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Although many online retailers have recently shifted their focus towards newer digital marketing options such as mobile ads and social media, e-mail marketing continues to evolve and be a core component of any digital marketing strategy. Despite being around for over a decade, e-mail marketing continues to be an essential digital marketing tactic even as the industry is in a constant state of change.

So what should online retailers know about the current state of e-mail marketing? Here are 5 things…

1) E-mails sent late at night are successful for many online retailers – In a recent study done by Experian it was shown that open and click-through rates were the highest for many online retailers between the hours of 8PM and 12AM. Consumers not only converted at a higher rate during these evening hours but they also spent approximately $50 more per order.

2) E-mails sent on weekends had a higher click-through rate than weekdays for many online retailers – E-mail engagement rates actually peaked on Saturday and Sunday for many online retailers and, according to several online retailers, consumers are actually the most likely to complete a purchase on Saturday than any other day of the week.

3) For many online retailers, e-mail marketing continues to drive larger average order values – According to Experian, the average order value of orders driven via e-mail marketing has increased year-over-year by 12% from $161 to $180. Bounce rates have also decreased 28% over this same period of time, possibly indicating that when consumers click through e-mails that the evolved online shopping experience has improved in holding their attention.

4) E-mail subscription is becoming less of an on-site initiative – Although most consumers still sign-up for e-mail marketing directly on an eCommerce site, many consumers have joined e-mail marketing campaigns in other ways. For example, employees of physical brick-and-mortar stores for multi-channel retailers now look to capture e-mail addresses. Mobile and social also play a role in e-mail marketing, with several U.S. e-mail users saying they have subscribed to e-mail marketing through these methods.

5) Mobile and tablet optimization is now crucial to the success of e-mail marketing campaigns – With the exponential growth of smartphone and tablet usage in the U.S., the emphasis to perfect e-mails on these devices has become even more important. A recent study by BlueHornet indicated that over 80% of U.S. mobile and tablet e-mail users will delete an e-mail if it doesn’t look good on their mobile or tablet device. Even worse, over 30% will look to unsubscribe from a list if an e-mail looks bad on their mobile or tablet device.

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In short, e-mail marketing has continued to evolve as the way consumers engage with e-mails has changed. With a greater percentage of e-mails now being opened on mobile and tablet devices each year and social networks changing the way people interact, allowing e-mail marketing to stand on its own is no longer a viable solution. Online retailers should consider exploring options to integrate e-mail marketing into their entire marketing strategy, including mobile and social, to maximize the efforts of their e-mail initiatives.

By default, when tablets were introduced into the technology marketplace they were dubbed as “mobile” devices due to their ability to be used everywhere and the ease of obtaining internet connectivity through wireless providers, similar to mobile phones. But are tablets truly “mobile” devices anymore, especially in the eCommerce space?

Our web analytics specialist, Jacob Knettel, conducted some original research to see if tablets are still worthy of the mobile tag or if they have differentiated themselves from the smaller mobile phone devices…

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Our research is a compilation of data from twelve PFSweb clients (six consumer goods and six retail clients) from the first quarter of 2013, although some data from previous months is also used for comparative purpouses. On average, each site received approximately 1.2 million visitors per month and a total of 15.2 million visits per month combined across all twelve sites.

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The percentage of visits on eCommerce sites from desktop and laptop devices continues to decrease while visits from mobile phones and tablet devices continues to increase. Over time, the percentage of site visits from different devices may be more evenly spread across devices instead of being dominated by desktop and laptop devices.

Although mobile phones and tablet devices are making up a larger percentage of site visits, this does not necessarily mean that the amount of visits from laptop and desktop devices is decreasing. In fact, desktop and laptop visits continue to increase, indicating that consumers are visiting online retail sites more often as a whole.

Mobile phones may account for 22% of all site visits but the devices only account for 5% of site sales. Tablets accounted for more than twice as many sales as mobile devices despite driving 8% less traffic. Desktops and laptops still remain as the only devices to account for a greater percentage of sales than they do site visits.

Somewhat surprising, tablet users were actually 17% more likely to view product pages than desktop and laptop users and a rather sizable 81% more likely than mobile phone users.

Desktop and laptop devices still have the highest conversion rate (2.9%) but tablet devices (2.4%) are not far behind and have a percentage three times higher than mobile phones (0.8%).

Mobile phones have an average visit length over one minute less than both tablet and desktop devices, which have an almost identical average visit length of slightly less than five minutes.

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In short, it just might be time to separate mobile phones and tablet devices – if anything tablets appear more similar to desktop and laptop devices, at least from a usage perspective. Over time, it could become increasingly more important for online retailers to specifically optimize the mobile phone user experience (i.e. feature store locator pages) based on usage statistics instead of trying to replicate a commerce experience already found on tablet, desktop, and laptop devices. With this in mind, the next time online retailers use research around mobile devices to drive business decisions make sure you understand the classification of the “mobile” term used within the research – if tablets are included, the data likely does not truly reflect mobile devices due to the difference in usage between tablets and mobile phones.

The United Kingdom, also known as the UK, is composed of four European countries – England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland – and features a rich and lengthy history. With a combined population of approximately 63 million people, it boasts only the twenty-third largest population of any country in the world, smaller than developing countries such as Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Iran.

Despite not having a large population like the United States and China, the UK economy is critical to the success of not only Europe but the world as a whole. As online shopping continues its growth worldwide, what does this mean for the future of UK eCommerce and how does the UK compare to other countries?

• Continued growth is expected for UK eCommerce, but growth may slow to single digits –The UK eCommerce industry is expected to grow by a double-digit percentage in 2013 and 2014 but growth is predicted to slow and reach single-digit percentages by 2015. (more…)