Matt Darbon has been working in marketing and analytics for more than 10 years across retail, electricals, and telecoms. He is the digital marketing lead for Waitrose, where he drives lower funnel growth through the supermarket’s digital channels.
Brits love a barbecue, but the weather doesn’t always cooperate. This can often present a problem: ads promoting outdoor food for a weekend with friends can fall flat when it rains.
But, recently, the team had a lightning bolt of inspiration. We could use public weather data in combination with online video campaigns to create ads that work in any weather — while increasing relevance in the eyes of our customers.
“We wanted to understand how tailored creative could impact brand metrics,” explained Halli Biggs, social marketing manager at Waitrose. “And the response has been incredible, exceeding expectations and driving strong consideration from viewers.”
Ads that are as changeable as the weather
Waitrose is a go-to destination for special occasions, whether people are shopping for their mum’s birthday or the first sunny weekend in May.
Previously, tailoring campaigns to the weather could be challenging as it’s unpredictable and can vary across the country. A few summers ago, for example, we were planning a big promotion for a wine brand. We kept a close eye on the weather report and it was initially very promising. But, in the end, it didn’t get quite hot enough for the typical Bank Holiday barbecue weekend and we couldn’t promote the offer we’d been working hard on.
That’s why towards the end of 2023, we started to look at increasing the effectiveness of our advertising by aligning our messaging with real-time weather conditions. This new approach came from an insight into how we could connect solutions that already existed: linking the OpenWeather API to our Google Ads account and then to our campaigns.
We used a tool called If This Then Ad (IFTTA), which enables automatic management of marketing campaigns based on real-world events. Collaborating with Google, we extended IFTTA’s functionality to trigger different video ads on YouTube, ensuring that it worked for both brand and performance campaigns.
With this new approach we could stay on top of changing weather conditions and adapt our ads in real-time for different regions in England. If the weather is average we can show a generic summer offer, but if there’s a localised heatwave we can quickly change gears to promote groceries typically associated with sunny days.
We can even decide to run a campaign in just those areas where the sun is shining and not show any ads in parts of the country where it’s raining.
A ray of sunshine: 24 is the magic number
We know that when the temperature is above average (24˚C in our analysis), people start looking for summer products in our stores and online. That became one of our triggers, helping us serve the right ads as people prepared for a big weekend.
We used OpenWeather’s seven-day forecast for our data set — as we know that online shoppers tend to book five to seven days ahead of special occasions. Then, in-store pickups usually happen two to three days in advance.
Working with creative partner Vidsy, we created two variations of assets for each of our core summer offers. We had both a “rainy” and a “sunny” version that we could turn on or off depending on that day’s weather data. Shoppers would be served a video ad saying “Good for sunny days” and “Good for picnics” on hot summer days:
The same YouTube ad would then be tailored to rain in wetter weather. Although it still mentions BBQs, just in case the weather does pick up.
Our creative lead time didn’t change, but having the capability to run different iterations of the ads depending on the weather has really helped us make them less generic and more pertinent to customers.
This weather-reactive approach didn’t mean we had to create an entirely new video from scratch each time the temperatures rose either. We have products like calzones that work for both rain and sun — so only the messaging needed to be different. But even a small language tweak can really help improve relevance for an ad.
If we can deliver a campaign that’s relevant, we will be seen as relevant throughout the year — a long time after someone sees an advert for rosé when it's hot.
A bright outlook for real-time, data-driven ad campaigns
We didn’t aim for a specific uplift when we set out on this journey, but we know that tailored, more relevant ads will lead to more positive customer experiences.
As it turned out, though, the measurable payoff was impressive too:
- 2X increase in click-through rate
- 26% decrease in online sales cost per acquisition
- 7% decrease in store visit cost per acquisition
It’s good to understand that campaigns like this won’t always drive lots of new revenue over a few months, but the perceptions of a business can last far longer in customers’ minds. If we can deliver messaging that’s relevant, we will be seen as relevant throughout the year — a long time after someone sees an advert for rosé when it’s hot.
“This project transformed our summer YouTube campaign into a dynamic and personalised experience for our customers,” said Daisy Sollis, Waitrose’s digital marketing manager. “We're excited to incorporate this into more of our conversion-driving activity moving forward.”
We’re now thinking about how we can lean into different insights and data sets to trigger different campaigns. For instance, people often switch to on-demand delivery when the weather’s bad — so we could direct them to a page for one of our delivery partners if it’s too cold, hot, or rainy. We could even use data to factor in whether those partners have slots available.
On top of that, we’re considering other creative variations for winter occasions or annual events. For marketers who work with seasonal sporting events, there are even more possibilities.
For us, this was a small change with big implications. We want to make it easier for people to see what they can get at Waitrose and help them celebrate those special occasions that make summer — and winter — so great. If we do that over the long term, we know sales will come.
