• by Jess Nelson , March 16, 2016

Athletic apparel retailer Finish Line was awarded the eTail Best-In-Class Award for its data-driven College Fleece email marketing campaign this month.

Powered by Movable Ink and the Experian Marketing Suite, Finish Line’s data-driven email campaign is a great case study for marketers looking to be creative with their own internal and/or third-party data.

Finish Line not only leveraged behavioral data to identify the correct audience to send its messages to, but the company also incorporated those data points to create the most relevant email content to engage with consumers on an ongoing and individualized basis.

The results added to Finish Line’s pockets, as the College Fleece email marketing campaign resulted in a 42% year-over-year increase in College Fleece revenue, 30% increase in revenue per email sent, 24% increase in transaction rates and a 21% click-through rate (CTR) increase.

In order to create its award-winning email strategy, College Fleece worked with Movable Ink, an email marketing technology company, and Experian Marketing Suite, a cloud-based marketing and data services platform, to optimize email engagement.

Finish Line partnered with the Experian Marketing Suite to unify and analyze Finish Line’s first party data, with the additional analysis of Experian marketing data and third-party data sourced from like-minded audiences.

Leveraging those data-driven insights, Movable Ink then powered the dynamic content behind Finish Line’s emails to provide individualized content to each recipient. Movable Ink leveraged geotargeting and real-time third-party data, such as Sports Illustrated football power rankings, to deliver more relevant and engaging content to customers interested in receiving it.

In addition, Movable Ink also continuously engaged with Finish Line’s audience with promotional content, live polling and countdown clocks to game kickoff time.

“Our goal with the College Fleece program was to increase engagement and conversions by providing culturally relevant moments and promotions to each individual team fan, and Movable Ink made it possible,” states Reed Pankratz, senior digital brand email strategist for Finish Line. “This award is a testament to the continued successful partnership we have with Movable Ink.”

Vivek Sharma, CEO of Movable Ink, says Finish Line’s campaign is just one example of many types of data that marketers can integrate into their email marketing strategy and campaigns.

"There are countless types of data that marketers can pull into their emails to inform and entertain customers -- while also boosting ROI,” says Sharma. “Whether it's first-party data, geo-location and other real-time data, or even public information such as the time remaining until an event starts, marketers should focus on using data to add context and deliver a richer user experience. As Finish Line demonstrated with their College Fleece program, marketers reap the greatest reward when they use data to provide content that speaks to recipients as individuals with personal interests, not just a group of paying customers." 

Founded in 2010, Movable Ink now works with more than 300 enterprise brands and provides dynamic, real-time, automated and personalized content to email marketing campaigns. The company works with any email service provider.

The sixth annual eTail retail conference honored five companies for outstanding performance in email, search, retail innovation, social media and mobile at the eTail West gala awards reception in Palm Springs. In addition to Finish Line’s win in the email category, Domino’s took home the social and retail innovation prices, Lids conquered the search category and American Eagle took home the mobile award.