Posts by: Cat Millar

#Journey2019: An interview with Sam Willan from StudentUniverse

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Ahead of #Journey2019, we’re going behind-the-scenes with our stellar line-up of speakers. First up, Sam Willan from StudentUniverse.

Hi Sam! First things first, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and StudentUniverse?

I’m Sam Willan, and I’m General Manager of the U.K. business for StudentUniverse. I took on that role in October last year – previously I was Head of Marketing. As a marketer by trade, I still very much oversee the marketing strategy – that’s my primary focus alongside a general brand responsibility in the UK.

“At StudentUniverse, in a nutshell, we’re advocates for young people seeing the world.”

At StudentUniverse, in a nutshell, we’re advocates for young people seeing the world. We believe that travel is essential to modern day education. So the core of what we do is offer unique pricing terms on flights and global experiences to a closed user group of students via our proprietary verification technology.

We started out of Boston, Massachusetts in 2000 as a technology company in the travel industry. The aim was to create a simpler and more robust approach to student travel than the traditional Student ID discount system. It worked really well and we launched in the UK back in 2013.

Can you tell us more about your journey to get where you are today in travel?

So I’ve been with Flight Centre Travel Group coming up on 10 years, but I’ve essentially worked in travel all my life! Prior to getting a “real job”, I was doing ski seasons for 3 years, and then after that I joined the real world of travel.

I’ve worked across a variety of functions, from sales consultant on the front line for Round the World Experts, to content management around 7 years ago within Flight Centre. I then moved to be the Marketing Manager at Travel Club, and after that into youth travel with Gapyear.com. I made the move into e-commerce around 2 years ago with StudentUniverse and have been there ever since.

Based on your wealth of experience, it would be great to get your perspective on the key challenges the travel industry is facing now we’re in 2019.

Absolutely! I’m going to ignore the macro issue of Brexit because I think that’s probably at the top of the list for anyone working in travel, or even across other industries.

Product differentiation is always going to be key – we predominantly sell airline tickets and it’s an incredibly commoditized industry. It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate on product level alone, which is where operating in a niche sector is an advantage. There are also some changes in technology standards through IATA that will allow us to look at selling based on specific consumer’s requirements, so really personalizing based on each individual consumer, which is quite exciting.

Then, travel is an incredibly fragmented industry in terms of the user journey to purchase – I’ve read that any given person will visit 38 sites before committing to a travel purchase. Understanding visitors in the research phase versus those with intent to buy can be really difficult to pinpoint. Online, it’s a real challenge to know if they are just looking out of interest or whether they will go ahead and buy in that session.

“You have to contend with the fact that someone could spend 99% of their time researching with you, but if you’re not meeting their requirements at the right moment, there’s no guarantee they’ll transact with you.”

Brand loyalty is another thing that is really, really difficult. The volume of information that’s available for consumers to research is vast. Then you have to contend with the fact that someone could spend 99% of their time researching with you, but if you’re not meeting their requirements at the right moment, there’s no guarantee they’ll transact with you. It’s harder and harder to capture that loyalty as a brand, and specifically within a travel agency environment where you don’t directly “own” the commodity – and have less control over the physical product experience.

That leads on to our next question… how have you seen consumer expectations of online travel change and why?

It’s very similar to trends across every industry – it’s convenience and service that people are looking for. Ten years ago, we absolutely couldn’t tap a button and then have a taxi waiting two minutes later, but that is just the expectation now and everyone else lags behind, that’s no different with online travel. Travel is one of those huge industries that is lagging behind, certainly retail in that expectation around service, convenience and value.

“People are more willing to pay to have that peace of mind. For example, if they’ve booked with us, they want to know that we can support them throughout their whole experience.”

I think people actually value convenience and service over price point. People are more willing to pay to have that peace of mind. For example, if they’ve booked with us, they want to know that we can support them throughout their whole experience. We know, for example, an air ticket might be booked three to four months in advance to secure the best price, but an experience or hotel is something they’ll want to book much closer to the time. So being able to unbundle all these products so visitors can book at their convenience, but still have everything in one place for when they travel – this is where the expectation is going.

Personalization as well – demographic targeting isn’t enough any more. I think the travel industry is as guilty as anyone – it’s segmenting broadly by age and location and similar. And actually when you dig down into it, you can’t segment at that level and be successful: it’s real personalization that people are demanding now.

So who, in your view, is excelling at meeting these expectations?

There’s a couple. Quite a niche example of someone doing something smart is Delta Airlines. They have an airline baggage tracking functionality within their app. It’s a great product augmentation play: they’ve addressed something that’s a bugbear of so many people, a real pain point when travelling. You can track, in real time, where your luggage is, something that has a knock-on effect on the rest of your travel plans, or if you’re a business traveller what time you’ll arrive at your meeting. So it’s kind of a tiny point, but its ability to have an impact on the customer experience of Delta’s product is huge.

Then, it’s probably cliché to mention, but outside of travel, I think Amazon, where they are standardizing returns, refunds, customer service across a range of distributors and suppliers. It’s a really smart way to work and wouldn’t surprise me if we see someone make similar moves within the travel industry, where are so many disparate parts to pull together.

In the not too distant future we’ll see companies looking to standardize terms, cancellation policies, customer service etc., and so be able to address that fragmentation we talked about earlier.

Can you give us a bit of a sneak preview of what you’ll be speaking about at #Journey2019?

So I’m going to be looking at the hot topic of customer lifetime value in a time when loyalty is declining. Certainly, something we’re guilty of is focusing on that cost per acquisition on a single sale basis, and ignoring the lifetime value the customer still has to brands. How we can start to use data to address this, to personalize the customer journey and improve lifetime value?

And finally, aside from your presentation, what are you looking forward to on the day?

Well, the travel breakout session features James Boyle from Flight Centre, so definitely looking forward to that – he’s a really smart and switched-on guy!

Thanks Sam!

If you’re lucky enough to have nabbed a ticket to Journey2019 then check out the full line-up here to plan your visit, and we’ll see you on March 13th.

https://try.yieldify.com/travel-journeys

Campaigns of the Month: January 2019

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Check out our campaigns of the month: January 2019

How Leger Holidays reduces booking abandonment

Leger Holidays is a leading tour operator offering more than 180 trips to choose from across Europe. Seeking to provide ‘amazing experiences’ to its customers, starting from the moment a visitor begins booking their trip, Leger Holidays worked with Yieldify to optimize the booking process.

