St. Patrick’s Day marketing statistics & tips

St. Patrick’s Day falls on March 17 every year. It’s often seen as more of a party or celebratory event, usually in-person, with customers flocking to bars and restaurants to celebrate Irish culture.

However, consumers are predicted to spend around $1 billion online this year on St. Patrick’s Day. If you are an ecommerce brand looking to take advantage of this holiday, you should use insights from previous years to give yourself the best shot at success.

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We analyzed the success of campaigns from more than 100,000 brands around the world using Omnisend’s email, SMS and push notification marketing to improve their sales and engage their customers.

Let’s see how brands fared in March 10-17 for 2021-2023, and how consumers responded.

St. Patrick’s Day email campaigns 

When looking at the data from the past three years, we see that March 17, the actual St. Patrick’s Day, has the highest orders:

The second biggest day for orders fell on March 11 or 12 in the past two years; in 2021, the second highest orders were on the day before St. Patrick’s Day.

There is an important takeaway here:

First of all, St. Patrick’s Day, as with all the other holidays, should not be treated as a single-message campaign. For bigger events like this, it’s very important that ecommerce stores send out multiple emails (at least two) before the holiday. The last email should be on the day before, or the day of, the holiday — here St. Patrick’s Day. The first email should be about a week before the holiday.

The absolute number of orders is great to understand how increasingly popular a holiday is. But what’s also insightful is to understand which day presents a greater probability of success — in other words: which days give better conversion rates?

(We’re talking about click-to-conversion rates, which checks the rate of sales from people that clicked on a message.)

For St. Patrick’s Day, each year presents a different picture:

• For 2021, the actual holiday — March 17 — had the best conversion rate
• For 2022, March 13 was the best, but March 17 had the third-highest
• For 2023, St. Patrick’s Day was also third best; March 11 had the best conversions

What does it mean? More people are shopping for St. Patrick’s Day earlier. Which, again, highlights the importance of sending multiple emails (or SMS and push notifications), starting about a week before St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick’s Day SMS & push notifications

SMS campaigns are great for completely last-minute offers or instant sales. Normally we’d expect to see both the highest number of SMS campaigns sent and highest number of SMS orders on the same day — St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

For the first part, that’s true — for all three years, March 17 had the highest number of SMS campaigns sent. But when it comes to orders:

• For 2021, March 12 had the highest orders
• For 2022, March 10 had the highest orders
• And for 2023, the highest orders actually fell on March 17

When it comes to web push notifications, we’re going to repeat the same thing we’ve been saying for a long time:

Brands need to start using web push notifications as part of their marketing strategy.

Email conversion rates have been hovering around 5-9%, SMS around 2-4%, but with push notifications it’s another deal completely. For 2021 and 2022, click-to-conversion rates for web push notifications ranged from 30% to a whopping 50%.

But last year, in 2023, as more brands are using web push notifications, the conversion rates are stabilizing around the 7-9% range. 

St. Patrick’s Day automations

In all three years that we looked at, the Welcome series of emails was the best performing automation workflow.

And this makes a lot of sense: 

People who are interested in your brand come to your store. They see a popup that asks them to sign up to your newsletter for exclusive offers, new product launches, etc.

If they sign up, that means they really like your brand — and it makes a lot of sense to capitalize on that and keep the momentum going. That’s where the power of the Welcome message comes into play: strike while the iron’s hot. Add a little incentive in your welcome message(s), and you’ll see similar results. 

What kind?

Welcome automated messages had conversion rates above 50%, every single year. 

Right behind that was the abandoned cart workflow — again, the logic is clear. The customers come, they find something great, add it to cart, and forget about it. The abandoned cart email goes out automatically, they’re reminded, and they buy.

Each year, abandoned cart messages had click-to-conversion rates of roughly 45%.

Best performing industries for St. Patrick’s Day

When it comes to ecommerce, the most popular industry is definitely Apparel (clothing, fashion, etc.). That means that each year, apparel brands are sending out the most messages in the week(s) leading up to St. Patrick’s Day. 

For better insights, we’re taking a look at which brands had the best conversion rates each year.

(Again, by conversion rates we mean the rate of sales from people who clicked on a message.)

From 2021-2023, the top 5 ecommerce industries for St. Patrick’s Day were:

For 2021 and 2022, Apparel was nowhere to be found, but in 2023, it became the top-performing industry. In fact, 2023 showed the most commonly expected list of industries, including beauty, food and health. For the two years before that, the top 5 lists were more varied, including such industries as Jobs & Education, Antiques, and so on.

St. Patrick’s Day campaign ideas & tips

Overall, St. Patrick’s Day is a great opportunity for ecommerce stores to connect with their audience in a fun and festive way.

If you’re looking for inspiration, be sure to check out these great St. Patrick’s Day subject lines and email examples.

Here are some campaign and promotional ideas you should consider:

1. Limited-time green products: Highlight products that are green or themed around St. Patrick’s Day. Think of offering limited-time items that fit the holiday’s vibe, like green clothing, accessories, or themed products.
2. St. Patrick’s Day sales: Host a special sale event where customers can enjoy discounts on selected items. You could offer a percentage off, buy-one-get-one deals, or special bundles. Use catchy, themed promo codes like LUCKY20 to maintain the theme.
3. Exclusive email and SMS sampaigns: Use Omnisend to send out exclusive St. Patrick’s Day offers to your subscribers. Create engaging content that ties in with the holiday’s theme, like “Don’t Rely on Luck for Great Deals!”.
4. Charity contributions: Show your brand’s goodwill by pledging to donate a portion of every sale during the St. Patrick’s Day period to a charity. Choose a cause that aligns with your brand’s values and let your customers know that their purchase is making a difference.
5. Customer loyalty rewards: Offer special rewards or points for your loyalty program members. This could be double points for purchases made on St. Patrick’s Day or a special gift with purchase.
6. Flash deals: Surprise your customers with flash deals that last for only a few hours on St. Patrick’s Day. Promote these heavily on social media and through SMS alerts to create a sense of urgency and excitement.

Remember, the key to a successful St. Patrick’s Day campaign is to be creative, engaging, and true to your brand. With these ideas, you’re well on your way to creating a memorable holiday experience for your customers!