CHALLENGE

Moving beyond manual shopper engagement to optimize and scale campaigns

SM Supermalls is one of the largest mall operators in the Philippines. The company takes a customer-centric approach and uses digital innovation to create a more convenient, personalized, and consistent mall experience. 

As customer expectations changed, SM Supermalls saw an opportunity to improve its customer engagement strategy through more timely, relevant, and scalable communications. Digital communication could support the promotions and activities taking place across its malls, but the process for managing shopper engagement was largely manual. 

A key priority was to automate mall promotions, re-engagement campaigns, SM Malls Online app promotion, and three-day sale promotions. Manual segmentation and campaign execution made these activities more time-consuming, reducing operational efficiency and making it more difficult to scale shopper engagement consistently across multiple locations. 

The objective was to simplify campaign execution while ensuring that communications remained relevant to each mall, promotion, and target audience. 

Building a data-led shopper journey with Viber for Business

SM Supermalls partnered with Infobip to automate shopper engagement and improve how it communicates with shoppers across its malls. The customer engagement solution brought together location-informed customer data, automated campaign journeys, and Viber as the primary messaging channel.

1. Mall-based shopper segmentation

SM Supermalls integrated its Wi-Fi database with a customer data platform. This made it possible to segment shoppers based on the mall where they connected, giving the team a more structured way to target communications and support relevant promotional campaigns. 

Rather than localizing campaigns in the traditional sense, they aligned messaging with each mall’s planned three-day sale schedule. Messages were sent only to shoppers connected to participating malls and at the appropriate time, helping the team manage campaign targeting more efficiently.

2. Automated campaign setup and delivery

Through customer engagement capabilities, segmentation and campaign setup were automated rather than managed manually for each communication. Viber was used to deliver mall promotions, re-engagement campaigns, SM Online app promotion, and three-day sale promotions. The broader use-case plan also included event notifications and loyalty campaigns. 

This created a repeatable journey: shopper data supported audience segmentation, the campaign was configured around the relevant mall or promotion, and Viber delivered the communication to the intended audience. 

3. Collaborative program implementation

The Viber Accelerate Program helped fund the use cases and supported the automation of shopper engagement through the Infobip platform. The program made it easier to implement the campaigns and reduce the manual effort required to run them. 

Stronger campaign performance with more efficient targeting

The solution helped SM Supermalls move toward its goal of automating shopper engagement. Automated segmentation improved day-to-day campaign execution, giving the team a more structured way to manage audience targeting across mall activities. It also provided a more efficient way to deliver mall promotions, re-engagement campaigns, and other shopper communications. This led to:

• 866K unique leads: The Wi-Fi connection integration generated 866K unique leads over four months, averaging 216,500 leads per month across 90 SM Supermalls branches.
• Read rates reaching 48.75%: Campaign messages achieved a read rate of up to 48.75% during the reported period.
• 114% increase in CTR: CTR more than doubled between January and March.
• 72.35% Viber delivery, with SMS as a backup: Viber messages recorded a 72.35% delivery rate. When Viber delivery failed, SMS served as the fallback channel, with a reported failover rate of 56.76%.

Building on Viber, SM Supermalls is exploring additional ways to make communication more interactive, reach more customers, and make it easier for shoppers to engage with promotions, helping drive foot traffic across its malls.