Email marketing has for years provided the highest ROI of any digital marketing tactic. Today, ecommerce vendors are increasing combining email with SMS (text) marketing; marketers sent a whopping 62% more SMS marketing messages last year than in the previous year.
Those are among the many questions answered in 39 Email & SMS Marketing Stats to Benchmark Success, a new report from ecommerce personalization vendor Bloomreach. The 25-page report is packed with stats and facts about deliverability, consumer sentiment, best practices, and key benchmarks for SMS and email marketing.
It’s well worth downloading the full report. Here are seven key findings from the research.
SMS is increasing popular with ecommerce marketers. 72% of survey respondents said SMS is becoming a more important channel. Just 4% said it’s becoming less important relative to other tactics.
It’s also popular with consumers. An extraordinary 91% of consumers have subscribed to at least one SMS marketing program, and 73% have made a purchase after receiving a text from a brand or vendor.
Email is still the favorite channel among ecommerce shoppers. Not surprising. But what is surprising is that SMS is now #2, and 85% of people who subscribe to brand text messages also subscribe to their emails.
This is the stat that blows me away. Not sure if it’s just me or a generational thing, but I find brand text messages annoying and intrusive in a way emails are not.
AI is playing a growing part in SMS marketing. Again, not surprising—AI is everywhere now. More than 80% of respondents have incorporated AI into their SMS marketing programs and are using generative AI to help write text messages.
SMS messages are more engaging than email. The average click rate for SMS messages is 7.4%, with top-performing ecommerce vendors exceeding 10%, compared to 2-3% and 4%+ respectively for email marketing.
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But email still converts better. The average conversion rate for email newsletters is 1%, compared to just 0.19% for SMS messages.
And email consumers are more loyal. On average, consumers are eight times more likely to unsubscribe from text messages as from email communications. Per the report, “Unsubscribes often happen due to too many messages or when promotions aren’t personalized to the interests of the recipients.”
There’s lots more in the full report from Bloomreach, including top challenges for ecommerce marketing directors, SMS marketing growth trends, consumer preferences, deliverability rates, and revenue benchmarks. Download the report to get all the details.