BLACK FRIDAY/CYBER MONDAY SPECIAL EDITION Q3 2020 REPORT Table of Contents

Letter from the Essence of Email Managing Director 3

Introduction 4

Technology Landscape 6

Companyland 7

Privacy and Regulations 8

Email Technology 9

Tips & Insights: A look back at Q3 10

Email Campaigns 13

Email Automation 15

SMS 18

Email Deliverability During the Holiday Season 21

Email Design Trends 24

Tips & Insights: A piece of advice for eCommerce brands in Q4 27

Who Is Essence of Email 30

Credits 32

Content Sources 33

While Q3 gave us a bit of a breather in any signs of list fatigue in those areas. It’s terms of market stability, it has been also quite likely that some kind of stimulus anything but slow. We’ve seen an uptick will happen right before Christmas, which in nearly every important metric, from an will trigger another round of consumer increase in new clients to impressive gains spending. for our existing clients. With all these factors coming together, the Importantly, the sharp increase in email expectations are that this holiday season sending frequency that happened during will be record-breaking. So we hope that the depths of the coronavirus scare showed you, like us, are busy preparing for the across the industry that consumers tolerate holiday season, especially ensuring that you Letter from the Essence of Email more emails than previously thought. have enough stock.

Managing Director The shift from brick-and-mortar has also Smart brands are already doing more meant that email lists are growing. What targeted promotions, especially through is more, the total number of transactions SMS, to achieve their Q4 targets and avoid overall and the number of transactions per running out of stock. client are also growing. It’s certainly a great time to have an online shop. I hope you enjoy this version of Essence of Email Quarterly and here’s to a prosperous While it’s hard to know the impact, holiday season. campaign emails from U.S. elections might overwhelm inboxes in the swing states, Heath so keep a close eye on deliverability and

Letter from the Essence of Email Managing Director 3 Introduction Introduction Here are the key takeaways from our report:

• For campaigns that sell – create pre-holiday promos, organize

The COVID-19 crisis has proven to be a catalyst for change in all content, use A/B testing, and get ready to be flexible with aspects of life as we once knew it. On the eCommerce front, brands your strategy. are trying to adapt to shifting consumer needs; this has resulted in • Q3 innovations in email automation will help you improve a steady flow of new feature launches and updates. It seems that your targeting, but you need to work on content too. the digital transformation of the US economy and the acceleration • Have all the SMS automations in place by the time the of eCommerce and consumer spending have brought about a holidays start. In addition, make sure your website is properly technological revolution. optimized for customers using mobile. • For the best deliverability results, carefully plan your sending

We are on the threshold of Q4 and the first holiday season with strategy. Pay attention to all elements, from segmentation to COVID-19. The pandemic is still on everyone’s mind and it’s smart sending and throttling. significantly changing consumer behavior. In the unchartered waters • Optimize your emails for dark mode. Use interactive elements before us, it will be interesting to see how brands optimize their Black to make the experience personal and relevant. Friday/Cyber Monday strategies within the context of a changed marketing and eCommerce landscape. We hope that this wide range of topics will help you stay in the loop and excel at your BF/CM strategy and sales this year. That’s why we decided to make this edition of Essence of Email

Quarterly both a look back at Q3 and a BF/CM special. Happy reading! The professional insights and tips from our experts and partners will show you how to use innovations from Q3 to your benefit and have a profitable holiday season.

Introduction 5 Technology Landscape Technology Landscape The arrival of Shoploop

Google wants to maintain its online shopping stake with a new The year 2020 has been eventful, to say the least. Under the pressure product showcase platform – Shoploop. The app was inspired by the of the COVID-19 crisis, there was a lot of trial and error, blunders, and rising popularity of short videos, as it enables people to share their innovations in the technology world. Both tech giants and small-scale product experiences via short video clips. Shoploop is currently only brands have been scrambling to find their way in the maze of this available via mobile web, by visiting shoploop.app. year’s chaos.

