Puma Uses Analytics with Success

For quite some time, Puma was in trouble. The German brand had fallen well behind its more “exciting” competition and sales were stagnant. However, in 2015, the company did something extraordinary: it made more in revenue than its well publicized competitor, Under Armour. 


As Bloomberg noted, “the German sportswear maker is in comeback mode. Its profits are reviving and its shares are surging -- a mirror image to its similarly sized U.S. rival, which is reeling from a sales slowdown and a stock slump” (Weiss 2017). 

What accounts for this improvement in sales? Certainly, the brand associates itself with world class athletes like Usain Bolt and popular figures such as Rihanna, which helps matters a great deal. However, there is a great deal of work that the brand did behind the scenes to help improve e commerce sales, and that work begins and ends with Google analytics. 

At the end of the day, web analytics are just one more tool to help us understand our audience. As Richard Lazazzera writes, “If you owned a physical storefront, you have the ability to see you customer. You can view their habits firsthand and speak with them. Without ecommerce analytics, an online store leaves you blind to much information about your visitors and customers you would ordinarily get to see” (Lazazzera).

Indeed, speaking about the improvement in eCommerce, Jay Basnight, Head of Puma’s Digital Strategy department, said "Google Analytics lets us help our customers. We’ve seen some spectacular results working with Viget, and we’re thrilled with GA as a tool. For every decision we’ve faced, GA’s been there to answer the call” (Puma Kicks Up). 

More specifically, Puma used “custom filters and profiles also in Google Analytics to create a holistic view of each Puma category present on PUMA.com site. With the help of advanced features like “Event Tracking” of Google Analytics, it was able to measure interactions with different page elements and do Advanced Segments for its goal of region wise isolation” (Ramteke 2014). This does speak to the real power of Google Analytics. Every single customer experience can be monitored and tweaked with the end goal of making everything run a bit smoother. And if these tools can help a huge brand like Puma, I would imagine they could be useful for just about everyone who wants to manage an eCommerce site. 

In concrete terms, this strategy has already paid dividends. By monitoring web analytics, Puma found that there was a significant amount of drop-off and confusion when customers would visit their sites. They went to work fixing this issue and the new design, “which was intended to provide a simpler and more useful shopping experience, has already boosted conversion rates by 10% to 20% and increased average order value by 12%” (Demery 2014). The team at Puma truly respects these tools, and “the new site is also helping Puma to better gather and analyze data on how online customers shop and on their preferences for product designs” (Demery 2014). So not only is Puma using analytics to improve their own sales, they’re also using these analytics to improve future shoe lines to become more in line with what their customers actually want, based on monitored customer behavior. 

Additionally, Google Analytics have helped the brand launch incredibly specific product lines that have proven to be successful. Take, for example, Puma’s customized jersey line. In 2015, Puma launched a “Powered by the Fans” product that allowed fans of the British football club Arsenal to design their own jerseys and purchase them through Puma’s eCommerce site. Using analytics, the company was able to determine that these jerseys proved extremely popular and quickly set to developing software that allowed individuals to buy custom jerseys from other clubs as well. As Alicia Fiorletta noted, since “PUMA launched its custom jersey tool on June 15, 2015, in the U.S. and UK, the brand has seen a surge in consumer interest and conversions. In fact, customized jerseys now account for more than 50% of all orders” (Fiorletta 2015). 

So, obviously, the brand appreciates what analytics brings to the table. Which does make it seem like they are missing out on improving their search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities. As GQ notes, “Puma's celebrity-backed marketing plan, which some considered a misguided error a few years ago, is also what has lead to its recent success” (Woolf 2017). In recent years, the company has hired figures like Rihanna, the Weeknd, Kylie Jenner, and Big Sean as “brand ambassadors.” And yet, when I google the name “Rihanna,” Puma doesn’t show up on the first page. Same when I tried to Google Big Sean and Kylie Jenner. 

Taking a look behind the code, puma.com's website has the meta description “Shop the largest selection of PUMA® styles online including shoes, running gear, & more. Plus: Free Shipping with min. purchase & Free Returns on all US orders.” There is nothing about the other brand associations so that people could “accidentally” stumble upon their site while searching for Rihanna. 

According to the site SimilarWeb, 52.49% of Puma’s traffic is from search. 84.39 percent of these hits are from organic searches, with 45.61 percent of those users finding the site after searching for the word “Puma,” which is probably to be expected. However, interestingly, of the 15.61% of the traffic that came from paid search, 10.34% came from the word Puma as well. It seems as if the people at Puma could be doing themselves a great favor by increasing the paid search for terms that are friendlier to these tastemakers that Puma currently employs. 

I should note, however, that on the Puma homepage itself, right now there is a large ad front and center for the launch of Rihanna’s Fall line which will be released on September 28. There should be more of an effort to make this the centerpiece of an SEO campaign when the line finally does launch, however.  



I will say that the site does do a good job at collecting customer information. Right on top of the page, there is a button that says “Email Sign Up” which immediately brings up a form to share your e-mail, as well as an option to choose to receive newsletters for men or for women. 



References 

Demery, P. (2014, May 20). How Puma is Improving Sales Operations Through eCommerce. Digital Commerce 360. Retrieved from https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2014/05/20/how-puma-improving-sales-operations-through-e-commerce/

Fiorletta, A. (2015, September 18). Puma Drives eCommerce Sales with Customized Jersey Experience. Retail Touchpoints. Retrieved from https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/retail-success-stories/puma-drives-e-commerce-sales-with-customized-jersey-experience

Lazazzera, R. (n.d.). Google Analytics for Ecommerce: A Beginners Guide. Shopify. Retrieved from https://www.shopify.com/blog/14681601-google-analytics-for-ecommerce-a-beginners-guide

Puma Kicks Up Order Rate 7% with Insights from Google Analytics. (n.d.). Google Analytics. Retrieved from https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/analytics/customers/pdfs/puma.pdf

Ramteke, A. (2014, May 20). Puma Used Web Analytics and Achieved an Order Rate of 7.1 Percent. Digital Vidya. Retrieved from http://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/puma-used-web-analytics-and-achieved-an-order-rate-of-7-1-dmblog-0411/

Weiss, R. (2017, March 5). Puma, Under Armour Trade Places in Sportswear League Table. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-06/puma-under-armour-trade-places-in-sportswear-league-table


Woolf, J. (2017, March 15). HEre’s How Puma Overtook Under Armour in the Sportswear War. GQ. Retrieved from https://www.gq.com/story/how-puma-overtook-under-armour-in-the-sportswear-war

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