How Billabong Uses Barilliance's Advanced Product Recommendations Across Sites

Brought to you by Billabong & Barilliance


Billabong is an iconic swimwear retailer.  They are part of a collection of surfwear and board sport accessory brands, including DC Shoes, Roxy and Quicksilver. 


Because of their global presence and multiple brands, it is important that merchandising across assets is easy. This made Barilliance an excellent personalization partner.


We started with their US assets. 


After experiencing the increase in engagements, conversions, and revenue, Billabong decided to roll out the proven solutions across both geographic and brand lines.

This case study focuses primarily on how Billabong makes use of Barilliance's AI and machine learning. 

Using Product Recommendations to Maximize Profits Throughout the Customer Journey

Billabong’s personalization strategy presents relevant offers during each step of the customer journey.

As customers go through the various pages, conversions are optimized by fitting the recommendation logic in real time. To do this, Billabong uses Barilliance's AI capabilities. 

Barilliance recognizes which page the customer is on and automatically adapts the recommendation strategy accordingly.


The recommendation logic is optimized based on a) what the AI knows of the customer and b) the context that the customer is in (which page they are viewing). 

“Recommendation logic is optimized based on a) what the AI knows of the customer and b) the context that customer is in (ex. what page they are viewing).

The home page logic tree is a straightforward example.

On the home page, there are two possibilities.  A visitor can either be a new prospect, who has never engaged the brand before. Or a visitor can be a returning customer, who has previous interactions with either online or offline channels.

By default, Barilliance handles each of these instances differently.

  • For new customers the recommendation widget shows the top selling products.
  • For returning customers the recommendation widget shows products related to recent customer activity (past purchases, recently viewed, top sellers from recently viewed categories).

Billabong is able to specify what metric they would like optimized and allow the recommendation engine to do the rest.

Key Results

15.2%

Ecommerce Conversion Rates on Product Recommendations

+533%

Conversion Rate LIft from Product Recommendations

Personalized Recommendation on Product Pages

I want to walk through a typical customer journey for a Billabong customer, starting with the product page. 



Billabong makes use of two recommendation widgets on product pages. 

The first widget is placed right below the product details. Here they elect to restrict products shown to those that are in the same category. In this case, the product recommendation engine is pulling a combination of top selling, high priced bikini tops. 


When a customer navigates to a different category, the resulting product recommendations change.


Here is an example from Billabong' s shoes category.

These widgets are defined by

  • In-Session Data- First, widgets assess which category the customer is on. Only products that match the same category are presented.
  • Aggregated Purchase Data - Second, the recommendation engine looks across relevant products and selects those that match the optimization criteria set by Billabong. In this case, products that have the highest likelihood of converting. 
  • Static product data - Finally, in settings, Billabong has the recommendation engine favor products with higher price points. 

Adapting recommendations based on in-session data

In addition to the main product page recommendation widget, Billabong makes use of a second "Recently Viewed" widget. 


Here, product recommendations are dynamically updated based on which products customers have viewed. 


These widgets are defined by:

  • Items viewed - user data collected in-session on which products customers viewed. 

Personalized Recommendations on Cart Pages

The next step on the customer's journey is the cart page. 


Here, Billabong is able to offer highly targeted complimentary products. Again, they allow Barilliance's recommendation engine to identify which products are most likely to be bought given the current items in the cart. 

This technique is called collaborative filtering. 


Collaborative filtering can be used to successfully 

  • Increase AOV - through a combination of upsales and cross-sales 
  • Increase profits - as a by product, profits are increased by adding incremental revenue. 
  • Increase LTV - finally, LTV is lifted as each customer is now worth more. This opens up additional marketing opportunities for Billabong, as well as increasing the ROI they receive from their current marketing mix.

Easy Cross Brand and Asset Merchandising

While Billabong itself is a global brand, it is also part of a collection of brands including Quicksilver, DC Shoes, Roxy, and RVCA. 


Each brand has multiple web assets across the globe. For Billabong, it is important to easily replicate success across sites and minimize expenses from duplicated efforts.. 

Using Barilliance to Extend Successful Campaigns

With Barilliance, Billabong is able to easily copy any personalization rule to another property. 

This includes any designed product recommendations. Functionally, this means eCommerce managers are able to edit a rule in one site, and easily replicate it to any number of properties. This

  • Maximizes flexibility - allowing Billabong to create both country specific and global campaigns confidently 
  • Saves IT resources - rules are easy to duplicate across site, without the need for IT
  • Improves results - Billabong is able to quickly replicate successes across properties, increasing revenue, engagement, and profits.

Rosanna Kandel - eCommerce Executive

"Barilliance makes it easy to embed product recommendations. Their design team made them look great and the results are immediate."

About Barilliance

We help retailers increase revenue by creating personalized experiences for their customers across mobile, web, and email.

We do this by aggregating and collecting your data in one place, and using machine learning to automatically create optimal experiences overtime. Partners have the ability to explicitly create personalization strategies that match their own business objects.

Our technology stack has helped well over 500 world class companies, including US Appliances, GANT, and Pushys.

If you believe personalization can help create better experiences for your customers and increase revenues, fill out the form and speak with a personalization expert. Discover if Barilliance is the right partner for you.


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About Barilliance

We help retailers increase revenue by creating personalized experiences for their customers across mobile, web, and email.

We do this by aggregating and collecting your data in one place, and using machine learning to automatically create optimal experiences overtime. Partners have the ability to explicitly create personalization strategies that match their own business objects.

Our technology stack has helped well over 500 world class companies, including US Appliances, GANT, and Pushys.

If you believe personalization can help create better experiences for your customers and increase revenues, fill out the form and speak with a personalization expert. Discover if Barilliance is the right partner for you.