From Donuts to Data: 7 Lessons from Krispy Kreme’s Omnichannel Marketing Journey

Sometimes, digital marketing can feel like an uphill climb. Other times, brands make it look easy. Enter Krispy Kreme. By refining their marketing strategy, this 85+ year-old donut brand achieved a 70% increase in website clicks and a 53% boost in leads. 

For Krispy Kreme, meeting increasingly high customer expectations required more than just great products—it demanded a bold shift toward a data-driven, omnichannel marketing strategy powered by SAP Emarsys.

In this article, we’ll explore 7 key lessons from Krispy Kreme’s omnichannel marketing journey—insights that any marketer can apply to transform customer engagement, loyalty, and growth. Let’s dive in and discover how Krispy Kreme glazed their path to success!

For Krispy Kreme, maintaining their iconic status while expanding their digital footprint was no small task. As their e-commerce operations grew, they faced a critical question: 

How could they scale quickly without sacrificing the personalized mouth-watering experiences customers had come to expect?

The solution lay in creating a scalable omnichannel strategy that could support rapid growth while unifying online and offline touchpoints. Krispy Kreme’s partnership with SAP Emarsys was pivotal in this transformation. By leveraging SAP Emarsys’s intuitive platform and comprehensive tools, they were able to align their marketing efforts across channels and accelerate time to value.

Krispy Kreme recognized that their existing resources and systems weren’t sufficient to meet rising customer expectations. With SAP Emarsys, they not only scaled their digital operations but also laid a foundation for long-term growth by investing in data-driven insights and automation.

Key takeaway: Scalability is the backbone of any successful omnichannel marketing strategy. By adopting tools and platforms that can grow with your business, you can future-proof your operations and deliver consistent, high-quality customer experiences—even during periods of rapid expansion.

Krispy Kreme’s journey to omnichannel success highlights the power of automation in scaling customer engagement. By automating key touchpoints in their customer journey, the brand achieved a remarkable 53% increase in leads and significantly improved engagement across channels.

One standout example is their Welcome Program, which has become the cornerstone of their automated marketing strategy. Designed to make a strong first impression, this program not only engages new customers but also provides Krispy Kreme with valuable data to refine future campaigns. 

Simple yet effective, this powerful automation ensures every new customer feels recognized and connected to the brand from the start.

Beyond onboarding, Krispy Kreme has implemented additional automated journeys, such as:

• Abandoned basket reminders 
• Upselling tactics
• Celebratory offers

By leveraging SAP Emarsys’s user-friendly tools, Krispy Kreme was able to roll out these programs with minimal internal resources while maximizing impact.

Key takeaway:

The key to automation is creating meaningful, consistent customer interactions at scale. Start with foundational programs like welcome journeys and abandoned cart reminders, then expand into more advanced automations to engage customers throughout their lifecycle.

Personalization has always been a cornerstone of Krispy Kreme’s marketing strategy, and their transition to an omnichannel approach only increased this focus. 

Knowing their customers had set a high bar, Krispy Kreme rose to this challenge by leveraging SAP Emarsys to create personalized journeys that drive deeper engagement and loyalty.

One of their key tactics involved A/B testing to refine offers and content. For example, Krispy Kreme tested percentage-based discounts versus fixed-dollar-value offers, and celebratory messaging versus everyday communications. These experiments provided critical insights into what resonated most with their audience, allowing the brand to optimize their campaigns for better results.

Krispy Kreme also ensured that their online and offline experiences complemented each other. Even when data from their retail stores wasn’t fully integrated, they made sure offers were redeemable across channels. 

Key takeaway:

Personalization isn’t a one-time effort—it’s an ongoing process of testing, learning, and adapting. Use tools like A/B testing to understand what works best for your audience, and ensure your messaging aligns across all touchpoints for a unified customer experience.

