New Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ2 2013) Finds Diminishing Returns from Email Marketing in Driving Ecommerce; Tablets Outpacing Smartphones in Device Share

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Monetate today announced the release of the latest Ecommerce Quarterly (EQ2 2013). This quarter's report examines the decreasing influence email marketing has on ecommerce, how tablets are overtaking smartphones in online retail, and social media's impact on ecommerce.

The EQ includes over a dozen benchmark reports about consumer behavior in the ecommerce space and a breakdown of online shopping behaviors by state.

(Download a free copy of the Monetate EQ2 2013 here.)

Among the report's key insights:

• Email takes a dip. The EQ reveals that both referral traffic to ecommerce sites from email and conversion rates from email decreased since last year. Referral traffic dropped 37 percent year-over-year, while the conversion rate slipped six percent. However, average order value from email channels is up, $89.43 in Q2 2012 to $99.93 in Q2 2013, which suggests a great opportunity for brands who are able to create more engaging email experiences.
• The rise of the tablet continues in mobile commerce. Traffic from mobile devices makes up 22.13 percent of all ecommerce traffic, up from 15.2 percent in Q2 2012.  Tablet traffic continues to outpace smartphones, making up 12.44 percent of all ecommerce traffic with smartphones at 9.69 percent. 
• Social commerce shows promise in average order value. Social media traffic delivered a big year-over-year uptick in average order value, moving from $75.82 in Q2 2012 to $86.80 in Q2 2013. However, social still lags far behind search and email in traffic and conversion rates.

This edition also introduces the Impact Score, a new way for digital marketers to measure the value of specific customer segments to their businesses.  The metric can be particularly useful for new customer acquisition, as marketers can use the Impact Score to identify smaller customer segments that have high revenue potential, and use acquisition channels to effectively attract similar customers to the brand.

"Finding your most valuable customer segments can be misleading when looking at them based on a single metric," said Blair Lyon, vice president, marketing, at Monetate.  "With the Impact Score, a marketer can easily identify which segment will have the greatest impact on their business, then instantly take action to deliver a winning customer experience."

Methodology

The EQ analyzes a random sample of over 600 million online shopping experiences using "same store" data across each calendar quarter. Averages throughout the EQ are calculated across the entire sample. Key performance indicators, such as average order value and conversion rate, will vary by industry/market type. These averages are published only to support the analysis in each release of the EQ, and are not intended to be benchmarks for any ecommerce business.

About Monetate

Monetate empowers marketers to leverage big data to create more personalized and engaging online customer experiences. By providing more relevant web interactions, leading brands are able to anticipate and react to consumer preferences to generate stronger customer relationships and significantly increase profits.

Monetate drives billions of dollars of revenue every year for some of the best-known brands in the world, including Best Buy, Frontier Airlines, Aeropostale, The Sports Authority and PETCO. The company's solutions and conversion expertise enable marketers to deliver a more relevant customer experience with unprecedented agility.

Leading marketers rely on Monetate's cloud-based browser solutions to achieve a new level of speed and control, allowing them to run 16 times more optimization campaigns compared to industry averages. Monetate solutions include advanced products for testing, merchandising, targeting and cross-channel consistency, providing an opportunity to bypass IT restraints and react in real time to customer demands. Monetate also helps marketers implement best practices and drive online revenue through its expert strategic services and content publishing teams. For more information visit http://monetate.com/ or follow us on Twitter @Monetate.

SOURCE Monetate