Home Depot’s mobile marketing efforts appear to be paying off. Crediting growth to its 2019 holiday ad campaign, its mobile app downloads saw double-digit growth, according to the company’s Q4 earnings call.
CNBC reports same-store sales were up 5.2 percent, topping Wall Street’s expectations. Home Depot’s Q4 revenue fell 2.7 percent to $25.78 billion from $26.49 billion a year earlier but exceeded analyst estimates of $25.76 billion.
In December 2019, the company ran a 32-second television spot called “It’s a Good Time to Be a Doer” showing how customers can use the Home Depot app to identify unknown parts, pick up purchased items in-store via Home Depot lockers and take advantage of the company’s delivery services.
Home Depot has also stepped up its digital offerings. Around the same time the home improvement retailer launched its holiday commercial, it added a section on its website detailing its mobile app’s features.
“We believe that the front door of our store is now in the customer’s pocket, it’s on the job site, that most of our customer’s shopping experience actually starts in the digital world even if it finishes in the physical world,” Home Depot CEO Craig Minear said on the earnings call.
Home Depot’s Q4 performance reflects its continuous efforts to boost experiences across all consumer touch points especially during the holidays. In 2018, Home Depot partnered with Verizon Media for a personalized digital holiday campaign to promote its selection of holiday decorations. Home Depot became the first brand to pilot Verizon’s augmented reality (AR) ad unit and in doing so, allowed consumers to visually bring to life their Christmas tree and all of its decorations from their mobile phones. Users spent an average of over two minutes interacting with the AR ad and the campaign received a 12.5 percent click-through rate (CTR) from the ad to the Home Depot landing page.
“It’s interesting because we’re seeing that people are using their mobile and in-app functionality even when they’re within our stores. So, even if they’re in our physical environment, they’re still using our mobile app. This demonstrates the multichannel shopping experience that we’re living in today. In addition to letting shoppers check store product availability via our site or mobile app, we’re also incorporating voice and visual search into our efforts,” Home Depot senior director of marketing Dawn Erksa told eMarketer in September 2018.
From a feature standpoint, Erksa added, voice and visual search are generating the greatest adoption.
Home Depot announced plans to hire 80,000 associates this spring to prepare for its busiest season of the year, Nasdaq reports.
