UX Insights: How THE ICONIC Built a Best-in-class User Experience to Supercharge Growth Across Platforms and Increased Email-to-App Traffic by 10%

THE ICONIC is Australia and New Zealand’s leading online fashion, sports, and lifestyle retailer. Launched in 2011, THE ICONIC is home to over 1,000 brands and 80,000 items, including international brands like Nike, Calvin Klein, and Adidas. THE ICONIC has continually invested in creating a seamless and inspiring shopping experience for its customers by building relevant features and functionality across its website and app.

As part of its growth strategy and vision to create a seamless shopping experience, THE ICONIC team utilises key customer engagement channels such as email, SMS, and web to ensure their customers receive an optimum experience across their platforms. After discovering that app users were amongst their most valuable customers, app-user acquisition and engagement have become a crucial part of THE ICONIC’s mobile strategy. 

With Branch’s deep linking solution, THE ICONIC built user flows to drive users contextually to their app from mobile web, desktop and email, offering a more seamless and personalised shopping experience. 

As Melle Staelenberg, Director of Customer Marketing at THE ICONIC, shares:

“Pushing customers to our market-leading mobile app is a key objective. To do this we’ve leveraged journey banners across key points of our customer’s path to purchase with relevant calls to action, including app-exclusive experiences and offers. We know that once we get customers to our app, we see higher engagement across our entire ICONIC offering. This includes an increase in the frequency of visits to the site and increased repurchase rates.”

Let’s look at some of the ways THE ICONIC uses Branch deep links throughout its customer journey to increase web-to-app conversions and encourage app engagement.

1. Mobile Web Journeys Banners

The ICONIC displays Journeys banners across THE ICONIC and THE ICONIC OUTLET mobile websites to users on various pages. Because the UI/UX of Journeys banners can be customised according to where the user is on the mobile site, previous user behavior, and interactions with the brand, THE ICONIC is able to personalise the web-to-app experience for its users. Messaging is customised for users interacting with different pages and in different mindframes, such as:

  • A banner that highlights app-only capabilities, such as THE ICONIC’s sneaker-try-on augmented reality feature, to users browsing their mobile website 

Screenshot of an augmented reality shopping experience with a call to action to download the app.

  • A banner shown to users on THE ICONIC’s Wishlist page to promote the same feature in the app

Screenshot of THE ICONIC wishlist screen with an ad to download the app.

  • A banner on THE ICONIC’s women’s and men’s sale page to promote in-app sales 

Screenshot of THE ICONIC women's top sale screen with an ad at the bottom to be notified about sales by downloading the app.

  • A less intrusive  “Open in App” banner displayed to existing app users to remind them to continue their shopping experience in the app
Screenshot of THE ICONIC women's clothing new arrives shopping screen.

 

  • A banner promoting a specific promotional campaign
Screenshot of a "25% off most wishlisted" offer with a call to action to shop on the app

 

2. Email Campaigns

In addition to Branch Journeys, THE ICONIC uses Branch deep links throughout its email campaigns. Email is an essential channel for THE ICONIC. By implementing Branch deep links throughout its emails, THE ICONIC CRM team is able to seamlessly route users on their mobile phone from email to the app. 

When a user clicks a product link in a newsletter, they are deep linked directly to that product or product list within the app, instead of redirecting to the mobile web.

Screenshot of how THE ICONIC CRM team uses Branch deep links in newsletter campaigns to deep link users directly to the app.

In 2020, THE ICONIC increased traffic to its app from email marketing by 10%. Plus, THE ICONIC can now visualise each newsletter’s overall down-funnel performance to optimise the app for future campaigns.  

3. Editorial Content

And finally, The ICONIC uses Branch deep links throughout its editorial content. THE ICONIC Edition is designed to provide style inspiration, trends, advice, and lookbooks edited by THE ICONIC’s creative team.

THE ICONIC Edition editorial team leverages deep links throughout their feature posts to drive engagement to products and product categories mentioned. If a post mentions a specific product, brand, or category, THE ICONIC utilises Branch links to contextually deep link users to the particular landing page on the desktop, website, or app, depending on the reader’s platform. If the user already has the app installed, they are taken inside the app to receive a better overall user experience.

Brands who create content catered to their product lines can use Branch links to measure that content’s performance across both their web and the mobile app.

Screenshot of how THE ICONIC used Branch deep links in their editorial content, like blogs, to link users directly to product and category pages inside the app.

These deep linking strategies have been instrumental in driving cross-platform user acquisition and engagement and have created a better overall user experience for THE ICONIC app users.

Ready to learn how Branch can jumpstart your cross-platform user acquisition and engagement efforts? Contact our sales team or sign up for the Branch dashboard to get started.