What it’s all about: The platform is the latest of Google’s efforts to To wrap up the past quarter, we’ve compiled some of the most maximize eCommerce potential. The tech giant has been ramping up important changes to help you see the bigger picture and plan your development in response to increased online shopping engagement future strategy accordingly. during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Without further ado, here’s a 2020 Q3 recap, featuring hand-picked Octane AI launched Shoppable Quiz articles from our Essence of Email Weekly Q3 editions.

According to Octane AI, Shoppable Quiz will simplify the discovery Companyland experience for customers. Using an in-depth online consultation, it’ll transform the often unpleasant shopping process into a helpful, Google stepped up its eCommerce game personalized, and conversational experience.

The tech giant recently introduced free retail listings to Google Search, What’s in it for eCommerce brands? With Shoppable Quiz, online which makes offers more accessible to a huge number of people. It stores can learn the preferences of their customers and lead them also provides more opportunities for brands to get their products in through the shopping experience. Ultimately, they’ll get buyer profiles front of consumers looking for specific items. and personalized messaging across Facebook Messenger and SMS. Google will continue to allow advertisers to generate more exposure through paid product listings, though the majority of results displayed will be free.

Technology Landscape 7 Litmus released new features to reduce email When it comes to fines, both GDPR and CCPA got off to a slow development time start. It took GDPR almost a year to issue bigger fines. CCPA, which went into effect January 1, 2020, coincided with the outbreak

The new features include a visual editor in Litmus Builder, email of coronavirus and also had a quiet start. However, although analytics enhancements, easy sharing of complex and multi-email enforcement began on July 1, no notable fines had been issued as of campaigns, and advanced usage reporting. The features allow late August. non-coders to successfully deal with email development, while the enhanced email analytics can help improve future campaigns. The Spam Act bites back

Why should we care? Litmus estimates that these new updates will In July, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) enable marketers to cut email development time by 75%, thereby handed out the largest fine in its history – AUD 1 million – against creating space for other revenue-generating projects. While this is an a retail supermarket giant for unlawfully spamming more than 1.2 improvement, it remains to be seen whether these updates will put million customers via email. This latest compliance blitz comes hot off Litmus ahead of the pack. the heels of the ACMA’s penalty issued to Optus earlier this year; a clear sign that the Spam Act’s unofficial 17-year grace period has well Privacy and Regulations and truly ended.

GDPR and CCPA in 2020 What does this mean? There is a pressing need for online privacy throughout the world. With laws growing increasingly stricter,

When the GDPR was enacted in May 2018, many companies were left organizations should continue assessing their GDPR strategies to struggling to ensure compliance and get their data privacy procedures avoid being fined and to remain compliant in the long term. Good data in order. Two years later, many organizations are still burdened management is the key. because they lack the necessary data management infrastructure. According to ASG’s recent survey, 41% of respondents don’t currently have a data inventory. This means they still don’t know what data they hold, even though it’s necessary to remain compliant.

Technology Landscape 8 Email Technology

Email is king

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, email was ranked behind search (35%) and referrals/word of mouth (33%) in producing conversions. But things are changing.

How have things changed? According to ‘COVID-19 Marketing Outlook’, a study by Chief Marketer, email marketing has taken on a new cachet in the wake of COVID-19. Of the polled marketers, 39% expect email to be one of the top 3 sources of B2C conversions post COVID-19, versus 28% pre-pandemic.

Source: Covid-19 Marketing Outlook by Chief Marketer In another finding, 40% of marketers said they now see email as one of their largest sources of B2C engagement. Once again, this is second What does that mean? Most brands are cutting back on their only to social. marketing spend – 55% are decreasing their marketing budgets, 23% are keeping them consistent, and only 7% are increasing them. Therefore, email might look even more attractive because of the lower costs involved. It’s a great opportunity for brands to maximize sales while sticking to a reduced budget.

Looking ahead… Ecommerce sales are expected to soar this holiday season, now that retail giants such as Walmart, Target, and Home Depot announced that their stores will close for Thanksgiving 2020. It will be interesting to see how email performs in such circumstances, considering it’s one of the key eCommerce channels.

