Despite the growing number of communication and marketing channels, more than half (58%) of consumers still prefer to receive information and offers via email, according to research from Adobe Campaign. But although many shoppers check their inboxes on a daily basis, retailers need to tailor their email content and subject lines in order to stand out.
Fitness and adventure eTailer The Clymb has seen a significant improvement in email campaign performance and ROI since embracing personalization. Most recently, the retailer implemented advanced segmentation and has started personalizing email content and frequency based on consumer behaviors. After making these changes, The Clymb saw an immediate 71% lift in email revenue, 175% lift in revenue per send, and a 72% reduction in opt-outs per sale.
To achieve this advanced level of predictive marketing, The Clymb implemented Sailthru Sightlines, which is designed to leverage data gathered across channels and provide actionable insights regarding consumers’ level of engagement. More importantly, the tool has helped the retailer determine which consumers are more likely to buy, and then tailors emails for those specific individuals.
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“Advanced segmentation was a big challenge, but now it’s possible,” noted Sarah Lewis, Email Marketing Manager at The Clymb. The technology helps “take out all the extra work of having to figure out what kind of person might want to purchase a specific item or read an email. It also predicts who is likely to make a purchase in the next seven days, or who’s going to click on a specific email within the next three days.”
The Clymb takes data from previous email campaigns and the e-Commerce site, and layers it on top of segmented lists. The resulting product is a comprehensive picture of consumers and their overall response to emails, which helps the retailer create more intelligent nurture campaigns.
Standing Out In The Inbox
Email is an important pillar in The Clymb’s multi-pronged marketing strategy, which also includes social media and mobile. Across all channels, The Clymb has established a consistent overarching message that focuses on a love for the outdoors and adventure, but also homes in on the retailer’s great deals, vast product assortment and knowledgeable employees.
“We find a way to make the message more specific for each platform so we’re not saying the exact thing on email and social,” Lewis noted. “We want to cater to different people on different platforms.”
Over the past year, The Clymb has focused more extensively on knowing “who our customer is and how we can reach them in a way that will create a very positive experience,” Lewis said. Initially, The Clymb partnered with Sailthru to “get our personalization program in place and find a partner who understood who we were, our goals and how we could get there.”
First, the companies collaborated to redesign The Clymb’s email template so it mirrored the e-Commerce site and experience more closely, according to Lewis. Then, the retailer began personalizing its daily email, which presents content, offers and products through a series of tiles: four primary tiles at the top and eight additional tiles lower in the email design. However, the order of the content and products vary for each consumer.
With Sailthru, The Clymb is able to collect multichannel data and create a single view of the customer. All email clicks, click-throughs, e-Commerce views and purchases are tracked. These behaviors are then integrated into customer profiles and used to fuel future email campaigns.
“Our consumers receive the same events and content, but the order is dependent on their personal interests,” Lewis explained. “If you’re more interested in biking, you’ll have three or four tiles at the top focused on that, whereas others would have those tiles closer to the bottom.”
The Clymb also has implemented dynamic subject lines that change based on the order of content within each email. “This has a huge impact because you’re seeing the items that are most relevant to you, right in your inbox,” Lewis said. “It increases likelihood that consumers will click.”
Over the past year, the value of personalization was proven in The Clymb’s boost in sales and revenue. However, the retailer also has seen a spike in engagement, which provides a more long-term effect on the business, according to Lewis.
Consumers are “coming back and checking our site because of our emails,” Lewis said. “We’re building a really healthy, long-term relationship with our subscribers because we’re using personalization. We know they’re now inviting friends to visit our site and are sharing our emails.”
