delivering increased relevance and revenue with automated emails

Delivering Increased

Relevance and Revenue with Automated Emails

@CareyMKegel @LorenMcDonald

“Trigger” horse sense

Carey Marston Kegel, SmartPak @CareyMKegel

Loren McDonald, Silverpop @LorenMcDonald

Happy Birthday Carey!

Why Automation?

…Hope is not a marketing strategy.

1. Relevance

2. Revenue - Low Volume, High ROI!

Volume of Emails sent Sales Generated

95.9 % Batch

Campaigns

4.1% Triggered

Campaigns

40.2% Triggered

Campaigns 59.8 % Batch

Campaigns

…and no need to push the “send” button!

3. Relaxation

Agenda

SmartPak Email Program

Overview

Sample Automated

Emails

Process / Takeaways

Q & A

SmartPak Background

About SmartPak • Founded by riders and horse owners for

riders and horse owners

• Finding a better way to administer supplements led to a quest for discovering innovative, smarter products

• Convenience, peace of mind, time savings

• How SmartPaks work:

Benefits: • Fed right every time • Custom orders • Delivered free, monthly

Email Channel

Promotional

Newsletters

Offers

Transactional

Order Shipment Confirmation

Password Recovery

Credit Card Failure Notification

SmartPaks Cancel Confirmation

Returns Notification

Order Delivered Confirmation

Delivery Confirmation

Order Confirmation

Lifecycle

SmartPaks Welcome

Order Reminder

Abandoned Cart

Post Purchase Review

SmartPaks Up-sell

Consumable Replenishment

Browse Behavior

ColiCare

+ 8 More

24 triggered and transactional

programs in place, ~50 unique automated

mailings/day

SmartPak Email Program

• ~2MM+ emails sent, per month

• Email generates 30% of all online marketing revenue

• Healthy transactional and triggered email program drives high return

Transact. & Triggered

12% Promotional 88%

Email Volume

Transact. & Triggered

30% Promotional

70%

Email Revenue

4 years ago = 2% volume / 1% revenue

SmartPak Email Team

Business Owners with many requests for email campaigns

Email Marketing Manager Email Designer

Where we came from Separate systems

Email starting to get respect

Hired Consultant

New ESP

Sample Lifecycle Emails

Sample Automated Emails

Browse

Cart

Order Status

Onboarding

Review Request Shipment Reminders

Upsell

Replenishment

Reengagement

Pre- to Post-Purchase Emails

Pre-Transaction

• Browse abandonment

• Cart abandonment

Purchase Process

• Order Confirmation

• Order status

• Shipping notice

• Shipment confirmation

• Trip preparation

Post-Purchase

• Satisfaction Survey

• Review request

• Review notification

• Recommendation

• Replenishment

• Repurchase

• Upgrades

Relationship

• Bounceback

• Account reminder

• Loyalty programs

• Account status

• Purchase anniversary

Browse Behavior

Browse Behavior

• 37.6% Open Rate

• 7.35% CTR

• $0.44 Rev/Email

Browse Behavior

Browse Behavior

Browse Behavior

Cart / Wishlist Abandonment

Updated Abandon Cart

The results:

• 38.5% open rate

• 10.15% CTR

• 50% conversion rate

• $4.80 revenue/email

Dynamic product recommendations

Abandon Cart Enhancement

+ Add “reminder” to existing stream to increase conversion

» Test timing (5 days with no conversion)

» Test subject line and headline

» Streamline copy

Enhancement

DEMCO Results

Cart Email A

Day 1

Cart Email B

Day 3

Cart Email C

Day 5

AVERAGE

Open Rate 40% 39% 32% 37%

Click-to-Open 44% 47% 28% 41%

Click-thru-Rate 18% 18% 9% 15%

Conversion Rate 22% 15% 24% 20%

Sales/email $8.60 $8.40 $5.04 $7.46

Conversion rate is just as high on the first email as it is on the last email

– without an offer

Abandon Wishlist + Encourage subscribers to update their SmartPak

wish list and/or share with friends

+ Potential to pair with birth date targeting (and timely email encouraging subscriber to share list with friends and family)

