I recently received a subtle-yet-effective lifecycle series of emails from Delta Airlines after I had shown interest in booking a flight with them several weeks ago. What struck me about this campaign was how seamless and clever it was to trigger a loyalty-based lifecycle series based on a customer’s recent website activity.

This sequence of events all began with a regularly scheduled promotional email from Delta that I would assume they sent to all members of their SkyMiles program. This email by chance happened to remind me that I was interested in visiting Salt Lake City for a weekend in February, and I knew from previous emails that Salt Lake City happens to be one of Delta’s hub locations. From this initial email I went to the Delta website, where I browsed for flights and compared airfare. I did not make a purchase during this web session.

A mere two hours later I received my first email in the lifecycle campaign, featuring the subject line “Visit delta.com For All Your Travel Needs.” This message served the simple purpose of outlining the benefits of booking my flight through delta.com rather than another third-party site. I was particularly impressed by the promptness of this message — my interest in Delta was clearly reciprocated by them in a timely manner.

Interestingly, the correspondence did not stop there. Delta reached out to me the very next day to continue explaining the benefits of their website and to outwardly ask for me to return to their site. This second message featured the subject line “Come On Back To delta.com” and reminded me that I had an unfulfilled order waiting for further action.

Even though I did not make a purchase during this period, the email exchange I had with Delta was quite valuable in a number of other ways. These include:

• The entire decision to consider shopping for tickets was set in motion from a regularly scheduled loyalty program campaign. Newsletters can generate revenue and interest just by being in front of the customer!
• My website activity triggered almost instantaneous correspondence from Delta showing that they were valuing my business. Website analytics data integration with email programs can help businesses show appreciation for their customers when the brand is fresh in their minds.
• Web analytics data isn’t just for cart abandons — it can also be used to trigger entire loyalty and retention-based messages. Taking a long view of the customer sales cycle can impart positive brand affinity to your customers that will pay off in the long run.

The moral of the story is that even though I didn’t make the purchase this time around, chances are the next time I need to buy airline tickets I will be stopping by Delta’s website first.

We’re honored to have a special guest blogger contributing to our site today: Chris Parkin from Omniture! Read on to hear Chris’ thoughts about the power of email and web analytics integrations.

Email marketing continues to be a mainstay in online advertising, but a few trends are forcing marketers to be more disciplined in the way they reach their customers.

Consider the following:

• Your customers are bombarded with an incredible amount of information every day. They have access to innumerable information sources and an unprecedented amount of flexibility in the ways they connect to these resources. Some estimates suggest that the number of emails delivered annually is approaching 62 trillion messages. To put this into perspective, an estimated 1.2 billion people have Internet access in the world. Therefore, the average Internet user will receive 142 emails every day (including weekends). Also, other forms of digital messaging media are continuing to proliferate. One estimate indicates that 81.2 million text messages will be sent to U.S. mobile phone subscribers this year.
• Expectations have changed too. Your customers expect an experience that speaks to them individually – messaging to their basic demographic or market segment is not enough.

So what do these trends mean for the email marketer? Relevance is more critical today than ever.

Two of the best ways to make your messages more relevant is to incorporate timeliness or behavioral data into your campaigns. Fortunately for marketers, integrating web analytics data into email campaigns is an easy way to make messages both timely and relevant. Many of today’s winning email campaigns are using web analytics data to engage customers by reminding them of a product they recently abandoned on a website, or introducing them to additional benefits of a product they just purchased.

Read More »

Sending email based on web analytics data is a topic we’ve already covered on this site in some detail. As most email marketers know by now, web analytics data can be used in abandoned shopping cart campaigns (ReMarketing), browser behavior campaigns, and other targeted campaigns. But to me, the most important aspect of these campaigns is how the data is being used and what the net effect is on the subscriber base.

Here’s my real-life example that illustrates the issues surrounding web analytics/email integration:

I am a frequent shopper of the online retailer Amazon.com, where I have purchased books, electronics, and baby items exclusively. Last week, however, I received an extremely targeted and somewhat perplexing email promoting Amazon.com’s variety of gourmet and specialty meat selections. Wild Boar 10 Rib Rack anyone?, asked the email. The first line of the message was “As someone who has shown an interest in gourmet meat…”

What? Gourmet meat? Me? From Amazon.com? Huh?

Read More »