“Travel has one of the highest abandonment rates of any industry at around 81%. Part of this is due to the expectation users have around the length of the booking process. In order to combat this, Leger utilized sticky campaigns throughout the booking journey highlighting exactly how many minutes the process usually takes from that point.”

“Using the sticky campaign format meant this message could be anchored right alongside the relevant sections of the form, without interrupting the visitor journey. To date, the results have been impressive, with conversion rates up by +15.7% versus the control group.”

Alex Martinsmith, Campaign Analyst, Customer Success

How Maximuscle leverages social proof to drive conversions

Maximuscle, a leading sports nutrition brand, know that trust is key when it comes to selling health and fitness related products. The brand wanted to leverage the power of social proof, at the right moment in the customer journey to drive conversions.

“Social proof is a powerful psychological principle that can be used in a variety of ways across an e-commerce site. For this campaign the goal was to drive visitors to add to cart at that moment of intent by creating urgency with social proof messaging.”

“The sticky campaign we used was a simple but effective way to do this, and we’re already seeing positive results. In the video you’ll also see that we follow this up with another message once the product is added to bag, notifying the user they’ve qualified for free delivery. This two-phase approach is a great way to move visitors from browsing to checkout”

Stephanie King, Head of UK Retail

Want more examples like this? Check out our Case Studies, and don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list.

Beauty and Cosmetic Industry Trends to Keep an Eye On

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What can eCommerce marketers learn from the beauty eCommerce trends driving a $750bn industry?

As a wide array of industries are disrupted or destroyed by e-commerce giants, the beauty industry has been remarkably resilient. In fact, many are saying it’s going through a massive reinvention — which has put the industry on pace to be valued at $750 billion by 2024. Key to this growth are a number of beauty e-commerce trends that have enabled a diverse range of brands to own the customer journey like never before.

So how are beauty brands owning the customer journey in 2019? Between social media, organic and paid search, and the rise of omnichannel, multi-brand retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty, the path to purchase is more complex than ever.

While this complex customer journey presents a challenge for brands, it’s also an opportunity to present unique omnichannel experiences. In short, the growth of the beauty sector isn’t random. New, exciting brands are popping up regularly and launching creative marketing efforts that are becoming the talk of the industry.

Here are a few beauty e-commerce trends to keep an eye on (and learn from) in 2019…

Insta-upstarts take on established brands

Social media has leveled the playing field for brands, making it easier for young challengers to quickly establish a foothold and take on more established industry players. These new direct-to-consumer kids on the block have risen to prominence off the back of unique brand stories.

Glossier, for instance, has grown dramatically over the past few years thanks to a simple but compelling ethos: “The individual should be celebrated.” Many of these new companies are leveraging their ‘newness’ to brand themselves as fresh alternatives to older industry giants.

In response, these same industry giants are evolving. Taking a page out of these new brands’ playbooks and investing in social media influencers who can provide an injection of freshness and authenticity. Or they’re altering their aesthetics, aligning with industry trends to offer more minimal, millennial-friendly, products and e-commerce sites.

Photo: @covergirl/Instagram

Social shopping – is 2019 the year?

Linked with the rise of direct-to-consumer indie brands, is the continued dominance of social media. Monitoring of beauty e-commerce trends show that king among the platforms is Instagram, which many brands have mastered to gather useful user-generated content and compelling visual assets. Even as major social players such as Kylie Cosmetics have taken up a large share of the space, more and more brands continue to invest in building followings. It proves one thing: Social isn’t going anywhere, but will 2019 be the year it pays off, in terms of actual sales?

As shoppable posts on Instagram became available in 44 countries in 2018 the dream of creating a seamless shopping experience on mobile is becoming more of a reality. The number of beauty brands using the functionality will only grow in 2019 as 72% of consumers say they have made fashion, beauty or style-related purchase directly after seeing something on Instagram. Stories, in particular, offer an almost seamless way to facilitate e-commerce from content, and beauty brands have taken advantage of this, now representing 38% of Stories posts, ahead of retail (26%), and luxury (21%) brands.

Beauty e-commerce trends: Instagram Stories
Source: Gartner L2

Personalization continues to proliferate

Beauty e-commerce trends are reflective of wider industry trends, but none more-so than personalization. One major reason beauty brands have grown amid e-commerce upheaval is their ability to leverage the inherently personal aspect of beauty shopping, to serve the growing consumer demand for personalization.

Each buyer is different and has different needs. Varied skin types and body shapes lead customers down different paths as they shop for beauty products. When Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty burst onto the scene, one of the major factors in its huge success was a product range catering to a wide array of skin types previously underserved by the industry. Brands have taken notice of this demand, and are now celebrating these differences right through from the products they produce to the assistive, personalized customer experiences they create online.

Beauty e-commerce trends: Charlotte Tilbury
Source: Charlotte Tilbury

Online shade selectors, like the above from Charlotte Tilbury, help customers find just the right foundation for their skin. Guided selling tactics such as this, mimic the in-store experience of conversing with a sales assistant, aiding product discovery, encouraging purchases and offer the added bonus of cutting down on returns.

New approaches to building loyalty

With a crowded field making acquisition in beauty harder than ever, building loyalty to retain customers is becoming more and more valuable. Loyalty schemes that encourage retention have long been a staple, for instance, Sephora has remained an industry heavyweight thanks to its effective points-based system. Subscription-based services, such as Birchbox and Cornerstone, have also seen sizeable growth, with consumer appetite for a regular beauty fix high.

But some methods for building loyalty are more abstract. Take, for instance, a newer entrant to beauty e-commerce trends – brands as communities. By leveraging social media to encourage interaction among customers, more brands are creating a tight-knit, communal feel to increase customer loyalty. In this way, a brand becomes part of the customer’s identity, building a more meaningful type of customer-brand interaction. Some are even bringing social to the supply chain, such as Glossier’s leveraging of its online community to crowd-source products, or ColourPop’s showcase of the process behind the products.

View this post on Instagram

Evolution of the Milky Jelly bottle ?

A post shared by Glossier (@glossier) on

Source: Glossier / Instagram

Beauty e-commerce trends: what’s next?

Beauty brands are in a unique position to build strong personal bonds with their customers, and there’s a lot that can be learned from how they’ve done this to date. From optimizing the journey between social and commerce to baking-in personalization across the business there are more ways than ever to connect with customers. E-commerce marketers in all industries have the chance to launch creative campaigns that improve the customer journey. These beauty e-commerce trends give us a taste of where the industry is headed – for ideas on how you can leverage them, check out our Beauty E-commerce Lookbook featuring three examples of customer journeys made personal.

