A pullback on consumer spending, high inflation, and an uncertain holiday season. Toss in paid social’s cost and targeting effectiveness being in a state of perpetual fluctuation and retailers find themselves faced with a myriad of challenges in trying to increase sales and maximize return on investment.
To maximize sales and profits, brands need to ensure all marketing channels work together as efficiently as possible, with data from one channel feeding another. This is where opt-in channels become valuable for retailers. Email and SMS marketing are two opt-in channels that tend to have fewer cost fluctuations and are driven by first-party data, making targeting more accurate and their effectiveness more evident.
However, as the economy and consumer shopping habits change, how are consumers responding to these channels and what can brands learn from it?
A new email and SMS marketing report analyzed more than 8 billion e-commerce marketing emails, 43 million SMS messages, and 73 million web push messages sent by Omnisend customers in the first half (H1) of 2022. The results provide a clear direction for how brands can adapt their marketing and increase sales.
Email Marketing: Still Powerful, But it’s Not Created Equal
Email marketing continues to be the centerpiece marketing channel for most brands due to its high engagement, relatively steady cost, and effectiveness at generating sales. For consumers who clicked on a scheduled email campaign, 6.7 percent of them went on to make a purchase. This number soared to 35 percent with automated emails. At worst, email performs well. At best, it performs exceptionally well, especially when compared to paid media channels.