The Magic Behind Ballard Designs' Marketing
Tailored Interiors, Tailored Emails: Ballard Designs' AI Story
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The proof is in the numbers.
11x
increase in conversions
25x
increase in revenue per send
2x
increase in AOV
Challenge
Ballard Designs had a strong foundation for their marketing—clear goals, engaging creative assets, and a loyal customer base. But without a complete view of what was truly resonating, sending the right message still involved a lot of educated guesswork. They knew their campaigns could be more influential, but it wasn’t always obvious which content was driving impact or how customer needs were shifting in real time.
Solution
By introducing Movable Ink’s Da Vinci, Ballard Designs filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle. Suddenly, they could see what was clicking with customers; not just in terms of engagement, but actual downstream impact. With insight into who was ready to convert, what types of content were most effective, and where there were untapped opportunities, their team could steer campaigns with confidence. Messaging became more relevant, performance picked up, and every creative choice carried more weight.
Campaign Spotlight: Living Room Refresh
During a recent living room promotion, every subscriber received the same offer, but the email they opened looked entirely different from one recipient to the next.
Using Da Vinci, Ballard Designs personalized hero imagery, product grids, and layouts based on predicted preferences—not just recent behaviors. Some customers saw rugs, others lighting, but all were matched to products they were most likely to engage with and purchase.
Even more impressively, Da Vinci optimized for business goals like revenue and average order value. For example, if a customer was a high-value spender, the model prioritized showing big-ticket items that aligned with their preferences, past behavior, and what they were most likely to engage with next.
When your personalization engine is running like a well-oiled machine, that’s when you have the bandwidth to recognize and activate new opportunities.
Melissa Metcalf
Senior Manager, CRM Marketing, Ballard Designs
Always-On Testing Never Sleeps
Traditional A/B testing wasn’t enough for Ballard Designs. The team was used to testing one or two elements at a time, then manually applying those learnings to the next campaign. Da Vinci flipped that approach on its head with constant optimization—running continuous experiments behind the scenes to learn from every send and automatically improve future ones.
That meant insights from a rug campaign could influence an upcoming textiles email, even if the content was completely different.
By letting Da Vinci determine who should see the message and when, Ballard Designs ensured that their most compelling creatives didn’t go to waste on the wrong audience.
What Marketers Can Learn from Ballard Designs
Beyond customer-facing content, Da Vinci also helped Ballard Designs get more from their internal creative efforts. By comparing the volume of creative assets with what customers actually engaged with, the team uncovered an imbalance—some areas were over-resourced with creative, while others with high customer interest didn’t have enough content to meet demand.
That insight empowered the team to allocate resources more strategically, building more assets where it mattered most.
Magenta Friday: Beyond the Bots
Hear directly from Melissa Metcalf, Senior Manager of CRM Marketing at Ballard Designs, as she shares how her team brought their AI-powered marketing transformation to life
