Maxwell Petitjean is a product insight manager for Gymshark. Glenn Tamkin is project lead at Fifty-Five U.K., which helped the fitnesswear brand to implement a new approach to its data and analytics infrastructure.
Growth at Gymshark has been rapid: from a one-sewing-machine operation to a billion-dollar fitnesswear brand in one decade.
Powering this journey has been phenomenal digital reach. The use of influencers and social platforms is a story well told, but the brand’s relationship with data is a little more complex.
Last year, as Gymshark hit 15,000 orders a day, we realised we had outgrown our old infrastructure and needed to rethink our strategy for the future. Gymshark invested in a new e-commerce app, overhauled our approach to analytics, and prioritised first-party data. Putting data behind our big decisions has helped us do better for our customers while driving marketing performance and growth.
Gymshark’s 6-step growth framework
No more “I reckon”: Data-informed strategic thinking
Gymshark’s early success was largely built on what the founder felt was best for our audience. As we embarked on international expansion we recognised that this wasn’t sustainable and could potentially block future growth.
We made a company stance that we would no longer use the phrase “‘I reckon” when it comes to our key decision-making. Instead, we made the commitment to own our data and apply these insights to our strategic thinking.
As we’ve expanded, the stakes became higher, and we encountered some major bumps in the road. For example, on Black Friday 2015, an eight-hour website outage led to a huge loss of customer orders. We never wanted to let our customers down like that again, so we had to change our infrastructure.
Get there quicker with specialist partners
Any kind of analytics overhaul is a big and potentially costly job. It's often more efficient and effective to partner with an external data specialist. For us it was worth the investment as implementation was only carried out once.
Fifty-Five U.K. (55UK) came on board to help identify the right analytics platform for Gymshark. Together we chose Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand more fully how our site and app are being used by customers. 55UK oversaw the entire implementation process: testing the new data set-up before rolling it out and upskilling the wider Gymshark team through training sessions.
We now look at the bigger picture, understand more complex customer behaviours, and optimise accordingly.
This meant we could concentrate on the new insights gained and better understand key e-commerce journeys and identify levers for growth. For example, quick wins such as enhancements to e-commerce reporting led to a 5% improvement in product listing page click-through rates.
Focusing on valuable users, not one-off sessions
Some of the questions we were pondering at the start of the implementation included: Who are Gymshark’s users? Are they long-term customers or visiting for the first time? Do they engage with the website, app, or both?
We all know purchase journeys are becoming increasingly fragmented and nuanced, and critically, users' privacy expectations are changing along with regulators. That means rethinking our approach to measurement. This has meant not only that Gymshark needed a greater focus on first-party data, but also the need to revise what and how performance was measured to reflect the growing number of touchpoints. For this reason, Gymshark revised their KPIs to focus on users’ conversion rates, rather than the number of sessions.
Transitioning from session-based to user-level data has been a big change for the business, but it’s a more fluid and holistic way to measure customer value and cross-channel performance.
We can now look at the bigger picture, understand more complex customer behaviours, and optimise accordingly. And by moving to GA4, the wider Gymshark business has seen faster access to insights, and 30% improvement in time spent on a user’s journey analysis compared to other analytic platforms.
Identifying pain points to solve
Seeing the purchase journey from end to end has allowed us to better identify and fix consumer pain points.
We used Explorations, which are advanced techniques that helped us get a better understanding of consumer behaviour. We were able to go deeper into data than before, and capture those insights quicker. These insights became the basis of Gymshark’s problem statements, for which we brainstormed solutions to test and validate. When you have good insights, you can get creative with building solutions.
Seeing the purchase journey from end to end has allowed us to better identify and fix consumer pain points.
It unearthed some surprising insights. For example, when Gymshark introduced a wishlist feature on the app, we realised that the more products people added to their wishlist, the less likely they were to actually purchase them — counter to what you might expect. We fixed this by helping shoppers to easily move their wishlists into their baskets.
Likewise, when we identified high drop-off rates at the payment stage for first-time app users, a subsequent rethink of the user experience saw the checkout drop-off rate improve by 9%.
Optimising towards different consumer motivations
Our goal is to optimise more towards these different shopper motivations. While some people want a more streamlined experience on the website, app users' motivations can markedly differ. App users want to be given more information, compare more products, and see more variations — and the way they research is much more intentional too.
People might visit the website two or three times over a month period, while on the app, we’ve seen this number rise to five to 10 times a week — providing a huge opportunity to engage with shoppers.
For the app specifically, our goal was to develop our USPs and personalise the experience. For example, every Thursday Gymshark releases new products, and we can now provide the most loyal customers with early access through push notifications on the app.
Ultimately, the more valuable every Gymshark experience is for our customers, the richer the data we get in return. And we will continue to focus on user behaviour as we grow and evolve.
Gymshark’s 6-step growth framework
- Respect users’ privacy: Build brand-loyalty and trust with your customers by using first-party data responsibly.
- Let your data lead you: When it comes to building a roadmap for growth, make the shift from “I reckon” to data-informed decision-making.
- Partner for efficiency: Keep your focus on what matters, utilising expert partners for one-off tasks and quicker implementation.
- Reassess your KPIs: Seek a more holistic view of performance, prioritising and measuring user-level data over one-off sessions.
- Identify pain points: Analyse purchase journey data to spot possible gaps, and use problem statements to find a solution.
- Optimise for motivations: Explore how consumer behaviour and needs differ across touchpoints and optimise accordingly.
