Ecommerce Retention Revenue with Devyn Pukteris

Discounts And Timing

0:00So, one of the thing that he has seen is that bigger discounts have a larger impact on revenue velocity. So, optimizing your sending strategies, sending cheap emails from the welcome flow the same day is really essential because that's what people are buying. So, 88% are reordering and making their second purchase within the first 9 days. Of course, you have to look at your your offers, you have to look at the data to your brand and see what that timeline is. But, doing it sending out emails early and reminding them how to your cross-sell flow, your replenishment reminders is super important. So, if your unsubscribe rate is low, it's not necessarily something to be proud of. It might mean something more that you're leaving revenue on the table because you're not pushing hard enough.

0:52So, we look at what really drove impact and what really drove revenue for our clients to see what was really working. This is reality as marketers, you can't just say that we know something or that we're right. You actually have to prove that we're right. So, we look at the data and honestly, it really surprised me. I've worked in lifecycle marketing for over 10 years and I was really surprised at some of the insights because like I said, there's a lot of blogs, there's a lot of information out there that was actually the opposite of being true.

Subject Lines That Sell

1:23So, before I get into the first one, has anyone here ever optimized a subject line for better open rates? Okay. So, some of you have done the same thing. And it turns out that you were optimizing for the wrong metric. So, we would look at what top subject lines were, look at the trends, and use that to write future subject lines. In reality, when we looked at the revenue, the things that were driving open rates were not driving I'm sorry, the things that were lowering opens were driving the revenue. So, subject lines with questions in it, we had a higher percentage point difference because we took all of the top 20% revenue driving subject lines and compared them to the bottom 20%.

2:10And the things that usually drive down the subject line the open rate like discounts, urgency language, exclamation points, all caps which sounds super spammy. I would have told any client do not do that. It's super spammy. You'll get it in the promotions box. But in reality, we're getting more clicks and more revenue. So, what we see at the correlation is that what drives lower opens actually drives higher revenue. So, that one was really surprising. So, the rule that we always go by is to match the subject line to the email's goal.

2:46So, for promotions, you want to use urgency, you want to use discounts, numbers, and direct offers. And if you want an engagement campaign, you want to put questions, curiosity, education, soft tone. But we're all retention markers for sure revenue is our number one driver. So, when you're looking to make more money, you want to make sure that you have those even if they bring the open rates down.

Creative That Drives Revenue

3:12The next one is the creative letters. So, my team and I spend a lot of time debating, testing, arguing about what really drives a good revenue. We've tested plain text. We've tested long graphic design, short graphic design. And the number one differentiator was actually strong action verb CTAs. So, any email that were strong verb in like buy now, shop now, get 30% off, those did extremely well. Second was explore offer with a strong CTA. We saw really great results.

3:49Then we had medium copy density. So, like I said, you were testing long and short, sometimes just the title, but what we saw is that when we had rolled up images with text and had no more than two or three lines text per email, that's where we saw the best revenue drop and the best revenue. We have tiny urgency, so we know that's one of the fundamentals of marketing messaging, but the one that was

Founder Voice And Focus

4:15interesting was the founder voice. So, the founder voice was in the top 20 percentile points, but of the Sorry, in the top of the top performers, but 0% of the bottom performers. So, setting from a founder voice can be a really good lever, especially for sale emails. And then you have personalization, the discount in the header. The one that was surprising here was the social proof, because usually marketing social proof really drives customers to buy, gives them trust. That one was a lot lower than we expected.

4:52Giveaways, I mean, there's not there We're We're giving something away that'll 100% at the purchase, but one that we argued about often with tested the clients was a navigation in the menu. So, having shop now, having the categories up in the menu, it actually brought down revenue. It was in the bottom percentages. So, we now remove shop feed nows. So, some of those trends were really surprising. >> I think this is an interesting data when you're looking at it. I mean, one of the things that I thought was really interesting is like how little the things that we're all trained to kind of work on are for example like social proof for example. You guys are seeing that the little smallest improvement ultimately versus really what we're really seeing is copy being kind of the leader here.

5:36Is that Was that what you're seeing? >> Yeah, exactly. It's really the CTA. So, things like saying text or graphic design, the mix, all those things that we're all arguing about for so long or testing on each client wasn't what was moving the needle when we was loaded across all of the brands across all the different industries. >> Yeah, and in the header nav menu, which I think a lot of people do because, you know, I talk about this often like your email shouldn't look like your website.

6:00I think that people think about that quite often as they think that that's being on brand. But, you know, testing that you're seeing quite a dramatic thing. You So, when you guys see this, you said this was over how many brands? >> So, 4,000 campaigns across 40 brands. >> Okay. >> And then we split them by the top 20% and the bottom 20%. And this is the percentage point differentiator between the top and bottom. >> Yeah.

6:22>> Very cool. I think but one one thing that Jimmy always says all the time like keep like one single focus on what you're doing on email. And if you look at a lot of these things, it's really about clarity and focus, right? So, like okay, like if you have a header bar, essentially having a bunch of different navigation points, you're not sending basically a single message. And you can see it really comes down to keeping that clarity between the CTA, between the copy, everything else. And yeah, just not overthinking it. Just stay on topic.

