Challenge
Expanding qualified reach through premium commerce environments
Cole Haan aimed to broaden its upper-funnel reach among high-intent shoppers via unique inventory that leveraged both audience and search signals within the Klarna App. The brand already leveraged Klarna’s Payments and Cashback products but wanted to explore how Criteo’s Commerce Growth platform could complement ongoing efforts. To achieve this, Cole Haan aimed to activate direct programmatic access to Klarna’s native ad placements, environments designed to reach users in active shopping and consideration moments.
Rather than replacing other upper-funnel tactics, this test sought to understand how Klarna’s commerce-centric environment could add incremental reach and quality to Cole Haan’s media mix. The objective was to validate that Klarna’s inventory could drive more meaningful engagement (e.g. higher qualified visits, lower bounce rate) and increase awareness among Klarna users.
Solution
Testing Klarna’s premium commerce inventory to unlock incremental growth
In partnership with Klarna and Criteo, Cole Haan activated native and display placements across the Klarna app through Commerce Growth. These placements included Shop Home Product Cards and Transaction Details Page Banners in the Klarna App.
The campaign tested multiple audience and targeting approaches, including predictive shopper audiences and lookalike targeting to optimize upper-funnel reach. A full-funnel reporting framework segmented users into three mutually exclusive groups:
- Upper-funnel Only: Users exposed only to Klarna upper-funnel campaigns
- Upper + Lower-funnel: Users exposed to Klarna campaigns and existing Criteo lower-funnel campaigns
- Lower-funnel Only: Users not exposed to Klarna
This framework enabled visibility into how Klarna exposure influenced downstream conversion activity across other Criteo touchpoints.
Results
Strong commerce inventory drives deeper engagement and downstream conversion
By leveraging Klarna’s high-intent shopping environment through Criteo Commerce Growth, Cole Haan successfully bridged upper-funnel awareness and lower-funnel performance. The campaign demonstrated that activating within commerce-centric apps like Klarna not only drives broader qualified reach, but also improves the quality of shopper engagement compared to typical app inventory. These learnings validate Criteo’s ability to connect discovery to decision-making within a single commerce ecosystem.
- 2.3x higher qualified visit rate than other app inventory, proving that Klarna users demonstrate stronger shopping intent and lower bounce rates.
- 30% lower cost per qualified visit versus other upper-funnel placements, showing improved efficiency in reaching high-intent shoppers.
- Click-through rate parity but improved quality. While overall CTR remained comparable to open-web app averages, Klarna placements achieved significantly lower bounce rates, highlighting the platform’s ability to capture true attention rather than accidental engagement.
- Full-funnel lift with users exposed to both upper-funnel and lower-funnel campaigns showing notable increases in visit depth and post-click conversion rate, validating Klarna’s role in driving awareness that converts.
By leveraging Criteo Commerce Growth to activate Klarna’s in-app commerce inventory, Cole Haan proved that high-quality, upper-funnel environments can effectively extend brand reach without sacrificing efficiency or conversion outcomes. This campaign demonstrated the power of connecting upper-funnel awareness with lower-funnel performance through Criteo’s end-to-end commerce media ecosystem to reach shoppers where they browse and convert them where they buy.