Technology Landscape 9

Tips & Insights: A look back at Q3

We asked eCommerce technology companies to share their views on the quarter behind us.

What was the biggest change in your industry in Q3 and how did your brand adapt to it? Rapid demand for customers’ email contact data from retailers who previously relied heavily on in-store brick & mortar sales. This led to an increased demand for our email append solution as it opens additional sales communication channels for retailers. Matt Wolosz, VP Sales, TowerData

The email landscape has been changing a lot this year and there are numerous options for merchants. As such, Privy has doubled down on email education, particularly with our Masterclasses, to give merchants all of the assets and information they need to build a solid and scalable foundation for this channel. In addition, we launched loads of new features for Privy Email to continue to give merchants the highest value tools they need to maximize email sales, including advanced shopping activity segmentation and new templates designed by Essence of Email. Alison Aldrich, VP of Partnerships, Privy

Tips & Insights: A look back at Q3 11 There are more brands focusing on the ecommerce-side of their business than previous years, more merchants coming online for the first time, and there is an increased focus on building out solid CRO and email strategies. At Justuno, we increased our focus on solving merchant pain points allowing them to easily have on-site messaging about shipping delays, delivery, curbside pickup,

We saw more requests from merchants to really understand etc. Helping our customers effectively communicate to their the opt-in experience and what impact it has on the subscriber customers was a big part of our focus in personalizing the visitor performance. We eventually launched a managed service to shopping experience. AB test and analyze subscription methods on behalf of our Kelsey Stapleton, Director of Customer Success and Strategy, Justuno merchant to understand subscriber gain, engagement on various levels, and of course revenue. Felix Suellwold, Head of Partnerships, PushOwl

Tips & Insights: A look back at Q3 12 Email Campaigns Email Campaigns figures, we can expect significant increases in sales. For reference, Black Friday 2019 saw sales of $7.43 billion, and Cyber Monday performed even better with $9.4 billion in eCommerce sales. Draft A look back your campaign strategy with these numbers in mind and prepare to be flexible! When it comes to email campaigns, there were a lot of changes and last-minute adjustments throughout 2020. Content tweaking, low inventories, and other factors forced bigger brands to focus BF/CM elsewhere: on brand building. That’s why, for some, 2020 was mostly TIP about providing value and connecting with customers.Still, smaller brands did not lose sight of sales; they tried to be flexible and adapt to the current circumstances. And this, once again, proved that the If you want to see your campaign sales skyrocket, stand out only way to stay afloat is to make compromises. Keeping promos from the competition by organizing pre-BF/CM promos to warm consistent without being excessively abrasive was the only way to go. up your audience. Also, test, test, test! Increased send volume is perfect for testing, and small tweaks can make a big difference.

It is safe to say that after a rocky Q1 and Q2, Q3 brought more Play around with different layouts, striking CTAs, GIFs, and stability on all fronts, as everyone learned how to deal with the subject lines; then, gather the results and implement them in challenges. What is left now is to prepare for what lies ahead. your next send. And, as always, strive for flexibility and be ready to quickly address any possible changes in the eCommerce So, what can we expect in Q4? world.

No one knows what to expect for the upcoming quarter due to these uncertain times. Still,it is believed that Q4 2020 is going to be by far the busiest time in eCommerce to date. This is strengthened by the fact that big brands are planning to close their stores for BF/CM and move all sales online. Based on this major change and on 2019’s

Email Campaigns 14 Email Automation Email Automation Mailchimp made it even easier for newcomers with the launch of Customer Journeys – a library of pre-built templates and workflows that can be customized at each point of the customer journey in The big picture accordance with their needs.

