Lakeland’s introduction of social proof messaging from Taggstar has proved so successful it is now looking to explore extending the messaging into email and display ads, as well as introducing animated icons to messages to drive conversion rates even further than its initial 5% average uplift.
Customer background
Lakeland is one of the UK’s home shopping pioneers, having been founded in the early 60s by the Rayner family. Three brothers – Sam, Martin and Julian – in need of pocket money over the school holidays helped their dad count polythene bags for freezing into packs of 100 to sell from the family garage in Windermere. Today the company, which is still family-owned, sells more than 4,000 kitchen and home products which are sent out from its Kendal despatch centre or sold through more than 60 stores across the UK. All its products are backed by a three-year guarantee.
The challenge
Lakeland wanted to look at how to drive incremental sales for the brand. Matt Elliott, Lakeland’s Head of Digital and Acquisition, had worked with Taggstar in a previous company, so had already experienced the success of social proof messaging and wanted to see the results it could drive for Lakeland. “We want to look at onboarding anything that is a proven incremental growth lever for the business. It’s hard to come by technology that almost has a guarantee around incrementality, but with Taggstar, it does,” he says.
The solution
Lakeland ran its initial evaluation test with Lakeland in April 2023 with a full-funnel implementation across PDP, PLP and Basket pages. The evaluation comprised twelve message types, including Popular! X others are looking at this right now; Trending Now! Sold X times in the last X hours and Great Choice. Added to cart X times in the last 48hrs.
The results
The test reached statistical significance in three/four weeks, delivering an average 5% uplift in conversion, which represented a 15X ROI. Lakeland believes that with further experimentation and rollout of social proof messaging, the company can drive conversion rates even higher.
Elliott says his previous experience with Taggstar’s social proof messaging meant that he was confident it would also deliver positive results for Lakeland too. “It is one of those things that Lakeland looked at, and I said it will work, and they said, why will it make any difference?” Thankfully it did.
Lakeland is now looking to add animated messages to its social messaging strategy, as well as considering the implementation of scarcity messaging to advise customers when stock is running low. The company is also considering the integration of social proof into its email and display ad campaigns.
Elliott recommends others look to the power of Taggstar’s social proof messaging to see the results for themselves. “It’s a no-brainer. It proves itself and pays for itself multiple times over. It’s one of those things people look at and might think, does that really work – and it just does. I’d encourage anybody that hasn’t tried it to speak to Taggstar, put a proof of concept together and let the numbers speak for themselves.”
Peter Buckley, CRO at Taggstar, said: “We are so pleased when clients we have worked with in other retail businesses want to introduce Taggstar’s social proof messaging to their new companies. And it’s great when their faith in our technology is proved correct, and they deliver positive results again.”
