Smarter Commerce – Redefining commerce in the age of the customer

We have closed the books on Black Friday and Cyber Monday for 2011. By all accounts the numbers look very promising and exceed last year’s. Marketers, retailers and shoppers alike have reason to rejoice. One might even go so far as to say that the economy itself has done a little victory dance.

However, before we throw all caution to the wind, let’s pause for a moment and review the holiday deliverability metrics and take note of a few trends for the upcoming Christmas bonanza.

We’ll start with a history lesson. The term Cyber Monday really came into being in 2005. Following Black Friday a spike was noticed on Monday and that spike became a growing peak in the plans and strategies of retailers.

If we look at averages (starting on the Tuesday before the Thanksgiving Holiday) the week, through Cyber Monday, did fairly good in comparison to previous years. Deliverability during this time was on par with what we observed in Q3, 2011. The amount of email that went missing dropped slightly. The delivery of mail to the inbox, since the inception of the Cyber Monday retail event, has always been a roller coaster that climbs and descends with great velocity. However, the percent of email landing in the bulk/spam folder has been constantly increasing since 2005, up over 400% year over year.

If we look more specifically at deliverability during the holiday week (Tuesday through the following Monday) then we see that during 2011 deliverability remained mostly flat, but started to trend down toward Cyber Monday.

Mail that landed in the junk folder rose slightly as we approached the online shopping holiday. Although the delivery trend seems fairly flat and uneventful, all is not as it seems. When we examined deliverability to the four largest N. American ISPs that also comprise the largest global mailbox providers, the picture is anything but flat and calm.

Although the week started with markedly lower delivery to Yahoo.com, the continued difficulty and low overall deliverability to Hotmail across all categories of mailers and all verticals points to a real concern for every one.

Hotmail is considered one of the largest mailbox providers in the world. Marketers need to take special care to watch their deliverability to the Hotmail domains (including MSN, Windows Live etc.) As a marketer looking forward to the next 30 days and the upcoming Christmas Holiday Marathon it’s more critical than ever to make sure that you check and double check your mailing infrastructure and ensure that you’re following all known best practices to ensure success at the inbox including:

• Verifying your SPF/Sender ID records
• Verifying your DK/DKIM records
• Sign up for all available whitelists and feedback loops including the MSN/Hotmail JMRPP (Junk Mail Reporting Partner Program)
• If you have long since established whitelisting for your outbound IPs and are collecting FBL (Feedback Loop) data, make sure that whatever automated system you’re using is actually doing its job and unsubscribing complaints received through those channels
• Look for complaint spikes during key holiday mailing periods and compare the segments that were mailed you may find startling detail that will help you reorient your email program and targeting for the next iteration, Christmas

The Next 4 Weeks

Over the coming days we’re certain to see a continuation of the aggressive marketing that contributed to the success at the register on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Marketers can give them selves a pat on the back for accomplishing their goals. However, there’s no time to rest on our laurels and there’s work to be done.

According to the Coremetrics Benchmark Mobile traffic increased by two fold while mobile sales increased by 3 fold! If you just did a double take don’t worry, you’re in good company. Smart phones represent unique opportunities for marketers to reach consumers on the go and to delivery highly targeted and optimized content.

Let’s keep in mind that the visual and physical dimensions of a mobile device require a special type of design, one that is more minimal, limits the amount of offers in the body, and is lightweight enough to make its way through the crowded cellular networks and download in a reasonable amount of time as holiday shoppers navigate the congested aisles of major retail stores. Take a moment to review your templates; have they been optimized for mobile savvy shoppers?

• Are you using a single column design?
• Are you clearly branding your emails at the top of the message?
• Are you assuming that your emails will be read with the images off and optimizing Alt-Tags and content to preserve branding and prevent knee-jerk deletion due to illegible calls to action and broken formatting?
• Are your calls to action large enough for a clumsy thumb or are they skinny 10 pixel buttons?
• Are you testing your designs across mobile, web and desktop email clients to ensure cross-platform rendering and optimization?
• Are you trying to cram 10 different images at the top of the message showing off all of your fall specials or are you using robust customer data to determine the right message for the right segment?
• Are you leveraging Open Graph to ensure that your content makes a splash when it hits a social network?

These are no longer questions to be asked in one off situations, they are part of email marketing in the age of the informed consumer, and more importantly, the mobile and social empowered audience. Take the time to make the necessary adjustments to ensure your email is nimble and will carry your message beyond the inbox, all the way right up to the register.

Technorati Tags: Cross-channel design, Cross-channel optimization, Deliverability Tracking, Email Deliverability, ISP Deliverability, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Optimization