Awards winner! Metageni with AO.com win ‘Best Use Of AI’

We were absolutely thrilled that in October 2020 Metageni, as data science partners for AO.com, won the prestigious, ‘Best Use Of AI’ at the 2020 London eCommerce Awards. You can watch the announcement as it happened here.

‘Best Use Of AI’

Metageni and AO have been working on data analytics using AI/machine learning since 2018. Now in 2020, the combined Metageni and AO team have been selected as finalists for eCommerce awards in the categories of ‘Best Use Of AI’, specifically for AI-based personalisation and conversion optimisation solutions in the UK and Germany in the midst of upheaval and huge growth in online retail sales linked to the global pandemic.

Responding to customer signals in real-time

Online retail giant AO has a market-leading position supplying an expanding range of electricals throughout the UK and Europe, and in 2019 decided to develop solutions to provide visitors to their eCommerce site personalised shopping experiences. More specifically, they tasked Metageni to create a machine learning solution that could identify types of customers to the website in real-time based on their predicted purchase behaviour.

When a customer walks into typical bricks and mortar store there are salespeople to assist towards making a purchase. A salesperson does this by watching and talking to them, in order to understand the customer. What the salesperson is attempting to do is ‘classify’ the customer to understand what the customers purchasing needs are. Customers may be window shoppers, impulse buyers, bargain hunters, researchers, new customers or regular repeat customers, and more.

The idea here was to use online customer data signals to predict conversion behaviour with machine learning and respond accordingly. The Metageni team used data signals from the web and sales and explored trillions of possible model and data variants using genetic algorithms to find the best models. Working with AO engineers allowed rapid deployment into live eCommerce production. Rapid iteration of the models was been possible leading to even stronger results.

Results: proven commercial success

In recent weeks AO conducted independent robust A/B tests to measure conversion uplift due to the AI versus the underlying conversion activity which has increased due to the pandemic related shifts in customer buying –

These A/B tests showed an impressive and significant increase in the AO conversion rate over and above a matched control group in the UK. Furthermore, the result was replicated in Germany with an even big jump in conversion rate compared to the control group. Both tests are statistically significant, and while AO.com do not wish to share specific numbers for reasons of commercial interest, the results translate into long term revenue potential worth millions of pounds.

A better outcome for AO and for AO customers

As well as yielding great results, the approach used has allowed AO to understand more about their customers to improve the online purchase experience for everyone. The whole team at AO and Metageni have worked closely together to achieve this success –

” Metageni have done and continue to do a fantastic job in using machine-based learning to give AO.com substantial ROI.

The last few months have been an unprecedented time for us and many retailers. In this period, Metageni has delivered again, completely retraining our custom machine learning models in both the UK and German markets, responding to the dramatic shifts in customer behaviour.

I wish the Metageni team every success with this award entry. They’re a great partner for our eCommerce function.”

David Lawson, Managing Director, AO.com

The teams at AO and Metageni continue to look for ways to use AI technology to better improve commercial and customer outcomes.

Thank you for reading about our success. Can Metageni help unlock the value of your analytics and marketing data? Feel free to email us at [email protected] for advice on how you can use data analytics and AI to grow online.