Omnisend, a leading email & SMS marketing platform, released its annual ecommerce marketing study. The research analyzed 23 billion marketing emails, 175 million SMS, and 266 million web push messages sent in 2023 and uncovered insights into the evolving landscape of omnichannel marketing.
“This year’s report showed that many ecommerce marketers still underestimate the power of automation. And that is a huge mistake,” says Greg Zakowicz, Senior Ecommerce Marketing Expert at Omnisend. “The numbers are clear – every third person who clicks on an automated message makes a purchase. So if there is one thing you should do to increase your sales in 2024, it is to increase your automated messages across all channels.”
Automated messages are messages triggered by user behavior, such as when a user abandons a cart, subscribes to a newsletter, or makes a purchase.
Welcome, back-in-stock and cart abandonment emails were found to be the most effective in generating sales
Researchers at Omnisend found that automated emails that included back-in-stock information were the most commonly opened by their recipients with an open rate of 60%. Other email types with an open rate of 50% and slightly above were product review emails and post-purchase emails.
Back-in-stock emails were also the most effective in helping to make a conversion, with a conversion rate of almost 6%. Other types of automated emails that helped marketers boost their sales were cart abandonment and welcome emails.
Games, arts & entertainment, health & wellness were the top three industries for email marketing
The industries that maintained their open rates high in 2023 were holidays & seasonal (35.9%), books & literature (33.1%), sports (31.9%), food & drink (30.8%), and travel (30.4%). The largest YoY increase in open rate belonged to beauty & cosmetics, rising from 20.5% to 23.8%.
However, open rates do not always guarantee a conversion. The top five industries that were able to convert via email were games, arts & entertainment, health & wellness (all at 0.18%), food & drink (0.16%), and antiques & collectibles (0.15%).
“Opens don’t equal conversions. Brands with high opens and low conversions should optimize their email templates to reinforce value-adds that make customers feel comfortable buying, especially those in highly competitive verticals where price comparison is common,” says Greg Zakowicz. “Adding automated emails, and their high conversion rate, will help offset the conversion rate of the initial campaign email.”
SMS and push notifications helped marketers close half a million orders
Omnisend researchers estimated that by ignoring SMS and push messages, brands would have left nearly half of a million orders on the table in 2023.
In 2023, brands sent 50 million more SMS campaigns and doubled their automated sends. This resulted in a 108% increase in orders using this channel. The most fruitful season for SMS sends was the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. In fact, SMS sends tripled on Cyber Monday and generated 222% more orders YoY.
When it comes to push messages, brands sent 266 million of those in 2023, which is 28% more than in 2022. Compared to campaigns, automated push messages saw a 71.2% increase in open rates, a 224.7% increase in click rates, and a 911.6% increase in conversion rates.
How brands can evolve their ecommerce marketing strategy in 2024
- Start exploring other channels of communication. If you only used email to communicate with your clients before, SMS and push notifications are a good place to start expanding your “portfolio.” Finding the best channel to talk to your clients will help you generate more sales and increase your conversion rate.
- Use automations. Whether it’s email, SMS, or push messages, automated messages significantly outperform scheduled campaigns. If you’re unsure where to begin, we’d recommend starting with the most effective automated messages: cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and welcome messages.
- Focus on growing your lists through different channels. Growing your email, SMS, and push message lists helps brands maximize their ROI by keeping order data from all channels in one place and allows them to market to an unsubscriber of one channel (like email) via another (like SMS).
- Optimize email templates for conversion. If you haven’t yet done so, take this moment to analyze your email templates and add items that can help turn email openers into buyers. You could make your email campaigns more effective by promoting value-adds such as free shipping, return policies, satisfaction guarantees, and customer service availability. Adding social proof highlights, such as star ratings, most popular products, and customer testimonials could also be helpful.
More recommendations can be found here: https://www.omnisend.com/resources/library/2023-year-end-stats-report/
Methodology
This report analyzed over 23 billion marketing emails, 175 million SMS, and 266 million web push messages sent by Omnisend merchants in 2023. We calculated conversion rates by looking at attributed orders compared to total emails/SMS/push messages sent and calculated click rates by looking at the number of clicks compared to the number of emails/SMS/push messages sent.
We also use the following terminology:
- Promotional campaigns (campaigns): messages manually sent by brands, such as those promoting special offers, discounts, new products, and other promotional-style messages.
- Automated messages (automations): automated messages triggered by user behavior, such as when a user abandons a cart, subscribes to a newsletter, or makes a purchase.
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