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SILVERPOP SURVEY: How Retail Marketers Are (and Aren’t Quite Yet) Using Triggered Emails

T oday, more and more marketers are looking for creative ways to engage customers and drive revenue. But are they using the right tools? Are they tapping into the power of behavior-driven, triggered messages?

To answer these questions, Silverpop conducted a detailed benchmark survey of 43 retailers and e-commerce companies and asked them to report on their use of tactics such as cart abandonment campaigns, browse abandonment programs and post-purchase emails—and the related results.

With this report, we present a series of broad benchmarks marketers can use to help answer some of their own burning questions about triggered messaging best practices. When should you distribute cart abandonment emails, and how many should you send? What sort of conversion rates can you expect? And what kinds of post-purchase messages should you consider?

Key Findings / SummaryA few notable trends emerged from the survey results. Here are some key takeaways:

• Many retailers are leaving cart abandonment opportunities untapped. Less than half of retailers surveyed are implementing cart abandonment campaigns despite their well-documented remarketing benefits.

• Of the retailers that use cart recovery emails, most send too late—and not often enough. The majority of retailers surveyed wait too long to send the first abandonment recovery email, and then fail to follow up with a series of communications, denying themselves the best chance to win back these sales.

• Abandonment recovery efforts are well worth the time. These emails typically yield much better open, click-through and conversion rates than general broadcast emails.

• Post-purchase opportunities abound. While the majority of retailers surveyed send at least one type of post-purchase email, there are several types of highly relevant, behavior-driven messages going largely unused.

• Browse abandonment initiatives are poised to take off. Though few retailers are currently employing these campaigns, nearly three-fourths of respondents said they planned to by the end of 2011.

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1Use of Cart Abandonment EmailsAlthough most industry studies have shown that between 15 percent and 20 percent

of retailers currently use cart abandonment campaigns, that number should ascend quickly: 83 percent of Silverpop survey respondents plan to take advantage of this tactic by the end of 2011.

Retailers still on the fence would be wise to embrace the practice sooner rather than later, as these checkout-reminder emails can give you a competitive advantage and boost the bottom line. According to shopping cart recovery services provider SeeWhy, a company doing $200 million in annual revenue loses $1.2 million a day from cart abandonment.

To maximize the effectiveness of cart abandonment emails, companies should avoid emulating the overly aggressive salesperson who follows the consumer around the store and out the door, instead adopting a service tone. Offer to complete the transaction in other channels, such as through live chat or a call center, and ask if the shopper had a problem at checkout.

2 Use of IncentivesWhen sending abandonment messages, retailers must decide whether to offer an

incentive to lure customers back to complete a purchase. Survey respondents were split in their approach, with two-thirds not offering an incentive in the first recovery email, while one-third offered free shipping, a percentage off, or some other combination of incentives.

With the right tone and approach, incentives are less important in cart recovery emails, especially in the first email of a series. An emerging best practice approach is to not offer an incentive in the first of a multipart series, but then offer a modest incentive in the second email and your most aggressive offer in the final email.

There’s also a need to consider the risk of training customers. Repeat buyers might consider abandoning to get a promotional offer. Making promotions less predictable can reduce this risk. For example, you could only make free shipping offers to visitors who abandon their shopping carts when the cart value exceeds $75.

To find the perfect balance between conversions and margins, test a variety of incentive offers until you’ve found the recipe for generating the most revenue.

STUDY FINDINGS: How Retailers Are Using Triggered Emails

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4 Timing of First Abandonment MessageAccording to research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 90 percent of

ecommerce leads go cold within one hour. Yet despite the risk of losing the customer by waiting too long to follow up, 83 percent of survey responders waited five or more hours to send the first recovery email—and 61 percent waited more than 24 hours.

To maximize the effectiveness of your cart abandonment initiatives, act fast. Real-time responses help ensure message relevance. In general, the faster you connect with the customer, the better your chances of success—but remember to monitor click-throughs, conversions and unsubscribes to ensure you’ve nailed the optimum timing.

