Ashish Braganza, Senior Manager of Global Business Intelligence, Lenovo

SuperNova Award Category

  • Data to Decisions
  • Digital Marketing Transformation

The Company 

Lenovo, the world’s largest PC vendor, is a $US34 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile Internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services.

The Problem

For over a year, Lenovo has become the worldwide leader in PC manufacturers. To stay in the top spot, Lenovo established a Global Business Intelligence (GBI) team around marketing that focused on turning conversions into sales and analyzing conversion -- including why visitors came to the website, what they were looking for, what drove them to make purchases, and where they were most likely to drop off. The problem for GBI: without any prior point of reference or measurement, the team needed to deliver an improved conversion rate, and deliver an annual eight-fold return on the company’s investment in the GBI team. 

The Solution

In order to increase conversions into sales, the Lenovo GBI team focused on developing and rolling out a digital marketing strategy that included a global testing and optimization program, building out predictive capabilities, and increasing multichannel analysis.  In order to maximize effectiveness of its digital marketing strategy and conduct all the conversion analysis, Lenovo selected the Adobe Marketing Cloud (Analytics, Social, Media Optimizer, Target, and Experience Manager solutions).

The Results

To launch its testing and optimization program, the Lenovo GBI team set up tactical proof-of-concept tests to show how website testing and optimization could improve online engagement and revenues in North America. These tests showed that moving its PC configuration tool from a drop-down menu to the right margin of the page increased click-throughs 495%. Additionally, Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target solutions revealed how free shipping messages promoted throughout the site would also offer significant lift to conversion.

These successes prompted the Lenovo GBU team to roll out testing and optimization globally. Lenovo expanded its testing program from North America to the other geographies and switched its focus from immediate tactics to strategic website issues. Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target solutions together revealed a wealth of information previously unavailable to the Lenovo team, helping them to understand the full path to conversion.  For example, the team tested different ways of promoting multiple weekly offers on the Japan landing page. With Adobe technology, Lenovo saw a boost of 44% conversion in promotional offers in Japan by displaying a thumbnail of rotating banners.

Finally, Lenovo built a predictive segmentation scoring model (the Lenovo Index for Scoring Audiences, or LISA) using data from Using Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target solutions. Adobe Analytics leverages LISA to calculate the real-time likelihood that a visitor will purchase. It stores the resulting score as a cookie, which Adobe Target reads to deliver the content that is most likely to be relevant and persuasive. Understanding multichannel conversion is key for Lenovo because, according to industry data, 90% of customers research online before buying and don’t purchase online during their initial visit. Though it’s not always easy to correlate the research process with purchases, it is important because it creates an opportunity for Lenovo to optimize the experience and subsequent conversion.

The Technology

Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Metrics

  • Created a five-fold increase in click-through and boosted revenues per customer 26 percent
  • After investing in Adobe solutions, Lenovo estimates that its ROI achieved 1,200% in the first six months.
  • Delivered 495% lift in click-throughs after testing placement of PC finder tool
  • Increased global annualized sales by several million dollars by tailoring placement of “free shipping” notices across geographies
  • Supported global adoption of data-driven culture and enhanced predictive analytics capabilities
  • Leveraged insight into entire sales cycle across multiple channels to optimize conversion and enhance customer satisfaction

Disruptive Factor

This project was unique within Lenovo because it allowed the team to create a testing program that directly impacted the financial stream for the company. Through predictive analytics, optimization and data, the team was able to help the company drive sales and increase profit.

Shining Moment

The shining moment came when the company combined analytics with optimization in order to see data and drive conversion rates that directly impacted the company’s bottom line and increased the team’s ROI. It proved that money needed to back data and show the value that the team brought to the company.

About Lenovo

Lenovo , the world’s largest PC vendor, is a $US34 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile Internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services.