Beauty E-commerce Lookbook

Peak performance: Q4 2018 e-commerce statistics [Infographic]

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Expectations for e-commerce going into Q4 were mixed to say the least. See how it all turned out with these Q4 2018 e-commerce statistics.

The outlook for retail and e-commerce heading into Q4 2019 was cautious, with November the ‘worst on record’ for UK retailers, and similar ‘warning signs’ in the US.

Now it’s 2019 we decided to take a look back at the data to understand what happened during key shopping periods like Black Friday and the holiday season, and what e-commerce brands should know when it comes to traffic, conversions and more.

We analyzed over half a million visits across November and December to US and UK websites to understand consumers to understand peak performance. Here are a few of the key insights from our Q4 2018 e-commerce statistics:

  • It started early, with Black Friday driving the most traffic
  • December traffic peaked on the 1st, conversions peaked later
  • Mobile is the device of choice for discovery, and conversion rates are slowly growing

View the infographic below to see all the data and insights!

Q4 2018 e-commerce statistics

Did your peak performance measure up? If not, we’re on hand to help. Book a free Customer Journey Optimization consultation. Get more leads and ideas to get your 2019 off to a flying start!

The 2019 e-commerce marketing calendar

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What are the key dates for e-commerce marketing in 2019? We’ve got the answers…

Update: Our 2020 E-commerce Marketing Calendar is now available! Grab your copy here

With $3.4 trillion to play for in e-commerce this year, the Yieldify e-commerce marketing calendar is back by popular demand, and better than ever!

With this year set to see more online shoppers – spending more across more markets than ever – one this is clear…there’s a lot to play for in 2019.

There’s also a mountain of challenges to climb – ‘industry killer’ Amazon will turn 25 years old in July. E-commerce brands will be seeking to finally get a handle on the changes it has pioneered, such as personalization, with 37% of marketers planning to join the 27% already creating personalized online experiences in 2019.

To make sure you’re prepared for everything the next 12 months might throw at you, this year’s edition of the 2019 e-commerce marketing calendar is packed with useful info and our most popular content.

From planning reminders to keep you on track to hit your targets and get leads, to facts and stats to help drive your strategy…and lots of themed pictures of cartoon aliens along the way.

And it’s a totally free resource – click below to get your copy of the Yieldify E-commerce Marketing Calendar 2019 and have an amazing 2019!

2019 e-commerce calendar

Need some support with marketing around the key dates featured in the 2019 e-commerce marketing calendar? Why not book a free customer journey optimization consultation to see how we can help.

Our campaigns of the month: December 2018

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Check out our campaigns of the month: December 2018!

Learn how Marks & Spencer and Pacifico Optical are optimizing the customer journey in our Campaigns of the Month: December 2018 edition.

How M&S showcases its award-winning Christmas food

With the ‘golden quarter’ a key period for grocery sales, Marks & Spencer wanted to help visitors discover it’s award-winning selection of food to order.

Building trust with online consumers is so important when it comes to the grocery sector, and even more-so when it comes to one of the most important meals of the year!

With this in mind, Marks & Spencer wanted to highlight a USP and trust-signal to new visitors – the numerous awards it has won for its Christmas products from respected publications. 

We worked together to develop a notification displaying the BBC Good Food and Good Housekeeping Institute logos, with a CTA inviting visitors to shop a curated selection of the winning products.

Charlie Singleton, Head of Retail – Health & Beauty, Customer Success

How Pacifico Optical highlights USPs along the customer journey

The eyewear market has been revolutionised in recent years by the rise of direct to consumer brands like America’s Warby Parker and South Korea’s Gentle Monster.

The key to this success? A smooth customer journey between offline and online – something Australian ‘accessible luxury’ eyewear brand Pacifico Optical recognised and used the Yieldify Conversion Platform to create.

In order to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find their perfect frames Pacifico Optical serve relevant messages at different stages of the customer journey. Visitors are notified of the latest store opening upon arrival, so they know that an offline visit is possible as they browse.

Then, if a user shows more intent to buy, by visiting the product page or cart, but then decides to exit, the brand highlights its free shipping and free returns USPs, giving unsure shoppers a compelling reason to convert.

Our campaigns of the month: November 2018

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Check out our campaigns of the month: November 2018!

Learn how Argos Pet Insurance and Soak.com are optimizing the customer journey in our Campaigns of the Month: November 2018 edition.

How Argos Pet Insurance reduces funnel abandonment

One of the key challenges within financial services is building trust with new visitors. For Argos Pet Insurance this meant understanding how to build trust with those looking to insure their pet for the first time with Argos Pet Insurance.

“We took a data-driven approach, analyzing each step of the funnel, to understand and advise on the specific stages in the funnel that could be targeted.

Through testing, Yieldify and Argos Pet Insurance identified that each step of the quote funnel required a different action to improve engagement and encourage users to the next step.

The video below shows just one of the successful tactics – highlighting USPs and social proof such as customer ratings, number of pets insured and claim processing time.

Stephanie King, Client Services Team Lead, Yieldify

How Soak.com optimizes the PPC journey

With acquisition costs rising, retailers need to make the most of valuable PPC traffic once it hits the site. Online bathroom suite and furniture retailer Soak.com wanted to understand more about these visitors and keep the journey going toward conversion.

“While designed to help drive conversion, the Soak.com PPC journey campaign had a second objective that was just as important: gaining insights into how PPC visitors responded to different sub-categories within a product range.

Together we created a campaign that used referral source targeting, to show visitors exiting on the radiator category an overlay asking what they were looking for. This contained three calls to action: shop by style, room or by colour.

This campaign helped the team at Soak.com to reduce abandonment on premium PPC traffic as well as gain a greater understaning of the user experience.

Harry Cochran, Account Manager, Yieldify

Our campaigns of the month: October 2018

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Check out our campaigns of the month: October 2018!

Learn how Avon and the Ideal Home Show are optimizing the customer journey in our Campaigns of the Month: October 2018 edition.

How Avon utilizes video content for new product launches

As the world’s leading direct seller of beauty related products, Avon wanted to ensure its online customer journey is as helpful as possible. Working with Yieldify the brand created a campaign to promote a new product – its innovative mark. 2-in-1 Lip Tattoo stain via video.

Aware that consumers, especially millennials and gen Z, are video driven when it comes to buying beauty products, Avon wanted to amplify its ad for the product on-site to engage desktop users.

We were able to deliver this via an unobtrusive notification that appeared on the product description page, giving users the choice to engage with the content

Charlie Singleton, Client Services Team Lead, Yieldify

Learn more about how beauty brands are making over the customer journey in our beauty e-commerce guide featuring examples from Skyn ICELAND, Kiehl’s and more.

