Lids knew that SMS text messaging was a missing piece in their marketing strategy. With a large customer base who mostly shopped in-store at Lids’ many physical locations, the company found itself relying primarily on email marketing, as well as paid & organic search to drive them there. They saw the opportunity to complement these channels with SMS - and turned to Vibes to make it happen.
Lids is the leader and #1 destination for hats, gear, and everything that moves fans. They are the largest licensed sports retailer in North America, operating over 2,000 locations globally, including stores in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, Europe, and Australia.
In 2024, Lids knew that text message and SMS marketing were a missing piece in their marketing strategy. With a large customer base who mostly shopped in-store at Lids’ many physical locations, the company found itself relying primarily on email marketing, as well as paid & organic search to drive them there. They saw the opportunity to complement these channels with SMS. As Email and SMS Marketing Manager Zach Zagar says, “It’s where customers are these days, and it's probably a more effective way than email to drive traffic to a store. Text is just a more personal, quicker connection”.
The search for the right mobile marketing partner was led by the Lids IT team. The “reputation of Vibes” truly stood out for the decision-making team, along with Vibes’ unique position in the industry as a Tier 1 message aggregator: the company’s industry-leading throughput marked by trusted, longtime direct connections with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and 65 other regional carriers across North America.
Lids launched with Vibes and our mobile-first engagement platform in 2025, and set about using it to drive sports fans into their locations, while using it to help build long-term engagement and deeper fan loyalty.
Lids chose to launch with SMS and Mobile Wallet as the two core pieces of their mobile program, then set about turning as many of its email users into opted-in SMS subscribers as well.
The two companies worked very closely together to ensure that Lids messaging was carrier-compliant and in line with mobile marketing best practices. Zagar particularly appreciated how easy Vibes was to use, and how he and his team could simply “log in and send texts”, versus relying on IT to maintain a complex setup and integrations. He likes how they’re able to easily filter and segment within the platform, and that “it's easy to get messages out, target them, and get them where I need to get them, when I need to get them out.”
During implementation and beyond, Zagar also found, in working with the team at Vibes, that “Everyone cares, no matter what. Every step of the way, the Vibes team has been extremely thoughtful, careful, caring, and problem-solving. There are things I know I could do in the platform that the Vibes team just takes care of sometimes, and I'm like, okay, thank you! The people at Vibes make things easier. and they've been around the block a time or two. It’s good to work with experienced pros.”
In 2026, Lids has also moved toward RCS to complement their Vibes-provided SMS and Mobile Wallet programs, and sees this exciting channel as a key component of their strategy going forward.
Every year, Lids uses National Hat Day as a key piece of its marketing strategy and likes to do something offbeat and creative to drive revenue. In 2025, Zagar says, they set a Guinness World Record by handing out the most hats at a live event at an Indiana Pacers game – and, at the same time, also launched a sweepstakes campaign for a free year of hats. It was promoted via email, and social, and per Zagar, “It showed up in Times Square, with the QR code, and in millions of emails. Vibes was the engine for it all because subscribe was the CTA to enter our sweepstakes. We were very surprised and pleased with the redemption, and also with the downloads of our mobile wallet”.
Out of 16.5k sweepstakes entries, Lids generated 7k new SMS subscribers, and sent a follow-on offer to 12.9k total SMS subscribers. 5% of these subscribers redeemed the offer in-store, with an increased average transaction amount for these buyers. This was a highly visible campaign across the company, and one in which the Vibes platform served as the centerpiece.
Lids is now looking to add more short codes to drive more mobile marketing and deeper SMS engagement, and will keep building additional integrations back to Vibes through their ESP and CDP to help increase personalization.
And RCS will be key, as Zagar and his team love its visual nature and early ability to drive even stronger engagement and revenue than SMS. It all comes down to how the two companies partner together to drive these sorts of results. “Vibes is interested in our success, and that’s what has us even more invested in using it to help drive our business”.
Every year, Lids uses National Hat Day as a key piece of its marketing strategy and likes to do something offbeat and creative to drive revenue. In 2025, Zagar says, they set a Guinness World Record by handing out the most hats at a live event at an Indiana Pacers game – and, at the same time, also launched a sweepstakes campaign for a free year of hats. It was promoted via email, and social, and per Zagar, “It showed up in Times Square, with the QR code, and in millions of emails. Vibes was the engine for it all because subscribe was the CTA to enter our sweepstakes. We were very surprised and pleased with the redemption, and also with the downloads of our mobile wallet”.
Out of 16.5k sweepstakes entries, Lids generated 7k new SMS subscribers, and sent a follow-on offer to 12.9k total SMS subscribers. 5% of these subscribers redeemed the offer in-store, with an increased average transaction amount for these buyers. This was a highly visible campaign across the company, and one in which the Vibes platform served as the centerpiece.
Lids is now looking to add more short codes to drive more mobile marketing and deeper SMS engagement, and will keep building additional integrations back to Vibes through their ESP and CDP to help increase personalization.
And RCS will be key, as Zagar and his team love its visual nature and early ability to drive even stronger engagement and revenue than SMS. It all comes down to how the two companies partner together to drive these sorts of results. “Vibes is interested in our success, and that’s what has us even more invested in using it to help drive our business”.
“Vibes is the engine of our mobile marketing strategy, and their team is extremely thoughtful, careful, caring, and problem-solving. It’s good to work with experienced pros. Vibes is interested in our success, and that’s what has us even more invested in using it to help drive our business.”
Email + SMS Marketing Manager
