increase click-through rates 6x compared to standard web banners.
6thStreet also created separate Journeys banners for each ad network’s traffic. This made it possible to differentiate each ad network’s performance in terms of new app users acquired through web-based ads.
Switching from app install ads to web-based ads with SANs, combined with web-to-app Journeys, allowed 6thStreet to drive more web traffic. On the web, new users could learn more about the brand and their offers, and highly engaged users could install the 6thStreet app to continue their buying journey.
To amplify their personalization efforts, 6thStreet also implemented Branch deep links to improve the user app onboarding experience. With deep links, 6thStreet could route users to the exact in-app content through an install. This increased lifetime value (LTV), loyalty, and revenue compared to when users were brought in directly from a generic landing page.
Results
Thanks to Branch, 6thStreet saw a 60% growth in app installs month-over-month with 7% of that from Journeys banners, 13% return on ad spend (ROAS) growth, and 70% drop in uninstall rate month-over-month.
6thStreet’s impressive results show other e-commerce brands the blueprint to acquire highly engaged app users and re-engage existing users at a low spend. The key is Branch.
“Branch Journeys is a fantastic feature that helps us convert our website into a source of new app downloads and purchases. To scale customer acquisition via our prospecting campaigns, we have increased our web traffic. With the help of Branch Journeys, we show personalized banners on the mobile web which has greatly increased our web-to-app conversions.”
Ankit Bansal, Head of Digital Marketing
6thStreet
