The company

From humble beginnings to a global powerhouse, the Cotton On Group has come a long way. Founded in 1991 by in Geelong, Australia, with just a rack of denim jackets and shirts, the company quickly blossomed into a major retail player.

Today, it operates in over 17 countries, boasts five primary brands (Cotton On, Supré, Factorie, Typo, and Cotton On Body) and offers a diverse product portfolio, spanning fast fashion, youth streetwear, quirky stationery, homewares, intimates, and activewear.

Demonstrating a strong commitment to customer experience (CX), Cotton On Group has embraced a comprehensive digital enablement strategy. This strategy focuses on breaking down internal silos, optimizing their eCommerce platform, and leveraging Contentsquare to accelerate their customer-centric initiatives.

The challenges

Cotton On Group’s ecommerce operations were historically segmented into acquisition, brand and core ecommerce functions. 

This fragmentation led to numerous issues, including misalignment in key performance measures (KPIs) and siloed functions primarily focusing on developing new website features—overlooking the holistic customer journey.

Cotton On lacked insight into the holistic journey.

The analytics tools they used (like Google Analytics) lacked real-time visualization capabilities, comprehensive integration across functions and auto-capture of data. 

Faced with these challenges, Matt Spowart, Head of Digital Enablement & Brand Optimisation at Cotton On Group turned to Contentsquare, as it would be easier and more efficient for the team to use.

The solution

When the group restructured its operations, they emphasized a brand-led approach. This shift aimed to align all functions toward common goals focused on enhancing the customer experience. 

As part of this initiative, the group initially trialed Contentsquare to customers on its US site (a key growth market). 

It wasn’t long before the real-time insights and visual representation of data Contentsquare unlocked provided teams within the group with actionable intelligence, fostering a culture of rapid experimentation and iteration. 

Throughout, the Digital Enablement team (comprising UX Design, Product Management, Marketing Technology (MarTech), Platform Optimization and Operations Support) collaborated closely with brand teams to ensure seamless customer engagement across all touchpoints.

Here are the main ways in which the Cotton On Group team was able to meet their objectives.

1. Improving site navigation—and conversion rates

The business grappled with a double-edged sword: high website bounce rates and misaligned customer navigation paths. This meant customers were leaving the site quickly and browsing without buying.

Contentsquare’s platform (with its array of easy-to-use visualization tools) was instrumental in helping the Digital Enablement team to discover what was going on—and to address the underlying causes.

The team used Heatmaps to see where customers were clicking, Session Replay to understand customer behavior from their point of view, and Journey Analysis to understand how customers were making their way through the site from browsing to the point of purchase.

By analyzing these visual journeys, the team could pinpoint the exact areas on the website where customers were getting frustrated and abandoning their shopping experience.

With a clear understanding of customer drop-off points, the company streamlined website navigation, enhancing product discoverability, guiding users towards checkout, and optimizing search with relevant keywords and filters.

Example of Contentsquare's Journey Analysis capability

eCommerce leaders within the Cotton On Group are now using Contentsquare. As a result they are able to see where the customers are landing on the website and where they're going to, which helps them to quickly conclude where they are bouncing.

Matt Spowart

Head of Digital Enablement & Brand Optimisation

2. Benchmarking performance against competitors and improving market knowledge

In the past, the Cotton On Group brand struggled to keep up with the ever-evolving retail landscape. The group lacked the crucial insights needed to understand industry trends and how competitors were performing. This created a blind spot, hindering the brand’s ability to make informed decisions and stay ahead.

But with the access to real-time competitive intelligence Contentsquare’s Benchmarks capability gave them, Cotton On Group could finally benchmark its performance against its peers, tracking metrics like conversion rates, product popularity, and customer behavior on competitor websites through a live dashboard.

By analyzing this data, the Digital Enablement team gained a deeper understanding of market dynamics. They could see what strategies were working well for the Cotton On Group’s competitors and identify areas where they needed to improve.

This newfound knowledge empowered Matt’s team to make data-driven decisions, adjusting marketing campaigns, product offerings and website features to stay competitive in the market. This not only helped them attract new customers but also retain existing ones by providing a shopping experience that rivaled the best in the industry.

3. Optimizing product categories to drive revenue

Certain product categories were consistently underperforming, dragging down overall sales. Identifying the root cause and fixing it was crucial—and Contentsquare provided the missing piece.

The group’s Merchandising team leveraged Contentsquare’s advanced analytics to dissect category performance, analyzing factors like click-through rates on specific products, seeing how long customers stayed on category pages, and understanding how customers navigated within each section.

By identifying the most popular products within each category, the team could understand customer preferences and tailor the product mix accordingly. In addition, Contentsquare revealed areas where the category layout was hindering customer exploration.

These insights empowered the Merchandising team to embark on a strategic re-merchandising exercise. This involved giving prominent placement to popular products within the category to encourage browsing and potential purchases.

The team also optimized the category layout for better flow and user experience, and utilized data to personalize promotions and highlight products that might appeal to customers who have shown interest in the category.

4. Personalizing customer acquisition

Ineffective acquisition strategies were leading to customers arriving on the group’s site who weren't the right fit and churned quickly. Here, Contentsquare's dashboards provided the solution.

By analyzing data on each acquisition channel's performance, Matt’s team could see which channels were attracting customers who actually converted and stuck around. This allowed them to double down on marketing efforts in channels that brought in customers most likely to make repeat purchases.

They could refine or abandon acquisition strategies that weren't attracting valuable customers, and could tailor marketing messages and promotions to specific customer segments based on their acquisition channel.

As a result, the group is now able to attract customers with a higher propensity to stay loyal, leading to improved retention and satisfaction rates.

Our Merchandising team uses Contentsquare to look at the customer’s experience on the site—and to test, learn, and play around with what could be the optimal model to improve conversion and acquisition.

Matt Spowart

Head of Digital Enablement & Brand Optimisation at Cotton On Group

5. Improving the impact of visual content

The Cotton On Group had relied on intuition when designing their homepage, unsure of what content truly resonated with customers. Contentsquare has enabled the brand to understand and focus what truly captures customer attention—and optimize its homepage for engagement and conversion.

One of the first eye-opening revelations Contentsquare unlocked for Matt’s team was that site visitors weren't interacting with content placed below the fold. This prompted them to elevate visually appealing and high-performing content to the top of the fold so that it grabbed attention immediately.

Matt’s team has also used Contentsquare to test different versions of calls to action, product placements and imagery to see what drives the most clicks and engagement—and to continuously refine the group’s homepage content strategy to maximize conversions.

The results

Cotton On Group's journey illustrates the transformative power of a well-structured digital enablement strategy and the impact of real-time insights on customer experience.

By breaking down silos, leveraging powerful analytics tools like Contentsquare, and fostering a culture of rapid experimentation, the group has significantly enhanced its eCommerce operations.

All in all, this customer story highlights the importance of aligning organizational structures with customer-centric goals—and the value of actionable data in driving continuous improvement and global growth.