+ Send reminders around holidays

+ 36% Open rate

+ 2% CTR

+ $0.73 Rev/Email

+ Offer a forward to a friend feature, but have so far seen little usage

Supplement Wizard

Supplement Wizard – Abandoned, Finished Process

• Sent when a customer receives their results but does not add items to cart or checkout

• 40.17% Open Rate • 4.18% CTR • $0.38 Rev/Email

Supplement Wizard – Abandoned, Did not get results

• Sent when a customer starts the Wizard, but does not get to the results page

• 44% Open Rate • 7.61% CTR • $0.25 Rev/Email

Order Status

Order Status: Another $ Opp

Order Confirmation 24.16% Open Rate $0.13 Rev/Email

Shipment Confirmation 36% Open Rate $0.16 Rev/Email

Delivery Confirmation 34.44% Open Rate $0.05 Rev/Email

Next Steps: • Insert dynamic product recommendations to increase rev/email • Potentially insert offer for repeat purchase

Product Review Request

Post-Purchase Review “Customer input gives shoppers the confidence to buy, increasing sales,

conversion, average order value, and more.” Source: Bazaarvoice

• Launched home-grown product review tool in early 2006

– Gathered 5,000 customer reviews

• Use Bazaarvoice (launched January 2009) to handle customer reviews

• Sent generic broadcast email to customers to review products they have purchased

• Launched a daily triggered email to review first time ordered products post-purchase

– Currently have over 80,000 product reviews

Onboarding Emails

SmartPaks System Welcome Email – New Creative

41% Open Rate 5.46% CTR

Answers questions customers may have when their package arrives

SmartPaks System Welcome Email #2

• Sent 7 days after the 2nd shipment • 34.5% Open Rate • 8.9% CTR • Goal – increase retention of new customers

Order/Shipment Reminders

Autoship Reminder Email • Reminds customer of upcoming SmartPaks

order • Allows customer time to make changes

before order is processed • Top revenue generating triggered email

The results: • 36% open rate • 13% click-through rate • $1.39 revenue-per-email • 18%+ conversion rate

Real time products based on purchase behavior

Follow Up Reminder Email

• 22.9% Open Rate

• 6.7% CTR

• $0.98 RPE

• 22.8% Conv. Rate

- Sent 3 days before autoship order ships - Since launching the 2nd reminder email, we are seeing ADDITIONAL revenue (almost double) being generated from this campaign.

Upsell Emails

SmartPaks Upsell Emails Customer orders supplements in buckets for their horse

GOAL: Convert customer to order supplements in AutoShip SmartPaks

SmartPaks Upsell Emails

• Focus on the most important product purchase

SmartPaks Upsell Emails

• Launched early September

• Slow to start

• 15% Open Rate

• 1% CTR

• 3 SmartPaks started (1% conversion)

• Potentially re-assess timing and/or welcome onboarding as the majority are brand new customers

SmartPaks Upsell Emails

Replenishment

Replenishment Goal: Increase sales of repeat purchases Timing: Based on a calculation of when product will run out Results: - 29.4% Open Rate - 3.56% CTR - $0.41 Rev/Email - 9.56% Conversion Rate

Inactive Re-Engagement

Inactive

Re-Engagement

• Goal: Reactivate customers before they become inactive

• Results: • Open Rate – 5.6% • CTR – 0.5%

• Timing previously was 75 Day, 90 Day, 180 Day. • Observed low engagement

• 3% Open Rate • 0.35% CTR

• Decided to make the switch to catch people earlier in the inactive process

Email recipient does not open,

click or purchase in 45 days

Inactive Re-Engagement Email: Update Profile - 1.1

Opens or clicks any email or makes a

purchase in 75 days

Inactive Re-Engagement Email: Pays to be Smart – 1.2

Opens or clicks any email or makes a

purchase in 90 days

Inactive Re-Engagement Email: 10% off Order – 1.3

Exits Inactive Re-Enagagement

Program

Inactive Re-Engagement

Day 45: “Help Us Serve You Better”

