Overview

Nike is an iconic, globally recognized brand. Designer and maker of sports and athletic apparel, footwear, and equipment, it is loved by millions of customers the world over. A global business, headquartered in Oregon USA, Nike has a significant digital presence with a range of websites and apps both internal and public facing.

We spoke to Eric O'Connor, Lead Software Engineer in the Nike Digital Engineering group, who was instrumental in building Nike’s smart data pipeline utilizing a range of technologies including Apache Spark, Elasticsearch, as well as DeviceAtlas.

The Challenge

At the forefront of building out Nike’s real-time analytics for traffic on Nike.com and other digital properties, Nike’s engineering team wanted to add an additional layer of reporting to their technology stack to gain insight into which devices their customers use.

This data is consumed by a range of Nike business and technical stakeholders who wished to augment and improve their understanding of how Nike’s customer base engage with the brand. One of the challenges was to find a solution that could provide enough depth of insight to cater to immediate as well as future data requirements from within Nike’s business units.

Solution

The team tested a number of third party tools and developed a Proof of Concept for their requirements. DeviceAtlas was ultimately chosen as the best solution due to its highly accurate device data and robust APIs which were easily integrated into Nike’s technology stack.

Nike processes a range of user events from their websites and transforms large amounts of data before sending it to their analytics and data visualization tools. DeviceAtlas’ role is to parse User-Agent strings and provide deep insight on accessing devices.

Results

DeviceAtlas provides device insight which has been particularly useful during Nike’s product launches which often allow Nike lovers to get the chance to be the first to get their hands on new products. It provides additional visibility to business owners on how users engage and the team have also benefited from DeviceAtlas’ ability to detect bots accessing Nike’s web applications—something that can arise when Nike launches a new line of highly sought after sportswear.

DeviceAtlas has successfully been deployed to add device insight to Nike’s web technology infrastructure and integrates well with the other elements in their stack. The team is confident that DeviceAtlas provides the right mix of device data, API support and flexibility as they continue to evolve their architecture and approaches to analytics and business intelligence processes.

"DeviceAtlas provides analytics and reporting to many of Nike’s internal business customers, and gives us a real understanding of how our customers engage with the Nike brand." Eric O’Connor, Lead Software Engineer - Nike Digital Engineering at Nike