Black Friday is always the highlight of the online shopping industry. It’s often the period that can make or break an online store’s profits for the year.
Every year, we study Black Friday emails and marketing channels. We ask, what’s different? What trends are appearing? How are consumers changing?
This year, for example, we looked at which email elements (subject length, word count, discount size, etc.) from last year’s BFCM campaigns performed the best.
We explore all of this so that we can keep up with the latest ecommerce trends and stay on top of what our customers want and need.
We analyzed email, SMS and push data for nearly 700 million messages sent by Omnisend’s marketing platform during BFCM 2021—and we’re here to give you the latest statistics going into Black Friday 2022.
The biggest ecommerce marketing statistics: Three takeaways for Black Friday
It’s no secret that Black Friday is the event of the year for most online sellers—with Cyber Monday nipping at its heels. In difficult times, such as …..
pandemic-affected years, more shoppers than ever will flock to ecommerce stores. Customers look to purchase from the safety of their homes, all while looking to take advantage of the best deals of the year.
To help you gain an edge on the increased competition, we’ve prepared a sneak peek at some of our ecommerce marketing statistics, with three big takeaways to help you make the most of this record-breaking holiday season.
1. SMS continues to go from strength to strength
Businesses on Omnisend sent 47% more promotional SMS and 36% more total SMS than during the same period in 2021. With this trend continuing, it’s clear that the days of SMS being an underused channel are over.
Retailers are quickly discovering the effectiveness of SMS alongside email—and are hopping on board the bandwagon.
The fact that these trusted, opt-in messages are continuing to grow shows that consumers are embracing the text message trend too, with SMS looking to become a major source of revenue for retailers this holiday season.
How to benefit from this trend:
SMS will be a difference-maker this holiday season. If you’re not already, start collecting phone numbers now to stay ahead of the competition.
Make use of free SMS on platforms like Omnisend. Use SMS in combination with email and even push messages to form a potent omnichannel strategy. This way, you can deliver personalized and timely messaging that adds a sense of urgency and exclusivity to your deals.
2. Push messages are also on the rise
Similar to SMS, web push messaging is a growing channel. Web push messaging offers a more urgent, time-sensitive element to supplement your email campaigns.
We saw an example of this surge in popularity in H1 2022—260% more campaign messages and 27% more automated push messages sent year-over-year (YoY).
Not only that, these push messages registered an impressive 63.6% view rate for automated messages, and a strong 43% increase in orders YoY, showing just how effective they are.
How to benefit from this trend:
These instantaneous messages are short and sweet, delivered directly onto a user’s browser. This makes them ideal for cart abandonment workflows.
They've got a low cost and high conversion rate. Simply set up a push message to appear a few minutes after a customer has abandoned their cart—deliver a polite reminder while the product is still fresh in the mind.
As an example, INGLOT Canada used push messages effectively in their cart abandonment workflow. They managed to earn a massive 4,798% lift in revenue per message!
3. Marketing automation is no longer optional
In case you didn’t know it already, the numbers show that marketing automation is now the main driver of revenue.
An example that showcases this strength is that automated emails sent with Omnisend were only 1.75% of total sends over H1 2022, yet they generated 29% of all conversions.
Even the worst-performing type of automated message still outperformed those of promotional campaigns.
How to benefit from this trend:
We found that welcome, cart abandonment, and order confirmation messages perform the best of all automated messages—with order confirmation messages achieving conversion rates of more than 3.2%.
Make sure you’ve got your automated messages optimized and ready to go for the holidays—we expect them to be significant drivers of revenue.
So how does this compare to our Black Friday insights? Let’s have a look at what we learned from the past few years.
The biggest Black Friday statistics: Four takeaways
The following insights were made immediately after Black Friday 2021.
1. Ecommerce marketers using SMS earned 2.5x more orders on Black Friday
SMS absolutely exploded for Black Friday last year. In 2021, ecommerce marketers sent more Black Friday SMS campaigns than ever before, sending over 1.7 million SMS on Black Friday alone.
Retailers were right to follow their instincts, as SMS campaigns earned immense value in 2021. On Black Friday alone, ecommerce brands earned a 0.45% order rate, representing a 252% higher order rate than email.
How to benefit from this trend:
It’s not the wisest idea to opt for SMS over email completely. However, ecommerce marketers would get the most out of this trend by incorporating SMS in their bigger campaigns.
There isn’t yet a lot of competition in SMS marketing, and customers offering a phone number in addition to their email address are showing an even higher level of intent.
Getting in on this strategy, and sending SMS campaigns for your best promotions and news will earn you higher click through and order rates.
2. Welcome emails offer high Black Friday potential
There’s no other message that has a higher conversion rate, year after year, than welcome emails.
Welcome emails on Black Friday earned average conversion rates of nearly 3.6%, nearly 28% more than abandoned carts (with an average 2.8% conversion rate).
How to benefit from this trend:
Welcome emails are relatively straightforward: shoppers on Black Friday want to discover new brands (and hopefully get some nice offerings), and they are excited to buy from a brand for the first time.
Offering a discount on the first purchase can incentivize shoppers to buy.
3. SMS campaigns sent Sunday after Black Friday performed the best
While campaign sending across all channels was increased during the week of Black Friday, the most campaigns were sent Friday, with Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday following close behind.
Customers were already looking for deals by the middle of the week—often purchasing during pre-Black Friday promotions. However, campaigns that were sent between Black Friday and Cyber Monday performed the worst.
Specifically, both promotional and automated SMS performed best on the day before Black Friday, with a 0.35% order rate for promotional SMS and a 0.81% order rate for automated SMS.
How to benefit from this trend:
Using SMS on big shopping days like Black Friday is great—but using them on days where there’s less competition is even better. The Sunday prior to Cyber Monday is a great day for SMS campaigns because customers are still excited about the shopping holiday.
4. Push notifications still perform the best of all channels
Push notifications fall behind in terms of usage when comparing them to email and SMS.
However, Omnisend customers that did use push notifications during Black Friday last year found that they're the best performing channel, with an overall conversion rate 1.22% for both promotional and automated (compared to 0.48% for email and 0.45% for SMS).
What's telling is that the total number of promotional push messages sent during BFCM 2021 was 492% higher than for BFCM 2020. When looking at automated push messages, 2021 saw a 139% increase.
This led promotional push orders to go up by 93%, while automated push orders skyrocketed 230%.
Wrap up
While we weren’t expecting the upward trends over 2021's Black Friday, we weren’t shocked. Online merchants are quick to jump on new ways of connecting with their customers—and they know when their shoppers are the most open to deals.
These tactics are great because they can be used not only for the holiday season, but throughout the whole year.
However, by really stepping up your marketing efforts in the days leading up to Black Friday, and not pulling any punches on which channels you use, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the competition and gain healthy profits from your holiday weekend deals.
Start using Omnisend's email & SMS marketing today and supercharge your BFCM campaigns!
Bernard is the Sr. Director of Communications & Creative at Omnisend, with a passion for good research, helping ecommerce businesses with their marketing automation needs, and beating absolutely everyone in Mario Kart 64.
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