How the Ideal Home Show drives urgency to purchase

With the Ideal Home Show Christmas just around the corner, Yieldify put together a campaign to drive urgency with consumers showing intent to buy.

Social proof is a highly effective technique for driving urgency, especially with visitors who are already demonstrating interest.

We used Dynamic Social Proof, utilizing real-time data to display how many other visitors were currently looking at buying the same tickets to the Ideal Home Show Christmas.

Using a subtle notification format with an animated GIF catches the users attention without diverting them from completing their purchase. The campaign is already producing positive results.

Rianna Beaton, Campaign Analyst, Yieldify

See the different tactics Megabus, We Are FSTVL and Stansted Express use to drive bookings and ticket sales in our case studies.

Online Shopping Trends: The Truth About Digital Customer Journeys

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We surveyed 1000+ consumers to discover the truth about online shopping trends and the customer journey. Here’s what we found…

Staying on top of online shopping trends can be tough for marketers today. And while we’re all about looking to the numbers (as evidenced in our recent masterclass ‘12 data secrets for holiday e-commerce‘!) sometimes it can pay to go straight to the source.

So we did just that. And now we’re sharing the results and what they reveal about online shopping trends. We spoke to over 1000 US and UK consumers to understand their experience of the online journey, including:

  • Consumer expectations around personalization and privacy in a post-GDPR world
  • How discovery behaviours differ by demographic across channels
  • The top 5 reasons why customers buy… and why they abandon

View the infographic below to see all the insights!

online shopping trends infographic

Our campaigns of the month: August 2018

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How can you optimize the customer journey? Here are some of our favourite examples!

How MedExpress builds trust throughout the customer journey

MedExpress is an online doctor and pharmacy offering prescription-only medications via an online consultation which is reviewed by a licensed doctor. For new visitors to the site, highlighting the unique benefits of its service and building trust is key, given the sensitive and personal nature of healthcare.

“Yieldify worked with MedExpress to build trust and highlight USPs along multiple points in the customer journey. Firstly, a corner notification highlighting the benefits of using MedExpress educates visitors as they browse the site at the category level.

As the user navigates through to view a product page, we showcase the brands excellent Trustpilot score, to give visitors peace of mind from positive customer reviews.

We have seen very encouraging results so far, for example the Trustpilot Notification has driven a 12.2% uplift in conversion rate on desktop versus the control group”

Charlie Singleton, Client Services Team Lead, Yieldify

How Design Toscano collect customer feedback

For more than 25 years, Design Toscano has introduced exclusive sculptures, furniture, statues and more to passionate customers eager to surround themselves with unique and extraordinary objects. With the goal of truly understanding its visitors, the brand worked with Yieldify to collect feedback.

“We’ve created a campaign with Design Toscano to recapture the attention of abandoning visitors and to understand more about why they are leaving – due to price, indecision or can’t find what they’re looking for.

On clicking a response visitors are invited to take the next step, for example, price-sensitive users can sign up to the mailing list to be the first to hear about offers, while undecided shoppers can share feedback with the team.”

Caitlin Sweeney, Director of Client Services, Yieldify

Holiday eCommerce Statistics for 2018

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Here are 6 insights into the eCommerce trends you can expect on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas this year.

Just last week, we presented the results of our deep-dive into the billions of holiday eCommerce statistics: ‘The 12 Stats of Christmas’. Here are the key insights you need to know:

1) Black Friday returns go up by 50%

According to research by LCP Consulting, the return rate for Black Friday purchases is 50% higher than the rate across the year as a whole. That’s a huge leap, but why is it significant?

The reason we highlight this number is because it’s a pretty good encapsulation of the fact that Black Friday can be as much of a curse as a blessing. The 50% return rate contributes to the massive increase in operating costs that leads to retailers feeling overwhelmed by the holiday. Coupled by the hit that margins take by the pressure to discount, this has led to more retailers opting out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday altogether.

It’s also worth noting that for markets outside of the US, Black Friday brings with it the threat of cannibalising Christmas sales. While in the US it’s more common to wait until after the Thanksgiving period has passed before thinking about Christmas shopping, in markets where the November holiday doesn’t exist it’s all about Christmas from October onwards. A period of heavy discounting in November therefore runs the risks of eating into those all-important Christmas margins.

So is Black Friday all doom and gloom for retailers? Not necessarily.

A number of high-profile retailers – like IKEA and Selfridges – have opted-out of Black Friday and gone their own way. Others have simply started to re-shape the holiday in a way that works for them – starting their campaigns earlier to take advantage of longer periods of sustained consumer interest.

The learning is that Black Friday – while evolving – isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but for smart retailers there’s an opportunity to adapt to continually changing consumer behavior in order to minimize the hit to the margins while capitalizing on high traffic volumes.  

2) Black Friday conversions hit 4.8%

In the last year alone, we’ve seen the average retailer’s conversion rate on Black Friday rise sharply from 3.9% to 4.8%.

The indication appears to be twofold. Firstly, as Black Friday gets more established, more consumers are researching what they want to buy and making sure that they’re ready and poised to make it to checkout before stock runs out. Secondly, retailers are simply getting better at CRO – conversion rate optimization isn’t a new art anymore (in fact, we’ve moved onto customer journey optimization aka CJO).

This is all great news for retailers – and it should get you thinking about what to do next. One of the most logical next steps is to think about what you can do to get more out of that conversion – in other words, think about how you can encourage a customer who’s on their way to checkout to spend more. Smart upsells and cross-sells are some of the quickest ways to boost your average order value and acquisition ROI!

3) Black Friday peaks at 8pm

While it’s important to begin Black Friday on the front foot when consumers are waking up, it’s worth remembering that the action really happens in the evening.

The graph below shows how average retailer traffic climbs from the early morning up to 8pm in the evening:

Black Friday website traffic | Yieldify

What to make of this? Firstly, it means that you’re not leaving the office until much later (sorry). Secondly, it’s worth considering how to approach your email marketing in light of this information – while it makes sense to hit the inbox early in the day, there may be an opportunity for a second send later on in the day when your visitor is more like to be ready to browse.

4) It all starts on November 17th

Black Friday is on November 23rd this year – but by that time, the action will already be well underway. The real starting line is actually the weekend before Black Friday.

This is when traffic first starts to rise above what you’d expect for a normal weekend (particularly on mobile, when the weekend is always higher than a weekday). From then on, it’s an escalation up to the big day itself.

