• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 1, 2024

It used to be a given that direct-mail response suffered during Presidential elections. 

It’s not clear whether that holds true in today’s more advanced technological age. What’s scary is that any election fallout this year may run right up into Black Friday and beyond.  

“With a shortened holiday season and highly competitive presidential election, marketers face a tight timeframe and limited access to reach and engage their target customers for the holiday season,” AdRoll said in a recent study.

And for email? 

“With a large portion of election campaign messaging coming in via email, the inbox is going to feel even more crowded this year,” says Jaina Mistry, director of brand and content marketing at Litmus. “For some brands and businesses, it could be in their best interest to scale back during this time to avoid adding extra noise to their recipients' inboxes.” 

Litmus has not noticed any decline in its email programs due to the election, but “that could be because we're primarily a B2B organization delivering emails to individuals’ business email addresses,” Mistry says. And a study by Attentive shows that 59% of consumers do not plan to alter their spending because of the election. 

“However, if you're in retail or e-commerce, now is a critical time,” Mistry states. “For US-based audiences, e-commerce marketers may want to consider pausing campaigns on Election Day itself because their attention will be elsewhere. In addition, the distractions may cause your audience to be more cautious with their spending, turning to promotional deals or discounts.” 

Mistry adds, “Email marketers should expect to see a drop in click-throughs compared to last year due to the extra distractions."

Meanwhile, Ryan Phelan, CEO of RPE Origin, comments, “This is one to watch, if for nothing else than how retail (again) reacts to abnormal events.” 

Phelan continues, “My sense is that companies adjusted their sending during this time. Beyond that, the fact is that this is a unique event cycle.  I don’t know that traditional behaviors can be used for prediction.  Not only now, but beyond 11/5.  My sense is that the news will blunt the attention span of some consumers in respect to holiday.  But, Christmas stops for no one and kids need toys.”  

For its part, MessageGears has seen “some expected seasonal fluctuations, but nothing out of the ordinary as far as consumer behavior goes,” a spokesperson says.

Will Yeo, customer onboarding manager at AdRoll, concludes that to “navigate the challenges of this holiday season, marketers must carefully assess and adjust their budget allocations to maximize impact during peak shopping periods.”