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Online Retailers
Only 66% of retailers use their opt-out processes to engage subscribers in order to address the issue causing them to want to opt out. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
Only 9% of major online retailers employ a one-click unsubscribe process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
86% of retailers honored opt-outs within 3 days. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
3% of retailers had their opt-out processes fail. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
73% of retailers sent no more emails after receiving an opt-out request. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
16% of retailers give those trying to opt-out an opportunity to reduced the frequency at which they receive emails. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
17% of retailers solicited feedback from those that had opted out. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
4% of retailers were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by either failing to honor opt-outs or taking longer than 10 business days to do so. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study" (2008)
72% of major online retailers send out welcome emails. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
Retailers' Welcome Emails Content:
- 98% contain a link to their shopping site
- 33% contain a link containing store locators
- 14% contain a link to catalog information
- 14% contain a link to "request a catalog"
- 12% contain a link included a shopping site search box
- 11% contain a link contained a link to a registry
- 9% contain a link to articles and other content
- 8% contain a link to gift card offerings
- 8% offer to send you other email newsletters
- 7% contain a link to the retailer's loyalty program
- 7% contain a send-to-a-friend link or language
- 6% contain a subscribe link to capitalize of welcome emails that are forwarded to friend and family
- 2% contain a refer-a-friend link - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
26% of retailers' welcome emails didn't include their mailing address. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
26% of retailers' welcome emails didn't include a unsubscribe link. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
42% of retailers' welcome emails included a contact phone number. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
26% of retailers' welcome emails included an email address. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
13% of retailers' welcome emails included all three methods of communication. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
15% of retailers' welcome emails don't include any contact information. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
61% of retailers delivered their welcome email within 10 minutes of signing up; 19% took more than a day to deliver. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
32% of welcome emails included a discount, reward or incentive, down from 24% last year. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
62% of welcome emails asked the subscriber to whitelist them by adding an email address to their address book, up from 49% last year. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
79% of retailers sent out HTML welcome emails, up from 69% last year. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
53% of welcome emails included links to their retailer's privacy policy, up from 45% last year. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
38% of retailers don't mention privacy during sign up or in their welcome email. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
98% of retailers' welcome emails have recognizable sender addresses. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
75% of the welcome emails include the retailer's brand name in their subject lines. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
78% of welcome emails explained the benefits of signing up. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
9% of retailers offered subscribers rewards or incentives during the subscription process. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
84% of retailers' welcome emails said either "Welcome" or "Thanks/Thank You" in the subject line. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
19% of retailers' welcome emails mention a discount, reward or incentive in the subject line. - Email Experience Council, "2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (2007)
Email is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
91% send email to a house list as a marketing tactic. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
88% said email it has increased as a priority in 2007. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The average click-through rates of email is 11%. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The average order-conversion rate of email is 6%. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
Average spending on email marketing to house files was $311,196 (10% of companies' online marketing budgets). - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
Most marketers send email to their customers once a week. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The average marketer sends 64 messages to their customers a year. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The average house list in 2006 was 2.4 million names, compared to 1.6 million the year before. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The most popular types of email sent were purchase and shipment confirmations, with 87% and 81% of those surveyed saying they send them. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The most popular and effective emails are those that tout online-only promotions, with 71% of those surveyed saying they use the tactic and 66% rating it as "very effective." - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
The second most popular and effective by the companies surveyed was segmented email to groups of customers based on stated preferences or purchase data, with 63% saying they use the tactic and 60% rating it as very effective. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
Email customized based on customer behavior or purchase data got relatively low marks with 28% of those surveyed saying they employ the tactic and 24% rating it as very effective. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
Another top email promotion is new-product announcements with 73% of those surveyed saying they use it and 51% rating it as very effective. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
One of the lowest-rated types of emails were those following shopping cart abandonment, with 17% saying they use it and 13% rating it very effective. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
Other messages getting low marks were those promoting partners, with 29% of those surveyed saying they use the tactic and 9% rating the tactic as very effective. - Shop.org, State of Retailing Online 2007 report (Sept. 2007)
25% of online shoppers surveyed said they sign up for an alert to be emailed when the item that is currently out of stock became available. - e-tailing group and BetweenMarkets, "The Online Inventory Impact Survey" (2007)
Almost 50% of major online retailers address privacy concerns during email subscription process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Nearly 12% of major online retailers offer a sample of their newsletter(s) during email subscription process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
