Report: Majority of top 50 Aussie ecommerce players don't personalise email

Australia’s top 50 largest ecommerce players may have widely adopted email as a regular form of communications with customers, but three-quarters of them aren’t tailoring their message, according to a new report.

The Australian Ecommerce Study 2014 from Teradata of Australia’s top 50 ecommerce companies found 92 per cent send a regular email newsletter, but 76 per cent don’t deliver tailored marketing collateral to existing or potential customers.

The report found 54 per cent collected additional information on their customers that could be used to personalise communications, yet only 28 per cent of them made any effort to optimise content in their newsletters, such as adding in a first name (24 per cent).

Across the board, 64 per cent collected basic information about the subscriber such as name, gender, location or date of birth, and one quarter requested the subscriber’s date of birth. Twenty-four per cent of retailers targeted newsletters according to age and gender.

Eight-two per cent of Australian retailers had a single opt-in process to subscribe to a customer newsletter, and just 16 per cent required a consumer to establish an account to subscribe. About two-thirds also had a newsletter sign-up function featured on their homepage.

The Australian survey was conducted in April and May 2014 and followed a UK survey of the same nature undertaken in December. Teradata also conducted similar surveys in Germany and France in May and June 2014.

The good news is Australia isn’t too far behind its European counterparts. Thirty-one per cent of European retailers personalise emails by name (the UK led with 40 per cent), and only 17 per cent target their newsletter according to age and gender.

The local report found 36 per cent of Australian online retailers are sending a welcome message with an offer to encourage new subscribers to shop online, while 30 per cent sent a welcome message only. Sixteen per cent sent a confirmation email but no welcome message.

In comparison, 26 per cent of UK retailers sent a welcome message with an offer to new newsletter subscribers, and 60 per cent just sent a welcome message. Germany had the highest percentage of retailers using welcome offers with an incentive (46 per cent), while in France, 70 per cent of retailers sent no welcome message at all.

When it comes to frequency, most online retailers are sending one to two newsletters per week, and seven of the top 50 sent more than one newsletter per day.

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