Despite 2020 being “the year of the unknown”, the automated world (be it eCommerce-related or otherwise) has continued to develop BF/CM and adapt. The global economy is rapidly moving online, and user TIP experience has never been more important. There is an increasing need to establish a connection with customers, and going online has With COVID-19 still causing disruption and helped some micro-businesses stay afloat. Black Friday/Cyber Monday approaching, these platforms can make things easier. Their features allow you to target your For those who don’t have the means that retail giants such as Walmart audience with specific categories of products. This also means have, there are still ways to transition to online selling and increase you can provide customers with the best possible deals, while revenue. still increasing your revenue. What’s new? Still, even with all of the available tools, the success driver for

every eCommerce business is customer personalization and Ecommerce platform Ecwid, in partnership with Mailchimp, recently interactivity. If you don’t have the skills to create complex emails, made it easier for brands to build a customer base and create use GIFs and CSS animation to catch your subscribers’ attention on-brand personalized templates. With this new integration, Ecwid and make them focus on your content. For inspiration, check out shares store data that brands can use to target their audiences – the great examples on reallygoodemails.com. either through campaign emails or event-triggered automated emails, like Cart Abandonment flows.

Email Automation 16 Merchants will start their holiday sales earlier this year, meaning pop-ups with sales will be arriving earlier. For some merchants, holiday sales may begin earlier and last the whole season, while others may stick to a more traditional BFCM timeline. What that means for your on-site messaging (pop-ups, etc.) is that traditional sales tactics will still apply – countdown timers, free shipping thresholds and things of the like – but you may see other types of conversion tactics in pop-ups like “free gift with purchase” being used more this year in hopes of keeping more shoppers on-site vs. Amazon. Kelsey Stapleton, Director of Customer Success and Strategy, Justuno

Email Automation 17 SMS SMS

While it’s hard to predict much of anything during these unusual times, I do expect we’ll see more brands using SMS marketing as a way to build relationships with their audiences (as opposed Source: MobileMonkey, SMS Statistics to just sending promotional campaigns) in advance of Cyber Weekend and then continue the conversation right up until According to research, SMS has an impressive open rate of up to 98%. the end of the year. More and more brands are realizing the In comparison, email open rates go up to 20%. Plus, on average, it only importance of building a relationship with subscribers as a way takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text. And it doesn’t to cut through the noise and stand out. stop there: 75% of people are happy to receive promos via SMS, and Alicia Thomas, Director of Community, Postscript SMS coupon codes are redeemed more frequently!

It is obvious that such potential should be capitalized on, especially during the holiday season. But to get the best results from your SMS What’s new? marketing strategy, make sure that you always deliver lots of value to your subscribers. SMS is the perfect channel for exclusive flash sales, SMS has proved to be a valuable addition to small retailers, especially customer surveys, and reminders. when combined with additional channels such as email, SEO, or social media. You can check out the latest SMS marketing and sales stats below.

SMS 19 BF/CM TIP

To prepare for the upcoming holiday season, make sure you have all the necessary SMS automations in place. And just like with email, good segmentation is the key to success. Furthermore, treat your SMS subscribers to some holiday specials and make sure to keep them alert. Organize sneak peeks and incentives for new customers, and start a conversation to nurture communication and build a relationship. Finally, keep your website properly optimized for your mobile customers.

Growing your subscriber list is going to be huge in prep for BFCM, especially now that eCommerce has been seeing statistics usually exclusive to the holidays, over the last several months. Having a larger email or SMS list for retargeting will be crucial, to get as many eyeballs on your brand as possible. Having a quiz on your site, whether it’s recommending products, creating bundles, or simply collecting more detail on your customers, will increase your opt-ins, and create an opportunity to target more specifically, and personally. Martina Cronin, Agency Partnerships Manager, Octane AI

SMS 20

Email Deliverability means that only a portion of your emails will make it to their intended inboxes. Another worrying issue is that malicious third parties can During the Holiday Season abuse the lack of security to push their own spoofing or phishing emails.

But there are things you can do to stop this.

