Consumers Wait For Email Discounts Before Purchasing [Report]

Are brands under­uti­liz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to dri­ve con­ver­sions via email dis­counts?

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 1 comment

Email mar­ket­ing can be a incred­i­ble chan­nel for dri­ving con­ver­sions. A Blue­hor­net study has revealed that a large pro­por­tion of con­sumers val­ue email dis­counts. Can brands bet­ter lever­age the use of email dis­counts to increase rev­enues and sales?


Email mar­ket­ing experts Blue­hor­net have pub­lished a com­pre­hen­sive report, “2014 Con­sumer Views of Email Mar­ket­ing”, packed full of insights on con­sumer email habits and behav­ior.

Some of the most reveal­ing finds are in just how much con­sumers are influ­enced by email mar­ket­ing dis­counts codes, being both the main rea­son they sub­scribe to brand mar­ket­ing lists, and also trig­ger­ing oth­er behav­iors such as aban­don­ing carts as they search for avail­able dis­counts.

Of the more than 1,000 con­sumers across the U.S. sur­veyed, 80.1 per­cent said the most impor­tant rea­son they signed up to mar­ket­ing emails was to receive dis­counts.

Forty-two per­cent of those sur­veyed also spec­i­fied that receiv­ing “mon­ey off the price” was the most attrac­tive kind of dis­count for them.

Also worth noth­ing is that just over 10 per­cent of those sur­veyed said that they “pur­pose­ful­ly aban­don cart[s] to trig­ger discount[s] by email.” This isn’t an insignif­i­cant fig­ure by any means, and real­ly illus­trates the val­ue with which shop­pers regard email dis­count codes.

Screen Shot 2014-09-05 at 17.32.31

Here are five key take­aways from Blue­hor­net’s 2014 Email Mar­ket­ing Report.

1. Be Generous & Active In Providing Discounts

With some 80 per­cent of cus­tomers admit­ting that the main rea­son they sub­scribe to brand emails being to obtain dis­counts, brands need to ensure they meet con­sumer expec­ta­tions for mon­ey sav­ing. Blue­hor­net sug­gest exper­i­ment­ing to dis­cov­er what types of offers work best for a brand’s audi­ence, ensur­ing also to take age into con­sid­er­a­tion, as it affects the types of coupons and offers to which they respond.

2. Test & Optimize Email Frequency

Email mar­keters need to find the right fre­quen­cy of email sends to min­i­mize unsub­scribes. Hav­ing data avail­able to seg­ment and tar­get audi­ences helps keep con­tent rel­e­vant, and ensures read­ers stay engaged.

3. Leverage Consumer Communities, Engagement, Participation

Of those sur­veyed in Blue­hor­net’s sur­vey, more than 10 per­cent of email sub­scribers sub­mit­ted prod­uct reviews after the retail­er asked, and con­sumers are near­ly three times more like­ly to post a pos­i­tive review than a neg­a­tive one.

4. Take A Mobile-First Approach

This can’t be empha­sized enough. Smart­phones have made emails mas­sive­ly more suc­cess­ful than ever before.

With 65 per­cent of unopened emails remain­ing unread per­ma­nent­ly, it’s cru­cial to ensure emails are opti­mized for mobile as this is often the first inter­ac­tion users will have with mes­sages. As the report states in no uncer­tain terms “for mar­keters, this means that if you aren’t tak­ing a mobile-first approach, you are miss­ing – and pos­si­bly los­ing – a large per­cent­age of your audi­ence.”

5. Listen To What Your Subscribers Need, Want

So often, email mar­keters over­look the sim­ple fact that sub­scriber lists are actu­al­ly filled with peo­ple! Not just email address­es. Blue­hor­net fin­ish the report with a pow­er­ful mes­sage: “Treat them with respect, lis­ten to their wants, pro­vide con­tent that meets their needs, and you will enjoy a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship.”


Does your busi­ness have a great strat­e­gy for offer­ing email dis­counts? Dis­cuss and leave a com­ments below!

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

Discover why brands and agencies choose Linkdex

  • Get started fast with easy onboarding & training
  • Import and connect data from other platforms
  • Scale with your business, websites and markets
  • Up-skill teams with training & accreditation
  • Build workflows with tasks, reporting and alerts

Get a free induction and experience of Linkdex.

Just fill out this form, and one of our team members will get in touch to arrange your own, personalized demo.