Yesmail Study Predicts Increase in 2015 Holiday Email Volume Will Not Have Adverse Effect on Engagement Levels

CHICAGO, July 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The report released by Yesmail, the email marketing solutions provider within Yes Lifecycle Marketing, finds that retailers began sending holiday-themed campaigns earlier than in previous years with 32 percent more brands deploying holiday-themed emails in 2014 than in 2013. In addition, as Q3 2014 overall email volume grew by 26 percent year-over-year (YoY), open rates increased by 11 percent over the same period. Similarly, Q4 2014 volume grew by 8% YoY while open rates increased by 2%.

In this in-depth report, "Engagement and Deliverability for Holiday-themed Emails: 2014 Recap, 2015 Takeaways," Yesmail analyzed the year-over-year email marketing campaigns of major retail brands like Apple, Walmart, and The Home Depot, using its proprietary Market Intelligence tool. The study finds that average open rates remained largely unchanged from the third to the fourth quarters of 2014, even as average quarterly volume increased by 46 percent between Q3 and Q4. The consistent average open rate of about 14 percent in the second half of the year bucks the historical trend of open rates dipping as email volume increases.

"Consistent open rates while volume is spiking can be in part due to more strategic email marketing programs," said Michael Fisher, President of Yes Lifecycle Marketing. "Brands are creating better mobile experiences, developing comprehensive segmentation strategies, and implementing advanced personalization. These practices translate into more informed campaigns that achieve better inboxing rates."

Eighty-three percent of retailers sent general holiday or winter-themed campaigns making this the most popular theme in 2014. When general holiday campaigns were deployed at the right time, they generated an open rate of 15.5 percent, up from 14.2 percent for all other emails.

Additional findings include:

Back-to-school, Black Friday, Thanksgiving and general holiday emails benefitted from later deployment. Open rates for Black Friday-themed emails, for example, increased from 14.1 to 14.8 percent when deployed closer to the holiday.

In contrast, Halloween, Cyber Monday and Christmas-themed emails benefitted from earlier deployment. For example, open rates for Halloween emails were 15.2 percent in the first half of October and decreased to 13.3 in the second half.

Christmas-themed emails sent in the days after Christmas received a 15.7 percent open rate, compared to 14.9 percent for all other communications deployed over the same timeframe.

"Yesmail's analysis highlights the importance of industry trends, competitive intelligence, and historical performance working together to develop an informed campaign strategy," said Mike Iaccarino, CEO and Chairman of Infogroup. "Yesmail gives marketers the ability to collect, analyze, and use this type of information, which will prove instrumental in engaging customers and gaining a competitive edge for the 2015 holiday season."

For additional insights, download the full report here.

About Yes Lifecycle Marketing

Yes Lifecycle Marketing is a solution provider that brings together multichannel marketing platforms and data, with creative and strategy services honed on the optimization of delivering relevant marketing messages. This gives marketers the ability to source best-of-breed technology and creative and strategy services from a single vendor at a cost-effective price point. To learn more about how Yes Lifecycle Marketing can help you improve your lifecycle marketing capabilities and increase the ROI of your marketing programs, call 1-877-937-6245, email sales@yeslifecyclemarketing.com or visit www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com.

About Yesmail

Yesmail, Yes Lifecycle Marketing's email marketing solutions provider, powers intelligent customer interactions. We define ourselves by a better caliber of technology, unmatched insights, and skilled services experts that help our clients get to 'YES' sooner with their customers. As a leading email services provider, we seamlessly integrate email, mobile, web, and social channels, enabling the world's best known brands to use data-driven insights to create meaningful connections with their customers in real-time. For more information, visit www.yesmail.com.

About Infogroup

Infogroup is a marketing services and analytics provider that delivers best in class data-driven customer-centric technology solutions. Our data and software-as-a-service (DaaS & SaaS) offerings help clients of all sizes, from small companies to FORTUNE 100TM enterprises, increase their sales and customer loyalty. Infogroup provides both digital and traditional marketing channel expertise that is enhanced by access to our proprietary data on 235 million individuals and 24 million businesses, which is distributed real-time to our clients. For more information on Infogroup's marketing and data solutions, visit www.infogroup.com.