Ultimate protection

A Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and The focus and importance of deliverability will be much higher Conformance (DMARC) protocol can provide you with the highest this year than it has ever been before. There will be a large protection of any domain setup out there. number of shoppers who will not resume in-store shopping, so email communication regarding digital deals will be paramount DMARC looks at the possible authorized senders in the Sender Policy to retail success. Framework (SPF) and/or emails signed with the DomainKeys Identified Matt Wolosz, VP Sales, TowerData Mail (DKIM) signature. The protocol, if fully implemented, will let emails pass only if they have approval/signature from either one or both of these factors. Sending an email doesn’t mean it will land in an inbox But you need to make sure that your sending IP is not blacklisted, that your previous sends do not have high bounce, spam, and unsubscribe Most modern mailbox providers use different filters, algorithms, rates, and that your emails do not contain spam words. metrics, and spam activators that stop malicious emails from landing in inboxes. In addition to this, there are certain steps you can take during the holiday season to ensure your emails reach the intended audience. If there are no proper sending procedures and protective setups in place, the inboxing rate will decrease during the holiday season. This

Email Deliverability During the Holiday Season 22 What else can you do?

BF/CM TIP

You don’t want to email your entire list at once, so start by breaking your list down into tiered segments based on engagement frequency, starting with the people who regularly engage with your brand and moving down to those who engage less frequently. Additionally, be mindful of the send time, as you don’t want to overload email service providers during periods of high traffic. Don’t schedule emails on-the-hour, but opt for quarter to or past the hour instead (for example, 6:15 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m.). Adjust the smart sending time frame to fit your needs – you don’t want to send emails to people who already got an email from you in the last 4/6/8 hours. To avoid being rejected by the sending server, limit the number of emails you send at once. Try sending to just 25% or 50% of your list each hour. Bear in mind that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to holiday strategies. Options will vary depending on your brand’s needs, the type of product you’re selling, the audience you’re trying to reach, and many other things.

Email Deliverability During the Holiday Season 23 Email Design Trends Email Design Trends Dark mode for email

Another trend to keep an eye on is dark mode, which is becoming Let’s get personal increasingly popular. On top of reducing display power, it makes reading easier while looking cool and elegant. However, certain email Compared to last year, the use of personalization has increased almost service platforms are turning dark mode on automatically, which has across the board. Designers need to stay on top of this and capitalize the potential to mess up your email design. on the potential.

What does this mean? When this happens, email clients invert the • 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with colors of all of your elements, except for images. To fix this, an image brands that provide offers and recommendations that are needs to work on both dark and bright backgrounds at the same relevant to them time. One way to achieve this is by adding white strokes around dark • 98% of marketers say personalization advances customer elements; however, as dark mode becomes more accessible, we will relationships start to see more efficient solutions. • Personalized emails generate a median ROI of 122% • Birthday emails generate 3.42 times more revenue per message than a standard promotional email BF/CM TIP What to work with? First things first: make sure to optimize your emails for dark mode. Additionally, we’ve seen that birthday emails There are various tools and apps that will help deliver a personal email generate 3.42 times more revenue per message than standard design experience. Tools like Zembula and Moveable Ink provide promotional emails. Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails can customized graphics with a huge focus on interactivity. Nifty Images be personalized to the same extent in terms of both copy and focuses on personalization without the interaction element, creating design, so this is something you should definitely keep in mind more room for tailored changes than the previously mentioned tools. for the upcoming holiday season. Make your deals feel personal, relevant, and custom-tailored for your customers.

Email Design Trends 25 Example of an interactive email Example of a personalized email Example of a perfectly optimized email for dark mode Source: ReallyGoodEmails Source: ReallyGoodEmails Source: Litmus

Email Design Trends 26

Tips & Insights: A piece of advice for eCommerce brands in Q4

Looking towards the holiday season and the end of the year, we asked Start to engage inactive past customers well before Cyber Week to eCommerce technology platforms to share their advice for eCommerce brands. build rapport before your sales kick off. This group would need more nurturing to purchase digitally during that week than your already What’s your advice for eCommerce brands on how to prepare for this year’s engaged customers. Cyber Week? Matt Wolosz, VP Sales, TowerData

