Challenge

With sustainability at the core of ACAI’s brand values, the women-first clothing brand saw massive growth during the early stages of COVID-19 restrictions, when people turned to the outdoors for an escape.

Customers loved the products they were purchasing from the sustainable brand, and the referrals showed. However, even with incredible organic growth via word-of-mouth marketing, the ACAI team felt they needed a way to ensure their referrals would turn into conversions. “With our premium price point, shoppers are often looking for reassurance, which is why reviews and friend referrals are so important,” says Kasia Bromley, founder of ACAI.

As a company that puts its customers first, ACAI wanted a way to better understand customer feedback. The team knew product reviews were critical in collecting and consolidating customer feedback and wanted to ensure they were gathering insights as efficiently as possible. “Our customer is at the heart of everything we do–they’re a strong community of adventurers,” said Martha Tewkesbury, Head of Performance Marketing.

Fostering a lasting community was another key focus point for ACAI. Their marketing reflects their inclusive, supportive outlook at every stage — from the size-inclusive models in their photos to the letter with a message about sustainability from the co-founder delivered with every purchase. The foundation was strong; ACAI just needed a partner who could help optimize their loyal customers by engaging with them on various channels.

Solution

After exploring various Reviews providers, ACAI ultimately chose Yotpo, allowing them to implement Reviews and VUGC alongside SMS. Coming from an agency background, the brand knew many former customers who had used Yotpo and felt it was an easy choice. “Yotpo is easy to use, well-respected among many of my former customers, and it has a lot of credibility around its product innovation,” says Tewkesbury.

Once ACAI set up Reviews, their review collection accelerated. They were simultaneously able to use Yotpo’s Insights tool to help refine and direct their product decisions based on valuable customer insights.

For example, the mid-length Trek Shorts, a popular item for ACAI, were originally made in a shorter length. The Insights tool helped the brand transform customer feedback into actionable insights, giving them the information they needed to adjust the length of their shorts to better suit the needs of their shoppers.

“We received a lot of customer feedback from the Insights tool, saying that customers would love a longer version. So we created a product with a new length, and now they are our best-selling shorts,” says Tewkesbury.

ACAI also used Insights to address fit issues and reduce returns with their Outdoor Softshell Leggings. Specifically, Tewkesbury pointed out “People wanted a product that was slightly easier to get on and off. We re-designed and engineered the waistband to provide a more comfortable fit and reduce the need for people to deviate from buying in their standard size.”

“Feedback from customers is very valuable to us, and things like color preference, how customers are using our products is always shared with the design team,” said Tewkesbury. “Product development uses a lot of customer feedback, and the feedback often goes all the way up to the CEO and co-founders.”

To compliment their adventurous on-the-go audience, ACAI knew they needed to create more seamless mobile-friendly shopping experiences. To help them reach their customers, ACAI worked hand-in-hand with their dedicated CSM to ensure that their other Yotpo products were seamlessly integrated into their tech stack. Thanks to strategic guidance from their CSM, ACAI is finding great success using SMS for promotions and seasonal sales.

In addition to Reviews, VUGC, and SMS, ACAI also decided to launch Referrals with the hope of launching a comprehensive Loyalty program and, down the line, a Subscription program to complete the suite.

Results

After implementing and optimizing their Reviews, VUGC, SMS, and Referrals solutions, ACAI saw clear results.

“Partnering with Yotpo assisted ACAI’s continued growth throughout FY22 in achieving a 76% sales uplift over the previous year,” says Tewkesbury.

In the last year, ACAI saw an average increase of 1,000 new SMS subscribers a month. Their growing SMS audience has translated to an average ROI of 100x on Flows and 9.72x on Campaigns (exceeding the industry benchmark of 3-5x).

Currently, nearly 60% of user-generated content across social media and other marketing channels is pulled from UGC collected through Yotpo. This assists in reducing the workload for their marketing team, and provides compelling organic content to reinforce the brand’s community-oriented values.

Thanks to beautifully designed products made with their customers and customer advocates in mind, ACAI has seen an 8% referral participation rate. They’ve also seen a 37% repeat purchase rate from their customers — a sizable lift over the average repeat purchase rate (27%) of typical Shopify brands. All together, ACAI’s ROI from Referrals alone is 4.5X, and they expect to surpass their already impressive ROI once they add Loyalty to their suite.

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