Commentary
Buy It Again: Email And SMS Drive Repeat Cyber Weekend Sales
- by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 29, 2023
Email and SMS helped drive Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales, according to a recap by Klaviyo.
Of all purchases during that period, 47% were repeats.
Klaviyo clients sent over 11.6 million email, SMS, and mobile push-notification messages per minute. And 616 million messages included AI-personalized product recommendations.
Early targeting of email and SMS lists helped drive pre-Black Friday sales.
However, in total, only 28% of these messages were personalized, suggesting that there is room for improvement.
Personalized product recommendations fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) were sent on these days:
- Thanksgiving — 73 million
- Black Friday — 154 million
- SMB Saturday — 119 million
- Sunday — 109 million
- Cyber Monday — 162 million
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The most active marketing hour was 9 a.m to 10 a.m ET on Black Friday. Over 376 million messages were sent to subscribers and customers during that hour.
Klaviyo also cites a metric it calls Klaviyo Attributed Value (KAV): the amount of revenue its subscription-tier customers generate within a certain period of time.
In the case of email, this would be five days from when the email is sent, assuming it is opened or clicked. SMS is shorter — 24 hours from when the message is sent. It totaled $60 million per hour during the peak periods.
If there are any takeaways, one is that email is critical in the holiday marketing process. “We spend all year acquiring customers and building our list,” says Cody Plofker, chief marketing officer of Jones Road Beauty. It's a huge part of our strategy for BFCM, and email is the primary channel we use to communicate with existing customers.”
Klaviyo also serves such brands as Spanx, Good American, and Ouai.
The other lesson is that it is important to send messages during the holiday period.
“It’s no longer just about the five days of Black Friday Cyber Monday,” says Andrew Bialecki, co-founder and CEO of Klaviyo. “It’s about making every customer interaction count and building relationships throughout the season.”