Start early and make sure you’re building your list. Consider Holiday or Black Friday specific opt-ins. Help your customers plan ahead by letting them know about your promotions ahead Build your lists as early as possible and wherever you can: Email, of time. Just as someone would plan a strategy for shopping at a SMS, Messenger, Web Push. There are many forces at play that will brick and mortar store, help them map out their online shopping. make this year’s BFCM the most anticipated and relevant online Also, if you anticipate inventory shortages or shipping delays, sales event on a global level. Customer attention is scarce and be very clear on what customers should expect. Utilize on-site you don’t want to pay for that with high CPMs. Owned marketing popups, banners, and displays to communicate shipping cutoffs channels allow you to harvest the fruits of your list-building labor and other important information to reduce customer service right in time for Cyber Week. volumes. Felix Suellwold, Head of Partnerships, PushOwl Alison Aldrich, VP of Partnerships, Privy

Tips & Insights: A piece of advice for eCommerce brands in Q4 28 There are three things ecommerce brands should pay attention to maximize their holiday season.

1. Focus on revenue-driving automated messages, specifically Welcome and Cart, Browse and Product Abandonment. These Automating as much as possible is going to be key in advance messages are highly targeted and convert the best of any of BFCM this year, to spare brand teams from manual marketing messages sent. Brands that fail to implement these entry + processes. Due to the ecommerce boom, I will expect many messages will be at a major disadvantage. more consumers seeking out the brands they are repeat customers 2. Use SMS. As mentioned, SMS can cut through crowded of, and brand-loyal to, rather than enticed by just any promotion. inboxes and bring time-sensitive awareness. Considering the Many companies have been promotional all year, so deep discounts majority of SMS are read within minutes of receiving them, it is may not cut it this holiday season. If using your opt-ins for a a perfect channel for messages like last-chance reminders, flash promotion, opt for bundles, or promotions where the more you sales, and other time-sensitive promotions. Don’t forget to use purchase, the deeper the discount. SMS as both a stand-alone channel and as a part of your key Martina Cronin, Agency Partnerships Manager, Octane AI workflows.

3. Send early and send often. If you wait until the Cyber Weekend, you’re leaving money on the table. The holiday season will start in earnest in October and accelerate by mid-November. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain tentpole days, they are just a part of an actual ten-day span called the Cyber Ten. Greg Zakowicz, Director of Content, Omnisend

Tips & Insights: A piece of advice for eCommerce brands in Q4 29 Who Is Essence of Email Who Is Essence of Email

Delivering results is what we do.

Average ROI Industry-Leading Net Promoter Score 38x 73M 80 Max ROI: 184x Emails sent in the Digital Marketing Agency Positive ROI or break-even last year for all clients Benchmark: 61

Email marketing is more powerful and more complex than ever Over 7 years of experience and 300+ served clients in the USA, before. If you want your emails to be remembered, you need a team of Canada, and Australia has given us a clear view of what works in focused experts. different situations and in every stage of a company’s growth.

That’s where we come in. We empower eCommerce brands to sell repeatedly through innovative email marketing. We take a highly disciplined, process-driven, iterative approach every single time. Let us show you what we can do for you.

We adapt to your needs as quickly as the market changes. Book a Call Now We know everything there is to know about eCommerce.

Who Is Essence of Email 31 Credits

Dejan Georgiev Monika Gaberova Marija Jevtic Team Lead Brand Expert Growth Team Lead

Heath Weaver Managing Director

Jovana Vukovic Milica Savkovic Flow Expert Quality Assurance Lead Petar Mladenovic Designer

Maja Stojanovic Communications Expert Vladimir Bosheski Email Expert

Ana Fekete Grace Harding Armin Avdic SMS Expert Copywriter Designer

Credits 32 Content Sources

Technology Landscape: The Keyword; SocialMediaToday; MarTech Cube; IT Pro Portal; Chief Marketer; ClickZ

Email Campaigns: MailCharts; GetResponse; SendGrid

Email Automation: Email Marketing Daily; Klaviyo; Mailchimp; Ecwid;

SMS: MobileMonkey; CampaignMonitor; Ja.txt

Email Deliverability: Essence of Email; SendGrid

Email Design Trends: Litmus; Accenture; Essence of Email; Salesforce;

Content Sources 33 Keep Up With the Top Email Marketing News

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