Client Cases
Hallmark: what was the challenge?
How to revitalize the performance of the strongest gift card brands globally in the Dutch and Belgian market? How to cross-sell from only gift card into gifts, while cherishing our strong brand name in cards? How to avoid becoming over reliant on already very busy seasonal moments like Christmas, Mother's Day and Valentines Day? Many customers know Hallmarks extensive cards assortment, but their gifting assortment, containing thousands of other products, was less well-known.
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We wanted to set up an understandable taxonomy of products that was customer-led, not internally led. Previously the product categorization and taxonomy was fed by internal processes and structuring, not by the question: how does the customer search on our platform? We aimed on building a clear, logical product hierarchy that helped customers navigate intuitively. With items grouped in ways that match how shoppers think, they'll find what they want —reducing frustration and bounce rates.Those were some key challenge that I took on at Hallmark in 2023.
Key results
I helped improving the website and app in a data-driven way, by helping the team use web like Hotjar, Google Analytics, and SemRush in a consistent and effective way. The revamped product taxonomy resulted in a more user friendly platform, where customers could find their products more easily.
This way we succeeded in setting up small day-to-day improvements that increased the conversion rate by 1,6% after half a year. Also, by using our external channels more effectively (socials, CRM, ATL media) we boosted the Hallmark brand and got relevant traffic to our platforms. Total traffic grew by 23 percent vs the previous rate. Also, we managed to increase the attachment rate significantly (1,2%) by improving the assortment that we showed to the Hallmark audience.
Hallmark about Bart
'Working with Bart is really enjoyable. He really helped the team in working from gut feeling to a way more data-driven approach. In every decision he forces you to think, check, and challenge your first gut feeling, and try to back it with data. Nevertheless, also he rewards creativity and thinking out of the box that is needed in this business as well.'
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​Nathalie Kleinepier - Head of Merchandising Hallmark