How ReserveBar Uses Attentive to Increase Both Engagement and AOV

Finding a one-to-one marketing channel for a broad audience

Early on, the ReserveBar team realized that if they wanted to keep up with the tastes of their large and varied audience, they’d have to find a communications solution that allowed them to be hyper-segmented. 

As Kimberly O’Dell, ReserveBar’s Director, CRM and Loyalty, explains, “It’s not about trying to sell one brand of alcohol to the masses. We wanted to introduce our customers to brands and releases that were as unique as their own tastes. We also wanted to share brand stories that our audiences could really connect with.”

The team knew that with the right SMS solution, they could tailor their customers’ experiences to drive revenue and increase average order value (AOV). They also wanted to use SMS to build a connection with customers between transactions with educational and story-driven content. 

Trying to achieve all this in the online alcohol space can be especially tricky. Marketers have to contend with age-gating (making sure subscribers are over 21), segmenting, and personalizing content among a fairly broad audience. With such specific goals, ReserveBar’s team knew they would need to enlist the help of SMS experts.

Leaning into integrations to best serve subscribers

ReserveBar brought their goals—and challenges—to Attentive, and soon discovered just how well the SMS platform could help them serve customers. 

The first priority was setting up an age gate to encourage SMS sign-ups with the right controls in place. Using Attentive's on-brand age-gated sign-up units, ReserveBar quickly, easily, and compliantly grew their list through website pop-ups, email, and a specific call-out on their Topflight Series landing page that featured specialty whiskey and bourbon picks.

Before long, they were leaning into integrations to explore segmentation. At this point, ReserveBar really saw their partnership with Attentive take off. 

Using integrations like Iterable, Zendesk, Shopify, and Google Analytics allowed them to segment subscribers based on purchase and browsing behavior, as well as program sign-ups. 

As O’Dell says, “Segmentation allowed us to see our audience sizes, figure out who we should be sending to, and use data most marketers wouldn’t normally have access to. It’s allowed us to really see what our audience looks like and what they want to see from us.”

Using segmentation to deliver the right messages to the right subscribers, at the right time

The team used Attentive’s segmentation capabilities to send exclusive campaigns to subscribers, starting with the sign-ups they captured from the Topflight Series landing page. 

Subscribers who signed up here received notifications any time a new release—or new stock—was added to the collection. This allowed ReserveBar to drive both revenue and engagement by making sure subscribers were seeing updates they had explicitly shown interest in. 

This strategy proved so successful that it inspired other, engagement-oriented campaigns, like the Cocktail Lounge journey. For this campaign, any subscriber who shows interest in cocktails —either by explicitly opting in through an introductory text journey or by having browsing, purchase, and engagement data captured through the Shopify integration—is added to an SMS journey that delivers weekly recipes from the Cocktail Lounge as well as engaging content that’s specific to upcoming holidays or weekend plans.

The end result? Relevant content that’s both educational and engaging. Campaigns like these have proven to drive up engagement between purchases, keeping ReserveBar top-of-mind.

Increasing revenue, AOV, and engagement

ReserveBar had some lofty goals, and they’ve moved the needle on all of them since adopting Attentive’s SMS platform.

Overall, they’ve driven almost $4.5 million in attributable revenue via Attentive with a program ROI of over 25x. They’re also seeing incremental improvement across the board. For example, shoppers who are opted in to SMS have a 16% higher AOV than customers acquired through paid social. ReserveBar also sees significantly higher conversion rates on Topflight Series and Cocktail Lounge messages—up to a 45% and 22% click-through rate, respectively—compared to messages that are sent to a general audience. These results show just how powerful sending personalized messages to segmented audiences can be. 

ReserveBar’s site bounce rates have also decreased by 11.85% since Attentive sign-up units went live on the site. As O’Dell explains, “We've seen really great engagement from customers, not only from a review or click-through rate perspective but specifically, it helps build long-term loyalty. That kind of connection between transactions is vitally important to continue with repeat purchase behavior.”

ReserveBar’s team has accomplished an impressive amount in a relatively short time span with Attentive. As O’Dell puts it, “We were able to prove that SMS truly does make an impact, and adds to the engagement we already had.”