Vincent Schut, Online Shop Manager at Bakker.com, presented at a webwinkel vakdagen conference on growing Bakker.com's online business. Bakker.com is a distant garden product seller that delivers to 19 European markets. Vincent discussed Bakker.com's brand positioning focused on the joy of gardening, personas and market research showing interest in gardening advice, and a transition to a new e-commerce platform to improve the customer experience. He also presented a case study on using Facebook advertising, finding that segmentation was key to success across European markets, with best performing content varying significantly by country and audience.

1. Author:
Date:
GROW YOUR SMILE
Webwinkel vakdagen
Utrecht, 19 January 2017
Vincent Schut, Online Shop Manager Bakker.com

2. 2

3. AGENDA:
1. Introduction Bakker.com
2. Brand positioning
3. Persona’s & persons
4. Bakker in transition
5. Facebook acquisition case

4. 4
• Distant selling B2C
• Delivery to 19 European
markets
• 100% privately owned
• Per season assortment of
4.000 articles of Dutch
origin
• 3,4 million orders per year
• Turnover € 120 million
annually (incl. VAT),
95% generated outside NL
Introducing Bakker

5. 5
150 million bulbs annually
• Distant selling B2C
• Delivery to 19 European
markets
• 100% privately owned
• Per season assortment of
4.000 articles of Dutch
origin
• 3,4 million orders per year
• Turnover € 120 million
annually (incl. VAT),
95% generated outside NL
Introducing Bakker

6. Introducing Bakker
• Distant selling B2C
• Delivery to 19 European
markets
• 100% privately owned
• Per season assortment of
4.000 articles of Dutch
origin
• 3,4 million orders per year
• Turnover € 120 million
annually (incl. VAT),
95% generated outside NL
6
Sales

7. AGENDA:
1. Introduction Bakker.com
2. Brand positioning
3. Persona’s & persons
4. Bakker in transition
5. Facebook acquisition case

8. 8
“Who are you and
what business are you in?”
Direct Mail company?
Logistics company?
Agri company?
Distant seller?Retailer?

9. Vision
For a happy life it is
essential to have
green around
Proven by multiple scientific
researches
9

10. Mission
10
It is our mission:
To bring more green…

11. Mission
It is our mission:
“To bring more green
into more peoples
lives…
…so we provide
everything to enjoy
gardening…
…because gardening
makes confident
and proud.”
11

12. Ambition
To become the leading
Pan-European multi-
channel garden
company
12

13. Positioning pyramid
Advice &
inspiration
Brand promise
Proof points
Base
The joy of growing your own
Gardening gives true satisfaction and
pride
At Bakker.com you can buy anything
you need for joyful gardening
We help and inspire you to make
gardening a fulfilling experience
We inspire you to active gardening
Bakker makes it easy and joyful

14. AGENDA:
1. Introduction Bakker.com
2. Brand positioning
3. Persona’s & persons
4. Bakker in transition
5. Facebook acquisition case

15. Client focus groups; dialogue with real clients
4 FOCUS GROUPS:
- Young urban, 25+
- Young family, 30+
- Mature family, 40+
- Senior, 60+
RESEARCH TOPICS:
- Type of garden
- Garden interest
- Source, inspiration, tips
- (Online) shopping behaviour
15

16. Personas; unified values throughout Europe

17. 17
Yet, huge differences per country in demand

18. AGENDA:
1. Introduction Bakker.com
2. Brand positioning
3. Persona’s & persons
4. Bakker in transition
5. Facebook acquisition case

19. Key insights: gardening is hot!
• Urban gardening
• Vertical gardens
• Grow your own
• Eco trend
• Zen gardens
• Green education
19

20. Key insights: real need for gardening advise
• Gardening know-
how is rapidly
diminishing over
generations
• The need for
(online) gardening
advice is
dramatically
growing
20

21. Key insights: inspiration
• The desire to be
inspired is even
larger
• Your garden as
extension of
your personal
identity
21

