Commentary

Extra Space Abandoned Time Lag And Results Improved

At Extra Space Storage, marketing director Dayna Hathaway said shopping cart abandonment emails were going out 24 hours past abandonment. "That's obviously too late," she said.

So, the company made an investment to shorten the lag time and reviewed data. The lag time was cut to one hour after abandonment and the conversion rate increased eight or nine times, Hathaway said.

Hathaway was on an MediaPost Email Insider Summit panel, which included Ancestry.com's Daniel Bruns, a senior director working in CRM. The question of the value of an email address arose. No specific answer was given by any of the three panelists (EBay's Rishi Mahalaha, manager in daily deals marketing, was the third.

But Ancestry.com has a large bounce file. Sometimes Bruns suggested it's not worth it to pursue an updated email address, so the company removes bounces from the opt-in list and monitors deliverability.

(Side commentary was offered by the Direct Marketing Association's Stephanie Miller, who pointed out on Twitter that the value of an email address is the "hardest question" in email marketing.)

A question was asked about what goes into consideration about which ESP to use. Cost obviously plays a key role. EBay uses Yesmail, but that could change since the company has acquired GSI Commerce, which owns e-Dialog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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