Staples Finally Reconciles eCommerce and Site Monetization Goals

Innovation would never happen if it weren’t for people like Marco Steinsieck, who oversees Site Monetization at Staples. He recognized that today’s Sponsored Products ad-tech solutions are far from perfect.

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The Challenge

“We could clearly see that users didn't click Sponsored Products to the same extent as they clicked organic products.

Even if they clicked, they didn't convert as well as expected. So it became clear that the third-party Sponsored Products engine that controls which items to showcase could not do it as well as Staples’ organic ranking algorithm.”

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The Goal

He determined that to effectively grow Staples' monetization program, he needed to increase Sponsored Products' relevancy. Not only would this be better for the shopping experience, but it would also help Staples' vendors achieve a better advertising ROI.

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The Solution

When Steinsieck learned about Pentaleap’s supply-side platform, he saw an enormous opportunity for innovation. He immediately committed to evaluating it and kicked off a cross-departmental pilot project.

“In our legacy solution, Sponsored Products were like patches – placed independently among organic product results. The more patches you add, the uglier the shopping experience becomes.” “In contrast, Pentaleap’s approach uses Staples domain knowledge to take back control.

Products that we consider to be less relevant are prevented from showing up through a sponsoring, while products that we score with high relevancy can be boosted to the top of the page.”

The Results

Steinsieck's challenge of the status quo and commitment to innovation paid off.  

When Staples evaluated the new approach, the Sponsored Products' Click-Through-Rate (CTR) clearly suggested that shoppers had seen more relevant results (uplift +123% to +933%).  

And Staples' vendors improved their Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) between +389% and +477%.