• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 3, 2018

According to a research study posted in Customer Retention, Data Analysis, E-Commerce, Gaming, and Personalization in September 2017 by Omer Liss with contributer Maya Shaanan, the birthday email is one of the best-performing personalized marketing campaigns, and has been for years.

Research done by Optimove gathered new data that showed, without a doubt, that birthday email performs better than ever. Direct emails tied to birthdays get the highest response rates, compared to many other customer-related communications. The data for this research consists of over 1 million birthday campaigns sent by businesses since mid-2016. Regardless of whether the consumers received coupons, free delivery, a gift or any other incentive as a part of their birthday campaign, they all turned out to be highly effective.

When compared to a control group (customers who did not receive a birthday campaign, even though eligible), birthday campaigns were found to be highly effective. The difference in response rates between the test and control groups were statistically significant, meaning that the campaign significantly affected those who have received it.

The chart shows the response rates for test and control groups, and the percentage difference between them, in favor of the test group.

After concluding that birthday campaigns have a powerful impact on customer behavior, the study drilled down to examine how different sub-groups react to these campaigns. When implementing gender segmentation, the study found that in both gaming and e-commerce, men exhibit higher levels of activity on their birthday, in comparison to women. In gaming, men are 57% more active than women, and in e-commerce their activity level is 72% higher than those exhibited by the women.

The figures in the chart below show the percentage of men which had higher activity levels than the average on their birthdays, compared to women.

In segmenting according to age groups, the study found differences in performance between gaming and e-commerce. As seen in the charts here, there is a clear trend in gaming; the older the campaign subject, the higher levels of activity on their birthday. In e-commerce, however, the groups with the highest levels of activity are the youngest, and then activity levels drop to the lowest and raises again slightly as age increases.

In gaming, the trend is consistent. Men order more than women in all age groups, and the trend stays the same. In e-commerce, the trend is similar, but in some age groups, women order more than men.

Young people tend to engage in birthday festivities more than the elder, says the report, and therefore are less likely to play online casino games, opines the report. However, they won't miss out on the opportunity to treat themselves and place an online order.

Overall, it's clear to see how different groups of people react differently on their birthdays, and sometimes it will be wise to put the efforts on one group than the other, in order to make them come to celebrate their birthday with your company. It's not supposed to be a hard task, as it's obvious from our research that people respond very well to birthday campaigns - they expect to be acknowledged on their special day.

Concluding, the report says that in a world where consumers are ever-evolving and marketers fiercely fight over wallet-share, marketers must be agile and adapt quickly. It’s important to cater to your customers' expectations, otherwise they'll leave and go somewhere else, where they will get pampered on their birthdays. Where their expectations are met.

To read the original birthday Optimove Blog, please visit here.