Coyote Ugly Saloon takes a shot with Adentro

Coyote Ugly Saloon, as the legend goes, began with “a girl, a dream, and a little bit of Wild Turkey.” The first location opened in 1993 in New York. After a film based on an article written by New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert was made, it exploded in popularity. There are now Coyote Ugly Saloons around the world.

The challenge

Bar-top antics, beautiful bartenders, plenty of shots and a wild attitude are all part of the Coyote Ugly formula. Yet even “the most famous bar on the planet” needs an assist from digital marketing to fill the joint. The bar chain employs all the social media and digital ad tools you’d expect. But digital metrics like impressions, clicks, engagements, and followers don’t show whether an ad actually drove a customer in.

Leejon Killingsworth, Chief Media Officer for Coyote Ugly, says, “It was difficult for us to tell how effective our ads were in getting new customers into our locations.” He had grown to distrust the inflated numbers presented by print and radio ad reps. And while social media engagement was nice, it didn’t always drive sales.

He wanted a marketing tool that would show clear return on investment (ROI) and allow him to make informed decisions about creative based on customer visits rather than digital success metrics.

The solution

Leejon wanted to use customer visits to measure success the way an ecommerce marketer uses clicks. That would allow him to connect his online marketing with real results rather than an online estimate.

Coyote Ugly started using Adentro in 2013 to collect customer contacts using the bars’ guest WiFi, and build a rich customer database for email marketing. Email marketing results were measured with the Walk-Through Rate^TM, the number of people who visit a location after seeing a message. Leejon wanted to extend Walk-Through measurement to his digital advertising.

With the introduction of Adentro Attract, he could begin measuring the success of his digital advertising using the Walk-Through Rate. Using profile characteristics of customers who have actually visited, Adentro developed an extremely effective target audience list and was able to report on customer visits associated with each ad campaign.

“This information helps us continuously craft better marketing messages and get them in front of the people who are more likely to become new customers. It’s all based on real data we’ve collected on existing customer preferences.”

Leejon Killingsworth, Chief Media Officer, Coyote Ugly

The solution

After testing this new technology for two months, Coyote Ugly managed to
cut new customer acquisition cost (CAC) by 50%, and increase engagement
by 200%. With Adentro, Leejon knows the actual ROI and customer
acquisition cost (CAC) for the first time.

He says, “This information helps us continuously craft better marketing
messages and get them in front of the people who are more likely to become
new customers. It’s all based on real data we’ve collected on existing
customer preferences.”