The Challenge
Seasalt Cornwall, known for its high-quality apparel and loyal customer base, had a discount problem. Similar to many other retailers, they had ended up in a situation where they were offering discount codes to everyone, almost immediately. That meant wasted offers, eroded margins and limited control.
Without visibility into real-time intent, they treated every visitor the same, regardless of how close they were to purchasing. Some shoppers would have been prepared to pay full price. Others may have needed the nudge, but at a different moment. But Seasalt had no way of knowing who was who. They wanted to move their discounting strategy from something broad to something more precise.
The Hypothesis
By targeting discounts to customers with a category affinity who were showing signs of abandoning, we would push that segment of users over the line while saving margin on others.
Seasalt wanted to stop offering every visitor a discount by default. Their team believed that if they could identify visitors with strong product interest who were hesitating at the final stages of their purchase journey, they could apply offers only where they would make a difference.
And the stakes were high. On top of the harm mass discounts can bring to brand equity, according to The Intent Gap research, 83% of shoppers have used a discount code despite being ready to pay full price. That’s a lot of lost potential margin.
The Solution
By integrating Made With Intent’s real-time data into their Insider setup, Seasalt built a campaign that focused discounts on a very specific type of visitor. They wanted to target visitors by category affinity in the Maintain Abandon segment, which is defined in our framework as those who had built intent in a specific product but were showing signs of exiting the site.
Rather than relying on rules like time on site or basket size, they triggered discounts only when a relevant shopper’s behaviour indicated hesitation. This could be repeated views of a product, return visits without adding to basket or breaking Seasalt’s typical conversion flow, among many other options.
This meant they could surface discounts dynamically in-session, and only to those who needed them. Not only limited blanket offers, but increasing offers at key moments.
The Impact
Without Intent, discounts were offered to everyone, eroding margin without increasing conversions in any measurable way.
With Intent, targeted offers were shown only to visitors with higher intent who were likely to abandon, saving conversions (and margin) by reacting to hesitation.
Key Results: An 89% uplift in conversion rate for the targeted segment, along with a 90% increase in intent to purchase.
This Play demonstrated that discounting doesn’t have to be a generic giveaway. Seasalt Cornwall used real-time intent to respond to the right visitors at the right time.
They’re now applying this logic across other categories and campaign types, fine-tuning discounting to match both margin strategy and customer mindset.
Discounts are powerful, but come with pitfalls. They work best when used with precision. This Play proves how real-time intent can transform blanket offers into something more strategic.
Want to target your discounts with more personal precision? Learn more about Discounting with Intent.
