HOLIDAY HOT SHEET NOVEMBER 6, 2013
2013 Holiday hot sheet: weekly insights for the holiday marketer As marketers seek to connect with their customers during the largest consumer spending season of the year, Experian Marketing Services presents our Holiday Hot Sheet series to provide a weekly recap of trends for the 2013 holiday season: How consumers are shopping, what they are searching for, and how marketing campaigns can be optimized to maximize rewards for both consumers and brands. What's hot this week: 48 percent of all emails since January 2013 have been opened on mobile devices. However, engagement (clicks and opens) varies by industry. For example, Multi-channel retailers, Media and entertainment, Catalogers, and Consumer products and services all show a higher percentage of mobile opens than the industry average but Publishers and Travel have lower percentages on mobile. Consumers spend less time on websites when visiting from a mobile browser than from a PC. This indicates that mobile websites still have room to develop in order to be optimized from a user experience standpoint. Black Friday is not just the day after Thanksgiving. Early Black Friday offers have begun to appear in inboxes: "Early Black Friday 25% Off Savings - Shop Now, Save More". One-in-five smartphone owners today have redeemed a coupon directly from their phone. But coupons aren t the only mobile payment type on our radar: nearly a quarter of smartphone owners (24 percent) tell us that they would be interested in using their phone to make purchases in stores. However, email clicks and opens on mobile devices and mobile shopping apps also vary by industry vertical. The iphone leads for Consumer products, Multi-channel retailers and Catalogers. Shoppers of home electronics and home furnishings stores are most likely use smartphone shopping apps. Home improvement store shoppers are the least likely.
Email by the numbers Email volume Email volume picked-up this past week as Business products and services and Travel came close to matching last year's weekly volume, and all other industries had year-over-year increases. Email volume variance: 2013 compared to 2012 Industry YOY by week: 10/27-11/2 Season-to-date 09/29-11/2 All industry Business products and services Catalogers Consumer products and services Media and entertainment Multi-channel retailers Publishers Travel 20.0% -0.5% 41.3% 10.8% 3.0% 22.1% 18.8% -0.2% 15.9% -11.6% 48.8% 7.3% 13.4% 13.1% 20.8% -13.8% Email performance metrics The large increase in volume is likely to be a factor in the lower transaction rates we are seeing so far this season for Catalogers. Multi-channel retailers are just ahead of last years' transaction rates and revenue per email. Season-to-date email performance variances: (09/29-11/2/2013 compared to 2012) Industry Unique opens variance Unique clicks variance Trans variance Rev per eml variance Avg order variance All industry -1.1% -12.0% -21.2% -3.0% -2.5% Business products and services -0.6% -10.3% 23.0% -5.7% -38.8% Catalogers 2.3% -12.8% -33.9% -25.9% 3.6% Consumer products and services -9.1% -26.2% -45.7% -11.2% 5.1% Media and entertainment -3.1% -13.3% Multi-channel retailers 3.7% -9.2% 2.7% 1.9% -3.0% Publishers 3.7% 11.4% Travel -4.6% -20.7%
All industry Business products & services Catalogers Consumer products & services Media & entertainment Multi-channel retailers Publishers Travel Season-to-date email performance metrics: (09/29-11/2/2013 compared to 2012) Unique opens 2012 16.2% 14.3% 11.2% 16.6% 17.0% 15.3% 16.1% 21.2% Unique opens 2013 16.0% 14.2% 11.5% 15.1% 16.5% 15.9% 16.7% 20.2% Unique clicks 2012 2.4% 1.9% 1.7% 2.4% 2.3% 2.5% 2.7% 2.9% Unique clicks 2013 2.2% 1.7% 1.5% 1.8% 2.0% 2.3% 3.0% 2.3% Transaction rates 2012 Email volume and performance metrics are based on analysis of 385 current brands that also mailed during the 2012 Holiday season. All data is viewed at three days from sent. 0.06% 0.02% 0.10% 0.11% 0.04% Transaction rates 2013 0.05% 0.03% 0.07% 0.06% 0.04% Rev per eml 2012 $0.07 $0.08 $0.10 $0.07 $0.07 Rev per eml 2013 $0.07 $0.07 $0.08 $0.06 $0.08 Avg order 2012 $191 $399 $147 $106 $212 Avg order 2013 $186 $244 $153 $111 $205 Email highlights and trends: mobile vs desktop Since January, 2013, we have tracked All industry email performance based on the Litmus email analytics tool, and seen 48 percent of total email opens occuring on a mobile device. Noting the importance of mobile on email performance, we wanted to look deeper into the platforms and devices being used to open and click on emails. Using the Experian Marketing Services email application, we have obtained platform and device information for total opens and clicks based on a sample of our highest volume industries. For this study, we looked at mailings sent before the holiday season (August, 2013). We will look at this same sample again in late December to see if the pressures of the holiday season change this picture in any way.
