The AI Secret Behind Smarter Promotions

Philly startup Thrive Commerce helps eBags, SureFit and more keep customers, drive sales and boost order value.

You’ve brought the customer to your site. Your shopper has stocked up on her favorite products. She is starting to checkout…. when suddenly she disappears.

Where’d she go? At least 25% of abandoned shopping carts arise when people seek out discount codes from third-party sites. That, right there, is where retailers lose control.

The codes found at third-party deal sites may be outdated, leading to customer service issues. The sites may direct your valued shopper to a competitor’s product. And a brand then must fork over extra marketing expenses just to get that hard-earned customer back.

Thrive Commerce, based in Philadelphia, has helped brands like AutoZone, Ebags, SureFit and Shoe Carnival appeal to those deal-seekers by delivering personalized promotions using machine learning.

The result? Compared to the rest of their websites site, Thrive found that consumers who interacted with its “smart coupons and pages,” had a 19% to 20% click-through rate on the promotions. As a result, these companies found that 208.5% more people converted and stores saw a 4.9% boost in order value. Overall, retailers have witnessed a 33 X ROI using Thrive.

The secret is tech that lets retailers keep customers on their site by delivering personalized, flexible promotions based on what they’re interested in and details such as the price they may have paid in the past. “It’s like Netflix-style relevance,” says Danny Morrissey, Thrive’s director of business development.

Thrive recognizes that 97% of consumers want deals and discounts. But promotions can be a delicate balance between offering a deal and diminishing your brand value and undercutting your profit margins.

Thrive uses a complex recipe of algorithms that empower retailers to maximize profit, protect their brand image and be selective without damaging the brand. The software creates SEO-optimized landing pages to drive deal-seeking shoppers to the retailer’s site, and the technology also works in tandem with a retailer’s omnichannel presence. When shoppers look up a store locator on a site, the retailer can deliver special promotions and coupons that can be sent via SMS, email and Apple Wallet to their phones to be used in bricks-and-mortar stores.

An upcoming feature will soon be able to model a store’s inventory, margin levels, transaction and takes into account what a shopper is interested in to produce compelling promotions for the omnichannel retailer.

“It’s being smart,” says Morrissey. “It’s not just oversaturalting your site with promotions. Each and every month, we look at what’s working and what’s not.”