Day 75: “It Pays to be Smart”

Day 90: “We Miss You! Come Back and Save 10%”

Process / Takeaways

How we did it? – Phased Approach

1 • Identified critical segments and articulated the goals for each (e.g.

convert supplement bucket buyers to SmartPaks buyers)

2 • Mapped out existing email framework to understand the flow from

one lifecycle stage to the next (and identify gaps!)

3 • Prioritized opportunities and executed (while keeping an eye on

simplicity and automation to make the most of our limited resources)

4 • Completed relational tables integration

5 • Our motto: Pilot > Optimize > Automate!

Where to Focus????

What marketing programs will

help you capture new email addresses?

What marketing programs will help

you convert prospects to customers?

What marketing

programs will help you grow

customer value?

What marketing programs will help

you ensure customer loyalty?

What marketing programs will

help you win back lost

customers?

Identify current and wishlist campaigns

Reasons to Targeted Email

SmartPak Promotional

Email

SmartPak Lifecycle &

Transactional Email

Open Rate 17% 64% higher 28%

Click-Through Rate 2% 150% higher 5%

Conversion Rate 6% 83% higher 11%

175% higher Revenue-Per-Email $0.16

16% higher

$0.44

Unsubscribe Rate 0.043% 0.05%

Spam Complaint Rate 0.047% 10% lower 0.043%

Too much email with triggered messages?

12.1

8.5

2.8 3.1

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Email SubscriberWith SmartPaks

Email SubscriberNo SmartPaks

Non-Email SubscriberWith SmartPaks

Non-Email SubscriberNo SmartPaks

Average No. Emails Received Per Month by Customer Segment

* Includes promotional emails and reminders (when applicable), order shipped emails with tracking number, rate and review emails, and abandoned cart emails. Does not include transactional emails such as delivery confirmation, order confirmation, password recovery, etc.

Test First - Purchase Cross-Sell Goal: Increase supplies sales of supplement buyers by marketing a relevant product to them Results: - 26.59% Open Rate - 6.73% CTR - $0.23 Rev/Email - 2.6% Conversion Rate

- Of the orders, half sold the saddle pad

- Test group performed 2.4x better than control

Subject Line: “You Might Like the Back on Track Saddle Pad”

Test First - Purchase Cross-Sell Goal: Increase sales by marketing a relevant product to customers - Targeted customers with a particular need - Reused previous creative Results: - 19.41% Open Rate - 4.31% CTR - $0.58 Rev/Email - 12.5% Conversion Rate - Test group performed 2x

better than control group - (small test groups,

difficult to draw solid conclusions off of)

Subject Line: “Stop Sore Feet in their Tracks”

Upcoming Goals

Anniversary

Customer-centric conversion

Creative/brand refresh on all current triggered emails

Real-time product recommendations

Integrated marketing database

Post-purchase upsells and cross-sells

Takeaways Have an action plan

Map out your existing framework and where you want to go

Don’t get overwhelmed

Prioritize based on business goals

Test

Speak to your customers in a timely manner

Analyze your business and what value you want to give to your customers via email

Demonstrate results of email along the way. Share success

Q&A / Contact Info • Carey Marston Kegel

– SmartPak

– Email Marketing Manager

– Twitter: @CareyMKegel

– Cmarston@smartpak.com

• Loren McDonald

– Silverpop

– VP, Industry Relations

– Twitter: @LorenMcDonald

– Google+: +LorenMcDonald

– Pinterest: intevation

– lmcdonald@silverpop.com