6:53Make sure that you have a purpose and you stick to that singular purpose. >> Yeah, and the last thing here is like the verb, right? The verb CTA, just the strong action is really the driver of the email. I mean, if you think about looking at this data like nothing else you're doing, I mean, they all congregate and add to different ways of points, but just analyzing your email, maybe it's not explore more, right? It's like getting getting more like get it now or get the info, whatever it might be. Something that's more verb related is clearly something that, you know, I think should be the biggest takeaway for everybody is just look at that one thing and if you can improve dramatically just by really focusing on that alone is probably the biggest thing I see here.

7:31>> Definitely, definitely. But, things like learn more, view the menu, those things do as well as the strong ones. So, definitely you're you're perhaps. >> Yeah, and the founder voice is kind of surprising just to see that data just because I know everybody's on a good kick about plain text, but the reality is is like it still comes under the copy at the end of the day. >> Definitely. >> Yeah. >> And I can actually >> So.

7:51>> You can't just partially answer this, but this is a question that's you know, for you guys. As we interpret this are we trending toward you know, just kind of attention branding schemes and then plain text copy to Julie's point something that I see cop brands or D2C stuff that I get but that monolith it's usually Harry branded and batch the key starts your batch your website as a header and it capture to this is the main announcement the new products, but also you might want to add this you know, we also bake this and they take the success story of our customer and meet the employee of the month.

8:34>> [snorts] >> Now John is a >> Yeah. >> figurehead. God bless me keeps putting the warehouse and I just kind of go Lee Johnson our good CTA. >> [laughter] >> No one don't cares about John. I hate to say that, but no one cares about John. but I guess so the the heart of my question is should it be branded so you kind of getting a miniature visual of our website with the message that I want to provide of the day and should my founder voice be actually a graphic embedded into this big beautiful essentially one image or we need towards you know >> So it's actually >> CI warehouse >> Here we're both telling you one combo weekend must do again.

9:18>> So I would say it'd be a mix. You want to use different levers in these strategies depending on what your goals are. So for let's say a sale, I would do a founder voice plain text. you keep the you keep it a shorter medium copy density right line more no more than two or three sentences together. >> Perfect. Yeah. >> Yeah. And then you have like the header image, you want to use a product image.

9:38So, we see better results, you know, we have like said the whole warehouse and everyone has their arms around each other, those don't perform. It's really a close-up of the product in the hero image is what we see do really well. >> Yeah, just like just like a video or anything else, you got 15 seconds. They're oh, they're opening it up, they've got questions, they want to know stuff. I always tell people like I mean no offense to anybody here, but like the designer is not running your marketing program, but too often the designer is running your marketing program.

10:05>> Yeah. >> And that is really the thing that you have to think about. You've got to use the marketing angle where copy still will always be the core. It's the thing that I don't think AI truly will replace for many years because it's those words are what actually get people to make the purchase or even not to get them to make the purchase, I'm sorry, to drive the click, right? The only thing you're trying to drive out of your email is the click to get to your page. You can say all the things you want to say on your webpage, put all the videos that you want to make, but your email's core action and the only action is to drive the click, not the revenue, not anything else, just them to get to your site so you can really explain and get them into it, right? It's the It's the pre-launch.

10:40It's the That's all email really ultimately is. >> We had a question right up front here.

Founder Sender Name Tactics

10:45>> Okay. >> quick question for the founder voice offers, would you typically change the sender name and domain from like info@brandname.com to like cvo@brandname.com so that it feels more organic? I know you can do that within your ESP and it doesn't hurt deliverability. Is that kind of what you would do? >> Yeah, we usually emails are the reply-to sales to marketing team. Sometimes we just change the from name cuz it still comes up as a as a no. So, we usually do let's say for example, we would do Eric, co-founder at Specht & Cans Teaching Standard. and then you switch it out, sometimes it's just Eric or it's just co-founder at Specht & Cans. Like you can see what works well. Also, when you change the from names, you're getting people out of you're breaking the patterns that they're used to seeing. If they always see your company name, you start to become kind of blind to it, but if it says like someone's name, Eric wrote you today." You're kind of like,

11:34"Oh, well, who is that? Who do you know, we so sometimes I don't even do the brand name. I'll just put the the CEO's first name, and that does well also. Even head of customer support we do. it you know, you have personal voice from someone a leadership person among the >> Yeah. I think you from people matters, right? Like just actually having a person's name and it she's right about like obviously breaking a pattern. And you were asking about like image and design versus basically like a plain text founder email. The truth is both. Why?

12:05Because like ultimately you're trying to break patterns for people and you're also trying to find people that respond to different things, right? And so like I think what we generally found and she's going to touch on some stuff. She'll talk about essentially be like best welcome flow for us, but we found let's say this best pattern, but what we often do is we put the founder voice maybe in like number two or number three in the welcome series, and that one's going to be more plain text, right? And again, showed up all the all the founder voice ones that showed up in the top 20% that happened. So it was like 23% of the top 20% had founder voice, but the zero in the bottom. Zero. So, you know, it's not the highest return, but it is the lowest risk.

12:55>> Yeah. That's a good one, too. And then other thing he's mentioned that I thought was interesting is you have it all the replies going to your marketing team, not your not the customer service? >> Oh, sorry. Yeah, it'll be the customer service here. Usually the one that you respond back to. I wouldn't send all the replies to the CEO. >> Okay. Okay. >> She's She's She's just talking about where it goes back to, but it we always use an app.

