'Net Features : email advertising

Emails Driving E-Commerce Activity

Allison Howen — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:00:00 GMT

While there are many advertising avenues that online retailers can leverage to reach out to their customers, few can garner a better return on investment (ROI) than email.

In fact, a recent study commissioned by Listrak and conducted by Harris Interactive reveals that 97 percent of Americans receive emails from retailers and more than two in five (41%) have made a purchase in the past six months as a result of receiving an email from a retailer.

And although email has the potential to provide merchants with a high ROI, the biggest challenge for marketers is creating subject lines that capture their consumers’ attention. However, according to the study, targeted subject lines are the key factor in driving open rates. For example, 53 percent of the survey respondents claim that they open emails with subject lines that showcase a special offer, while 47 percent say that they open emails that contain an order confirmation.

“With the holiday season just around the corner, it is important for retailers to understand their customers and how best to communicate and interact with them,” said Ross Kramer, CEO of Listrak. “In a previous study that we conducted at Listrak, we found that on average 80 percent of consumers buying from our e-commerce clients only made a purchase once. That is a huge missed opportunity for online retailers. Sending targeted emails to consumers is essential if retailers want to turn one-time purchasers into loyal customers.”

Other noteworthy statistics from the study found that men who are 55 years old or older are actually more likely than their younger counterparts to make a purchase in reaction to an email. Women, however, proved to be even more likely than men to make a purchase as a reaction to a retailer’s email.

Email Continues to Drive the Most Purchases

Michael Garrity — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:30:00 GMT

It seems that rumors of email’s demise (or rather, social media’s dominance) have been greatly exaggerated. That is, if we are to believe a new study released by interactive marketing solutions provider ExactTarget.

Two-thirds (66 percent) of online Americans have made a purchase as a result of an email they received, which is nearly twice as many as those who reported purchasing something based on a marketing message delivered either on Facebook (20 percent) or via text messaging (16 percent).

The survey studied 1,481 online consumers to find out just how these shoppers communicate online with brands and friends. The results showed a significant divide among communication preferences with regard to personal and marketing messages.

A whopping 77 percent of the respondents said they would rather get marketing messages in their email, but just 45 percent said they prefer to use that channel for personal communication. On the other hand, only five percent of consumers said they prefer receiving marketing messages on social networking sites.

Email proved itself as the Internet’s continued go-to communications method, with 96 percent of respondents saying they use email at least weekly. Also, 76 percent said that email is preferred for customer service messages.

Although 70 percent of respondents said they use Facebook weekly, just 20 percent use Twitter as frequently. Facebook is also twice as likely to convince teens (ages 15-17) to make a purchase as Twitter, though both pale in comparison to email's ability to drive purchases.

Launchbit Email Ad Network Comes to Mailchimp

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Email marketing service Mailchimp announced an integration with Launchbit, a recently launched advertising network developed exclusively for email marketing.

What makes the Launchbit and the Mailchimp integration interesting is the potential benefits for publishers and advertisers leveraging the services. Not only do publishers have a new opportunity to monetize unsold inventory, but advertisers can finally reach into smaller markets they may have previously overlooked.

Mailchimp email publishers must first sync their account with LaunchBit, and insert a snippet of HTML with merge tags into their template to show the Launchbit newsletter ads. Publishers can then select advertising partners within LaunchBit, and the selected ad content will be automatically placed into the appropriate spot within the email in MailChimp.

I’ve been in the business over 12 years and have not seen anything like Launchbit so expect a very warm welcome from both the advertising and email marketing community.