New Mid-Year Benchmark Report Prepares Retailers for the Most Profitable Half of the Year
Based on Insights from Over 3.26 Billion Emails, Bluecore’s “2019 Mid-Year Retail Email Benchmark Report” Reveals Industry-First Benchmarks To Drive Increased Customer Acquisition and Retention
Bluecore, the retail marketing technology company that more than 400 of the fastest-growing retailers rely on to launch highly personalized campaigns at scale, today released its 2019 Retail Email Benchmark Report. The report, based on over 3.26 billion emails sent by more than 400 retail brands in the past year, reveals how different types and degrees of personalization influence customer acquisition, retention and other high-value shopper behaviors that enhance email performance leading into the busiest and most profitable time of year. The complete report is available for download here.
Bluecore’s 2019 Mid-Year Email Benchmark Report is based on data collected between April 2018 and March 2019. It establishes quantifiable benchmarks for 11 types of triggered emails as well as one-time sends, and informs retailers of key areas of focus to refine their strategic email use.
Bluecore’s research revealed, among other things, that retailers who focus on the relevance of emails by going beyond simple segmentation, for example by engaging customers based on real behaviors; recent changes to products which shoppers have an interest in; and the unique characteristics of shoppers, see the biggest gains in customer acquisition and retention.
Key findings include:
- Seasonality counts for far more than a one-time spike. Retailers see a heightened level of customer acquisition in November and December with nearly 25% of their first-time purchases occurring in these two months alone. Retailers that use individualized messaging in follow-up customer communications can expect to see more than 50% of all second-time purchases within the four months following the spike (November – March).
- Customer retention strategies have longer-term benefits than pure acquisition plays. While one-and-done buyers offer significant short-term results, prioritizing customer retention can deliver more impact in the long-term: first-time buyers have a 14.5% likelihood of purchasing again, while multi-time buyers have a 60% likelihood of purchasing again.
- The more shoppers spend, the more likely they are to engage with emails. Across verticals and spender types, high-spenders have the highest open rates (up to 50%), click rates (up to 17%) and conversion rates (up to .94%).
- A sense of urgency gets shoppers moving. Cart abandonment emails continue to see the highest conversion rate (1.6%) of all triggered email types and one-time sends, followed closely by price decrease (0.5%) and low inventory emails (0.4%). Price decrease emails also have the highest click-to-open rate (30%).
- Retailers should step away from upfront discounts for email capture. Shoppers unsubscribe from welcome emails at a disproportionately higher rate (.45%) than other emails. This is because shoppers often only subscribe to emails to receive a discount and then promptly unsubscribe once they use the discount.
“We release a benchmark report each year to keep retailers current on how their different digital channels and campaigns should be performing. This year, it was important to release the report mid-year, as the complexity of retail marketing programs is increasing to handle hyper-personalization in response to aggressive competitor sets, emerging d2c brands and rising ad costs for plateauing channels,” said Sherene Hilal, VP of Product Marketing and Business Operations of Bluecore. “Our benchmarks will help retailers create goals to meet or exceed as they map out their holiday programs in this extremely competitive retail landscape.”
ABOUT BLUECORE
Bluecore is a retail marketing technology company that is reimagining the way retailers communicate with shoppers. The 2019 launch of Bluecore Communicate™ introduces retailers to a fundamentally different email solution that replaces manual processes with an intelligent, AI-driven workflow and the industry’s first fully performance-based pricing model. Retailers can now manage ESP, triggers and personalized batch from a single interface, enabling them to personalize 100% of their email campaigns for the first time ever. Bluecore Communicate™ doubles email revenue while reducing production time for more than 400 retailers including: Staples, Tommy Hilfiger, The North Face, TomboyX, Bass Pro Shops.
Media Contact: Kieran Powell, kieran.powell@bluecore.com