13:13>> Okay. >> Yeah, we always use an app. It's a friendly email. Sorry. >> Okay. Okay. Okay. Just making sure. I was like a little confused there. >> delete us up. >> Yeah. It should definitely not go to your marketing team then. >> No. I would take that. >> Yeah, not not a good marketing job to be spending on customer service. >> Yeah, yeah. >> You have a question, Tom? >> Can you use or is there also strong action verbs CTA that are formulaic?

13:34>> Yeah, definitely. So, there's shop now, get 30% off, buy now, so really the with the intent to purchase. And add a offer is the second best one. So, shop 30% off, does well is also.

Avoiding CTA Fatigue

13:50>> How do you deal with like the too frequent policy where it's like you're doing shop now, flash sale, get 30% off. You're not You see that there's good return on it in the short term, but you're not Look, how do you make sure you're not overusing it so the consumer doesn't feel like the only time to shop is when these come, and then also too, that can also get old. How do you like cycle through all of your your strong verbs to make sure it's not too repetitive?

14:16>> Well, we have a really wide range of variety in content that we send, but we also segmentation. So, for leads, you have a strategy for customers, for VIPs. And then we also have different types of content, right? So, we have, let's say, flash sale, which is good. But we, for example, we had Kitty Poo Club, which they sell cat litter. And we had it One of the best emails was five signs that your cat loves you. Cuz obviously cats are a little standoffish, not like a dog who shows shows it obviously.

14:44so, we had the five signs, and then at the bottom was show your cat that you love him or them with a clean litter box, get 30% off now, and for a top-performing email. it's always 30% off for first-time subscription orders, and always one of our best emails for first-time customers. So, I think it's, you know, if you're always saying flash sale and you're just talking about sale, it'll get old. But if you're talking about what the customer cares about, so that it's her cat, or how do you have four play time to bond with them, and then you just kind of tie in your product in an emotional way, you can keep using those CTAs because the story is different. You're hooking them on the emotion, and then they're clicking on the purchase.

15:24>> And at least a grand Oh god. I might I one thing is it also it really comes down to offer, right? Like I I see in marketing product is most important, but after product is basically offer, right? And if you come up with different offers, that then feeds into different things that you can do in email. And we often try to craft it with a lot of our clients, but like you know, you could do a free gift for something. You can do a percentage off. You can do a buy two get one Yeah, one free type deal. So like also you want to think a lot about that variety that you have in offer, and that helps you stay more dynamic.

15:58>> It's a good point that you have. And I'll add one little pro tip to this like verb CTA thing that works really well with AI today is like if you get a hundred of your recent responses through your email or SMS program and just load them into AI and tell it to spit out some verbs of how do I talk to my customer, you'd be shocked. A lot of the times you've spent time talking to them the way you want to talk to them, but they tell you exactly how you need to talk to them and the pain points that are right there in front of you. In the past it was just staring at a spreadsheet, but today you can literally upload it and within 30 seconds have an answer of what those CTAs should look like and what you should be calling out.

16:31>> Curious in Toy Theory events go. I just wrote this down. Did you say Claude Co-work or Clyde? >> Clyde Co-work. Yeah, it's an option of the desktop when you download it. You can actually have like little tabs there from coding and Co-work. Co-work is where you can automate a task, right? That's what Co-work is for. Claude is obviously the board the typical chat kind of program where Co-work is where I can go and connect to my Omnisend account, have it spit out a report of these things, build a presentation, and have that in my desk Monday morning when I log into my computer.

Medium Copy Density Explained

17:00You know, things like that. >> And it's okay to break a little bit up for media copy. That's what what accepts? >> Yeah, so that what we saw we had we had So a lot of this was analyzed through AI. So we pulled it all the creatives, we read it and then I had them recognize the tricks. so we tagged them that way. And medium copy density was two to three sentences, and I had emails were broken up by image and text.

17:28So, it wasn't you know, sometimes he has some brands who want to do very long. It is so important that you put this product description, but in reality, the two to three sentences with the title is what does well. It breaks it up, and it's not overwhelming. We've also tested just a small headline like free merch. That didn't drive it either. It was really the medium copy density with two to three sentences per block. >> Yeah. And then the blocks, I mean, they would range anywhere between right about three to five, right? And it could be when you go to a small like one, it's you're going to see less results. If you go super long, actually, you see worse results. And I think Jimmy talks about it all the time. He says like, "Don't make your email landing page, right?"

18:08And if you do that, yeah, you're not selling the click. You're trying to sell everything there, and you usually get worse results.

Welcome Flow Revenue Early

18:19>> the next one, that was a trend that we saw at Pattern Counts is that a welcome revenue is one early. So, a lot of us at where I was, we were optimizing 14-day flows for welcome emails. We were making sure that they were spread out in the first 5 days all the way to week two. But what we saw is that 60% of welcome flow revenue comes from email number one. And we looked at different industries. We have pet care, we have camera cases, tea, puzzles. And the average is that email one outperformed number two by eight to 17 times. So, it made that much more revenue. So, optimizing your email number one is really what's going to drive the most revenue for you.

