Email Places Fourth In Ad-Tech Spending, Third In Conversions: Study

Email takes up a relatively modest 10% of the average marketing budget. But it’s still respectable, and holding its own among other tactics, according to State of Adtech 2019, a study by Criteo.

Paid display commands 16% of budgets, with social media coming in at 14% and traditional marketing at 13%. Content marketing also receives 10%. and SEO takes 9%. And search advertising gets 9%, landing pages/websites 9% and affiliate marketing 9%. 

Email also has a healthy position among the conversion tactics that work — 41% use it for that purpose. It is third in line behind social media (53%) and paid display advertising (43%). Search engine optimization is utilized by 38%. 

The study adds that online is the second-largest and fastest-growing ad-spend channel. Last year, it accounted for 34% of the total ad spend and is set to overtake TV. 

It also reports that spending on online tactics increased at a CAGAR of 14.6% between 2014 and 2017.

Globally, marketers say their top two strategies for success are maximizing ad placement quality and providing compelling and unique offers.

Email can play a role in all these efforts. For example, Lyft sends email campaigns “that, when clicked, open directly in the app to get riders to activate the offer as well as become active in the app again,” the study notes.

Globally, over 60% of the respondents use three types of re-engagement campaigns — app re-engagement, app reactivation and repeat purchase. The U.S. leads in all three, with 83% deploying targeted campaigns for repeat purchase, 68% for app reactivation and 75% for app re-engagement. 

The Asia-Pacific region is second to the U.S., and Europe comes in third. The U.S. exceeds the global averages for each strategy.

However, each activity presents challenges. For example, app re-engagement is hampered by limited channels and data. In addition, there are data quality issues, and existing customers are not eager to switch channels. 

Firms attempting app reactivation say users are difficult to reengage, that lapsed users have low conversion rates and that they also have low average order values.

When driving repeat purchases, brands face difficulty in measuring ROI in a meaningful way and limited or stale first-party data. 

Companies list the following metrics for getting stakeholder buy-in and measuring ROI:

  • New revenue — 35%
  • New customer rate — 33%
  • Cost per action —3 0%
  • Total revenue — 29% 
  • Cot per qualified visit — 29%
  • New visitor rate — 27%
  • Conversion rate to action — 27%
  • Conversion rate to purchase — 25%
  • Cost of sales — 24%
  • Customer lifetime value — 23%

 

 

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