Holiday Hot Sheet. Weekly insights for the holiday marketer

Transcription

1 Holiday Hot Sheet Weekly insights for the holiday marketer November 13,

2 As marketers seek to connect with their customers during the largest consumer spending season of the year, Experian Marketing Services presents the Holiday Hot Sheet series to provide a weekly recap of trends for the holiday season: how consumers are shopping, what they are searching for and how marketing campaigns can be optimised to maximise rewards for both consumers and brands. What s hot this week Promotional s are increasing in frequency. In the first week of November, the average number of s per brand received by a customer is more than 50 percent higher than it was at the start of the holiday season. (Page 6) daily deals and coupons are popular offer types with high open rates. (Page 6) Fitbit is on its mark to be one of the hottest products this season again with a 75% increase in search clicks year-overyear. (Page 6) While the iphone 6 is one of the hottest products heading into November, the ipad didn t make the top ten cut. (Page 7) Trends to note Coupon mentions in subject lines have more than doubled compared to last holiday season. (Page 5) Holiday mentions in subject lines are on the rise with the number this week more than double that seen in mid-october. Buy them now before they re gone products include: Dareway Scooter, Wubble Bubble Ball and Zoomer Dino. (Page 7) The newly launched Amazon Echo is the fifth hottest product this week, but given the by invite only availability to Amazon Prime members, it may quickly drop from consumers radar. (Page 6) Receive the latest Holiday Hot Sheet in your inbox each week. Register here Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 2

3 by the numbers As November begins, Experian Marketing Services reports a large volume increase of 25.7 percent for the week year-over-year and almost 17 percent for the season-to-date. Media and entertainment had the largest volume change with a 50.8 percent increase this past week. volume : compared to Industry Year-over-year by week: 11/1-11/7 Season-to-date: 9/28-11/7 All industry average 25.7% 16.9% Business products and services 8.2% 18.0% Catalogers 0.6% -1.4% Consumer products and services -2.1% 14.0% Media and entertainment 50.8% 1.5% Multi-channel retailers 27.4% 27.5% Publishers 7.8% 4.4% Travel 9.7% -2.7% performance metrics In spite of significant increases in volume, multi-channel retailers and consumer products and services are posting higher open and click rates and are close to matching last season s transaction rates. Industry Season-to-date performance s: 9/28 11/7/ compared to Unique opens Unique clicks Transaction Revenue per Average order All industry average 3.3% -1.7% -5.7% -14.3% -8.0% Business products and services 5.5% -19.6% Catalogers -5.2% -14.4% -24.1% -16.0% 5.3% Consumer products and services 0.6% -20.4% -3.3% 0.9% -1.7% Media and entertainment 2.6% -18.9% Multi-channel retailers 5.1% 15.4% -5.5% -17.6% -5.9% Publishers 5.7% 4.9% Travel 3.4% -6.7% Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 3

4 Season-to-date performance metrics: 9/28 11/7/ compared to Industry Unique opens Unique opens Unique clicks Unique clicks Transaction rates Transaction rates Revenue per Revenue per Average order Average order All industry average 16.7% 17.2% 2.3% 2.3% 0.05% 0.05% $0.06 $0.06 $200 $184 Business products and services 17.4% 18.4% 2.3% 1.9% Catalogers 10.4% 9.8% 1.3% 1.1% 0.06% 0.05% $0.06 $0.05 $142 $149 Consumer products and services Media and entertainment 16.8% 16.9% 2.1% 1.7% 0.06% 0.06% $0.06 $0.07 $118 $ % 16.8% 2.2% 1.8% Multi-channel retailers 15.8% 16.6% 2.2% 2.6% 0.04% 0.04% $0.07 $0.05 $208 $196 Publishers 17.5% 18.5% 3.3% 3.4% Travel 20.3% 21.0% 2.6% 2.4% volume and performance metrics are based on analysis of 350 current brands that also mailed during the Holiday season. All data is viewed at three days from sent. Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 4

5 highlights and trends: What s working Experian Marketing Services analysed subject lines to see what types of offers and mailings have the best performance so far this season. The top three open rate performers all have open rates above the seasonal average of 17.2 percent, while the top transaction rate performers all far exceed the 0.05 percent seasonal transaction rate. Unique open rates 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% Top performing offers and mail types, by open rate 24.4% 22.2% 22.3% 17.20% Transaction rates Top performing offers and mail types, by transaction rate 0.35%.35% 0.30% 0.25% 0.20%.18%.19% 0.15% 0.10% 0.05%.05% 0% Daily deals Coupons Personalisation 0.00% Personalisation Points or rewards Coupons Top 3 offers/mail types Season-to-date average unique open rate Top 3 offers/mail types Season-to-date average transaction rate In addition, the most popular words being used in subject lines this season fall into several categories: offers, urgency, personal and product-related. Top keywords in subject lines Offer words Percent of subject lines $ 7.9% % off 6.6% free 6.2% more 4.3% offer 3.7% Personal or special messages Percent of subject lines personal name 9.9% special 1.9% symbol 1.9% exclusive 1.5% family 1.0% Urgency words Percent of subject lines now 5.9% today 4.2% time 2.4% just 2.1% last 2.0% Productrelated words Percent of subject lines new 8.5% best 1.2% hot 1.0% dress 1.1% phone 0.7% Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 5