22. Sales through innovation; exclusives
• Bakker bought
the whole crop
from growers
• These items can
only be bought
at Bakker.com
22

23. Sales through innovation; product development
• Solution for
garden novices
• Easy to use;
100% guarantee
• Gardening made
fun
23

24. Sales through innovation; product development
• Offering garden
solutions
• Fitting individual
needs
• With room for
personal
adaptations
24

25. Invest in content for relevance
Bakker starts the customer
journey through inspiration
and advice:
• 800 category pages
• 300 editorials on
gardening
• One-minute video’s to
share; the garden hacks
• M2 garden video’s
• Garden expert instruction
video’s
• Inspiration video’s
• Online garden course
with 24 monthly lessons
25

26. 26

27. A new platform was needed for:
product, inspiration and advice
27
Criteria for selecting new e-commerce platform
Fast international roll out (20 markets!)
Focus on Customer Experience & Conversion
Ease of use for e-commerce team; content marketing
Mobile adaptable (four versions)
Technical performance: fast & stable, even at high load

28. New e-commerce platform
28

29. Search & merchandising tool: optimizing CRO
29
• Cross and upsell
• Creating relevancy
• Automatically adapting product
suggestions to actual sales
volume per country
• 285 campaigns per market
• Created 6.500 positions for
sales & customer driven
optimization

30. Mobile adaptable
• Uploaded 9.500
(19 x 500) content
articles in new site
structure
• 40% of
Bakker.com
newsletters is
opened on mobile
30

31. Learnings for growth
• Average number of
products bought increased
from 2.5 to 3
• AOV increased
• Average time spent per
page significantly
increased (engagement)
• Conversion increased
• Warning: no transition plan
implemented facing huge
drop in SEO results
• Warning: check external
link building
Use expertise for SEO
31

32. AGENDA:
1. Introduction Bakker.com
2. Brand positioning
3. Persona’s & persons
4. Bakker in transition
5. Facebook acquisition case

33. Using Facebook as online acquisition channel
Objective test case:
1. Test if Facebook Advertising could generate profitable new customers in Europe.
2. Gain insights regarding social media behavior in the garden category in the
various countries within various audiences with various messages.
Campaign set up via Social Lab (Ogilvy):
• We launched a Conversion Pixel campaign via Facebook.
• We created 24 posts in total to find out what products would sell best.
• Test results plus Google Analytics gave estimated conversion figures.
• We ran Link Click ads in eight countries for approx. six weeks.

34. Target audience selection
34
All used audiences for the TP2 campaign are also divided by gender and age

35. Creatives
35
Each post had several copy versions (tone of voice), and various croppings
In total, there were 24 posts per country

36. Results: best performing posts
36
• Big differences in CPC and CPA
• Best performing content varies per country

37. Best performing creatives
37
Cost per Click*/**
€ 0,55
€ 0,72
€ 0,77
€ 0,78
€ 0,91
CPC= € 0,49 CPC= € 0,50 CPC= € 0,57
Example: Germany
Creatives from low to high CPC
• In Germany the Black Lily performed best. The CPC of
this ad is 65% lower than from the worst performing ad.
• Close-up imagery led to a significant lower CPC.
• Exclusivity & scarcity worked better than % discount.

38. Conclusions Social Advertising
1. We saw a profitable business case for multiple countries. Facebook can be a great
addition to our online performance media.
2. There are large variations between the countries regarding CPC and CPA especially
when you zoom in on copy and visuals (close shots vs. wider shots)
3. There are also variations between target audiences. Sometimes the best performing
audiences were completely new audiences for bakker.com (POI)
4. As a result we can’t execute an one-size-fits-all strategy for Europe.
Segmentation is key for success. For every country, for every target audience we
need specific visuals and copy to get the optimal result.
Overall conclusion: segmentation is key for success in cross-
border social media advertising
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39. Thank you