In an era where customers expect tailored experiences, data is the linchpin of effective marketing. Krispy Kreme is a perfect example of how leveraging data can drive smarter decisions and more impactful campaigns. By partnering with SAP Emarsys, they gained access to robust analytics and AI tools, empowering them to identify trends, understand customer behavior, and optimize their strategies in real time.

For example, Krispy Kreme used data to uncover key insights about their customers’ purchasing patterns. They discovered that celebratory purchases dominated e-commerce sales, while everyday purchases were more common in retail stores. This understanding allowed them to tailor content and offers to different customer segments, ensuring relevance and engagement.

The brand also used data-driven insights to refine their campaigns, such as implementing free delivery incentives to protect and increase average order value. By setting triggers that encouraged customers to meet a specific threshold, they successfully boosted basket sizes while enhancing the shopping experience.

Key takeaway:

When used correctly, data becomes a roadmap to understanding your customers. Invest in tools that provide actionable insights, and use them to inform everything from campaign strategies to personalized offers, ensuring your marketing efforts are always aligned with customer needs.

Creating a seamless connection between online and offline channels is essential for delivering a true omnichannel experience. Krispy Kreme tackled this challenge by prioritizing customer convenience and consistency across touchpoints. Whether customers shopped online or in-store, the brand ensured they felt recognized and rewarded.

A standout example is their approach to offers and loyalty incentives. Even though their retail and e-commerce data weren’t fully integrated, Krispy Kreme made sure that customers could redeem offers in-store. This strategy bridged the gap between digital and physical interactions, allowing customers to enjoy a unified experience regardless of where they engaged with the brand.

Looking ahead, Krispy Kreme is exploring innovative solutions like mobile wallets to further enhance offline integration. These tools will allow customers to easily access loyalty rewards and offers while providing Krispy Kreme with valuable data to better understand in-store behavior.

Key takeaway:

Omnichannel success lies in connecting the dots between online and offline interactions. Ensure your offers and experiences are consistent across all channels, and invest in tools like mobile wallets to capture data and streamline customer engagement in physical locations.

Retail and e-commerce marketing moves at a fast pace, and if you can’t keep up, you risk getting left behind. Krispy Kreme has demonstrated the power of continuous experimentation. By embracing A/B testing, they refined their marketing strategies, tailoring campaigns to resonate more effectively with their diverse customer base.

Some of their most impactful tests included:

• Comparing percentage-based discounts versus fixed-dollar-value offers. This provided insights into which approach was more appealing to their customers and drove higher engagement.
• Testing celebratory content versus everyday messaging, uncovering key differences in how customers interacted with each type of communication.

These learnings didn’t just improve individual campaigns—they shaped Krispy Kreme’s broader marketing strategy. The brand now leverages these insights to fine-tune content, timing, and offers across their entire customer journey, ensuring every touchpoint is optimized for maximum impact.

Key Takeaway:

Omnichannel marketing isn’t static—it’s a dynamic process that requires constant refinement. Use testing to understand what works best for your audience, and adapt your strategy based on the results. Even small adjustments can lead to significant improvements in engagement and conversions.

To secure long-term customer relationships and maintain a competitive edge, Krispy Kreme is prioritizing first-party data and exploring innovative ways to enhance customer loyalty. By focusing on these areas, the brand is preparing to deliver even more personalized and meaningful experiences to their audience.

One of their most exciting initiatives is the development of a loyalty program, which aims to connect seamlessly with their customers’ digital and in-store interactions. 

This program will not only reward frequent shoppers but also help Krispy Kreme gather valuable insights about customer preferences and behaviors. The plan includes leveraging tools like mobile wallets to make the program accessible and easy to use, enabling offline engagement without disrupting the fast-paced nature of their in-store experience.

Key Takeaway:

Building a loyalty program powered by first-party data is essential for fostering deeper customer relationships. Focus on creating a program that aligns with your business model, integrates online and offline touchpoints, and delivers value to customers while gathering actionable insights for your brand.