Dive Brief:
- Email volume on Memorial Day, May 28, was 4% higher than prior weekends, but email open rates were 8% lower compared to previous Mondays, according to SendGrid research reported on by MediaPost. There were also 6.2% fewer clicks during the holiday.
- Desktop represented 54% of opens and clicks, while 41% were on mobile. The most common time emails were opened was around 10 a.m. MST, with a peak at around 2 p.m. Among Memorial Day emails, 90% mentioned "sales" compared to previous weekends.
- The study focused on the email count of the entire Memorial Day weekend, including Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and compared it to a prior three-day window, examining previous Mondays to uncover the biggest changes in opens and clicks.
Dive Insight:
Memorial Day weekend is an opportunity to drive sales ahead of the summer season, but the SendGrid analysis emphasizes how marketers might need to evolve their strategies past discounts and deals alone to instead focus on richer marketing content that will convince people to click.
As marketers are struggling to get personalization right, many are investing in emerging technology to drive engagement, including through more traditional channels like email. Caesars Entertainment recently started using Persado's artificial intelligence-powered platform to create more emotionally targeted email messages and content, leading to a 12% increase in open rates and a 24% boost in click-throughs.
Email marketing continues to generate a high return on marketing spend, and investment in email continues to grow. A 2016 survey by the Direct Marketing Association and Demand Metric revealed that email had a median ROI of 122%. However, email marketers must be able to properly gauge the mood and habits of their consumer base. Research published by Persado last year found that the most successful email subject lines for U.K. and U.S. recipients evoked anxiety, while other areas of Europe responded more positively to gratification.