19:05you know, adding things into email three, email four, it can drive some revenue, but in reality, it's between two to 5% and email number four is under 5%. So, the work that you're focusing on should be optimizing email number one because that's where 60% to 90% of your revenue is going to come from. >> So, if you're seeing this data, what what do you guys usually work with your clients? Like, how many email welcome emails do you guys have set up?

19:29>> I usually do about five and in five to seven because in the first seven days you want to be more aggressive. You want to make sure that you're sending to them at at least every day. And I I'll get to that from my two in a moment where the conversion window across brands of what we see when most conversion conversions are happening. But I think having like a 20 email flow just doesn't make sense. You want to make sure it goes seven to 10 days.

19:56Always look at your brand and see, okay, what what's the average window? And then from there, you look into other flows like that. Adding into campaigns and discount flow because it's just not me many a lot for email for.

Two Emails Day One

20:08>> And are you seeing two emails being sent on day one? Have you guys ever tried that? >> We're starting to. >> Yeah, I think >> It works really well, which is why >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Get Get aggressive. I know that sounds super aggressive to you guys, but they're literally going to ignore half your first emails because they just don't care. Getting a second shot at the window and what I've seen kind of I don't have this kind of data cuz I don't have as many brands to work off this data, but you'll see basically email one and if you can send it again on the same day, you will see a great lift on that just purely because they're in the mindset or buying cycle why they put their email address or their SMS number in and that's something that you guys should be thinking about. Getting more aggressive.

20:47That's the noise is high. No, no, completely different message. Completely different message reiterating the coupon or the discount or offer that you're throwing on there, but trying a different angle of what it is. Maybe your first one was very straightforward. It's like, hey, welcome, you're opted in. We're excited to have you. And the second one might be a little bit more Or example, protein bar. I might be you know, accenting the things that this is not just protein is protein and caffeine and like you know, I'm taking that and I am your everyday bar that fuels your energy and coffee. It's a one It replaces your coffee protein shake every morning.

21:21>> [laughter] >> Yes. Hey, remember what Jimmy said earlier, too? Send your freaking SMS. >> At the same time. Yeah, don't delay it. There's literally no zero reason to delay and stagger your email and SMS. You should be hitting them as fast as you can because they're just not in the same channels. People are not paying attention to your email. They're not waiting for your email 1 hour after they're done shopping. Right? But they are on their SMS phone because that is intimate and in front of you.

21:47A question over there? >> He kind of answered it. I was asking about the duplicate cuz I've seen some people say like if they don't open email one, you send the duplicate. >> Yeah, that's laziness. That's just laziness. I would hit all of them. If they The only filter I'd be applying is if they purchased the pullout, obviously. But if they haven't, you should be pushing them cuz they want you are like at the highest peak of intent on day one. If they don't engage, I'm sure you guys see this in the data, your engagement data flows and falls quickly through the cycle.

22:15>> So, to your point like the sending exactly the same contents, we have it just called a booster. So, you do it with campaigns but not the full continuation. And you can't do like after 24 hours give that sometimes. So, here is like sending second email on the same day definitely should be unique content. With campaigns it's perfectly fine to do that. It's usually a few people that goes like 24 to 48 hours. They will not open that content. So, it's perfectly fine to just reset exactly the same content just a different subject content.

22:45Good question. Who are they? And I remember you feed them last time they did this shopping mail. So, one of the thing I told to him is like how AI can help us, you know, optimize the emails. when you miss booster, one of one of the things I would love to see is dynamic because we saw price and we have all this information how people engage with it. You know, you have you know the the map heat map and many times we do the booster or we can send new email but it would be amazing that the AI can take over and say it's okay.

23:19These items were clicked the most and you can change the order of the item to be up to see cross. So I will be talking later of how you can really give it. >> Any other questions on this slide? All right.

Winning Welcome Email One

23:38>> So the structure for an email a winning email number one for the welcome flow. This is a pattern that we saw across the top now for welcome flow is having a logo up at the top so you want them to recognize the brand. You want to have a welcome message with the offer right above the fold. And then you want a discount code in a square box. So ideally I like to use the the ones with the lines around it.

24:03You double click it, copy it and you can then paste this into your onto the checkout page. Then right on the meat of it you have the primary CTA. So a strong verb CTA is ideal here and then you have the product photography above the fold. So like you mentioned earlier, your question having close up of the product is going to do better than let's say lifestyle picture that's really far back. It's really the close up photography.

24:31It could be like if someone's hand or it could be on a desk. It doesn't have to be necessarily a like a photo shoot but it needs to be a close up of the product because that's the hero of the story and that's what customers are looking for. Then to the body, this one surprisingly

Welcome Flow CTAs

24:47we've also tested multiple CTAs. One CTA you know you've seen like I'm sure you've all seen direct marketing or direct copy where you have a long story and then the CTA at the bottom. In the welcome flow, we saw that having five plus CTAs all pointing to the same action drives more clicks and more revenue. Having trust badges, so if you have a 9-day money back guarantee, if you can return stuff, how many anything like that that you have, made in the USA, add that to your email.

25:18And then although social proof wasn't one of the top on the creative letters, having it in the welcome flow does build trust and it does help with the overall revenue.

Above the Fold Basics

25:28>> Yep, what's above the fold? >> Above the fold is so when you open up your email, it's before you scroll. >> Oh, got >> What do you know what? I used to say above the fold like nobody used to just the top is kind of the same way, so do you scroll down? So you want to make sure when they open it up the first part that they see is the the the information.

