digiday and ibm marketing cloud: email marketing benchmark webinar

2016 Email Marketing Benchmark Study:

How Do You Measure Up?Jay Jhun | @emailrocks

@emailrocks @IBMforMarketing #NewWaytoEngage

Today’s Presenter

Jay Jhun, Account Director@emailrocks

IBM Marketing Cloud@IBMforMarketing

@emailrocks @IBMforMarketing #NewWaytoEngage

Today’s Agenda

Selected Metrics & Tips

Background for the Report

How to Use the Results

Are we just average?

Or a top performer?

Where are the

opportunities?

Benchmark data can help answer these questions …

… but benchmarks are most valuable when you use them to take your marketing

program to the next level.

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What We Did

• Asked clients to opt-inPermission

• Ran the scriptsData

• Sliced, diced and organizedAnalysis

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Overview of Benchmark Study

750+ Companies (Nearly 3,000 Brands) – 40 Countries

Full Year 2015 Data

US Canada

Categorized into 18 IndustriesAustr

alia /

New Zeala

nd

Rest of

World

UKRest

of Europe

Midd

le East

/ Nort

h Afric

a

Overall

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Study Report Contents

Do you really want to be average?

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Metrics Sliced 4 Ways

Top Quartile Bottom Quartile

Mean Median

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Today’s Agenda

Selected Metrics & Tips

Background for the Report

How to Use the Results

@emailrocks @IBMforMarketing #NewWaytoEngage

Open Rates

• Unique Open Rates by Region• Unique Open Rates by industry• Transactional Open Rates

Unique Open Rate: 21.8% (mean); 41.8% Top Quartile

Open Rates by Industry

• Top performer:Schools & Education

• Bottom Performers:Agencies; Media Publishing

Transactional – Leveraging High Open Rates

7 of 10 for top performers

Opportunity is to maximize cross/upsell with transactional messages

The relevance of transactional messages –

the anticipation – provides a significant lift

Increasing Open Rates

Subject Line Testing

Understand Impact of Frequency

Build Brand Value Through

Content / White Space Active /

Inactive Segmentation

Optimize Pre-Header

Text

Pre-header text includes product detail

and price

Pre-header text is wasted

Pre-header text includes sale urgency,

but then wastes opportunity

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Click-Through Rates

• Click-Through Rates (CTR) by Region• CTRs by Industry• CTR Transactional• Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) by Region• Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) by Industry• CTOR Transactional

Top Quartile is nearly 6 times median CTR

CTOR = clicks as a percentage of opens; aka ‘Effective Rate’

Top Performers: 1 of ~3 recipients that open; click

Median: 1 out of ~10 recipients that open a message, also click a link

Top Performers: Nearly 43% of openers also click

Opportunity to include: - Product usage tips

- Cross sell

Horizontal “sections”

Big, finger-friendly buttons

Website/emails use same button

Heat map lessons:

• Shoppers look for discounts first

• CTA beneath it gets higher

conversion/lower bounce rate

K.I.S.S.

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List Churn

• Hard Bounces by Region• Hard Bounces by Industry

• Unsubscribes by Region• Unsubscribes by Industry

• Complaint Rates by Region• Complaint Rates by Industry

13 of 10,000 = Mean; Bottom Quartile = 44 of 10,000

Unsubscribe Rates by Industry

• MeanLow ~0.05% High ~0.20%

Reducing Unsubscribes

Leverage Behavior & Automation

Manage Expectations

Offer Alternatives to

Opting OutUse Content to Increase Value

Device/Client & Engagement Rate

• Device/Client by Region

• Device/Client by Industry

• Engagement Rate by Region

• Engagement Rate by Industry

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49% = Avg. Mobile Readership

Devices by Industry

•Highest Mobile:Food Service, Sports & Entertainment

Lowest Mobile:Computer Hardware & Telecommunications

Engagement Rate Defined

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US Low & Rest of Europe & Aus/NZ High

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Engagement by Industry

• Insurance = Highest Read Rate + Lowest Glanced/Deleted

• Schools & Education = Lowest Read Rate + Highest Glanced/ Deleted

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Making Visual Impact

My friend had the basic pulled pork sandwich, which was very tender and juicy. I had the spicy pork sandwich with homemade kimchee on top. It was juicy and mildly spicy with a beautifully fresh crunch to the bite.

“Eliminating friction is more important than engagement.”Ryan Barley, Director of Mobile-Staples

Holiday vs. Non-holiday – Retail/Ecommerce Brands

• Open Rate• Click-Through Rate• Click-to-Open Rate• Hard Bounce• Unsubscribe Rate• Complaint Rate

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Mean Open Rate Much Higher During Non-Holidays

3.3 percentage points / 18.8 percent higher

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Click-Through Rates

0.8 percentage points / 28.6 percent higher

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Non-Holidays has higher unsubscribe rates, but …

0.014 percentage points / 12.1 percent higher

Rate Goes Down

Cumulative total goes

up

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Selected Metrics & Tips

Background for the Report

How to Use the Results

1. Understand these are “process” metrics

Diagnostic: How elements of your email program drives success

Creative / Design Offers / Content Deliverability / List Hygiene

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2. Benchmark Against Similar Industries

3. Benchmark Against Top Quartiles – Imagine What’s Possible

4. Use it to ask for budget & resources

4. Use the data to lobby

for more budget &

resources

5. Focus efforts on REALLY big issues/

opportunities

Web Tracking

Send TimeOptimization

AutomationA/B Testing

Scoring

DynamicContent

Personalization

Relational Tables

API / Partner Integrations Web/Progressive Forms

Social Integrations

6. Use your ESP/MA tools to improve results

7. Celebrate and get promoted!

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Q&A

Slides and the full benchmark report will be made available after the webinar

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Jay Jhun@emailrocks @IBMforMarketingjjhun@us.ibm.com

Thank You!

Interested In Learning More?

bit.ly/IBMforMktgResources

@IBMforMarketing

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To RevenueDiscovers customer

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