In its constant search for effective levers for its customers, Effinity recommends that Pandora explore bank cashback with its partner Paylead, an expert in payment marketing. This solution fits perfectly into the brand’s ROI strategy, optimizing both customer acquisition and loyalty.
1 – Background: Pandora, the cashback banking opportunity
Pandora is an iconic jewelry brand, widely recognized by the general public. Founded in Denmark in 1982, it has made a name for itself on a global scale by blending jewellery-making expertise with modern design. The brand owes much of its success to its famous charms, inspired by a Danish tradition of giving symbolic charms to mark life’s milestones. Pandora arrived in France in the early 2000s, and really took off in 2011 thanks to a strategic expansion combining a fast-growing network of physical boutiques and an ambitious e-commerce strategy.
Over the years, digital has played a significant role in Pandora’s sales, illustrating the brand’s ability to adapt to market changes while remaining true to its values.
An omnichannel acquisition strategy
Pandora adopts a 360° marketing approach, combining online and offline levers to maximize its visibility and engagement with consumers. On the digital side, the brand activates several channels: paid search, paid social media, display and affiliate marketing, as part of a global activation strategy for performance levers. In addition, the brand invests in television advertising, with specific activations during its commercial highlights of the year.
Thanks to this omnichannel approach, Pandora ensures a strong and consistent presence, capable of adapting to new consumer habits and maximizing the impact of its advertising campaigns.
Florian Simard, Paid Media and Performance Specialist at Pandora, emphasizes: ” Pandora’s acquisition strategy is based on a balance between visibility and investment control. The aim is twofold: to ensure a sufficient online and offline presence to attract new customers, while ensuring that campaigns are profitable. Each advertising activation is performance-driven. The brand uses Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) tools to adjust its investments and ensure that every euro spent generates a measurable return. This approach makes it possible to optimize budgets without exceeding a threshold where additional investment would no longer be profitable. Beyond acquisition, loyalty also plays a key role. It’s not just about attracting new consumers, but also re-engaging those who have already purchased. This is the aim of the My Pandora loyalty program, of which France is one of the pilot countries, which rewards purchases with a points system that can be used as a means of payment. ”
The opportunity of bank cashback
In line with this dynamic of continuous innovation, Effinity proposed to Pandora in 2024 a three-month test on bank cashback, covering the crucial Black Friday and Christmas period. Madeline Julien, Performance Manager at Effinity, explains: ” our proposal is part of an ongoing search for new levers and new high-performance partners for our customers. We saw Paylead’s solution as an ideal opportunity for Pandora. It fits perfectly with the brand’s ROI logic in its customer acquisition and loyalty strategy. “.
2 – Objectives: acquisition and profitability
Defining objectives
To test bank cashback, Pandora adopted a rigorous approach, working closely with Effinity and Paylead. Preparatory meetings made it possible to define clear objectives and integrate this new lever as a complement to existing strategies, without substituting it for existing channels.
The main objective was pure acquisition, with a profitability criterion set at 10 points. The campaign exclusively targeted users who had not made a purchase from Pandora in the previous 12 months.
Once the objectives had been set, discussions focused on the operational aspects: the choice of budget, the duration of the campaign (three months) and the activation methods.
Florian Simard adds: ” the relationship of trust we have with Effinity was a decisive factor. The agency, a Pandora partner since 2016, has a detailed understanding of the brand’s challenges and expectations. Its recommendations were aligned with our strategic ambitions, guaranteeing a coherent and measured choice. Finally, the test framework facilitated the decision-making process. With a controlled budget and a progressive approach, Pandora was able to experiment with this lever in complete confidence, validating its potential in its acquisition mix. ”
3 – Strategy: continuous optimization
Adjustments during the campaign
Halfway through the process, a performance analysis revealed potential for optimization. At Paylead’s suggestion, Pandora enriched its initial strategy with three new approaches:
- Affinity acquisition: targeting customers of major retail players with similar purchasing behaviors. These brands, although not directly related to the jewelry sector, showed similarities in purchasing behavior.
- Anti-churn: re-engaging consumers who have switched to the competition in the last six months.
- Ultra-affinity targeting: focus on previous Black Friday shoppers and customers of Pandora’s two main competitors.
This advanced segmentation has enabled precise audience refinement and improved campaign effectiveness.
Inès Boussagol, Head of Sales at Paylead, explains: ” During interim reviews with our customers, we draw on the expertise of our data analysis teams to refine our strategic recommendations. By analyzing accessible purchase histories, we conduct in-depth studies to identify optimization opportunities. For example, for the Pandora campaign, we used a “lookalike” approach. This method involves identifying profiles of Pandora customers who consume more than the average, and targeting consumers with similar behaviors. Thanks to these insights, we were able to propose more tactical and relevant offers for the brand. We also analyzed the purchasing behavior of existing customers: frequency of purchases, brands frequented, affinities with other brands. This enabled us to refine targeting by reactivating customers who had recently purchased from competitors, maximizing the campaign’s impact. ”
4 – Results: an incremental +10%.
The campaign’s performance exceeded Pandora’s expectations. All defined objectives were met, including the 10-point profitability criterion.
A particularly striking indicator was the re-purchase rate: 24% of cashback customers made a second purchase.
The campaign also had a significant impact on e-commerce sales, with an incremental effect of around +10% compared with transactions usually generated online.
Florian Simard concludes: ” If the opportunity arose, we would be very interested in activating this lever again. Our collaboration with Effinity and Paylead has been very smooth, and the results we’ve achieved confirm the value of bank cashback for our strategy. ”
Thanks to this successful campaign, bank cashback has established itself as a promising acquisition and loyalty lever for Pandora, paving the way for new growth opportunities.
