Email vs. SMS triggers for e-commerce

It is a well-known fact that text messages perform better than emails when it comes to open and reply rates, delivering a 98% open rate compared to 20% for email, and a 45% reply rate compared to 5% for email. The click-through rate (CTR) for SMS is also impressive compared to email: 36% versus 6%.

Even though abandoned cart emails generally perform better than marketing emails, with a 40% open rate and a 9.5% click-through rate, text messages are still the clear winners.

What can you do then to leverage this channel and maximise your e-commerce sales?

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Gathering the right customer information

If you’re only collecting customer emails from your e-commerce online store, you're missing out on the opportunities that SMS can give you.

Sending abandoned carts emails is useless if your emails aren't even opened... Gmail and other email providers have become extremely adept at sending promotional emails to spam or promotions folders, hiding them from the eyes of your customers.

From the moment you collect the phone numbers of your online store visitors, you have access to WhatsApp and SMS capabilities that can help boost your e-commerce sales.

Are you concerned that people may not want to disclose their phone numbers and sales may suffer as a result?

As a matter of fact, even if only 1 out of 5 people provided you with their phone numbers, you would still be more likely to convert those visitors into sales and therefore generate more revenue than from the 4 out of 5 people who left you their email addresses instead.

Let's look at why and how a text trigger can be so effective!

Your best weapon against abandoned carts

Suppose you receive 1000 visitors to your online shop, and that 500 of them added products to their baskets and left your site after providing some contact information...

Let's suppose that only 100 of them chose to leave their phone numbers instead of email addresses.

Because all these 500 people left something in their basket, you decide to send an abandoned cart email or SMS to convert that interest into a sale.

Let’s start with those people who provided their email addresses.

If you send an email to the 400 people who left you their email addresses, reminding them to complete their purchases, you can expect only ~160 email opens (because abandoned cart emails on average only have a 40% open rate). Among those opens, you should get 15 clicks at an average click-through rate of 9.5%!

Assuming an average cart size of £100, if all these 15 clicks result in a purchase, you earn £1,500 today.

Next, let's look at the prospects who provided you with their phone numbers.

With an abandoned cart SMS, you remind those 100 prospects to complete their purchase. This can lead to 98 opens (because on average SMS have a 98% open rate) and 35 clicks at a 36% click-through rate.

With an average cart value of £100, you can earn £3,500 if all those clicks result in a purchase.

So, to summarise, even if you only text 1/5 of the people who abandon their carts on your online store, you're likely to generate more revenues (in fact more than double!) from these text notifications than from the emails you send to 4/5 of those people.

Did we convince you yet?

Feel free to share this infographic with your peers or colleagues and get in touch to learn more about how Fuzey can help you leverage the power of messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram...) to scale your e-commerce business!

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