YETI: Data-driven analytics, collaboration key for marketing

A data-based approach to marketing is providing sometimes unexpected insights that are helping YETI drive demand for its outdoor-ready coolers and drinkware products.

On the company’s earnings call to recap the first quarter, CEO Matt Reintjes was asked about what strategies for performance marketing are working in 2023. While he spoke from a high-level, Reintjes’ answers yielded insights about how the brand builds its marketing operation, and centers data.

“We actually have a very integrated approach to how we build the funnel from top to bottom,” Reintjes said.

Key to this is the brand’s advanced analytics team, which gains an understanding about the consumer and consumer behavior, particularly in the U.S. In turn, that has a direct impact on how the brand allocates performance marketing dollars.

The brand’s chief marketing officer and chief commercial office collaborate on a “weekly and sometimes daily evolution” that determines the resources that the company puts toward the top of the funnel, the mid-funnel and closer to the transaction.

“We had some great things come out of our advanced analytics team in looking at demographics, in geographies, with affinities for categories and then applying things in front of consumers at that point. And the results we're seeing in those, we're now expanding those results more nationally,” Reintjes said.

The analytics are yielding insights about specific products, categories and how different groups have affinities for each. In turn, that influences how the brand allocates performance marketing spend, and also drives brand awareness in specific demos and geos.

“We're excited by what we're seeing,” Reintjes said. “The answer has not always been intuitive. And so seeing sort of a data-driven focus on that, I think it's going to lead to some really nice opportunities for us.”