eMarketer Webinar: Email’s Role in Omnichannel Marketing—Beyond the Opens and Clicks

© 2017 eMarketer Inc.
Made possible by
Email’s Role in Omnichannel
Marketing: Beyond the Opens and
Clicks
Jillian Ryan
Analyst
October 19, 2017

Today’s webinar at a glance
 Why marketers still rely on email as a solid-performing
channel
 What email performance benchmarks are most critical to
marketers today
 How big data and real-time optimization tactics are
helping practitioners ensure emails are relevant to their
end users
 What emerging email practices businesses are adopting
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The State of Email
Marketing

Email is still king
90.6%
of marketers in North America say they use email to engage their
audience, the most commonly used channel over display, owned
web content and search
Source: Winterberry Group and the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), September 2016

Email marketers are mainly focused on
acquisition
 More than two-thirds
cited attracting new
customers as a
leading marketing
goal for 2017
 Increased brand
awareness and
customer retention
were also common
objectives

The number of emails sent and received every
day is expanding
 In 2017, 269 billion
emails, including
business and consumer
emails, were sent
worldwide
 Annually, that number
will grow by about 4.4%
 By 2021, 319.6 billion
will be sent and received

Marketers continue to allocate more budget to
email marketing, due to its solid ROI
58%
of marketers in the US
planned to increase email
marketing budget in 2017
Source: Emma, Q3 2016
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73%
of in-house marketers
worldwide said that email
marketing provided a strong
ROI in 2017
Source: Econsultancy and Adestra, April 2017
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Email
continues to
bring in
revenue
In Q2 2017, revenues
attributed to email made up
21% of the total, up from 17%
year over year

The Email Audience

The email audience also continues to grow
 In 2017, 76.0% of the
population, or 248.2
million people, are
expected to use
email
 By 2021, that number
is forecast to reach
266.3 million, making
up 79.0% of the total
US population

US digital buyers, across age groups, prefer
email for brand communications
 Even younger cohorts
named email as their
preferred channel
 65% of Gen Z and 62%
of millennials named
email as their preferred
channel—nothing else
came close

Users have strong inbox preferences, especially
about message usefulness and frequency
A good portion of US email users said they rarely (33%)
or never (24%) find marketing emails useful.
Source: Fluent, October 2016
Roughly two in five US internet users want to receive
marketing and advertising emails weekly, while one in
five said monthly. Only 7.8% said they would prefer to
have them arrive daily.
Source: Mapp Digital, August 2016

Sales and discounts, brand reputation and ease
of transaction all drive purchases from email
 Sales and discounts were
a deciding factor for 92%
of US internet users
 Respondents also cited
brand reputation, ease of
transaction and easy
online/mobile purchase as
other important factors

Mobile is the primary device used to check email
 Two in three email
users said their
smartphone was their
chief device for
checking email
 Laptops (12%), tablets
(11%) and desktops
(10%) were used by
smaller groups of
respondents

Measuring Email’s Impact
Across Channels

A look at email performance benchmarks
 For channel marketers,
email performance
benchmarks will always be
important
 Continued assessment of
KPIs is critical for success
and strategic optimization
over time
 Messages must be relevant
in order for opens and clicks
to convert into ROI

Epsilon, Q1 2017
 Nonbounce rates
were 98.3%, the
highest rate over the
quarters covered
 Open rates
remained stable,
with 33.5% of emails
sent opened by
recipients
 CTR was at a steady
3.2%

Cheetah Digital, Q1 2017
 Open rates had a
minimal increase,
while total click rate
and unique click rate
were both down
 Transaction-to-click
rate and transaction
rate were both on the
rise
 The volume of email
sent increased 14.9%

Beyond email benchmarks
 Although opens and clicks are important metrics, they
are only part of the story.
 Advanced marketing practitioners are more focused on
how communications across multiple channels activate
a customer and change behavior over time.
 This trend follows suit with marketers’ increased focus
on omnichannel marketing and the holistic customer
experience.
 Email KPIs must be integrated with customer experience
metrics.