Tracking CTA Clicks

25:48>> With that CTA point, the five CTAs, I think that's super interesting. is it the first CTA that gets the most action? Do you guys measure down to the what CTAs create an action? >> Yes, we do see the most at the top. The second most is at the bottom. Some people still scroll through, but we do keep them we do keep them through. And let's say sometimes we have especially in a line up product collections or we'll show the let's say a block with the features and then the reviews. So each one is all pointing to the same thing.

26:16>> And this is since issue or we call it a C2 but should be a CCA. Just verbage, shop today get best deal or do you need a >> hot >> Really connect it to the email and now there >> It depends on the format. Usually the design email we use a button and then on plain text we have it's like a letter copy. >> It It's a mix, right? So like obviously this was analyzing a lot of data but that would go ahead and would look at, you know, links and sometimes too to be fair there might be a little bit of inflation here because sometimes what we'll do of our CCA buttons is we'll actually have a button but below it we'll have a link as well. So this was just looking at overall IRB data. I think it really points back to one of the initial findings, which was huge, is that the emails that drove the most revenue were the ones with strong action CTAs. So, guess what? Having CTAs

27:07throughout the email matters, and that's basically what we saw. >> Does this apply both on mobile and desktop, like this one that's

Mobile First Email Design

27:16>> We always, when we build everything, we always build everything basically for mobile first. It was actually interesting back in the day, yeah, we've been doing this for a long time, but like we used to build one for desktop and one for mobile, and at some point our designer was like, "I just want to test mobile and see how it does." And sure enough, we ended up doing the frame for, you know, a certain width that just fit for mobile, and out performed when we actually segmented it.

27:41And I was like, "Okay, game over. We're just going to go ahead and build this design that works on mobile, and guess what? It works on desktop, too." >> Yeah, I think you just over engineer when you go for desktop often. People tend to use all that space and try to engineer for all that space and put it with noise into it. Where mobile, you are really optimizing for quickest view and best viewership of the eye. And if you think about email now, you're on your mouse and you're just scrolling down on a desktop. It's the same idea, right? You're looking at a a mobile device, I don't know, a computer basically, and you want to have to get to the point as fast as possible.

28:14So.

Inbox Placement Concerns

28:15>> With the with five CTAs, should there be any concern with inbox placement, I'm not sure. >> You should This is the first email, right? So, like this this is the thing is like Jimmy brought it up, recency, frequency, and monetization, right? So, like the moment that you have somebody's attention is the moment that they raise their hand, right? And so, they just raised their hand, you have their attention, and they're a captive audience. So, send it as soon as possible, and guess what? It doesn't matter. They're going to watch it. The other thing is is that it's going to inbox better because what happens people check those emails faster, right? And I always say this to you is like your welcome emails often the ceiling of what your open rate can be, right? And so if you send the email and let's say open rates are so confusing now essentially if all the inflation that happens with MMP, but like let's say that you get like a 50 or 60% open rate on that, it's

29:12not likely that you're going to get higher open rates subsequently after that. So, you have a capped in audience, use the best practices that make up

Nurture Email Structure

29:22>> And then I'm I'm curious. So, we just talked about doubling up on the day one email. How does that structure change from this structure on this slide? >> I don't have a great answer to that. Shame on me. >> I recommend like doing it if you have something specific to talk about. So, what's going to drive for customer? Is it FAQs? Is it product information? for example, you have a a brand who sells beets, melatonin, and caffeine. So, depending what they were looking at, we will send them, you know, get better sleep with just a few puffs. It's instant, it's in your bloodstream, and we talk about one problem solution. We get bring up the offer, but every email should have its own purpose and story. And it shouldn't be a resend again because you want to try to get them to open and and achieve something. So, are they looking to quit smoking? Did they put that in there in the pop-up for the or the quiz? What do we're going to talk to you

30:16you know, take a a few puffs a day to get off nicotine. So, just making sure you can make sure it's personalized or you can go on specific customer problems, the stories about the brand, but we do see best with things like build a credit. So, if you have a natural product, things like this is how the ingredients work and how it'll make you feel better. but I would focus on one story in per email.

30:36And probably limit to two in a day. I like two email campaigns in a while and flow in a day. >> Yeah, I think it if if I recall correctly, a lot of our email twos are either going to be the founder boys one or it's actually like something that addresses a lot of the objections that somebody could possibly have. And so obviously, you have that first email going out, that second email. I probably would test We're changing our playbook, right? This is an evolution, right? Like we always look at data, we go ahead and we iterate. So we're actually making some changes on this, but like traditionally, the the second email that performs best for us is either the founder boys one or it's something that addresses objections.

31:14>> And then what's what is the delay delay like my mom come follow on to turn? >> I mean, you could do like 4 hours. >> Well. >> Yeah. >> Cool. >> Like this five CTAs. So it the prior was like it mentioned like action verb CTA. So basically, you repeat the same action verb for for for five times or use five different action verbs. >> Usually yes, cuz we're focusing on the discount. So get 30% off.

31:41shop faves. you can switch that depending on the context of the story. but we usually I try to feel I I that's my list to test how many of our different verbs versus the same. >> Yeah. >> This new question. >> Yeah, we don't have a We didn't analyze that data just to be fair, but I would say if you actually look at most of our emails, you're probably going to see where like It is why you should mention the top and the bottom one. Top and the bottom one almost always if I look at our emails, they're always like the same. And then in between, you have some different ones typically.

