The company
ASICS is a global leader in footwear and sports apparel. Headquartered in Kobe, Japan, with regional branches worldwide, ASICS operates through a vast network of wholesale partners and a thriving direct-to-consumer (D2C) platform, asics.com.
The challenge
Andrey Prokhorov, the Digital Experience Optimization Manager at ASICS, runs the company's web experimentation program. His team is part of the wider web operations department, which faced a critical challenge: bridging the gap between data and customer experience. They turned to Contentsquare's experience intelligence platform to optimize their experimentation efforts and improve their website experience.
As an ecommerce business, we strive to elevate our digital experience just as physical activity elevates your overall well-being. This is driven by one of our core values, continuous improvement. So, from product development to social initiatives that run well-being campaigns, we strive to keep doing things better.
The ASICS web operations team faced difficulties analyzing user data and translating it into actionable insights, particularly when conducting split tests on their website, due to limited resources.
To run an effective experiment program and achieve their vision of a customer-centric online experience to meet the high standards of their physical stores, Andrey's team needed a solution that could
Provide a deeper understanding of their experimentation results and why a campaign outperformed or underperformed the control
Help them make data-driven decisions through actionable insights, allowing them to save time and avoid building features with little to no impact on revenue or customer experience
Simplify data analysis by offering a user-friendly platform to drive collaboration across departments
That’s where Contentsquare came in.
asics.com homepage
The solution
Andrey's team chose Contentsquare to support their experimentation program and help them better understand user behavior, iterate tests, and ultimately optimize the user experience online.
With Contentsquare, the team was able to
Instantly analyze A/B tests
The team launched a split test of a dynamic pop-up on their homepage, encouraging customers to join their OneAsics membership program.
Analyzing tests on dynamic elements of their site was typically a challenge for the team because these elements aren’t part of the source code and aren't tracked by default.
However, the seamless integration of Contentsquare with the team's A/B testing solution, A/B Tasty, meant they was able to instantly dive into the results. There was no need to configure tracking before launching the experiment, and the team could simply click on the element to see the results within the platform.
The team used Contentsquare's Heatmaps capability to perform an analysis of the ASICS homepage pop-up, encouraging customers to join their OneAsics membership program
Analysis in Contentsquare was easy to set up and we started collecting the data straight away. Moreover, we didn't need to do anything before launching the experiment, which also meant we didn't need to delay the test while preparing the tracking setup for it.
Seamlessly segment A/B test results
After launching another event-based A/B test, triggered by users clicking on a specific filter on their product listing page (PLP), Andrey’s team used the platform to understand the results.
Using Heatmaps, the team was able to quickly gain insight into the sub-segment of users who engaged with the treatment.
“With zoning analysis in Heatmaps, we can create a segment of users who actually interact with the filter,” says Andrey. “That's actually the data we want because we're not really interested in users who just browse the PLP without interacting with it.”
Example of the event-based A/B test showing the idle state (on the left) and the interaction state (on the right)
ASICS was able to use treatment-tailored event selection based on click, scroll rate, and other unique metrics.
You can get all the benefits of event-based targeting with Contentsquare’s zoning analysis. You can select different events like clicks, exposure, scroll, and a number of other metrics that are available on Contentsquare.
Empower collaboration through shared insights
ASICS has adopted a culture of collaboration, enabling effective data sharing across teams and markets. Thanks to the platform's user-friendly interface, all digital teams can access data and align around the same insights, ensuring a consistent and optimized global customer experience.
Previously, the team struggled to identify frustration and fix customer experience issues. Different departments would often recognize problems but lacked clear ownership or resources to resolve them.
The platform has helped the team address this by increasing visibility and transparency around customer concerns, empowering cross-functional teams to collaborate and quickly implement improvements.
Make data-informed decisions through iteration
According to Andrey, being able to surface user behavioral insights has provided a wealth of valuable data. He believes these insights are exactly what’s required for effective experimentation, enabling you to test different variations and see what works best.
Following the initial setup of their experimentation program, iteration has become a key aspect of their testing efforts. Using knowledge gained from the platform, the team is able to continuously iterate and refine their customer experience approach.
Contentsquare capabilities like Session Replay, Customer Journey Analysis, and Impact Quantification provide you with all the insights you need for your experimentation program. And to truly maximize its potential, event-based tracking is essential to unlocking the full power of this data.
The results
Andrey’s team now has a deeper understanding of user behavior, helping them make data-driven decisions that elevate the customer experience online.
Moreover, Contentsquare has enabled ASICS to
Transition to a more comprehensive, behavior-driven approach, improving their experimentation program and ecommerce performance metrics
Identify and fix pain points to create a smoother shopping experience
Maintain revenue growth and continue their mission to improve customer well-being through sport
What's next
Andrey and his team will continue to use data insights to level up their experimentation program.
“We will continue to iterate because this loops the testing cycle, which is the backbone of the experimentation program at ASICS,” says Andrey. He urges all brands to use experimentation in their decision-making, to stay data-informed, and to use split testing to do so.