3 Number of Emails in Cart Recovery ProgramRather than crafting a multistage cart abandonment series to recover lost revenue, two-thirds of

survey responders only send one cart recovery email.

To boost results, consider a multistage series, such as a three-part campaign in which the first reminder is sent within an hour of abandonment, the second approximately 24 hours after abandonment, and the third about a week later.

Consider how you’ll stop each of the stages in the campaign when a customer comes back and buys. There’s nothing guaranteed to infuriate customers more than a promotion for an item they’ve just purchased.

Keep in mind that optimal timing will vary based on the site and the time sensitivity of the transaction. To determine what cadence works best for your company, test a few different timing and frequency options along with use and level of incentives.

5 Open RatesAlthough it’s important not to overestimate the importance of open rates as a

measure of subscriber engagement, they do give you a feel for how your “From” name, subject line, and overall brand and value proposition rate with recipients.

Providing further evidence of their high relevance, cart recovery emails can deliver a much higher open rate than the average broadcast email, with a whopping 80 percent of survey respondents reporting an open rate of 21 percent or higher for these messages compared to 31 percent for general broadcast emails. The numbers at higher percentages are even more dramatic, with 53 percent tallying a 30 percent or better open rate for cart recovery emails, versus 14 percent for broadcast.

To maximize open rates on cart abandonment messages, use a branded “From” line and a subject line that reflects the actions your recipient took on your site. By doing so, you’ll help ensure that your email stands out in a crowded inbox.

6 Click-through RatesFor the majority of survey respondents, click-through rates—which measure how

strongly an email’s content and call-to-action(s) resonated with recipients—averaged below 10 percent for broadcast emails. Because of their highly personalized nature, cart abandonment messages can achieve click-through rates many times that rate.

According to Silverpop’s survey, 87 percent achieved click-through rates of better than 10 percent, and nearly two out of five marketers using cart recovery messages achieved a click-through rate greater than 20 percent—double the percentage of their broadcast emails.

To maximize click-throughs in cart recovery messages, test various message elements such as different layout approaches, mix of images versus text, CTA buttons and whether to specifically include pictures of the actual products your customer left in the cart or just use a generic reminder to come back and complete their purchase. Either way, always link directly to the cart.

(average email click-through rate)

(average email open rate)

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7 Conversion RatesAlthough open and click-through rates are important indicators of recipient engagement, conversion rates

are the most important of the three since conversions mean revenue. And according to survey responders, cart abandonment emails deliver significantly higher conversion rates than do broadcast emails.

In fact, the vast majority of respondents’ broadcast emails—86 percent—yielded conversion rates of 10 percent or less, with only 14 percent notching conversion rates of 11 percent or higher. In contrast, 45 percent of survey responders reported that their cart recovery emails yielded a conversion rate of 11 percent of higher—nearly four times that of broadcast emails.

To boost conversions, test the impact of various message elements, such as:

• Reminding shoppers how long they have to complete the purchase to create a sense of urgency

• Inclusion of photos of and/or information on abandoned products• Addition of customer reviews and testimonials• Inclusion of phone number and email address• Incorporation of related recommended products and top sellers in the last of

a sequence of remarketing emails• Layout to ensure it renders reasonably well across multiple devices and

with images blocked

And one final note: In your zeal to recapture sales, don’t forget to place customer service first and foremost so your email doesn’t come across as too pushy. Include customer-support contact information that enables shoppers to report technical problems with the site or issues they had with the product or your checkout process.

8 Use of Browse Abandonment EmailsThe practice of sending browse abandonment emails, which

are messages that indicate a shopper looked at certain products or categories but then left the site, is a relatively new addition to the email marketing equation. The survey found that only a small percentage of respondents are currently employing the tactic.

But with the success many marketers have experienced with cart abandonment campaigns, the concept is catching on quickly, with 71 percent of survey responders reporting that they plan to try browse abandonment initiatives by the end of 2011.

To boost the relevancy of these messages, personalize them with images and details of a website category, page or product the shopper viewed but didn’t result in a purchase. And as with cart abandonment, marketers should avoid a hard sell and test the number of messages and timing to find the optimum mix.