32:12>> Yeah, you like shop men's collection, women's collection, and then a get 30% off at the bottom for the whole the the whole fashion store works out well. Does anyone have any other questions before I get to the next slide?

Bigger Discounts Win

32:28So one other thing that we have seen is that bigger discounts have a larger impact on revenue per recipient. So we had a client where we tested the exact same email. It was a people came into the pop-up and it was a 50/50 split. They had the same images, same subject line, everything was the same except for the offer. And the $10 off had a $27 revenue per recipient. And the $25 off had a $33 revenue per recipient. So, it was a 22% increase.

32:58And a lot of the best practices that we learn about are telling us that you start low. So, let's say give 10% off email one, then come email three you introduce 15 and then you add last chance. But in reality, the revenue for each email keeps going up. So, adding that high offer first and making it urgent and time base will get more revenue from it than starting low and then as for being it later. >> Mhm. What was the specific offer? $10 was the key. >> Perfect.

33:26>> You said 10 off of what and 25 for $25 off of what? This is conditional one, I think. >> Yeah, this is a camera cases. They have like a >> Camera cases one was a the specific one. >> Oh, okay. No, well, they have camera cases, gun cases as I saw >> They're very expensive. >> Yeah, it's a AOV is around 120. >> Ah, okay. >> Yeah. >> I'll be right there. >> You want to test this for your own brand and see what makes sense marketing-wise.

33:52Not everyone can do that. But let's say 10% off versus 15% off or 15 versus 20. that can be an interesting test for your brand as well. >> I had one thing that worried me on order, but if you have an AOV of 125, it's a pretty good >> Having said that, I think the big takeaway on this is like obviously, if you can afford a bigger offer up front, go for it. But you also need to think about offers from like what it does to your cohorts, right? Like we there's a guy Patrick Campbell, some of you guys might know me. He used to be big in subscription and ran a company called ProfitWell. And he analyzed over 2,000 subscription businesses. What he found is that when you go below or go higher than 30% discount on subscription, what you end up seeing is a huge increase in turn, right? And so, you need to make sure that like whatever you're offering one works for your margin, but also that doesn't kill your

34:43co-op working. And what's what's interesting though is I he also sold that when you did offer discounts that were like, you know, somewhere between 10 to the 30% in that range, he sold that those businesses actually grew faster. So, you know, there's brands that say, "Ah, I'd never want discount and stuff like that." Trust me, a lot of luxury brands that you got everybody claims love they discount, right? And so, you want to go higher first, keep it urgent because that's your conversion window and she'll touch on that, but you also need to make sure that works for your business.

Gamifying Offers

35:20>> Do you ever gamify the amount that's offered for the dollar amount off? Like, let's say if X dollar gets you free shipping, hero product is X dollars, if you want them to get them to add a second item to then reach free shipping and add like increase the average number of items per cart. Like, do you what was your brand's gamify like this is the perfect dollar amount to offer to encourage them to add a second or third item?

35:45>> So, yes, we've done like tiered discounts more less in bulk and fully mouse and more in Black Friday style. with the more you buy, the more you save. But, we've seen that adding getting to people too many options, they tend to not do take any action. So, instead let's say for we do more promotional base, but I would do get here are creamy bundles or a bundle page and that's where you save 25%. So, you get on the page, you choose products, and then you go to checkout as opposed to going to a bunch of product pages and then they kind of fall off and they they don't place an order.

36:19one way that we do gamify as well is doing things like a surprise discount or like you make it like a slot machine where they just it keeps kind of turning and they're excited like the mystery code. So we gamify like that, but I try to avoid tiered discounts because it just drives less action. I would focus more on bundles. >> And from your experience, what's what works better? The dollar off discount or percentage ones?

36:44>> As a general rule, we see percentages do better, but it depends on the brand because our lower let's say we have some clients with a $45 AOV. Well, for it to be beneficial for them it's $5 off which isn't really appealing. So I think it depends on your brand. But as a general rule, offer it as a percentage. But for this client considering a lot of their orders when it even went up to $200, the 10 versus 25 made more sense for them because it was less than a percentage off. So it's something that's worth testing for your brand to see what gets customers to engage and then keep rotating on this. People if they will see 20% 20% 20% they're like okay, whatever I'll wait for the next one. But if it's oh do you have a gift today worth $3 or we have a surprise offer for you. It gets them engaged and curious as opposed to just becoming blind to percentage.

37:37>> If I may add, so we tested like similar to what Thomas said here but it's so basically the general rule of thumb Chevy is the higher number. I mean if you are high AOV so you can discount $100. It sounds more than 20%. But if you are discounting 20% versus $3 or $5 if you are low AOV that was so emotional for people sounds Chevy is the just the higher number. >> I agree. >> Yeah, just a very like simple basic emotions.

38:06>> We've seen the same thing 100%. Yes, it's all perception. And and to be fair to like yes you may find a perfect offer but like it's maybe the offer that works for the majority of people on your list. But guess what you got more than just those people that respond to that offer on your list. So, you got to switch it up, too. Nothing's binary here.

