Stichd

Assist Digital, our marketing automation team, led the Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation, while our Commerce Cloud partner Wolfpack joined us to align the commerce side. The brief was ambitious but clear: create a multi‑cloud foundation that could serve multiple shops, scale quickly and support precise, event‑driven communication. Stichd’s existing set‑up a simple IT landscape and a basic CRM for email had done its job, but it could no longer capture the customer data needed for meaningful personalisation. Reporting on commercial growth was difficult, and the toolset held back scale, integration and campaign capability.

From December 2021 we began integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud into the Stichd platforms. We approached the work as one product, not three systems, so structure and data would line up from day one. That meant thinking about the whole operation: how a product goes live, how an order moves, how a support case triggers a message, how fans experience the journey across shops such as Fuel For Fans, Mercedes‑AMG Petronas and Manchester City. The aim was an architecture that could be extended without starting from scratch each time a new shop or feature was needed.

The optimisation came with real constraints. We had to connect Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud despite there being no direct connector between them, keep the platform stable while launching new shops to tight calendars and ensure that marketing, service and commerce data stayed in step. On top of that, Stichd set two goals that shaped every decision: make the experience more personal and lift conversion.

We designed the Marketing Cloud account to mirror how the business operates in reality. One account hosts multiple business units so each brand can work locally while sharing standards, templates and guardrails. Data integrity across those units was a hard rule, so segmentation and reporting would be trustworthy. Because Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud do not connect out of the box, we first built a custom integration to move the right events and entities between systems. When Service Cloud came online, we replaced that with Marketing Cloud Connect to reduce maintenance and improve reliability.

With the plumbing in place, we focused on the moments fans care about. We set up transactional workflows and notifications for each brand, so orders, deliveries, returns and service updates arrive on time and in the right tone. Service Cloud events now trigger Marketing Cloud journeys. Complex objects orders with lines and promotional discounts, for example are passed as JSON payloads, and Marketing Cloud processes them efficiently using Guided Template Language. The effect is simple to a fan: information turns up when it should, and it reflects what actually happened.

The result is a shared technology stack that serves multiple online shops without duplicating effort. New functionality is designed and built in a pilot shop, refined with real data and then rolled out as a pattern to others. This approach saves time and budget while raising quality, because every release benefits from what we learned before. A uniform data model, aligned through out‑of‑the‑box connections between Marketing, Service and Commerce Clouds, keeps orders, products, customers and accounts consistent everywhere. Teams now work from the same truth, whether they are building a campaign, answering a service ticket or checking stock.

For Stichd, this also means speed without drama. Launching a new shop is no longer a bespoke project; it is a repeatable process. Templates, components and data definitions move with the team, so deadlines feel tight but manageable. Fans experience the benefit as a smoother path from intent to purchase, with fewer surprises along the way.

The commercial picture improved in step with the experience. New online shops can be onboarded faster thanks to the shared model and reusable templates. Abandoned baskets declined as journeys were tightened and messaging became more timely. Revenue lifted, and conversion rose measurably the first release showed a 14.68% improvement. Most importantly, the system now matches the rhythm of the sport: when a race weekend heats up or a match kicks off, the shops, the data and the communication are ready to perform.