Driving App Installs and Customer Engagement on Rexall’s BeWell App

Northern leveraged Google's Universal App Campaign (UAC) tool and App Engagement Campaigns (ACE) to drive installs and foster sustained maturity for Rexall's BeWell app by targeting a more engaged user base.

Industry

Retail

Technology Partners

Google

Solutions

Conversion Analytics and Performance Optimization

Customer Engagement and Acquisition Strategy

Customer Loyalty, Retention and Rewards

Need to Know

Rexall partnered with Northern to boost app installs and pharmacy profile creations for their BeWell loyalty app
Northern's strategy utilized machine learning and first-party data to drive app installs and retention
Results showed a 69% increase in application installs, a 256% increase in total conversions, and a 19% decrease in cost per conversion

Client

Rexall is the second-largest retail pharmacy company in Canada, with 400 pharmacies across the country and 8,000 employees.

Brief

BeWell is the application Rexall uses to engage directly with its customers. The app hosts Rexall’s loyalty program, giving users the ability to track and redeem their points. It also delivers personalized offers and wellness tips based on user activity. Additionally, the app can be connected to pharmacy services so that users can remotely manage their prescriptions.

The team’s objective for this project was twofold: to drive application installs, and pharmacy profile creations within the app. Rexall aimed to also target high-value users who were more likely to engage with the app’s features, driving additional in-app actions.

Challenge

When it came to application installs, Rexall faced one significant obstacle: not all users who downloaded the app were candidates for long-term use.

In other words, some people were less likely to open a BeWell account, and therefore, were more likely to delete the app after a short time.

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Strategy

Rather than focusing solely on install volume, our team leveraged Google Universal App Campaigns (UAC) to target those users with a higher likelihood of both creating a user profile and actively using the application to view offers, manage prescriptions, and seek wellness advice.

To pinpoint these users, we employed the Google UAC algorithm, leveraging Rexall's first-party event data sourced from Firebase, an in-app analytics platform. Harnessing the power of machine learning within UAC, we trained the algorithm to recognize individuals with a higher likelihood of engaging in the desired action of profile creation. This strategic approach made it so that the tool could prioritize targeting these high-quality users at a slightly increased cost per install.

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To monitor and optimize every event within the app user journey, our team generated and incorporated relevant conversion values for each stage, from installation through to mid-funnel actions and profile creation.

Upper funnel campaigns with awareness messaging were crafted to promote app installs, whereas middle and lower funnel campaigns were tailored to drive action for users with a higher likelihood of opening the app, creating an account, and engaging in in-app actions like viewing promotions or loading offers.

Collaborating with Google's App Team, we established a process for importing pertinent events into Firebase. Rexall contributed valuable data on app profile creations, providing our team with a comprehensive perspective on user engagement. This information gave us the perspective to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of Rexall's overall marketing mix and played a pivotal role when Northern collaborated with Rexall's in-house team to craft the messaging, in-app experience and creative elements for user re-engagement.

Understanding that creative is one of the most important levers in a UAC campaign, the team established a testing framework to determine what creative formats and messaging (ie. incentives, promotion value, app benefits, and awareness) resonated best with members at each stage of their BeWell journey.

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Results

The partnership between Northern and Rexall yielded substantial advancements year-over-year:

69% increase in app installs
256% increase in conversions (encompassing accounts created and first opens)
26% increase in accounts created on Android
19% decrease in cost per conversion

Northern’s partnership with Rexall drove conversions and loyalty by optimizing its engagement strategy based on user data. If you'd like to unlock the full potential of your digital marketing initiatives, don't hesitate to contact our in-house team. We specialize in building digital solutions for eCommerce businesses and look forward to working with you to achieve your goals.

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