Case Study

HEMA Reactivates 24% of Customers With Creative, Data-Driven Experiences Across the Lifecycle

HEMA is a Dutch retailer known for affordable, well-designed products that bring simplicity and joy to everyday life. Founded in 1926 in Amsterdam, HEMA runs more than 750 stores across Europe and an online shop. Offering a wide range of products from clothing, homeware, and stationery to food and beauty, they needed to optimize their path to purchase across the full lifecycle, from awareness through reactivation.

The Results

With Selligent by Zeta, HEMA launched a program of personalized lifecycle campaigns tailored to every stage of the customer decision journey. The program accelerated engagement, drove higher click-throughs, more revenue and sessions, and lower unsubscribes, proving the impact of personalized, full-journey messaging.

24%

reactivated customers

17%+

increase in online revenue

19%

lower unsubscribe rates

increase in click-through rate

The Challenge

Impactful Engagement Along the Decision Journey

HEMA faced a common challenge: their path to purchase wasn’t fully optimized. They needed a solution that would keep customers coming back, whether they were shopping online or in-store.

That meant adopting a more holistic approach to customer engagement. One that reached customers at critical moments across the entire journey, from first interaction to long-term loyalty, with automated, creative and personalized communications that drive impact.

"Creativity drives connection, data drives action. Together, they deliver measurable results."

Claartje van Meeuwen

CRM & Loyalty manager, HEMA

In partnership with their agency Springbok and Selligent by Zeta, HEMA developed a customer decision journey strategy rooted in McKinsey’s framework. They launched a series of personalized, creative lifecycle campaigns, each tailored to support the full journey from awareness to reactivation.

The Solution

When Technology, Data and Creativity Meet

HEMA launched 19 data-driven campaigns across their customer decision journey, including:

“Where is Takkie?” — a playful hide-and-seek-style reactivation campaign featuring HEMA’s brand mascot Takkie
Onboarding flows tailored to product categories like towels and bed textiles
Interactive email campaigns for retention
Loyalty-specific touchpoints like “Almost enough points” and “HEMA loyalty birthday”
Churn prevention, second buy, and post-purchase journeys

To deliver these campaigns at scale and with precision, HEMA leveraged several key functionalities in Selligent by Zeta:

Seamless data integration enabled real-time connectivity with the HEMA loyalty program, providing a 360° customer view. This supports relevant, one-to-one communications tailored to customer behavior and preferences.
The Journey Builder powered personalization across every stage of the decision journey. This allowed HEMA to design lifecycle campaigns aligned to moments that matter, from welcome flows and second-purchase to winbacks and churn prevention.
Pre-built templates accelerated execution timelines, reducing the time from idea to activation across multiple markets and languages. This helped the team stay agile while ensuring high-quality, consistent experiences.
Selligent by Zeta’s deliverability team ensured strong performance across key domains in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, helping campaigns reach the inbox reliably to maximize performance.

With this program, HEMA sets the standard for combining data-driven insights with brand creativity, delivering measurable impact while staying true to its identity. It’s a model for how personalized, full-journey engagement can strengthen customer relationships and drive growth at scale.

Partner Profile

SPRINGBOK

Springbok is a digital and creative agency focused on positive growth. By combining technology with creativity, they help brands build long-term customer relationships rooted in sustainability and effectiveness. As a Selligent premium partner since 2009, Springbok supports more than fifteen major brands daily, helping them exploit the full potential of the technology across industries like retail, banking, insurance, and automotive.

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