28% of major online retailers offer more than one content selection during the email subscription process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Nearly 6% of major online retailers offer a local store update. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Less than 7% of major online retailers give subscribers any kind of idea how many emails to expect. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Nearly 12% of major online retailers offer plain-text versions of their newsletter during the sign-up process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Only 3% of major online retailers use a double opt-in subscription process. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
Only 92% of retailers have an email sign-up form or link on their homepage. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
More than 43% of retailers allow customers to sign up for email with one click from their homepage. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
The subscriber's name (31%) and zip code (18%) were the two most often required pieces of information. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study" (July 25, 2007)
The most popular email day of the year for retailers, based on percent of retailers tracked via RetailEmail.Blogspot
- Dec. 26, 2006, Tuesday, the day after Christmas - 53.1%
- Dec. 11, 2006, Monday, 14 days before Christmas - 49.0%
- Dec. 15, 2006, Friday, 10 days before Christmas - 45.9%
- Dec. 18, 2006, Monday, 7 days before Christmas - 44.9%
- April 17, 2007, Tuesday, Tax Day - 43.7%
- Nov. 27, 2006, Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving Day (Cyber Monday) and 28 days before Christmas - 43.7%
- Dec. 4, 2006, Monday, 21 days before Christmas - 42.1%
- Dec. 8, 2006, Friday, 17 days before Christmas - 42.1%
- April 24, 2007, Tuesday, 19 days before Mother's Day - 40.2%
- June 5, 2007, Tuesday, 12 days before Father's Day - 40.0%
- Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot,
"The Most Popular Email Days of the Year For Retailers" (July 12, 2007)
Major online retailers sent out an average of 1.7 emails per week to subscribers during the 16 weeks ended May 25. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail's Email Frequency Outliers" (May 2007)
Nearly 10% sent more than twice as many emails as the group average, while nearly 20% sent less than half the group average. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot, "Retail's Email Frequency Outliers" (May 2007)
34% of the retailers tracked by Email Experience Council's strategic arm, RetailEmail.Blogspot, have used animation in at least one email over the past seven months or so. - Email Experience Council, "Animation in Retail Emails Study" (June 2007)
94% of the retailers tracked by Email Experience Council's strategic arm, RetailEmail.Blogspot, that have used animation in their emails over the past seven months or so used animated gifs rather than Flash or bit maps. - Email Experience Council, "Animation in Retail Emails Study" (June 2007)
68 percent of consumers said they were prompted to browse a Web site after receiving an email from a retailer. - RightNow Technologies "Online Retail Report" (2007)
73 percent of consumers said they would appreciate any post-purchase follow up. - RightNow Technologies "Online Retail Report" (2007)
48 percent of consumers said they have increased shopping online "a great deal" or "somewhat" in the past five years. - RightNow Technologies "Online Retail Report" (2007)
42 percent of consumers said they would prefer to be able to find the answers they need online by themselves if they had a question or needed help during an online shopping experience. - RightNow Technologies "Online Retail Report" (2007)
94.5% of online merchants are building bigger opt-in lists than a year ago.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
64.7% of online merchants are conducting more email campaigns than a year ago. - Internet Retailer (2007)
65.2% of all retailers will increase the size of their opt-in email lists between 10.1% and 40% this year;
4% of all retailers expect to grow their file between 40.1% and 50%;
22.4% of all retailers expect to grow their file by more than 50%;
8.4% of all retailers expect to grow their file say their list will expand by less than 10%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
28.8% of merchants in the survey maintain an opt-in list of fewer than 5,000 names;
22.6% maintain an opt-in list of 5,001 to 30,000 names;
14.4% maintain an opt-in list of 30,001 to 100,000 names;
19.9% maintain an opt-in list of 101,000 to 750,000 names;
2.1% maintain an opt-in list of 750,000 to 1 million names;
12.2% maintain more than 1 million names in their email lists.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
40.2% of all merchants are delivering between 90.1% and 100% of their email messages; 19.1% are delivering 80.1% to 90%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
16.3% report a delivery rate of 50% to 55%;
9.6% report between 55.1% and 70%;
14.8% between 70.1% and 80%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
24.2% of web merchants have an email open rate greater than 25%;
2.8% have open rates of 19.1% to 25%;
13.5% have open rates of between 15.1% and 19%;
17.4% have open rates of from 5.1% to 15%;
11.4% have open rates of between 1% and 5%;
20.8% don't know or say their open rate is less than 1%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
17.1% reported email click-through rates of 15.1% or more;
51.8% report click-through rates of 2.51% to 15%;
10.3% report click-through rates fewer than 2.5%;
20.8% that don't know their click-through rates. - Internet Retailer (2007)
47.8% of online merchants list increasing web sales as their main objective in 2007. - Internet Retailer (2007)
17.2% of online merchants who see customer retention as the top goal in 2007.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
12.7% of online merchants use email to attract new shoppers.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
19.7% of online merchants who want more multi-channel customers or higher tickets and conversions though email in 2007. - Internet Retailer (2007)
79.1% of online merchants feature the company name prominently in the "from" line of the message. - Internet Retailer (2007)
63.7% of online merchants believe they are creating the right mix of graphics and content to attract customers. - Internet Retailer (2007)
64% of online merchants keep key points of content high up in the body of the message. - Internet Retailer (2007)
62% of online merchants pay strict attention to the overall size of their messages and promotions. - Internet Retailer (2007)
29.5% of online merchants don't know their conversion rates from emails.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
4.5% of online retailers have a conversion rate from emails of more than 10%;
27.9% have conversion rates under 1%;
25.4% have conversion rates of 1.1% to 4%;
12.7% have conversion rates of 4.1% to 10%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
56.6% of online retailers segment their email lists, compared with 43.4% that do not use segmentation. - Internet Retailer (2007)
63.3% of online merchants use a third-party (email) service provider vs. 36.7% that do the job in-house. - Internet Retailer (2007)
60% of online retailers conduct between one and three campaigns each month;
32.8% coordinate four to 15 campaigns each month;
7.2% conduct more than 15. - Internet Retailer (2007)
49.6% of online merchants maintain that email marketing performs better than other forms of marketing, including paid search, search engine optimization, direct mail and affiliate marketing. - Internet Retailer (2007)
Email generates 1% to 2.5% of sales for 18.7% of all retailers in the survey.
- Internet Retailer (2007)
Email generates 2.51% to 15% of revenue for 37.4%. - Internet Retailer (2007)
20.4% of chain retailers, catalogers, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers also cite email as generating more than 15.1% of their total revenue. - Internet Retailer (2007)
11.1% of online merchants count on email messages and campaigns to drive more than 25% of total sales. - Internet Retailer (2007)