Short Conversion Window

38:33>> So, the next one that was really surprising a pattern that we saw across brands was the conversion window was a lot shorter than we expected. So, like I said earlier, we were optimizing our welcome flows and our emails to be go lay across 14 days. Most people say it takes 14 days for a lead nurture in a lot of the blogs that you we read online. But, in reality, day zero, the day that they sign up for email, 85.5% of people place their order. When they're signing up for the email, they're looking to buy, they're ready to buy.

39:03Between days 1 and 7 is 8.9%. And then days 8 to 30 is 5.6. So, it really drops off significantly. And here you had to hide day zero just because you wouldn't be able to see any of the other columns. It just made them super tiny. But, when we hit day zero, you can see that come be day one is just 3%. And then it keeps going lower lower. By day seven, it's less than 1% for day that has revenue coming in. So, optimizing your welcome flow, optimizing your sending strategies, sending cheap emails from the welcome flow the same day is really essential because that's what people are buying.

39:42Come day seven, the it's so low that it's not really worth the time anymore to be spending those emails, spending those times building that up. How adding it to us a thoughtful email campaign strategy with music going on content and and focus on the beginning walls of emails. >> Oh, okay. The day zero is down there. I see. >> It's otherwise that chart would just look terrible. It'd be a start chart, yeah. >> Yeah, the it is it's fascinating cuz like every brand that like comes in, you know, they they want to be audited and they're always like, you know, my window's this or I'm unique, and they always think they're unique. And like almost every time we look at it and by like day seven, it's always an infinitesimal amount of people that basically convert.

40:26So, you know, you may think you're unique. I bet you that you're probably not. It's so Again, that puts a lot of the focus on that very early period of time. And there's one more thing that I

Welcome Flow as Filter

40:37want to throw out cuz we've been talking a lot about like things that sound more aggressive that you probably heard from other people. And the truth is is that I also look at the welcome series as a filter, right? If you look at the deliverability, it all comes down to bath, right? So, what's my unsubscribe rate, and what's my engagement based on the number of sends I have? Well, the majority of sends that you're going to have is from your campaigns, right? So, you know, you may have it where you're only sending, let's say, 30,000 welcome emails in a month, but you might be sending a million campaign sends in a month, right? And if you look at that, it's a big differential. But if you treat your welcome series as the place to actually get attrition. And I think this is the thing, when you ask for the sale, you're going to get more unsubscribers, right?

41:25But you're getting those nos, and you're getting them the heck off your list. And then you're also getting the people to say yes. And so, once you build that filter, you're actually, by being more aggressive, helping your reputation in the long term. There used to be So, I I'm I This is the most evil marketing that I've ever done. I've done marketing for three different political parties back in the day. And we would send emails, and people would always go ahead and sign up to it to go ahead and unsubscribe. And so, what we found, and this was before some of the changes, is that by sending more email, we could actually stay below the number of our unsubscribe rate, because it's all math, right? People can only really unsubscribe once if you actually respect the list, right? But if I keep sending and sending and sending, the math would change. Now, Google and other people have changed the rules, but it's still a game of math, and you have this audience that is captive in your welcome flow. Go

42:24ahead and make them choose whether they're with you or they're against you, and get rid of the ones against you. >> It'll save you money, too, on your on your list size. Any other questions before I open the floor?

Second Purchase Timing

42:43So, the same logic happens for second purchasers. So, 88% are reordering and making their second purchase within the first 90 days. Of course, you have to look at your your offers, you have to look at the data for your brand, and see what that timeline is, but doing it sending an emails early and reminding them how to your cross-sell flow, your replenish that reminders is super important. And one thing that we did at Scentbird, we started this a couple of years ago, we were one of the first innovators, is something called in-cycle upselling. So, a customer who is on a monthly subscription, as soon as they get their order, like let's say a CBD box, they open it up, they're super excited, they're This is going to change their life, you know, they're in that moment of they they're having this great experience, we send them an email within 24 hours of receiving their order.

43:34And we offer that to subscribe for 3 months or for 6 months, and you can get a free surprise gift, or you can get 20% off, and we were able to increase the AOV and LTV of our customers significantly. So, and we were able to bring that window down as well. So, look at the timing in your accounts, and see what makes sense, what the averages are, and then test the different timing delays of when you're sending those replenishment flows, those upsell flows, and make sure that it's something that makes sense. If someone's always buying women's clothes, maybe don't offer them men's hats, maybe that isn't a great upsell, but maybe it's the wedding shoes. so just thinking through how that works depending if it's a subscription or not.

44:13>> The bar is a great example, by the way. The bar is if somebody subscribes on a monthly basis for the bar, right? they're most excited, most likely to believe that that is a habit that they're going to integrate into their life very early on, right? And the window it I would say you probably want to have somewhere around the 5-day window, 7-day window after they've gotten that first experience. But you hit them up to see if they want to go ahead and upgrade to, let's say, a three- or six-month interval plan. And what you see is that these longer interval plans and subscription, they have higher LTVs across the board, right? And so, yeah, it's a great way to just make extra money. Plus, you get the cash up front. Like, who Who hates cash up front? I like cash up front. So, like, it's a great way to go ahead and, attack them when >> they're most euphoric.

