Allbirds sees 5x more Visitors to Chicago Store with Firefly

Within just four years, Allbirds became a billion-dollar startup. It accomplished this feat by sticking to its ideals, employing natural materials to create simple, sustainable and comfortable sneakers that people just can’t get enough of. The certified B-corp’s use of wool fabric helps it stand out among the competition, which typically relies on cheaper, synthetic alternatives.

To spread the word about its sneakers in Chicago, Allbirds tapped Firefly to increase foot traffic to its Lincoln Park store. Over six weeks starting in late October 2020, Firefly helped Allbirds boost store visits by more than 5X among potential customers exposed to ads mounted to taxis and rideshare vehicles compared to a control group. Put another way, people who saw Firefly ads were 5 times more likely to visit the Allbirds store.

Firefly’s work doesn’t stop when campaigns begin—our team continuously monitors progress, offering weekly measurement studies and insights, which allows us to make changes in-flight. This is made possible with our new technology platform, Street.IQ, which monitors both the live data of our vehicles and ads, and live results data from the audience that is exposed to our ads. 

In the case of Allbirds’ campaign, Street.IQ can determine whether an individual exposed to an ad visited the store. After 10 days of data collection, Firefly can optimize a campaign on a weekly basis. Street.IQ helped Allbirds exceed the company’s goals by providing three revelations that improved the campaign.

Revelation 1: Creative works better with a bright colored background

The initial ads displayed to pedestrians were similar: a close up shot of a model wearing a pair of gray Allbird sneakers in front of a white background with the address of the store. The only difference was the call to action that preceded the address, with either “Follow your feet to” or “Check out what’s new at.” Both performed similarly well.

As the campaign went on, Firefly recommended that Allbirds experiment with colored backgrounds. Two new creatives were introduced in November: one of a photo of a sneaker on the left with a call to action in front of a black background on the right, and a photo of a sneaker in front of a green background. The latter ended up outperforming the others, driving the highest conversion rate. Previously, Allbirds only used light color backgrounds in its ads, but armed with this insight from Firefly, the company plans to utilize this effective creative more often.

Revelation 2: Further away zip codes convert more

The use of Street.IQ provided another big discovery in the Allbirds campaign. The footwear maker had expected higher conversion around the immediate location of its store, but after testing the ad around Chicago, Firefly found the highest lift happened in zip codes further away. In fact, the highest conversions came from more individuals who saw the ad between one to two miles from the Lincoln Park location. The campaign even drove people from further away to visit Allbirds.

Revelation 3: Mid-week provided the best sneaker buying opportunity

Street.IQ also revealed the best day of the week and time to deploy Allbirds’ ad: Tuesdays between 4 and 8 p.m., which saw a lift close to 2,000%. It seems a lot of people like to mark the middle of the week with a new pair of sneakers.

Employing these insights allowed Allbirds to exceed its impressions goal by 120% while driving up store visits by more than 5X. With Street.IQ, the campaign worked smarter, not harder, seeing costs per action fall from $28.80 to $6.36.