If you’re planning your Black Friday marketing activity, consider planning your activity to account for this early interest – it’s a great opportunity to get a jump on the competition.

5) December the 17th/18th are the ‘conversion cliff’

Moving onto Christmas, one of the most interesting ecommerce statistics we see here is that there’s what we call a ‘conversion cliff’ that falls around a week before the big day.

What that means is that while traffic stays relatively strong until just a couple of days before Christmas, consumers just stop buying a good week before. What we see is that last-minute shoppers are arriving on-site in search of last-ditch gifts, only to become concerned that whatever they’ve chosen might not arrive in time.

If your data shows something similar, make your Christmas shipping policies front-and-centre on your website – show those nervous shoppers that there’s still plenty of time to get their orders.

6) Christmas traffic peaks on… December 26th

Yep, you read that correctly. December’s highest traffic day (on mobile at least) – is actually the day after Christmas:  

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen that both Christmas Day and the subsequent day have become bigger and bigger opportunities for ecommerce retailers as consumers – mobile devices in one hand and voucher codes in the other – turn to online shopping.

If you’re running post-Christmas sales, our advice would be to consider starting them on Christmas Day – there’s plenty of opportunity to be had for early birds.

Want more on holiday eCommerce? Check out our 7 CRO tactics for the holiday shopping season!

Our campaigns of the month: July 2018

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How can you create customer journeys that convert? Here are some of our favorite examples this summer!

How Stansted Express uses USP messaging to drive bookings

Stansted Express trains are the quickest and most direct way to travel between London Stansted Airport and the capital. With services running every every 15 minutes, travellers can rest assured they’ll be able to continue their journey – even if plans change.

“Yieldify worked with Stansted Express to highlight the frequency of service USP at the perfect moment in the booking funnel. Providing extra reassurance on the payment page has been very effective in encouraging visitors to complete their booking. This campaign was delivered via a subtle Notification format with an eye-catching animated GIF”

Therese Catindig, Digital Strategist, Yieldify

Learn more about how travel brands are optimizing the customer journey in our report featuring Stansted Express, Icelolly.com, Villa Plus and more.

How MyPhoto uses Dynamic Social Proof

MyPhoto realized its mission by creating the easiest and fastest way possible for photos on its customers’ phones to become amazing products, gifts and home decor.  MyPhoto delivers everlasting memories with its products, and the brand continues to evangelize the simplicity of its online offering.

Here’s how Dynamic Social Proof adds to that offering:

A key reason that we buy comes down to how popular we think a product is. We’re attracted by the hottest trend, the latest release, or what others are purchasing. But it’s often the case that customers browsing your site don’t have this insight into what’s popular, as they might do if they were shopping offline.

Using Dynamic Social Proof MyPhoto show a well-timed notification with information on how many others have viewed a particular product. At Yieldify our data shows that this type of campaign can generate conversion rate uplifts from +6.6%, up to as high as +48.3% depending on the targeting criteria.

Alex Gold, Senior Customer Success Manager, Yieldify

21 Amazon Prime Day 2018 Stats and Facts

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Another Prime Day is almost upon us, here are all the numbers you need to know!

Amazon Prime Day 2018 is fast approaching on July 16th – with the retail giant set to make this the biggest ‘Christmas in July’ event yet, we’ve compiled the key Prime Day statistics and facts to show you what to expect this year.

Prime Day 2018 news   

1) 2 more Prime Day hours. Beginning at midday on July 16th, Amazon is increasing Prime Day from 30 to 36 hours. The slightly later date this year means that it avoids clashing with the World Cup.

2) More countries are joining Prime Day. Prime Day 2017 took place in 13 countries – in 2018, Australia, Singapore, Netherlands and Luxembourg are being added to the mix.

3) The Prime Day Launches page. New this year, this new page allows Amazon Prime members to access a selection of deals before the 16th, extending the event and sustaining engagement over a longer period.

4) Prime Day comes to Wholefoods. From July 11th to 17th, Prime members who spend $10 at Wholefoods will receive $10 in Amazon credit. With Amazon’s acquisition of Wholefoods only completed a year ago, we can expect to see grocery delivery play a bigger role in Prime Day from next year.

5) It’s not just for Amazon anymore. Nearly 50% of the top 100 retailers in the US offered competing deals during last year’s Prime Day – Dell, Macy’s and Kohl’s among those trying to steal Amazon’s thunder as the retail event becomes a bigger part of the shopping calendar.

Prime Day reach 

6) $1.6 billion in revenue. With estimates of $1 billion revenue in 2017 (60% growth on the year before), it’s expected that Amazon’s Prime Day revenue in 2018 could see $1.6 billion.

7) The biggest sales day of the entire year. In 2017, Prime Day outshone Black Friday and Cyber Monday – 2018 promises to do the same.

8) 53 million shoppers. In the US alone, over 53 million people bought from Amazon on Prime Day 2017 – a 15% increase on the year before.

9) 187 million hits. Last year, Prime Day saw 73.8 million visits on day one, with a further 113.2 million visits on the (longer) day two. With even more members and more deals in 2018, we could easily see this break the 200 million mark in 2018.

10) 18% conversion rate. Prime Day’s estimated conversion rate clocked in at 18.6% in 2017, more than 5 times the average retail CR in the United States and 50% higher than Amazon’s usual conversion rate.

11) 100 million members. Let’s not forget that one of the main purposes of Prime Day is to sign up new Prime members. In April 2018, Amazon finally revealed that there are over 100 million members using the service.

Prime Day products

12) 40% cheaper. While many other retailers attempted to muscle in on Prime Day activity last year by offering high overlap in promotions, Amazon succeeded in undercutting them on price. On over 50 Prime Day deals, Amazon ended up 40% cheaper than Best Buy or Target, on average.  

13) 2.67 products per person. The average Prime Day shopping cart at checkout contained just shy of 3 products, with most shoppers spending between $21 and $50.

14) More deals than ever. Prime Day 2018 is expected to deliver over 1 million deals worldwide.

15) Amazon’s own products win. Last year’s biggest worldwide seller on Prime Day was the Amazon Echo Dot – unsurprising since key Prime Day items tend to be from Amazon’s own product range (leading to a 7x increase in Echo device sales between 2016 Prime Day and 2017). This is huge, considering that an Echo device opens a door to a future revenue stream of Amazon products (Echo users spend around $150 more per year at Amazon).

16) 3.5 million toys. Prime Day isn’t just about electronics – among the goods shifted worldwide in 2017 were 3.5 million toys, 200,00 dresses and 200,000 lightbulbs.