Unsubscribes Drive Revenue

45:11>> And the next one, which is something we've been touching on that Jimmy did, too, is unsubscribe rates. So, so many of us have looked at unsubscribe rates, and we can judge, "Oh my god, great. It's 0.1. My health metrics look great." Or maybe it's a 0.8, and we're thinking, "Oh my god, okay, this obviously didn't resonate. Our customers do not like this." But it can really be a false, comfort measure. Because we saw that emails with a higher unsubscribe rate actually has 5.2 times more revenue per recipient than the low ones. So, the people, the aggressive or offer-driven emails that are getting people to unsubscribe are also getting them to place order. So, if your unsubscribe rate is low, it's not necessarily something to be proud of. It might be something more that you're leaving revenue on the table because you're not pushing hard enough. You're not making something where they go, "Oh, I just told my to do this." or "Oh, I just want to buy this." So, it's we realized that

46:08we've been looking through it looking at it through the wrong lens because and the aim instead of the industry standard being around 0.3, we aim for a 0.5, 0.7. This is what is all the most revenue. You don't want this on every single campaign all the time, for sure, but usually there is a big correlation between the highest rankings and the revenue growth again. The same goes for subject lines. So, earlier we were talking about things like urgency language, percentage off, all caps, exclamation points, scarcity language. Those were things that dropped our open rates, but they also increased our revenue and they also increased our unsubscribe rates. So, really looking beyond what subject lines are driving opens, look at what subject lines are driving revenue per recipient, and unsubscribes and see how that correlates to your revenue and all because it's I think it will surprise you. It will be surprising.

47:04>> Yeah. It It also was on the brand level, too. So, we looked at not just on campaign level and ad significance, we also looked at it on the brand level. And the brands with higher unsubscribe rates were making more money per recipient. >> That's a big difference. >> Yeah. >> It's a big difference. >> 1.2x. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> You just have to be sure it constantly get new subscribers. >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You don't want to be burning the same list. You need to have paid media, you need to be sending people to your website, signing up, or else your your list will just diminish. That will happen anyway, even if you just send content cuz you need new views. But, as a general rule for when you're driving revenue, that's a correlation that in my view works well.

47:49>> Yeah, if you drive 10 points more revenue, you can use that money to buy more customers. >> Exactly. >> Yeah, that's the best way to look at it. You're going to lose these people, and as Eric said earlier, you want to get people off if they don't they if they're not interested in whatever you did offended them, they probably aren't going to buy your product anyways. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. List size is comfort pet trick.

48:10>> Yeah, that's correct. >> So, all of these five patterns across the brands and across campaigns that we saw, we were were pointing to the same things. We were looking at the wrong metrics for open rates and how subject lines were performing. We were looking at the wrong creative variables. No, is it long email, short emails? No, it's really the CTA being a strong verb and having an offer with the two attributes the most significance.

48:37We were looking at the wrong welcome emails. I had spent a lot of time upgrading and doing And now you can get 15% off. Now, it's last chance to save. We were doing all these strategies and spending so much time on these emails when we should have been optimizing email number one because that's where most of the revenue is coming from. We were looking at the wrong window. So, you know, you look at blogs, and I'm sure you've seen them so many blogs repeat the same advice and and way of working that you need 14 days to nurture lead. Even we have a client who is a supplement brand for women's health. A lot of thought goes into it. It's a big quiz. Do you have a period problems, menopause? They're still in the first two days is when we get 80% of first-time revenue. It's very similar to what we saw say with fashion. It The windows are the same for most of our clients. It varies a little bit, but it's worth looking at your brand.

49:31And then the wrong KPI. So, the low unsubscribe rate used to flag as something wrong, but in reality, it's tied to most revenue. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that something's wrong. But again, don't want a overall deliverability rate all the time of 1% unsubscribe rate. That's going to hurt you. But for sale emails, don't assume that the messaging didn't work or content isn't good because you have a higher unsubscribe rate. It doesn't It is probably correlating to revenue.

Weekly Action Checklist

50:01So, what to do this week? I really recommend that everybody looks at their accounts, pull the data because every account is different, and look at your last 10 sub clients. Again, if emails go So, check if you were optimizing for sales or you optimizing for engagement, do you have urgency in the message? Do you have the offer in the message? It might drive lower open rates, but it will drive higher revenue. Then, we're going to place all of your generic CTAs with strong action verb CTAs. Shop now, shop the sale. Remove the learn more, read the blog. Take those out and really replace them with a strong verbs.

50:42Then, if all the revenue per recipient on welcome email one versus two, three, and four, and just see if your brand also matches. I think it'll surprise you of how much revenue is coming from that first email. Look at the data, too, and rebuild around the first 7 days of conversion. Look at what when that when it drops off for you, and make sure that you are putting everything you can into those first 7 days. Do they know your products? Do they know the brand?

51:08Are you solving a problem? That will get the That's where most conversions are happening. And the last, look at the unsubscribe rates alongside with revenue per recipient, spam complaints and deliverability, and look to see what the correlation is and if you're also bringing in enough revenue to match your unsubscribe rates.

Data Driven Wrap Up

51:30So, all of this data is already in the dashboard. It's just a matter of challenging your thoughts, your trends, your things I believe, you know, things that I would tell clients like, "Oh, no about You don't want to do a long email unless we work well." Well, we have to go challenge that and prove that. And sometimes it's surprising to see what we assume or what we read or what we think we know actually isn't reality when we look at the data.