UK Retailers Missing Opportunities for Personalised Targeting and

Cross-selling using Email Marketing

Study shows retailers failing to make the most of data to get better returns from email

69% of emails showed no personalisation at all

87% of retailers sent no post-sale targeted email marketing

Only 13% of retailers customised email based on gender

London, XX June 2011: Research from dotMailer has shown that the vast majority of the UK's top

retailers are adopting a „one size fits all‟ approach to their email marketing, reducing the accuracy of

communications and as a result, risking lower conversion rates and effectiveness. Brands like

Republic and Amazon that - according to the study - get it right are more likely to achieve a better

return on investment through this marketing channel.

dotMailer‟s annual Hitting the Mark report (available at

http://www.dotmailer.co.uk/emailmarketingreport) added new criteria this year which scrutinised

whether brands were using the customer data available to them to better target their email messages.

The study found that 69% of emails showed no personalisation at all and 87% of messages that were

sent following a purchase were no different to those sent to cold prospects. This vast majority of

retailers apparently made no attempt to drive cross-sell, up-sell or repeat purchase based in the

customers previous online buying behaviour. What‟s more, only 13% customised the email based on

the gender of the recipient.

Shockingly, this year‟s Hitting the mark study found that only one single retailer (Amazon.co.uk)

followed up an online purchase with an email marketing message tailored to that purchase*.

It wasn‟t all bad news, however, with 93% using triggered emails following a purchase to reassure and

build customer loyalty and 67% keeping online purchasers informed on the progress of their order,

through the use of timely emails.

Tink Taylor, Managing Director at dotMailer, sees this as a wake-up call for those in charge of

marketing budgets. “By their nature, online sellers should have access to customer data that can allow

them to dramatically increase the relevancy and impact of their email marketing communications with

customers. In this tough economic climate, marketers who are not actively collecting and using that

data to create targeted email marketing messages that drive related sales are really missing a trick.”

dotMailer’s Top 5 Post-Sales Email Targeting Tips

1. Invite web customers to sign up during checkout – ask for the most important data.

2. Incentivise customers to sign up to your email marketing – e.g. with loyalty points, discounts

off future purchases or exclusive special offers or previews

3. Map put the data you need to collect from your customers, the data you can collect from their

transactions, and how can you use it to personalise and tailor post-sale communications

4. Use customer surveys as part of your post sale messages to collect valuable data on the

customer experience and help build loyalty and trust.

5. Don‟t forget basic triggered communications like order confirmations – purchasers expect this

at minimum.

Read more email best practice advice on the dotDigital Blog and follow @dotMailer for daily tips.

ends

Notes to Editors About dotMailer dotMailer.com is part of the dotDigital Group PLC – one of the UK‟s leading full-service digital marketing agencies. An acclaimed and widely used Email Service Provider, dotMailer serves over 3,000 users and has 10 years experience of email and digital marketing. Methodology The benchmark report, available to download from http://www.dotmailer.co.uk/emailmarketingreport, assessed emails sent by retailers in February 2011. Each email was evaluated against 17 criteria based on dotMailer‟s Hitting the Mark scoring matrix, and awarded a total score out of 100. For media information, please contact: Max Tatton Brown EML Wildfire Tel: +44 208 804 8000 Email: dotmailer@emlwildfire.com