Drew Brosnan

Room IV: the escalator ascends

A billion dollars, attributed

Engagement
Macys.com
Role
Marketing Acquisition Manager
Period
2014 → 2016
Location
San Francisco, CA

At Macys.com I ran a team of three and a $30M annual ad budget, about a third of Macy’s yearly search budget, across seven business functions. Attributed revenue grew 10% year over year to $1B for 2015, with holiday ecommerce revenue up 25% year over year.

The landscape

Macy’s search program was an institution, and retail institutions live and die by the holiday season. The scale made everything harder: seven business functions, four paid channels, a third of the company’s yearly search budget, and roughly 250,000 creatives no team could test by hand. On top of that, the bid-management platform had to move from Marin to Kenshoo without missing the holiday deadline.

The approach

I treated it as an engineering problem wearing a marketing badge. Creative testing was automated across roughly 250,000 creatives. Flash-sale tracking, a complex measurement problem, ran on Adobe Analytics and IBM Coremetrics. I wrote Python for supply-chain inventory and intraday cost dashboards. I moved Macy’s into Google and Bing shopping ads while the text and display channels kept running. And I led the Marin to Kenshoo migration, which cut SEM SaaS cost 30% and landed on the holiday deadline.

  • Grew attributed revenue 10% YoY to $1B for 2015 across paid search, display, retargeting, and product listing ads.
  • Led the Marin to Kenshoo bid-management migration: SEM SaaS cost down 30%, delivered on the holiday deadline.
  • Automated creative testing across roughly 250,000 creatives.
  • Moved Macy’s into Google and Bing shopping ads while optimizing the existing text and display channels.
  • Wrote Python for supply-chain inventory and intraday cost dashboards.

The projects

  1. 01

    A third of the search budget

    A $30M annual budget across seven business functions and four paid channels, with attributed revenue grown 10% year over year to $1B for 2015.

    • Supervised a team of three across PPC, display, retargeting, and product listing ads.
    • Owned more than a third of Macy’s yearly search budget.
    • $1B attributed revenue, 2015 up 10% year over year
    • +25% holiday ecommerce revenue YoY optimized search and display
  2. 02

    Marin to Kenshoo before the holiday

    An RFP and platform migration for bid management that cut SEM SaaS cost 30% and landed before the holiday freeze.

    • Led the RFP and the transition project team.
    • Delivered on the holiday deadline, the one date retail does not move.
    • 30% SEM SaaS cost cut
    • Marin
    • Kenshoo
  3. 03

    A quarter million creatives, tested by script

    Automated testing across roughly 250,000 creatives on a frequent promotional cadence, with flash-sale tracking built in Adobe Analytics and IBM Coremetrics.

    • Wrote the automation that iterated and tested the creative set.
    • Built complex flash-sale tracking in Adobe Analytics and IBM Coremetrics.
    • ~250K creatives under automated testing
    • Adobe Analytics
    • IBM Coremetrics
    • Python
    1. Exhibit I The test matrix: promotions down, product lines across.
  4. 04

    Into Google and Bing shopping

    Macy’s moved into Google and Bing shopping ad formats while the existing text and display channels kept their efficiency.

    • Launched product listing ads on Google and Bing.
    • Kept text and display optimized through the transition.
  5. 05

    Python for inventory and intraday cost

    Scripts for supply-chain inventory and an intraday cost tracking dashboard, so spend decisions could be made during the day rather than after it.

    • Wrote the inventory scripts that fed merchandising decisions.
    • Built the intraday cost dashboard the team ran on.
    • Python
I learned at Macy’s that a holiday deadline is not a metaphor.

The exhibits

  1. Exhibit II The holiday calendar the migration had to beat.

The results

  • $1B attributed annual revenue for 2015 up 10% year over year across search, display, retargeting, and product listing ads
  • 30% SEM SaaS cost cut Marin to Kenshoo migration, delivered on the holiday deadline
  • ~250K creatives under automated testing with complex flash-sale tracking in Adobe Analytics and IBM Coremetrics
  • +25% holiday ecommerce revenue YoY through optimized search and display campaigns

The apparatus

  • Marin
  • Kenshoo
  • Adobe Analytics
  • IBM Coremetrics
  • Python

Sound like your problem? Get in touch.