Prime Day promo

17) 700 million emails. Amazon sent 68 Prime Day email campaigns last year, a big leap on the year before. With some reports suggesting that the retailer’s strategy was a little less refined than usual, it remains to be seen what will happen in 2018.

18) Prime Day goes experiential. Prime Day Unboxing events are taking place at secret locations in key cities such as London, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Members lucky enough to secure tickets will be treated to movies and music acts, leveraging both Prime Video and Prime Music services respectively.

Prime Day logistics   

19) 1.14 second load time on mobile. Even under the most extreme onslaughts of traffic, Amazon’s mobile site continued to deliver impressive speeds.

20) Going mobile. Amazon Prime Day orders on mobile have doubled year-on-year for the last two years, a result of high purchase intent combined with seamless conversion optimization.   

21) 12 minutes. The fastest deliveries for Prime Day 2017 took less time than it takes to finish your lunch break.

So, those are the key facts and statistics for Amazon Prime Day 2018 – what are your predictions? Are you trying to square up your store to compete with Amazon’s attention or backing off until things get a little quieter? Let us know!

Holiday Marketing for eCommerce: What to Expect in 2018

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The sun might be shining outside, but if you’re in e-commerce it’s already time to start thinking about your holiday marketing strategy.

On July 18th, we’ll be hosting an exclusive ‘Christmas in July’ event in London where we’ll be presenting what we’ve termed ‘The Twelve Stats of Christmas’ in a one-off secret winter wonderland.

It’s not about Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) anymore

First, there was Black Friday. Then there was Cyber Monday. Then there was Grey Thursday. The list of ‘holiday marketing days’ is getting so long that we’re running out of snappy titles for different days of the week.

Silly names aside, it points to one clear thing: Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the two peak days in which hoards of shoppers patiently wait to crash down the doors (and servers) in search of bargains is long over. What we’re now looking at is an extended period of time for differentiated holiday marketing – it’s not so much Black Friday as Black November.

There are a couple of things in play here. First of all, where there’s discounting to be found (and we’ll get to that in a moment), more e-commerce retailers are starting their programmes early. The likes of Amazon, Macy’s and Walmart have all been seen creating previews and countdowns to Black Friday, offering customers reasons to engage long before Thanksgiving.

This goes for both the online and brick-and-mortar worlds. While pre-Cyber Monday online deals tend to be more product-focused and less store-wide, it’s now fairly widely acknowledged that some of the best discounting happens before the turkey has even been carved.

Secondly, the opportunity is far from over once Black Friday turns into Saturday and once Cyber Monday ends. While traffic tails off over the weekend, over the past couple of years we’ve seen comfortable bounce-backs as the working week recommences. So it’s not such much Cyber Monday, as Cyber Week – while a lot of inventory will have disappeared, retailers who keep up their activity during this period will find plenty of consumers still hunting.

‘Holiday marketing’ is a misnomer

It’s pretty clear what retailers are up to when it comes to making sure the Thanksgiving shopping period is longer and that windows against the competition are getting wider.

The more interesting thing is that consumers are wise to it too.

A cursory search for tips on online shopping for Black Friday shows that there are legions of blogposts and sites offering the inside scoop on where to go for discounts (even on a product-by-product basis). As soon as the sales roll around – particularly on those peak days – consumers are poised, ready and well-informed about where to go.

This means that competing for their attention on Black Friday alone is way, way too late. The fight for their engagement on some of the most competitive days of the year has to begin months in advance. Your holiday marketing should technically begin while it’s still summer.

From September onwards, you should be executing on a strategy that scales your brand recognition and trust in preparation for your acquisition activity. Your aim is to ensure that you’re front of mind when your audience begins to think about their holiday shopping, which means a sustained campaign well ahead of time.

Black Friday is not just about discounts

For a retailer, the pressure to join the race to the bottom is intense at any time of the year and around Thanksgiving it can become overwhelming. But contrary to what any kind of ‘Black Friday hacking’ blogpost would have you believe, Black Friday has become much more of a marketing event than a discounting event.

We’ve just gone through two of the big reasons why: firstly, it’s now just one of many, many holiday shopping days. Secondly, if you’ve executed your early holiday marketing well, then you’ll have an audience of engaged consumers with their credit cards at the ready – not just for the cheapest product, but the right product.

December…could do better

While we see that traffic and conversion rates generally reach their peak around Thanksgiving weekend, so what about the several weeks after that?

Our analysis shows that the ‘conversion cliff’ before Christmas happens around the 17th and 18th of December – around the beginning of the working week. That’s when online shoppers start to make the assumption that they’ve missed the window for Christmas shipping and start turning back to their brick-and-mortar options.

There’s still a good period of time in which to convert and capture those browsers – if only they knew their shipping options were still open. Making your delivery timelines crystal-clear as part of your acquisition and conversion strategy can help you take advantage of this pivotal dip in activity just before Christmas.

In fact, the biggest traffic peak that we’ve seen in December is often… after Christmas. Increasingly on Christmas Day, but more on the day following, we’re seeing high volumes of traffic across both desktop and mobile. An amazing time to capitalize on consumer down-time (particularly on mobile) with marketing that shifts your leftover inventory.

Conclusion: start your holiday marketing now!

The weather outside might call for rooftop cocktails and running off to the beach, but in this relatively quiet period, there’s no better time to start planning out your 2018 holiday marketing strategy.

The key takeaway from our data is that waiting until November is too late to maximise your potential in a prolonged period of intense competition. Your foot in the door has to begin with brand building: getting your activity running before Black Friday has even crossed your customers’ minds.

This provides the bedrock for the rest of your holiday marketing activity in November and December, creating customers whose engagement and loyalty should last well into the New Year.

Want to find out more? We’re going to be talking holiday marketing in both London and New York this summer.

To apply for tickets to our London winter wonderland on July 18th, visit this page.

To join us and our friends at Magento in New York City on July 26th, click here to sign up.

Please note that our events are for e-commerce and multichannel brands and retailers only

Our campaigns of the month: June 2018

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How can you create customer journeys that convert? Here are some of our favourite examples this month!

How soak.com highlights delivery USPs 

Leading online bathroom retailer soak.com wanted to ensure it was keeping things simple for its customers when it came to delivery.

“With the knowledge that highlighting shipping USPs had performed well in the past for soak.com, and that these types of offers are most effective when visitors are showing intent to purchase, we used a simple corner Notification to highlight the free shipping USP to qualifying visitors based on basket value.”

