Hyper personalised marketing trumps witty one-liners; witnesses 5X conversion rate: WebEngage report

2020 brought unprecedented shifts to consumers’ buying behaviors with a digital experience being no longer an add-on, but a necessity.

With rapid digitisation, brands continue to rely on hyper-personalised experiences that nudge consumers to make a more informed decision with contextual information, and this is reflected in the rate of adoption that customer retention as a practice has seen in the last 12 months, as per a report by WebEngage.

‘WebEngage’s Omnichannel User Engagement - A Winner’s Playbook’ has been released with the aim to map out the maturity of customer retention practices and its impact on building enduring businesses.

 The WebEngage ‘Omni Channel User Engagement- A Winner’s Playbook’ report is based on analysis from 400+ billion messages of which 308 billion were sent out from India alone, and 835+ Billion user events (i,e. Transactions, Content Consumption, Course Completion, Bookings, etc.).

The report spreads across 10 industries and 5 regions through the course of 2020-22 spread across enterprises, SMBs and start-ups between January 2020 and March 2022. It serves as a playbook on how brands survived and revived their businesses with contextual, personalised and cross-channel user engagement strategies.

Avlesh Singh, Co-Founder and CEO, WebEngage, said, “The advent of technology and digital accessibility means we are no longer in an era of one size fits all. With the amount of data made available to brands, consumers expect hyper-personalised experiences. Companies that created customer delight and stood the test of time in the last 2-3 years were the ones that focused on the most crucial business metric- customer retention.”

Overall key insights from the report include -

From Q1 2020- Q1 2022:

●     Indian brands sent 308 billion messages in total to consumers.

○     E-commerce & D2C industry sent over 8.6 billion messages.

○     Ed-tech industry sent over 7.1 billion messages.

●     Indians most receptive to engagement from brands between 10 am to 8 pm.

●     Push app notifications and Web push notifications emerge as the preferred mediums for customer engagement, given the cost effectiveness involved versus SMS and email marketing and the likes that cost higher.

●     E-commerce and Ed-tech were two industries that witnessed maximum channel adoption.

●     Conversion Rate for Contextual Personalised Campaigns was 5.25 times more than that of Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     Click Through Rate for Contextual Personalised Campaigns was 1.74 times more than that of Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     Whatsapp witnesses highest engagement rate at an average of 54% in India & APAC.

●     Level of personalisation preferred by India v/s other countries.

Media & Entertainment industry:

●     Brands belonging to this industry sent over 5.9 Billion messages in the last 9 quarters with maximum messages being sent during October- December 2021 indicating year end period for special programming and campaigns.

●     Media & Entertainment giants placed heavy bets on App & Web Push Notifications constituting almost 96% of all messages being sent via these routes.

●     Amongst all channels, In-app notifications saw an Average Conversion Rate of 5.1%.

●     Contextual Personalised Campaigns via App-push Notifications performed 25 times better than Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     App-push notifications saw the highest Open Rate with 40% on an average

●     In-app notifications had the highest Click Through Rate at 7.4% on an average

Some interesting industry/sector insights

●     E-commerce & D2C industry saw maximum customer engagement with over 8.6 billion messages sent; Edtech brands stand at a close second with over 7.1 billion messages sent to customers.

●     Maximum customer engagement was witnessed during the October- December 2021 period indicating the year end sale and special campaign periods.

●     Across all industries In-app notifications saw the highest Average Conversion Rate.

●     Contextual Personalised Campaigns via SMS performed better than Blast Promotional Campaigns across the E-commerce & D2C, Ed-tech and BFSI & Fintech industries.

●     Contextual Personalised Campaigns via App-push notifications performed better than Blast Promotional Campaigns for the Media & Entertainment Industry while Web-Push notifications performed better for the Travel & Hospitality industries.

●     In-app notifications had the highest Click Through Rate across E-commerce & D2C,Ed-tech, Media & Entertainment and Travel &  Hospitality industries, while the BFSI & Fintech industry saw the highest click through rates with On-site notifications

●     Channels that saw the highest open rates varied across sectors. While BFSI & Fintech tech and Media & Entertainment saw maximum open rates with App-push notifications, SMS performed better for Ed-tech and Travel & Hospitality sectors. Emails gave the highest open rates for the E-commerce & D2C industry while SMS performed better for the Ed-tech industry.

E-commerce & D2C industry:

●     Between the period of Q1 2020- Q1 2022, adoption rate among brands saw a growth of 57% Quarter on Quarter in terms of the number of messages sent.

●     Brands belonging to this industry sent over 8.6 billion messages in the last 9 quarters with maximum messages being sent during July-September 2021 indicating the beginning of the festive season (OR) seasonal sale periods.

●     E-Commerce players placed heavy bets on App and Web Push Notifications constituting almost 95% of all messages being sent via these routes.

●     Amongst all channels, In-app notifications saw the highest Average Conversion Rate of 3%.

●     Contextual Personalised Campaigns via SMS performed 100 times better than Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     Emails saw the highest Open Rate with 8% on an average.

●     In-app notifications had the highest Click Through Rate at 8.3% on an average.

Ed-tech industry:

●     Brands belonging to this industry sent over 7.1 billion messages in the last 9 quarters with maximum messages being sent during January- March 2021 indicating the onset of exam season in the country.

●     Ed-Tech brands placed a heavy bet on App Push Notifications constituting almost 74% of all messages being sent via this route.

●     Amongst all channels, In-app notifications saw an Average Conversion Rate of 3.2%.

●     Contextual Personalised Campaigns via SMS performed 21 times better than Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     SMS saw the highest Open Rate with 59% on an average.

●     In-app notifications had the highest Click Through Rate at 7% on an average.

BFSI & Fintech industry:

●     Brands belonging to this industry sent over 2.1 billion messages in the last 9 quarters with maximum messages being sent during October- December 2021 indicating the year end/ planning for the new year period.

●     BFSI & Fintech brands placed a heavy bet on App Push Notifications and Web Push Notifications constituting almost 72% of all messages being sent via these routes.

●     Amongst all channels, In-app notifications saw an Average Conversion Rate of 12%.

●     Contextual Personalized Campaigns via SMS performed 59 times better than Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     App-push notifications saw the highest Open Rate with 33% on an average.

●     On-site notifications had the highest Click Through Rate at 7.1% on an average.

Travel & Hospitality industry:

●     Brands belonging to this industry sent over 4.1 billion messages in the last 9 quarters with maximum messages being sent during October- December 2021 indicating the year end season for special sales.

●     Travel & Hospitality giants placed a heavy bet on App Push Notifications constituting over 94% of all messages being sent via this route.

●     Amongst all channels, In-app notifications saw an Average Conversion Rate of 3.1%.

●     Contextual Personalized Campaigns via Web-push Notifications performed 100 times better than Blast Promotional Campaigns.

●     SMS saw the highest Open Rate with 70% on an average.

●     In-app notifications had the highest Click Through Rate at 4.5% on an average.

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