Holiday Email Volume Surges as Brands Refine Customer Acquisition Strategies

The volume of emails sent by marketers increased nearly 13% during the 2013 holiday season as brands continue to refine their customer acquisition strategies, according to Experian Marketing Services.

While email click-through rates and transaction metrics decreased year over year, the increase in email volume led to a 9% rise in the number of total transactions from email marketing campaigns and an 18.4% increase in overall revenue. What’s more, email volume within the last 10 days of the holiday season increased nearly 36% compared to holiday 2012.

Email volume has increased during the holiday season (Oct.–Dec.) for each of the past five years.

“As brands continue to expand and refine their acquisition strategies (POS, social media, website signups, etc.), email lists grow, and the holiday season is the most important time of year to make contacts with subscriber lists,” Shelley Kessler, Manager, Reporting and Analytics, Cross-channel Marketing for Experian Marketing Services, told Loyalty360. “The increases in volume led to an increase in transactions year-over-year, which is exactly what, as a marketer, you hope happens.”

Kessler said that the dramatic increase in email volume year-over year during the last 10 days of the holiday season is likely another outcome of the shortened holiday shopping season.

“But it’s also a reflection of how discount-driven marketing strategies have become,” she explained. “In the last 10 days of the 2013 holiday season, the increase in email volume coincided with an increase in the amount of email subject lines offering customers discounts of 50% or more. We also saw that brands mailed more on weekends during the last 10 days of the year), optimizing each remaining day of the holiday season.”

In the last 10 days of the 2013 holiday season, 28% of the weekly volume was sent on weekends, and weekends provided 29% of transactions during that time period, representing a 20% increase from 2012.

According to the Experian Marketing Services analysis, two of the top 10 transaction days of the 2013 holiday season occurred during the first half of November. In 2013, Nov. 8 and Nov. 15 made it into the top 10 (seventh and fifth, respectively). Meanwhile, eight out of the 10 days were Fridays.

Two-thirds of emails sent by multichannel retailers were opened on mobile. The percentage of total emails opened on mobile devices increased in 2013 for most industries. Multichannel retailers had the highest percentage of mobile opens this holiday season at 65% and were the only industry to receive more than half of their clicks on mobile as well.

“It is absolutely critical for brands to plan for the peak days of the holiday season (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday), as we have found that these days are consistently in the top 10 transaction days of the season,” Kessler said. “However, there’s also more competition in terms of email volume on those key shopping days. This means that brands have to adopt highly relevant and effective email marketing strategies, particularly on these days.”

Kessler said email is the “glue” that holds an effective cross-channel marketing program together.

“I wouldn’t say email is growing in significance, it’s always been important, but much of attention has been directed toward the newer, sexier social and mobile channels,” she said. “Email is no longer the only digital marketing promotional tool, but it retains its ability to promote all types of marketing channels: in-store sales and events, social media content and contests, website promotions, email only promotions, mobile apps and sign-ups, and print/catalog promotions. The overall volume of email demands that to be effective, brands need to send targeted, relevant messages that are also coordinated  with and complimentary to all of their other marketing channels.”

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