Case Study: Pizza Hut drove a projected $7.8 million annualized uplift
in revenue through one A/B test
Pizza Hut Digital Ventures is Pizza Hut’s in-house start-up focused on building innovative
digital solutions and providing customers with exceptional experiences. Pizza Hut is a
subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., the world’s largest restaurant company with nearly 43,000
restaurants in over 140 countries.
The team at Pizza Hut Digital Ventures wanted to better understand consumer behaviour so
they could rework their digital content strategies to better serve customers. “Brands miss out
on a lot of revenue when their content and experiences aren’t easy to see and use,” said Niki
Hall, CMO, Contentsquare (Pizza Hut’s digital experience platform).
The team had noticed customers on Pizza Hut’s highly visited Our Deals page weren’t clicking
on the deal cards and they wanted to understand why. “We knew that for a lot of people,
times were tougher over the last few years, so we committed to providing ways for customers
to take advantage of deals, whether that meant discounts or free items. However, we couldn't
figure out why they weren't actually taking advantage of them when they were easy to find,”
said Tristan Burns, Global Head of Analytics, Pizza Hut Digital Ventures.
After analyzing the page, they discovered that customers were much quicker to click the “View
Basket” call-to-action (CTA) rather than the deal cards.
The team hypothesized that the lack of a CTA on the deal cards themselves might be making
them look unclickable to customers. “We dove into A/B testing and determined that the deal
offer itself didn’t have an obvious call-to-action, so customers easily overlooked it,” Burns said.
So, they decided to run a test to find out. For the control, there was no visible CTA on the deal
card.
Creative Sample #1: Pizza Hut’s control with no CTA
For the treatment (variant), a “Select” CTA was visible on the deal card. When a customer
clicked on the deal card CTA, it opened up the deal builder experience where they could select
their choice of pizza, toppings and drinks, then add that to their basket.
Creative Sample #2: Pizza Hut’s treatment (variant) with CTA added
They ran the test for two weeks. The treatment (with the deal card CTA) was the clear winner.
“Simply by adding a ‘Select’ icon to the deals, we were able to save people money and drive
significant revenue for the brand; a true win-win,” Burns said.
“Helping Pizza Hut determine how to improve content placement with this test drove more
consistent action from their customers, and the ability to compare options made it clear on
how to streamline content to improve CX (customer experience),” Hall said.
Extrapolating on the results seen, Pizza Hut anticipates an annualized uplift of $7.8 million in
revenue.
“A/B testing early and often benefits the brand not only from a revenue standpoint, but more
importantly, gives customers confidence that Pizza Hut understands their needs for speed
and convenience when using their digital properties. This is a lesson they can take into other
campaigns and strategies and drive a lot of success over time,” Hall said.
“This wouldn’t have been possible without micro-behaviour analytics. Without being intrusive
to the customer, Pizza Hut was still able to make important decisions on improving the
experience. Better CX, combined with great deals and content, are making a meaningful
difference to Pizza Hut,” Burns concluded.