Tapping power of first-party data boosts key metrics for Specsavers

Specsavers, the British optician and audiologist, increased sales by using first-party data yielded from its online appointment-booking tool to prompt patients overdue for an eye test, reducing empty appointment slots and growing sales.

Why it matters 

First-party data is key to this campaign and is likely to become more important as browsers phase out cookies. But the campaign also combined this real-time information with robust planning to pitch the eventual creative to a crucial target audience.

• It focussed on customers who intended to book an appointment ‘soon’ rather than ‘now’, with most citing lack of time.
• Building the eventual system was a nine-month process, ironing out a system that could scrape store appointment availability from every UK store and collate this into a single cloud-based data-set that could be accessed through an API connection.
• This allowed the team to build rules that would trigger media buys in paid search, social, display, and DOOH near to stores.

Through a digital booking engine, Specsavers (along with agency Manning Gottlieb OMD) could assess live appointment availability at the level of the individual store and use this data to advertise appointment availability in real time.

“Converting ‘soon’ into ‘now’ was very powerful,” said Sannah Rogers, Managing Director at Zenith UK and a judge in the data category.