Measurement, like buying jeans, is about finding the right fit.
For denim brand True Religion, that means looking beyond last-click attribution to see what’s really driving growth, says CMO Kristen D’Arcy on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Determining incrementality is important for any marketer, but accountability for business results is front and center for D’Arcy, who added head of digital growth for ecommerce to her title in May.
“I know if something is working [and] I know if something isn’t working,” D’Arcy says. “[And] I can change on a dime, because I’m seeing the hourly traffic and sales come in for the website.”
True Religion uses a simple three-tiered approach to measure paid social, which includes upper-funnel ads for brand awareness, influencers for the middle of the funnel and retargeting down at the bottom.
For more sophisticated measurement, True Religion implemented media mix modeling to assess the incremental impact of shifting media spend. Rather than just spending more on what seems to work, D’Arcy and her team are testing whether they can use MMM to reallocate budget in real time to drive more sales.
“What’s fascinating,” D’Arcy says, “is you can make a strategic change in the media and then look and see how it affects the site the same day.”
For example, shortly after D’Arcy joined True Religion in 2023, the brand launched a major holiday campaign featuring rapper Quavo and influencer India Love. After the campaign launched, web traffic almost immediately jumped more than 50% and sales increased by between 20% and 30% over the previous year.
“It really did help the business take off,” she says. “Our objective ever since then within the marketing department has been to continue that momentum.”
Also in this episode: The resurgence of Y2K nostalgia and how True Religion stays culturally relevant, what D’Arcy looks for in a tech partner (she values honesty and outcomes) and why the brand fully redesigned its loyalty program to focus on personalization, engagement and lifetime value.
