It’s that time of year again: the 2020 Omnichannel Statistics Report is live!
This year, we deliver the same marketing automation and timing statistics as we did in 2019. However this year, we decided to do something a little different.
With the rise of SMS marketing across the ecommerce industry, including among our own marketers, we decided to focus on how SMS performed for our marketers this year, and how they impacted omnichannel campaigns.
And the insights we’ve uncovered might surprise you (and hopefully, convince you to give this underappreciated channel a chance).
Let’s jump in:
Omnichannel Statistics 2020:
Last year we focused on how using three channels or more in marketing campaigns impacted customer retention, customer spending, and engagement and purchase rate. While many of those trends did not significantly change in 2019, purchase rate increased quite a bit.
Where Omnichannel Stands in 2020:
We found that over the last year, marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign.
Single channel campaigns could expect a 3.21% purchase rate in 2019, while those using three or more channels saw a purchase rate over 12%.
Considering that this number was closer to 250% in 2018, this shows a clear trend that customers prefer omnichannel campaigns, as the preference for omnnichannel campaigns increased by 14.8% between the two years.
Where SMS Fits In:
With the rise of SMS marketing in omnichannel marketing automation, we wanted to see exactly what impact SMS had on our marketers’ omnichannel campaigns. We analyzed over 5 million SMS campaigns over the course of 2019, and according to the omnichannel statistics, the actual impact on campaigns was significant:
Omnichannel campaigns that involved SMS at some point in the process were 47.7% more likely to end in conversion.
It seems that there is either a correlation between the likelihood of purchase and the receipt of an SMS, or there’s a correlation between the willingness to receive an SMS from a brand and the likelihood of purchase.
From that point, we decided to look further into SMS statistics for actionable tips in 2020.
SMS Marketing Statistics 2020:
The surprise across the industry was the boom of SMS marketing for ecommerce. Near and far, online merchants were singing the praises of using text messages to send their customers a variety of updates.
Considering that the average click through rate of SMS is higher than 14%, it’s not hard to see why. Customers are responding in the best possible way to SMS marketing, and it’s earning ecommerce merchants an over 2700% ROI on average.
Before we launch into the best months and days for SMS marketing, we need to address one thing: SMS is not the same as email. These two channels are different in how they behave, how they impact customer behavior, and the kinds of messages you can send with them.
With that said, consider the following data not in the context of email, and what’s normal for that channel, but rather in context of SMS and what is now becoming the new normal for that.
Now, we’ll take a look at how SMS performed over the course of 2019, and how you can use those insights for your 2020 campaigns.
Best Day for SMS Campaigns:
We wanted to take a look at SMS statistics by which day of the month the campaign was sent on. For example, perhaps consumers reacted differently to a campaign sent at the end of the month, as opposed to the beginning or the middle.
Conversely with email campaigns (see more on this below), SMS campaigns tend to perform better towards the 2nd half of the month in terms of overall engagement, with the 21st standing out with a nearly 30% click through rate.
But where were ecommerce marketers getting the biggest bang for their buck? With SMS we saw the highest average ROI on the 12th of the month, at over 3300%.
Email Marketing Statistics 2020:
2019 was an interesting year for email marketing overall. As SMS began its climb, email pivoted to accommodate that trend.
We saw a drop across most of our marketing automation workflows this year, where open, click through, and order rates dropped overall. While they maintain parity with industry standards, we believe this drop is due to ecommerce marketers experimenting with different channels, including SMS.
The Top 6 Email Marketing Automation Workflows
Of automation workflows this year, the welcome email series has the best results: earning the highest open and order rates, while CTR was second only to confirmation emails.
Cart recovery experienced a slight drop from 2018, but maintains some of the best click through and order rates among automation workflows.
One workflow we didn’t include in 2018’s report was the Birthday automation workflow. Earning a 42.7% open rate, and a 12.54% click through rate, this workflow has a solid place among the top automation workflows we see. While it has one of the lower order rates among the top workflows at 1.21%, we can expect it to rise as more marketers take advantage of this well-timed workflow.
Two dark horses emerged from 2019’s most used automation workflows: Custom automations and Order confirmation workflows.
Custom automations are always interesting because their use-cases are unique to each brand and what they need their automation workflows for.
This is also likely the reason they’re so successful, as ecommerce marketers can target their offer around specific promotions, events, and customer types. In any case, there’s a reason custom automation workflows earn a 50.89% open rate, and a 14.99% click through rate.
Order confirmation maintains the highest open and click through rate of any automation workflow, but the lowest order rate at just under 1%. However, with the certainty you can have that your email will be opened and clicked, it’s an excellent opportunity to already get your customer thinking about that next purchase.
Propose some product recommendations either in the confirmation message workflow, or in the landing page where it leads. It’s too good an opportunity to waste!
Segmented vs Non-Segmented Campaigns:
We measured segmented vs non-segmented campaigns and published data on them for the first time in 2018, attempting to illustrate the performance gap between the two.
If there’s a clear trend between 2018 and 2019, it’s that the performance gap between 2018 and 2019 only became wider. In fact, average orders were 26.5% higher in segmented campaigns in 2018. In 2019, order rate climbed to 62.2% higher in segmented campaigns over non-segmented.
That’s not to count 51.9% higher click through rates in segmented campaigns, or more than 110% higher open rates than non-segmented campaigns.
If this demonstrates any one thing, it’s that not only are customers clearly opting for better targeted campaigns, but that the performance difference is only getting wider by the minute.
When’s the Best Time to Send Your Email?
Timing is important for email campaigns, and can be the difference between a well-performing campaign, and one that falls flat.
While data did not change significantly between 2018 and 2019, we did notice a few new trends in how shoppers reacted to campaigns last year.
Best Day of the Month
The best days of the month stayed concentrated around the beginning and end of the month, which stays consistent with last year’s data as well.
However while the beginning of the month typically saw better-performing campaigns, ecommerce marketers are contacting their customers in advance.
Campaigns sent in the last 3-4 days of the month see the highest order rates, lengthening the window of opportunity that ecommerce marketers have to send their campaigns.
Best Time of Day
The biggest changes we found fell in the best time of day to send email campaigns.
There was no change to shoppers sticking to the normal 9-5 workday, with campaigns earning the highest overall open, click through, and order rates:
- Before work: 7-8 am
- At lunch time: 11 am – 12 pm
- As work ends (with the best order rates): 5-6 pm
While, during the evening, engagement drops around dinner time with open, click through, and order rates dropping, there’s a rise of late-evening shoppers.
In fact, there’s only a slight decrease in open and click through rates, with order rates climbing between 10 pm to about 1 am or so. These night owl shoppers might be worth creating a segment for and targeting with late-night campaigns.
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When you want to know where you should go next, the data should help light the way. When you’re able to analyze and understand customer trends from last year’s data, we can accurately project where consumers will go this year.
SMS played a huge part in 2019, and there isn’t a single sign that this trend will slow down in 2020. While email didn’t fall significantly in 2019, we can see that ecommerce marketers are preferring to diversify their strategies across more channels, starting with SMS.
The more we see SMS being adopted in the ecommerce industry, the even more data we’ll have to read, interpret, and use for future predictions.
This article originally appeared in the Omnisend blog and has been published here with permission.
