By Marketing Charts
Welcome emails have become popular among marketers, who cite them as being effective for engagement. This continues to be true for retailers, according to Bluecore’s 2022 Retail Ecommerce Benchmark Report [download page].
The study analyzed more than 35 billion campaigns and shopper data from global e-commerce brands to arrive at its conclusions.
Among the first purchase and conversion campaigns examined, Welcome emails had easily the highest average open rate, of 46.7%. These were followed by Low Inventory (37.3%), Back in Stock (38%), Abandoned Cart (37.3%), and Abandoned Product (37.2%) emails.
While open rates are a basic form of engagement, click rates take things a step further as “the strongest indicator of customer engagement and possible purchase.” On this front, Welcome emails shine again, with an average click rate of 11.3%, just ahead of Back in Stock (10.6%), and followed by others including Price Decrease (9.2%) and Abandoned Cart (9%).
Perhaps most interestingly, Welcome emails also lapped the field when Bluecore analyzed conversion rates. These emails generated a strong conversion rate of 2.2%, per the benchmarks, with Abandoned Cart (1.6%) emails the only to come close to that level. As such, while transactional emails are commonly seen as most important for engagement and retention, they have a strong role to play in conversion, too. As the authors note with regards to Welcome emails, “at this stage, shopper intent to act is high, so brands can capitalize on these campaigns for Non Buyers looking to buy for the first time.”
All told, Welcome emails registered an average of $3.61 per email, ahead of Abandoned Cart ($2.99).
It is true that Welcome emails also had an unsubscribe rate (0.8%) that was more than twice as high as the next on the list; Bluecore recommends that brands take the opportunity “to provide value outside of a discount in Welcome emails with more targeted product recommendations.”
In other benchmarks from the report:
- Looking at email capture campaigns, the click rate for entry capture campaigns was 39% higher than for exit capture campaigns (1.18% and 0.85%, respectively).
- Shoppers who sign up on entry to a site (entry capture) convert to a purchase at more than 3 times the rate than those submitting their emails when exiting a site (2.59% and 0.82%, respectively).
- Analyzing email campaigns that engage shoppers after the first purchase (“repeat purchase and growth campaigns”), the study finds that Wishlist (35.7%) emails (which send reminders to shoppers who have put items on a wishlist but not bought them) have the highest open rates. Wishlist emails also far exceed all others in average click rate (7.75%) and conversion rate (0.83%).
Article originally appeared on Marketing Charts.
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