Source: Experian Marketing Services By Platform There is definitely variation in opens by industry: * Multi-channel retailers, Media and entertainment, Catalogers, and Consumer products and services all show a higher percentage of mobile opens than the All industry average of 48 percent * Travel is just under the All industry average at 45 percent, while Publishers are well below with just 32 percent of opens occuring on mobile devices ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Clicks also show differences by industry in platform choices: * For each industry, a higher percentage of opens than clicks occured on mobile * Media and entertainment has the highest percentage of mobile clicks (50 percent ), while Multi-channel retailers are very close behind with 48 percent of clicks occuring on mobile * Consumer products and services has the largest difference between their open and click percentages on mobile, with 58 percent of opens, but only 40 percent of clicks on mobile * Clicks for Publishers and Travel are clearly primarily received on desktop devices
Source: Experian Marketing Services The percentages by industry may not equal 100 percent as there is a small percentage of opens and clicks that occur on other devices Device types Device preferences also vary by industry for both opens and clicks: * The iphone had the most opens for Consumer products and services, Catalogers, and Multi-channel retailers, and was tied for first with Windows for Media and entertainment * Windows received the highest percentage of opens for Publishers, and had the highest percentage of clicks for each industry * Android devices had higher opens and clicks than the ipad for Media and entertainment, but not in any of the other industries With the high percentage of both opens and clicks occuring on mobile devices across many industries, it is critical to make sure that your email design is optimized for mobile. In addition, emails are not the only way to take advantage of the power of mobile. 52 percent of smartphone users are expected to use a mobile device this holiday season to research products, redeem coupons and assist in holiday gift purchasing. There is still time to send SMS campaigns to your mobile list to boost holiday sales. Be sure to include mobile sign-ups in emails and ask for both mobile and email sign-ups on your social media sites.
Retail highlights In our in-depth analysis of 55 multi-channel retailers this holiday season, we saw a 75 percent increase in holiday-themed emails during the last week of October, compared to the previous week. Brands in the department store category sent 300 percent more holiday-themed emails last week than the week before. The word holiday was found in 16.5 percent of subject lines of holiday-themed emails, while gift was found in 12.8 percent of subject lines. Source: Experian Marketing Services
Consumer insights The arrival of the Internet brought massive change to the consumer marketplace. And while the smartphone may not have as dramatic of an impact on the retail industry, it is clear that the devices are increasingly becoming indispensable shopping tools and marketers need to understand how their customers are using them in order to properly navigate the sea changes ahead. According to Experian Marketing Services, 28 percent of adult smartphone owners today say that they often use their phone to search for local deals while shopping and the concept of showrooming is increasingly the norm with 46 percent of smartphone owners reporting that when they find something they want in a store, they go to the Internet to see if they can find a better deal. Furthermore, one-in-five smartphone owners today have redeemed a coupon directly from their phone. But coupons aren t the only mobile payment type on our radar: nearly a quarter of smartphone owners (24 percent) tell us that they would be interested in using their phone to make purchases in stores. Mobile vs. PC site visits A key metric for marketers is how their customers and potential customers interaction with their Website differ between those visiting from a PC and those visiting from a mobile device. One key takeaway from the Hitwise metrics below is that sites can stack up very differently relative to the competition among visitors from mobile browsers versus visitors from a PC. For instance, we see that sites like Craig s List and Amazon enjoy a much larger total share of visits among the shopping and classified category on mobile devices than they do on PCs. Conversely, ebay and Walmart have a lower share of visits to the category from mobile devices than we report for PC visits. Across the board, consumers spend less time (often much less time) on shopping pages from a mobile browser than they typically do from a PC browser. For example, visitors to Amazon on a PC spend nearly 5 times longer during an average visit than those visiting the site from a mobile device. Marketers need to ensure that content is quick to locate and transactions are streamlined on mobile-optimized sites to combat the shorter period of time that mobile consumers spend on these sites. Source: Experian Marketing Services
Shopping apps Apps are key to understanding and enhancing the mobile shopping experience. Simmons Connect SM, an ongoing study of consumers media consumption and behaviors across 11 different media platforms, found that 38 percent of adult smartphone owners use shopping apps on their phone during a typical month. Among the 22 different shopping apps reported in the latest study, the two most widely used are Groupon and ebay, which 9.5 percent and 9 percent of smartphone owners, respectively, use at least once during a typical month. Amazon Mobile, Starbucks and Apples Passbook app are the others rounding out the top five. Source: Experian Marketing Services Some shopping apps like Ibotta, an app that rewards shoppers with cash rewards for making purchases in participating stores, have lower overall usage rates, but a noticeably high share of users who open the app frequently. In fact, 79 percent of Ibotta smartphone app users open the app six or more times during a typical month suggesting a high rate of engagement despite the fact that just 1.1 percent of smartphone owners use the app during a typical month. Apps like Groupon and Starbucks which have a high number of users overall and a high open rate enjoy the best of both worlds.
Shopping apps users retail preferences Consumers who shop at home electronics stores are the most likely to use smartphone shopping apps while home improvement store shoppers are the least likely. During a typical 30 day period, 27 percent of home electronics store shoppers used a smartphone shopping app compared with 21 percent of home improvement store shoppers. Source: Experian Marketing Services Visitors of Apple stores, no surprise, are the most likely to use shopping apps on their smartphones with 39 percent of Apple Store shoppers using such apps. Shopping app users can also be found in much higher concentrations at West Elm, Sephora, H&M and J. Crew. Stores where you re least likely to find a shopping app user include: Younkers, Shopko, Christopher & Banks, Talbots and Bon-Ton. Source: Experian Marketing Services
A study conducted prior to the 2012 Holiday shopping season by Experian Marketing Services and Research Now examined the smartphone app usage of shoppers when visiting Walmart stores. Contrary to what some may think, shoppers are spending a miniscule amount of time shopping from their smartphone from inside of the store compared to all the other activities they engage in on their smartphone while in the store. Specifically, the study found that Walmart shoppers spent 18.8 percent of their app time texting, 11.5 percent of their app time talking on the phone or using voicemail, 15.3 percent of app time accessing utilities apps, 9.3 percent of their time emailing and 8.4 percent of time accessing social apps. In fact, less than one percent of shoppers app time was spent using retail apps, including, but not limited to the Walmart app. Retailers that want to maximize smartphone connections with shoppers may get better results asking customers to send them a text or driving them to like their Facebook page than they would driving them to their mobile app. Source: Experian Marketing Services/Research Now