Boosting web-to-app conversions while cutting costs and eliminating fraud

Background

Tata CLiQ, the flagship digital commerce initiative of the Tata Group, is one of the fastest growing eCommerce companies in India.  

A multi-category platform, TATA CLiQ serves millions of brand-conscious consumers through its TATA CLiQ and TATA CLiQ Luxury platforms with sought-after products in fashion, footwear, electronics, and accessories as well as luxury fashion and lifestyle items. 

The company’s omnichannel, first-in-class logistics operations allow for quick delivery (by shipping from stores) and easy pick-up and returns across 1,200+ brands and 1,000 stores in 100+ Indian cities.

As one of the fastest-growing global eCommerce markets, India is projected by IBEF to overtake the United States as the second-largest online marketplace by 2034. This increasingly competitive landscape requires constant optimization to ensure customer satisfaction and growth.

Challenges

Tata CLiQ faced three significant challenges: 

1. The first centered around their inability to scale affiliate partner network activity due to potential exposure resulting from mobile ad fraud. The CTIT (click to install time) metric looked off when vetting certain partners, and the conversion rates were relatively low.

The team knew that in order to measure and optimize their marketing campaigns correctly, they’d need to choose a platform with a rock-solid anti-fraud solution.

2. Their second challenge was understanding how to drive more users to their apps and drive loyalty, while the primary discovery channel for users was mobile web. 

Achieving this objective called for a solution that could redirect traffic efficiently and cost-effectively to its apps while optimizing conversion rates, boosting user growth, and increasing LTV. 

3. And in order to make their strategic decisions in a hyper-competitive industry, the team also needed to sift through numerous data sources in measuring their KPIs. 

This meant manually collecting and collating data for several hours a day to make them understandable to relevant stakeholders. 

Besides being time-consuming, this labor-intensive work opened up the risk of manual error while reducing cost transparency and slowing decision-making.

Solution

Upon reviewing a range of potential partners and solutions, TATA CLiQ chose to move forward with AppsFlyer. 

They implemented Protect360, AppsFlyer’s fraud protection solution, to test new media sources without fear of fraud, and set validation rules that allowed them to define which installs should be attributed to a given media source. 

To solve the issue of the web-to-app journey, the team started using Smart Banners Powered by OneLink – AppsFlyer’s deep linking and engagement solution. 

Smart Banners have the unique ability to route users to the right content regardless of OS, device models, or browser. This solution enabled the TATA CLiQ team to accurately attribute mobile web visitors to app installs, allowing the growth team to pinpoint the impact of each user acquired in their campaigns.

The team also turned to Xpend to consolidate various data sources on metrics such as Spend, CPI, CTP, ROAS, CPC, and CPM onto one unified AppsFlyer dashboard. This took the daily hassle out of collating cost data, saving many labor hours every day. It also tied cost data to attribution data more clearly and efficiently.

Divesh Sawhney, Head of Performance Marketing, noted: 

“AppsFlyer has been a very valuable partner who has not only helped us on the fundamental implementation of marketing analytics and attribution but also worked with us to implement other innovative features such as P360 and Audiences. This has led to our achieving better efficiency even while scaling our investments. We look forward to many other milestones such as these.”

Results

Immense savings in CPI:

• Quick implementation of Protect360 led to the team’s ability to block fraud from new and expanding media sources – 1.2M+ fraudulent installs within three months to be exact – and deliver dynamic, real-time protection against every type of fraud.

• TATA CLiQ had complete transparency into the emerging sources of fraud, which further enabled them to make informed marketing and investment decisions, resulting in impressive cost savings.

Campaign expansion to new partners and sources:

The initial success of AppsFlyer’s fraud protection solution gave TATA CLiQ the confidence to test out new campaigns on new media networks and run CPI campaigns without worrying about the threat of fraudulent installs.

Increased ROI:

As a result of the above, the team was able to ramp up their media spend while improving their ROI within a span of just three months.

On the subject of ROI Akshay Ambardar, Tata CLiQ’s Head of Digital Marketing stated:

“We are impressed by AppsFlyer’s dedication and support. Timely optimization has definitely helped reduce marketing costs and justify the ROI derived. Eliminating fraud is complex but when done right, can have a very effective impact on results.”

Higher web-to-app conversion rates:

• Within days of implementing Smart Banners, the Tata CLiQ team saw a 300% increase in conversion (click to installs) as compared to other media sources from their web-to-app funnel. 

Increased ARPU:

• Average revenue per user also shot up significantly, with acquired users that are using Smart Banners seeing a 400% lift compared to users acquired from any other media source. 

• As Smart Banners is a no-cost feature for AppsFlyer customers, TATA CLiQ registered an unprecedentedly high cross-platform ROI in terms of ARPU. 

• Smart Banners also broadened TATA CLiQ’s user acquisition funnel, increasing the performance of its mobile web, with 1 in every 16 users now being acquired with banners placed on strategic pages.

Greater productivity and lower cost

• With Xpend, TATA CLiQ realized a 22% improvement across its key metrics, including cost per install, customer acquisition costs, and cost per conversion through enhanced optimization. 

• Using Xpend allowed the team to improve productivity by 40% and saved 30 hours of manual work every month.

Dhruvil Jain, Manager, Performance, Growth & Digital Marketing, opined on the value that Xpend drives:

“AppsFlyer has always been a high-impact tool that has enabled our exponential growth. AppsFlyer’s Xpend feature has been instrumental in our success – the cost aggregation feature along with attribution drives tremendous business value. The option to measure all cost-related KPIs, such as CPI and ROI in one place saves us a lot of time and helps us focus on scaling our growth.”

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