Harry Cochran, Account Manager, Yieldify

See the campaign in action below:

 

How Feelunique amplifies editorial content

As Europe’s largest online beauty retailer, Feelunique is an expert in the latest trends. The editorial team shares this knowledge with the Feelunique community via The Lounge, offering tips, tricks, tutorials and reviews.

Recognising the role that content can play in the customer journey Feelunique worked with Yieldify to bridge the gap between content and commerce:

“Every month the team at Feelunique produces a guide to the hottest new products, The Hot List. We worked with them to surface this content at the right moment in the customer journey – when visitors were browsing products featured in the list.

Using a subtle Notification format we’re able to give visitors an extra reason to purchase, by highlighting the fact the product they’re looking at comes highly recommended by the Feelunique beauty experts.”

Charlie Singleton, Client Services Team Lead, Yieldify

 

 

 

Our campaigns of the month: May 2018

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How can you create mobile customer journeys that convert? Here’s some of our favorite examples this month!

How Feelunique engages mobile visitors showing intent to purchase

Multi-brand beauty retailer Feelunique wanted to improve the customer experience on mobile to increase conversions. With the knowledge that free shipping offers are most effective when visitors are showing intent to purchase, the brand sought to show this message to relevant users at the perfect moment.

To encourage returning visitors with items in their basket to continue their journey to checkout, Feelunique used Yieldify to serve a subtle corner Notification. The message let the visitor know that they had qualified for free delivery, encouraging them to continue to purchase.

How NCP drives conversions on mobile with tailored offers

National Car Parks is the UK’s largest private car park operator, with over 150,000 spaces across more than 500 towns, cities and airports. Working with Yieldify, NPC created a campaign for mobile web visitors browsing airport parking options to secure pre-bookings and capture email addresses to enable further marketing.

In the example below, visitors seeking to pre-book car parking at London Heathrow using their mobile devices were served a special 5% off offer in exchange for their email address. The campaign used Yieldify’s Flexible targeting functionality to show the campaign to users looking specifically at these criteria i.e. pre-booking at Heathrow, personalizing the experience for the user.

As we move into June, brands are taking steps to update their email capture activities to accord with GDPR. Check out our blog to find out how Yieldify has already been helping marketers achieve this.

Our campaigns of the month: April 2018

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Looking for ideas to create customer journeys that convert? See what some of our favourite clients are serving up this month!

How Mindful Chef builds trust with social proof

Health-focused food box company Mindful Chef knows that building trust is key for food and drink brands in the e-commerce space. To encourage new users to try its service, the brand combined social proof with a special offer to recapture the attention of abandoning visitors.

Using Yieldify, Mindful Chef showcased its excellent Trustpilot score to first-time visitors about to abandon the website. By highlighting this message, Mindful Chef demonstrated to browsing customers how other health-conscious foodies were fans of the service to give them confidence to convert.  To ensure no duplicate submission, they campaign only showed to visitors that had not submitted their email address through a Yieldify campaign previously.

Getting social with Simply Cook

From #chefmode to the ubiquitous #avocadotoast, social media has become one of the most important channels for food and drinks brands online as consumers are #eatingfortheinsta. But how do you keep the journey going once they land on your website?

Recipe subscription box service Simply Cook tailors messages depending on where visitors have arrived from using referral source targeting. In the example below, visitors from Facebook were served an overlay offering them a discount in exchange for their email address, providing an extra reason to convert and take-up the trial box offer. This campaign alone generated over 7,000 new leads for Simply Cook.

Building on the success of this campaign, the brand is now working with Yieldify to deliver personalised offers to other visitor segments arriving on site from different traffic sources targeting, for example, those arriving from vegetarian or gluten-free content on Facebook.

The Changing Face of Beauty eCommerce: An Interview with Maybelline New York

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We caught up with Ella Tsang, Digital Specialist at Maybelline New York Canada to understand how the iconic brand is navigating the challenges and changes within beauty eCommerce. Read on to get the scoop on leveraging influencers, working with Amazon, and building loyalty.

Ella Tsang, Maybelline New York
Ella Tsang, Digital Specialist at Maybelline New York

Yieldify: Social media has been credited with the democratization of the beauty industry, helping independent brands like Glossier reach audiences previously unheard of. As a more established player, Maybelline is considered somewhat of a master when it comes to social media. Can you tell us more about where influencers fit in when it comes to engaging your eCommerce visitors?

Ella: We work with a lot of social media influencers to have an always-on presence, it’s not just for campaigns but really trying to seed our products in advance to influencers to create a buzz.

Usually, we start with the influencer at the beginning of a campaign to build awareness and to help capture our audience’s attention. Then after that, we’ll follow up with a retargeting phase with a very specific conversion type call to action.

We’ll drive visitors to our site for purchase as we have an integration called Shoppable, which allows us to handle transactions on our site, even though those transactions are fulfilled by our e-retailers such as Walmart.

Maybelline New York has worked with influencers worldwide, turning them into brand ambassadors. Makeupshayla and MannyMUA generated over 8.3m views on YouTube (Econsultancy, 2017)

Yieldify: Speaking of Amazon, can you tell us a bit more about how as a mass brand you work with different retailers, and if there are any challenges or benefits associated with that?

Ella: We’re testing lots of different campaigns and initiatives directly with our retailers, especially on Amazon as they’ve now launched Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) in Canada. So for example, bidding on certain keywords, so that when people are on Amazon searching for a keyword like “mascara”, we’re there front and center.

We’re really trying to understand the types of campaigns that Amazon can run for us, and the success these can generate. They know their audience and their customers very well, so this is a big opportunity and part of the reason why we’re testing these different types of campaigns with them.

Yieldify: It sounds like you’re working quite closely with Amazon, can you tell us more?

Ella: Sure, so we’ve got an upcoming launch where we’re testing different ad types, working directly with them to drive to the product page on Amazon.

This will enable us to see what the impact is. In the future it’s this type of collaborative approach that I see us moving toward as it’s mutually beneficial – it’s not only a partnership just for us to make the sale, but it’s really about how do we as a brand elevate websites like Amazon as a beauty eCommerce retailer, as a lot of people don’t necessarily think about going there to purchase their make-up.

Yieldify: What are the challenges associated with selling via other retailers, and what have you found works well?

Ella: In terms of the customer journey, sometimes we drive to our site for purchases, but we also need to look at driving directly to e-retailers, like Walmart.ca and Amazon.ca to make it as smooth of a journey for our consumer as possible.

There are many things that we’re testing and learning from along the way. What we have found is that by sequencing our messaging, first exposing the audience to a more generic product awareness type ad, involving influencers, more generic product benefits and then re-targeting them with more specific messaging to purchase, this works well.