In addition, you should also test message elements such as the inclusion of photos, customer reviews, recommended products, etc. to see what resonates most strongly with your readership.

(average email conversion rate)

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9 Post-Purchase EmailsSending triggered messages after a purchase can help you

learn whether your customers are happy with their purchases, encourage future transactions, and invite customers to become brand ambassadors and help you extend the reach of your marketing messages.

Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents send at least one type of post-purchase email, with service satisfaction surveys the most popular example (50 percent). In addition to alerting you to potential problems in the transaction process and minimizing customer defection, these messages can also be used to identify content for possible testimonials. And they can deliver higher revenues than standard broadcast messages.

With customers increasingly using reviews when evaluating purchases, many marketers are employing post-purchase messages to encourage customers to contribute this key source of content. But although nearly half (43 percent) of survey responders are sending product review requests, only 2 percent are sending notifications that the review has posted. Not only do these messages provide another touch point with the customer and boost your trustworthiness, they often generate incremental revenue. One Silverpop client, S&S Worldwide, is seeing a 12 percent purchase rate from customers that clicked on a review notification email.

Despite delivering higher conversion rates than standard broadcast promotional messages, “happy birthday” and “purchase anniversary” emails were used by less than one in five respondents. These messages provide another means of contacting customers outside of the regular promotional calendar. And since they are usually paired with a friendly incentive to return and purchase again, they are a savvy way to increase engagement and loyalty—and boost revenue at the same time.

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10 Triggered Messages as a Part of Email Programs

Individual messages that are triggered by customer actions are an immensely powerful way to connect with customers. Packed with highly relevant content that’s personally tailored for the recipient, triggered messages typically deliver several times the open, click-through and conversion rates of standard broadcast emails.

According to our survey, triggered emails make up less than 10 percent of the total email volume for the majority (63 percent) of respondents, but despite the low volume, these messages typically deliver high ROI. Triggered messages make up only 4 percent of S&S Worldwide’s total email volume, for example, but account for 40 percent of its email sales.

To remain visible and wanted in the inbox, marketers should make sure emails triggered by customer behavior and targeted to preferences are part of their messaging mix, and that they’re not relying too heavily on less relevant, one-size-fits-all broadcast campaigns.

Although triggered messages take more time to set up and sometimes require complex business rules and integrations with internal or third-party technologies and data, you ultimately need fewer people to execute a triggered message program. That’s because once set up, these automated messages virtually run by themselves, requiring just oversight, testing and occasional tweaking. And when deployed as part of a comprehensive series of pre- to post-purchase emails ranging from cart abandonment reminders to transaction confirmations to happy birthday discounts, these messages are well worth the initial effort, since they can generate tremendous revenue.

ConclusionInboxes are crowded, and the “noise” is louder than ever. As a result, generic batch-and-blast emails are becoming less effective. Yet many retailers have not yet taken advantage of the inherent relevancy of behavior-based, triggered emails to help them stand out from the masses.

Those companies that have employed recipient-driven messaging such as cart abandonment campaigns have seen excellent results. By following best practices, you can help build your email business before and after the sale, generating incremental boosts in revenue and customer loyalty with only a modest time investment.

Survey MethodologyTo compile broad benchmark data that would help marketers learn from each other, Silverpop conducted a detailed survey of 43 retailers and e-commerce companies in Sept. 2010 regarding the use of pre- and post-purchase triggered emails.

Additional Resources1) Gaylord case study: Online retailer regains 50 percent of “lost” sales

from cart abandoners through SeeWhy/Silverpop integration

2) Silverpop Webinar: “The 5 Best Techniques for Recovering Abandoned Shopping Carts with Email and Social Media”

3) Silverpop blog article: “Post-Purchase Emails That Drive Higher Revenue, Engagement

4) S&S Worldwide case study: Online retailer recovers 25 percent of lost sales from abandoned carts using Silverpop Engage

5) Silverpop white paper: “Uncovering Revenue Opportunities: 10 Ways to Give Your Retail Program a Boost”