A Quick Level Set

Commerce marketers use a wide variety of tactics and tools to accelerate business growth. We asked them about their experience with 21 that we’ve found to be most effective and whether they’re in use, planned or not of interest. On average, we found that these commerce marketers employed 7.2 tactics in their current programs.

The number of tactics in use varied by company size. We found that the largest companies (those over $100 million in annual sales) had fewer programs in place (6.7 on average) than mid-sized (between $10 million and $100 million in sales) and small companies (under $10 million in annual sales).

That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? How is it possible that larger companies are using fewer commerce marketing tactics?

It’s likely that organizations with presumably larger overall marketing budgets augment their conversions with tactics not covered by this survey, such as traditional offline marketing strategies, online advertising and contests. It is also possible that the larger organizations lack the flexibility and agility to be able to quickly deploy a greater diversity of programs.

The number of tactics used varied widely by industry, too. Apparel (8.5) and automotive (8.4) had the highest averages, while grocery and gourmet food (6.4), housewares and home furnishings (6.3) and books/movies/music (5.8) had the lowest. Perhaps apparel and automotive feel the pressure of greater competition, which pushes them to find more ways to increase sales.

One finding that was not surprising is that having more people with email marketing as a primary responsibility typically means you can do more. However, the difference is not as large as we might have expected. Most companies (56%) have one person with email marketing as a primary responsibility. Another 38% have 2-4 people sharing the responsibility. Companies with one person in the role use an average of 7.1 tactics, while companies with 2 or more average 7.7.

Keep in mind that the number of tactics you employ doesn’t necessarily correlate with your success. The key is to maximize the return from the tactics you can effectively manage.

Which Commerce Marketing Programs Do Retailers Currently Use?

For years, the industry has been talking about a number of key commerce marketing initiatives that are important to success. We were gratified to discover that so many of these are in place, hard at work delivering revenue. When someone asks, “What are the most important email marketing programs I should have in place?”, our typical answer is actually the three most popular programs in our survey: segmentation (83% have the program in place), welcome series (74%) and remailing (64%). If you’re not using any of these programs and wonder what you’ve been missing, you can find some great information on the Bronto blog.

Commerce Tactics - Most Commonly Used

Three other tactics are being used by more than half of the retailers surveyed: A/B testing (62%), cart recovery emails (59%) and website pop-up sign-up for organic list growth (56%). These top six initiatives have universal appeal. Any commerce marketer, regardless of size or industry, can effectively implement them for greater success.

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Commerce Tactics - Some Use

The next group of tactics falls in the middle in terms of use. They include dynamic content (40%), generic post-purchase (35%), social sign-ups (34%), winback/ lapsed or never purchased series (34%), anniversary/ birthday (32%), transactional with promotional content (31%) and generic post-purchase series (28%). Perhaps some of them don’t work as well for your product, service or marketing objectives. But several of them (i.e. post-purchase and winback campaigns) are the next step up in sophisticated marketing.

Segmentation in Action

Hudson Shoes found that campaigns segmented by gender had 5x the conversion rate of messages sent to the entire list

Our final group of campaign types are used by less than a fifth of the survey population. These are somewhat more complex because they take more analysis and planning to execute effectively. But they’re also better at meeting customer expectations because they include more personalization to create a truly unique interaction with the customer – the kind designed to keep them coming back again and again.

The commerce tactics in the least used group include personalized post-purchase message (20%), VIP/loyalty campaigns (18%), personalized post-purchase series (17%), text-to-join (13%), reorder reminder series (12%), reorder reminder message (11%), SMS/mobile campaigns (9%) and gift reminders (7%).

It’s important to note that least used isn’t a measure of effectiveness. In fact, when asked about priorities for 2016 many of the currently least used tactics were at the top of the list of priorities for marketers including winback/never purchased series, personalized post-purchase single message and series, and VIP/loyalty campaigns. Marketers looking for an edge over their competition should consider these tactics as a good place to start.

VIP Campaigns in Action

Farmison & Co. created a VIP list of past purchasers who spent above a certain amount. The targeted campaign to this group had a 20% conversion rate.

What Are Commerce Marketers Planning to Take On Next?

Email consistently dominates other tactics, such as SEO, SEM and social, in driving online conversions, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Naturally, commercedriven marketers are often tweaking and trying out new programs to keep ahead of competition. With increased reliance on email as a revenue driver, it’s no surprise that a majority of marketers plan to increase sending in 2016.

It’s good to compare what we’ve accomplished and how successful our programs have been. And it’s a sign of real progress that so many have put in place a wide array of different commerce marketing tactics. But it’s equally important to look to the future and what’s next on the roadmap. We asked our retail marketers about the challenges they’re planning to tackle next.

Six tactics were most often cited in their future plans: VIP/loyalty campaigns (59%), dynamic content (58%), personalized post-purchase series (55%), personalized post-purchase message (52%), win-back/lapsed or never purchased series (49%) and transactional messages with promotional content (49%).

As we look to the future and see the exciting initiatives they have planned, we can feel confident that many commerce marketers are going to be delivering that truly personalized experience customers want but can be hard to achieve without smart, sophisticated commerce marketing automation.

Moving from Good to Great

It can be extremely valuable to learn what tactics other marketers rate as most effective. In our survey, six tactics rose to the top. Nearly all marketers (99%) found exclusive, email-only messages as very or somewhat effective, and 98% report that cart recovery emails are very or somewhat effective. This data should serve as a catalyst for those who are not yet using these tactics.

The most important takeaway here, though, is the very small percentage of marketers who find these tactics ineffective. Such strong endorsements should move these tactics to the top of your list of things to test in the coming year.

When it comes to measuring the success of your marketing programs, the most valuable benchmarks are your own trends over time. No one knows your business like you do. But it’s also nice to see where opportunities lie. Are you using the commerce marketing tactics Bronto customers found to be very or somewhat effective?