One of the challenges when trying to do this is being able to access customer data and really understand which digital campaigns specifically led to the sale. With our retailers, we have limited information and that’s one of the key drawbacks of not being in e-commerce ourselves. We don’t necessarily have a clear tracking of the entire journey. But as much as possible we’re trying to test and see how do we get as clear of an ROI number as we can get to.

Yieldify: So far, we’ve talked about the customer journey leading up to the conversion, what about after that, how does Maybelline go about creating loyalty?

Ella: Loyalty is something that we’re still working towards. It’s difficult, again linked to the idea of not really owning all the data. Historically all the purchases that are happening online have been directly through the e-retailer site, but this is something we are trying to address. For example, we’re working with Shoppable, a checkout technology, so that visitors are able to add to cart on our site and complete the purchase, but the order itself is fulfilled by the e-retailer.

From there we’re actually able to keep the data relating to every single conversion and this is a huge step for us as we really have the full picture of our consumer. This gives us a lot of opportunity from a customer loyalty perspective, as we can work on things like following up via email, asking the consumer, “How was your purchasing experience?” Really trying to keep up that conversation with her after her purchase on our site.

Also, because we now know what a customer has actually purchased we can start thinking about how do we then continue to personalize her experience? Something such as another product that might be complementary, building her basket outside those things we already know that she likes. That’s the direction that we’re moving in. It’s really about having that knowledge of people who purchase online and being able to personalize their experience better.

Thanks Ella for sharing your insights!

Spring Clean Your Customer Journey: 5 Easter eCommerce Ideas

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2017 saw e-commerce sales surge by more than 10% in April thanks to the Easter effect. To find out more we’ve analyzed data from more than 200 websites to bring you the stats you need to know, and ideas you can action to make the most of the spring season.

First, let’s start with the numbers

We analysed traffic, conversions and average order values across April 2017 from over 200 e-commerce websites. Here’s what we discovered…

Desktop vs. mobile

Desktop traffic was down by between 11% on Easter weekend versus the previous weekend, suggesting consumers were browsing in the lead up to the holiday via this device. They were also buying – peaking on Sunday 9th April, with an average conversion rate of 4.21%.

When it came to Easter weekend traffic, mobile was king, up by 5% versus the weekend before, and up 7.41% versus a non-holiday weekend in May. However conversions did not tell the same story – they were less than half that of desktop at 1.83%.

Easter eCommerce trends | Yieldify

What can we learn from this?

Launch desktop campaigns ahead of time to capture these browsers and turn them into buyers. This is something that the e-commerce sites we looked at seemed to be doing a good job of, achieving a conversion rate nearly double the oft-cited 2% ‘industry standard’.

Easter eCommerce trends | Yieldify

Great, but what about lagging mobile conversion rates?

With the news that Instagram has now launched shoppable posts in 8 new countries, and the fact that the top 10 most popular apps on mobile are all social networks, it’s pretty clear that social media plays a critical role in e-commerce and product discovery on mobile.

What can we learn from this?

Think about how you can make it easy for customers browsing on mobile to navigate your site and discover what they’re looking for quickly and easily to improve the chances they’ll convert (hint: see idea no. 4 in our Easter e-commerce handbook for more!

And what about for specific industries?

Knowing that optimising the customer journey is never one-size fits all, we took a look at how different types of e-commerce websites performed, specifically focusing on Retail and Travel.  

Unexpectedly perhaps, Travel websites saw lower traffic across the Easter period, perhaps indicating that consumers browsing had already found what they were looking for further in advance of the time period we examined.  

There were still a few last minute bookers around though, with conversion rates for Travel peaking on the Monday before Easter, at 4.48%. Another peak in conversion rate occurred just after the Easter break, as the back to work blues began to set in, with conversions up to 4.63% versus the average of 3.69% for the month as a whole.

What can we learn from this?

While traffic didn’t see a huge increase the jump in conversions indicates there are still bookings up for grabs ahead of Easter so use the natural deadline of the holiday to drive urgency. Take a look at some tactics to do that here, or sign up for our upcoming masterclass, where we’ll be covering this topic in more depth!

And what about Retail?

Traffic to Retail websites saw the biggest increase during the weekend leading up to the Easter holiday but was also up versus an average weekend on Easter itself.  

The average conversion rate for Retail was actually lower than Travel for April overall, at 3.09% versus 3.69%. And while conversion rates did spike on Easter Monday, this was not as significant as seen for Travel.

Easter eCommerce trends | Yieldify

Average order values were also slightly lower for Retail compared to an average weekend, with baskets coming in at an average of £93, perhaps impacted by the mid-season sales many retailers were running during this period.

What can we learn from this?

Retailers should ensure they are using discounts carefully, so as not to impact average order values too much. From our sample it looks like most were getting this right, balancing offering discounts with other tactics such as free delivery, or highlighting their USPs to get the conversion. See how skincare brand Kiehl’s did this in our case study.

What next?

Based on this analysis and our experience of running over 50,000 campaigns across 500 websites, we’ve put together 5 examples of campaigns you can run over the spring period to drive more revenue and improve the customer journey. Hop on over here to get your copy, and Happy Easter!

Our campaigns of the month: March 2018

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Seeking some inspiration on creating customer journeys that convert? Check out some of our favourite client work this month.

Welcoming Chinese speaking consumers with Lancôme Canada

As one of the biggest forces in global luxury spending e-commerce brands need to ensure they are catering to Chinese consumers. French beauty brand Lancôme achieved this by creating a tailored lead gen campaign to serve different audiences based on language.

Using Yieldify’s flexible targeting capability the brand was able to serve an overlay welcoming visitors using a Chinese language browser with a message that would resonate with them. For more on catering to global e-commerce audiences check out our guide, How to win in global e-commerce.

Highlighting special offers with Mpix

Photography printing service Mpix wanted to highlight its 50% off large prints offer to visitors as they moved throughout the site. Working with Yieldify the brand implemented a floating button to subtly remind users of the offer. When clicked, this expanded to an overlay providing more information about the offer, and directed them toward the offer landing page.

Making the most of referral traffic with AHLT

Home fragrance and accessories brand A House Like This (AHLT) wanted to make the most of referral traffic from online publishers. After being featured in the SheerLuxe Mothers Day gift guide AHLT worked with Yieldify to launch a lead generation campaign to welcome visitors arriving from SheerLuxe.

An overlay mirroring the SheerLuxe brand offered free delivery in exchange for the visitor’s email address and was a clear indicator to visitors that they were in the right place to get their Mother’s Day gifts.