Marketers want to get deeper cross-channel
metrics to improve email strategies
51%
of in-house marketers globally said having cross-channel data
insights to see the bigger picture is an area of email marketing they
would like to improve
Source: Econsultancy and Adestra, March 2017

Using Data for Contextual
Relevance

Variable testing
can maximize
performance
Subject lines, alternate offers, and
varying email layouts and creative
were the most commonly
implemented testing and optimizing
strategies
However, 51% of respondents
didn’t proactively test their email
marketing

A real-time data stream can create an optimized
experience, improving relevancy and KPIs
“This is done in real time, using
data on how customers are
engaging with the email. If an
email isn’t really
generating a lot of activity,
we can change the
content before we send it
out to more customers.”
—Tanner McGrath, Lead Product
Manager, Postmates

Savvy marketers can
harness the data they
have to create messages
that are more relevant for
the target recipient

Trend alert: the rise of the preference center
 Many ESPs say marketers are
adopting preference centers to
learn more about their subscribers
 Preferences can include: which
device subscribers use to check
email, or what time/day of week
they like to receive emails
 Those preferences are used to
tailor emails to the end user’s
inclinations, making emails more
relevant and data-driven

Consumers want companies to take their
interests into account
76.9%
of US internet users say they expect companies will use the
interests they have in their profile to personalize marketing and
advertising emails
Source: Mapp Digital, August 2016

Integrating data across marketing systems is
critical for an omnichannel view of the customer
 Two-thirds of
marketers in
North America
said their
customer data
was fully
integrated
 29% said it was
partially
integrated

Behavior-based, dynamic emails help with
relevance
Nearly seven in 10 marketing professionals in Europe and
the US said they use dynamic email marketing based on
user behavior.
Source: Qualtrics and AdRoll, February 2017
42% of marketing decision-makers in North America sent
triggered emails that were contextualized with messages
and content based on real-time behaviors, interactions,
event or environmental conditions of the recipient.
Source: Forrester Consulting, March 2017

Triggered emails see higher performance rates
 At many ESPs, clients that send triggers got higher
KPIs:
– At Emma, triggers perform with a 600% higher
conversion rate when based on relevant user behavior.
– On Epsilon’s platform in Q1 2017, triggered messages
saw 69% higher open rates and 165% higher CTRs
when compared with standard, business-as-usual emails.

Segmentation and personalization can also make
emails more relevant to recipients
 Data should also be used
to craft emails via:
– Segmentation: Custom
emails specifically designed
for similar groups of
subscribers
– Personalization: Custom
emails made for an
individual

Marketers are still struggling to implement data-
driven segmentation and personalization
56%
of in-house marketers say they need to
get better at segmentation
Source: Econsultancy and Adestra, April 2017
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44%
of US marketing execs say
lack of internal buy-in hinders email
personalization
26.3%
say it’s not a budgetary priority
Source: OneSpot, April 2017
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Two brands doing email personalization right
“ We’re very focused on
the timing of when we
send our emails, as
well as the content
we’re including. It’s
all based on when
and what people
have purchased in
the past.”
—Lauren Henderson,
Marketing Manager, Minibar
“ We target users
based on
customer lifecycle
data points like
where they are in their
wedding planning
process or their
wedding date.”
—Jeffra Trumpower, Senior
Marketing Manager,
WeddingWire

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also emerging as a
personalization tool
 AI capabilities can implement
dynamic email content that is
based on users’ behavioral history
 Every time a user opens an email,
clicks a link or engages with a
piece of content, those data
points are collected
 Through machine learning, the
data makes the predictive engine
smarter over time

Let’s recap…
 Email remains a healthy channel for brands, and the email
audience is growing and engaged.
 Email performance benchmarks are steady, but aren’t the
full picture. Marketers need to consider the holistic
customer experience and how email contributes to it.
 Big data and real-time optimization ensure emails’
relevance—with triggered messages, segmentation and
personalization remaining central to this approach.
 Emerging practices like dynamic email, predictive content
and AI are starting to be adopted, but remain rare.

Email’s Role in Omni-Channel Marketing
Alyssa Jarrett
Sr. Content Marketing Manager
10.19.17

But customers are
still inundated with
messaging that is
not relevant.
>94%of consumers have
discontinued a brand
relationship due to
irrelevant messaging.
— Blue Research (2016)

Customers also
want relevance across
multiple channels.

But current
Omni-channel
messaging
is broken.
>80%of consumers have a
fragmented experience
as they travel from
channel to channel.
— Accenture (2016)

The growth marketer's task is to create
Omni-channel relevance.

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Jillian Ryan
Analyst
Email’s Role in Omnichannel
Marketing: Beyond the Opens
and Clicks
 Customer Experience 2017: The Journey Toward Customer-
Centricity Continues
 Marketing Technology 2017: Putting Customer Data at the
Center
 B2B Personalization: Delivering One-to-One Experiences to
Buyers
 Cross-Device Targeting: A More Holistic Audience View and a
More Compelling Customer Experience

eMarketer Webinar: Email’s Role in Omnichannel Marketing—Beyond the Opens and Clicks

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