Growth marketing firm Iterable teamed with Holistic Email Marketing to analyze 20 of the top U.S. and U.K. fashion brands to see how they personalize e-mail messages “and keep customers coming back for more.”
In the report, “Brits vs. Yanks: How U.S. and U.K. Fashion Brands Compare on E-mail Marketing,” researchers focused on e-mail content, e-mail marketing strategy, performance and “inbox placement.”
The study revealed that U.K. e-mail engagement is higher, “due in part to higher personalization,” authors of the report said. In addition, U.K. e-mail engagement was more multilingual in comparison to its counterparts on the other side of the pond. U.K. e-mails also had higher inbox placement.
For U.S. brand marketers, Iterable said they tended to be “more aggressive” in regard to acquisition and retention tactics. The report also showed that many of the U.S. and U.K. brands “are not taking advantage of life cycle e-mails.”
Life cycle messages include “welcome, win-back, cart abandonment” e-mails as well as “browse abandonment” and “price drop” messages, among other types.
“U.K. e-mail marketers excel in some areas, especially engagement and personalization of day-to-day e-mail,” the report stated. “Their U.S. peers have the edge in acquisition and life cycle e-mail personalization.”
The U.S. brands analyzed in the 23-page report included Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Calvin Klein Inc., Kate Spade New York, Levi Strauss & Co., Ralph Lauren Corp. and Tommy Hilfiger, among others. The U.K. brands include Asos, Allsaints, Burberry, Paul Smith and Topshop, among others.
“All of the top-ranking brands for engagement were U.K. retailers,” the report said. “Among U.S. retailers, Cole Haan and White House|Black Market tied with read rates of 24 percent each. The average read rate for U.K. retailers was 22.4 percent; for U.S. retailers, 20 percent.”
Regarding “inbox placement” of delivered e-mails, the report found that while deliverability rates are reported to be declining, “all but one of the 20 brands in the survey scored above 90 percent,” the researchers said. “Brands whose inbox placement scores were below 90 percent need to address it immediately.”
The report also noted that U.S. brand marketers “have an edge for acquisition because each of the 10 [analyzed in the report] had an opt-in invitation on the homepage — either a form built into the template or a temporary form that appears when the viewer either lands on the page or moves to click out of it.”