How Marks & Spencer drove revenue growth with mParticle's real-time segmentation and personalization

Since its inception in Leeds in 1884, Marks & Spencer (M&S) has evolved into a global brand, renowned for its diverse range of products and services. However, the retail landscape that facilitated M&S's rapid growth has drastically changed, with the digital realm increasingly influencing consumer behavior.

Initially, as M&S embraced the digital shift, they encountered a significant challenge. Their marketing data stack, though rich in customer data, led to fragmented insights due to disparate data collection processes across tools. This siloed approach prevented a cohesive understanding of the customer journey, limiting their ability to personalize experiences effectively.

Challenges M&S faced:

• Data silos from various marketing tools: Hindered a cohesive understanding of customer interactions across different channels, leading to fragmented customer experiences.
• Lack of real-time data processing: Made it difficult to meet modern consumer expectations for instant, personalized digital interactions.
• Integration inflexibility: Limited the ability to seamlessly connect with third-party systems, constraining the agility needed to adapt to market changes and customer needs.

To overcome these hurdles, M&S sought a robust solution capable of unifying their customer data and providing a comprehensive view of their clientele.

Why M&S selected mParticle:

• Speed: To power the real-time experiences M&S wanted to deliver, specifically on mobile, they needed to be able to collect, process, and activate customer data in real time.
• Data access: They needed to be able to run queries and build segments independent of engineering.
• Flexibility: They wanted to be able to connect data to a variety of third-party systems without custom development, and to avoid performing maintenance work any time a downstream provider changed their API.
• Identity: The team needed access to 360 customer profiles to deliver one-to-one personalization at scale.

Building this functionality internally would have required significant engineering work. Instead, the team looked to vendors that could be configured to support their needs. After a thorough evaluation of the market, M&S chose to implement mParticle as their Customer Data Platform.

mParticle offered a seamless integration with M&S’s diverse data sources, including mobile apps, website, in-store POS kiosks, and third-party vendors. mParticle's deterministic identity resolution and consent management capabilities further enabled M&S to construct detailed, privacy-compliant customer profiles. 

Today, M&S leverages mParticle’s packaged integrations to sync customer data downstream to their CRM tool, product analytics tools, and media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Pinterest. Because all tools are being powered by the same high-quality data set, the team can place more trust in the accuracy and consistency of the data available in each downstream tool. And as requirements change over time, the team can control which data points are flowing to each downstream system without engineering support.

M&S uses mParticle for:

• Unified customer data: mParticle integrates data from various sources to create a unified view of the customer journey, eliminating data silos.
• Real-time data activation: mParticle enables M&S to process and utilize customer data in real-time, supporting personalized digital experiences.
• Flexible integrations: mParticle offers seamless connectivity with third-party systems without the need for custom development, enhancing operational agility.

One notable project, the Free Basket Award campaign, showcased mParticle’s ability to drive significant CRM revenue, contributing to a yearly incremental revenue of £6.5M. 

This promotion was designed to give one person their shopping for free every day in each store. As they check out, customers scan their Sparks loyalty card at the POS system. Upon completion, transaction data is collected into mParticle in real time, where it is automatically unified to the customer’s cross-channel profile. Next, data is synced to M&S’s CRM, where it is used to power a personalised email letting the customer know that they have won their shopping for free. By unifying online and offline data, mParticle helped M&S deliver more connected and personalized customer experiences, aligning with their core business values. 

This Free Basket Award campaign, powered by mParticle, is responsible for driving 17% of incremental CRM revenue generated per year. 

mParticle’s implementation accelerated M&S's data activation capabilities. The marketing team, empowered by real-time data access, could swiftly launch new campaigns, enhancing their agility and efficiency. The platform’s no-code audience building and integration with CRM and analytics tools ensured consistent data quality across channels, fostering trust in every customer interaction.

The success of M&S’s data strategy isn’t just a story of technology implementation; it’s a narrative of collaboration and partnership. Working closely with mParticle’s Professional Services team, M&S has been able to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities, integrating special builds and customizing to their specific needs. This collaboration has been a testament to the effectiveness of mParticle’s solutions and the strength of their client relationships.

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