# How Rhone Optimized Google Shopping Performance with Stylitics Catalog Enrichment

**Customer:** Rhone  
**Industry:** Men's & Women's Apparel

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# Challenge

Rhone initially partnered with Stylitics to bring their curated in-store merchandising experience to their e-commerce platform. While AI-powered outfitting delivered exceptional results—including a 39% increase in AOV, Rhone recognized a further opportunity to optimize the foundation of their e-commerce engine: product metadata.

The core challenge was ensuring premium products remained visible in a competitive SEM landscape. Existing metadata lacked the granular, shopper-centric language required to match evolving search intent, potentially limiting the reach of their high-performance catalog.

## Key Objectives:

### 1. Bridge the Intent Gap:
Align product metadata with the actual natural language used by shoppers in search engines.

### 2. Scale Without Overhead:
Find an enterprise-grade solution to enrich thousands of SKUs without the manual burden of internal tagging or experimental R&D projects.

### 3. Prove Incremental Lift:
Quantify the direct performance impact of enrichment on Google Shopping metrics through a rigorous, isolated test.

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# Solution

Stylitics implemented a controlled A/B test to evaluate the performance lift generated by enriched metadata delivered via Rhone’s Google Merchant Center (GMC) instance. By choosing a proven, production-ready platform over an internal "build" project, Rhone bypassed the 12–18 month learning curve typical of in-house AI experiments.

## Test Methodology:

1. **Randomized Product Split:** 96% of Rhone’s product catalog was split into test (50%) and control (50%) groups.
2. **Daily Enrichment:** The test group received Stylitics’ enriched metadata while the control group remained unchanged.
3. **Balanced Distribution:** Groups were balanced by attribute distribution to eliminate bias and ensure a fair comparison.
4. **Unified Campaign Management:** Both groups ran within a single GMC campaign using identical bidding strategies and budgets to isolate the impact of enrichment.

> "Stylitics provides the production infrastructure we need to bridge the gap between our premium product catalog and actual shopper intent. Moving to AI Catalog Enrichment delivered a +16.3% lift in CTR and a +4.5% increase in ROAS on Google Shopping by aligning our metadata with how shoppers actually search. This is proven, scalable intelligence that ensures our products are discoverable at every touchpoint."  
>  
> **Sally Pullman, VP of Ecomm & Digital – Rhone**

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## Results

The test confirmed that enriched metadata results in a better match to shopper intent, driving higher quality traffic and a significant lift in ROAS.

## Performance & Efficiency Impact:

- **Significant CTR Lift:** Enriched listings produced higher quality clicks, driving a +16.3% increase in CTR despite lower overall impressions.
- **Conversion Growth:** High-intent traffic led to a +3.5% lift in CVR as well as down funnel volume growth with a +3.1% increase in total conversions and a +4.7% increase in Conversion Value.
- **Improved ROAS:** Efficiency gains led to a +4.5% increase in ROAS, proving that enrichment more than pays for itself through higher-quality shopper matching.
- **AOV Lift:** Downstream metrics showed a +1.5% increase in AOV, reflecting increased basket value.

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# Looking Ahead

Rhone’s expansion into catalog enrichment demonstrates the power of treating AI as a strategic, enterprise-grade investment rather than a one-off experiment. By transforming raw data into high-intent signals, Rhone has not only boosted immediate performance but has future-proofed its catalog for the next generation of AI-driven discovery.