6 shopping highlights Based on Experian Marketing Services on-going study of s from over 60 brands, the frequency of promotional s sent to a subscriber each week is increasing as the season progresses. The number of promotional mailings received by a subscriber each week has risen by more than 50 percent for each industry since the start of October. Daily deals are one of the most popular themes this season and are also one of the top performers for open rates. In addition, multiple offers are common. In this past week, 91 percent of mailings in the shopping study had offers and 76 percent of those included more than one offer in each . Holiday campaigns per industry by week Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 October November Catalogers Consumer products and services Multi-channel retailers Consumer Insights and Targeting Hot products As Thanksgiving nears and consumers begin their holiday shopping in earnest or at least enter the information-gathering phase Experian Marketing Services provides the first peek at what are expected to be this season s hot products. As usual, Uggs topped the list as the top hot product ranked by the share of clicks generated by various search terms driving traffic to the Hitwise Retail 500, a grouping of the top online retail sites. Somewhat surprisingly, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 found their way on the list again this season despite being introduced back in. Not only that, but searches for Xbox One last week claimed an even higher share of search clicks than they did a year ago when the gaming platform was red hot. Meantime PS4 and Playstation 4 lost share of search clicks year-over-year, which is more in line with expectations. Fitbit is on its mark to be one of this season s hottest products coming in at number three on the list this week and with a 75 percent relative increase in search clicks versus a year ago. This is a clear reflection of the continued growth of the connected wearables category. Number five on the list this week is another connected smart device, the brand new Amazon Echo. Launched barely a week ago and only available by invitation only, interest in the Echo may fade in the coming weeks among the general population, but it is sure to be on the wish list of the early adopter set. For more on the trend of connected devices, download the Holiday Hot Sheet from October 16, or register for the upcoming webinar on the Internet of Things. The record-breaking sales of Apple s latest iphone haven t hurt the prospects of the iphone 6 in terms of being a hot product this season. In fact, it is the fourth hottest product heading Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 6

7 into November. Interestingly, no variations of ipad made it onto the top 10 list this first week of tracking. A more complete examination of search variations including ipad across the expanded hot products list confirms that search clicks for the product line are generally down across the board year-over-year. This confirms what many analysts have predicted, that interest in and sales of the latest line of ipads will be down this year. So far, Microsoft s new beefed up tablet, the Surface Pro 3, is doing well debuting at number six on the list. Likewise, Amazon s Kindle Fire and Kindle claimed the number eight and nine spot, respectively, though search clicks are down year-over-year for that line as well. The chart below shows the top 10 hot products that consumers want based on online searches driving traffic to the Hitwise Retail 500. Top 10 hottest product searches Week ending November 8, Rank Search term Percent change Year-over-Year 1 uggs -24% 2 xbox one +22% 3 fitbit +75% 4 iphone 6 New 5 amazon echo New 6 surface pro 3 New 7 ps4-42% 8 kindle fire -57% 9 kindle -37% 10 playstation 4-58% Hot toys When it comes to toys, products that ended the holiday season on a high are starting out on top heading into November. Xbox One, Doc McStuffins and Kindle Fire were three of the hottest toys last year and are number one, two and eight, respectively this first week of tracking. The Dareway Scooter is sure to be one of this year s hottest new toys given that it currently claims three spots in the top 10 through different search variations. If this is something that the kid in your life may ask for, you might want to order one now. Two other such buy it now before they re gone items based on tracking include the Wubble Bubble Ball and the Zoomer Dino. The classic Lite-Brite may be making a comeback this year; it s currently number nine on the tracker whereas a year ago at this time, it was barely registering. This chart shows the 10 most searched for toys and games based on search clicks to Toys R Us USA. Top 10 hottest toy searches Week ending November 8, Rank Search term Percent change Year-over-Year 1 xbox one New 2 doc mcstuffins New 3 max tow truck New 4 dareway scooter New 5 wubble bubble ball New 6 dareway New 7 zoomer dino New 8 kindle fire New 9 lite brite New 10 dareway 12 volt scooter New Look for weekly hot product updates as search activity heats up. We ll also be exploring hot products among tech junkies, fitness lovers and more. Holiday Hot Sheet: November 13, Experian Marketing Services 7

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