Canadian ecommerce brands are more familiar with online marketing than most other types of Canadian businesses. They’ve been utilizing and testing email, SMS (short message service/texts), and push marketing (broad market advertising) for years, refining their sales strategy by integrating it with their digital marketing strategy. Their results can provide a benchmark for other types of businesses, generating new ideas based on solid experience that’s specifically Canadian.
The 2024 report covers all ecommerce users of the Omnisend email marketing platform, but we’ve been provided with Canadian-specific results to share with you here. The study analyzed 571 million emails, 4.5 million SMS, and 700 thousand push messages sent by ecommerce companies in Canada. We also included actionable insights and tips to more easily adapt the marketing trends to your brand.
This omnichannel study analyzed how marketing messages sent by Canadian ecommerce businesses performed in 2023.
Highlights of the study include:
- Sales: Email, SMS, and push notifications helped generate nearly one million sales for Canadian ecommerce businesses, earning CA$235 million.
- Emails: In 2023, scheduled emails had a click-to-conversion rate of 8%, and automated emails had a rate of 45%.
- SMS: Scheduled SMS had a click-to-conversion rate of 3%, and automated SMS had a rate of 7%.
- Push notifications: Push notifications for Canadian ecommerce stores had a conversion rate of 5%, with automated push notifications reaching a click-to-conversion rate of 51%.
Conversion rates were calculated by comparing attributed orders to total emails/SMS/push messages sent. Click rates were calculated by comparing the number of clicks to the number of emails/SMS/push messages sent.
Canadian Marketing Data by Industry
The click-to-conversion rate refers to sales from people who click on a message. The top three industries for email marketing click-to-conversion rate in Canada were Smoking & Vaping (35%), Gifts & Special Events (23%), and Internet (22%). The lowest click-to-conversion rate was held by Wedding (1.21%), Computers (1.5%), and Antiques & Collectibles (2%).
For comparison purposes, following is industry-specific information for Omnisend’s global users (Canada, the US, Australia, and the UK).
“The varying results among industries can be impacted by many factors, including the number of sent messages, the contents of emails, or the percentage of automated messages,” says Greg Zakowicz. “One thing we know is that brands that combine email, SMS, and web push messages into their marketing campaigns, and use behavior-based automation generate more sales.”
Omnisend is an omnichannel marketing platform used by over 100K merchants. They studied more than 576 million messages sent by Canadian ecommerce businesses in 2023, including email, SMS, and push notifications. The messages resulted in more than one million sales in Canada and helped to earn Canadian businesses more than CA$235 million.
“With the endless number and inconsistency of paid channels, it’s difficult to maintain them, especially for those with limited budgets,” says Greg Zakowicz, ecommerce marketing expert at Omnisend. “That’s why it’s important to stay focused on marketing tactics that work. Omnichannel marketing using email, SMS, and push messages increased the conversion rate by nearly 500%. Add automation to the mix and the results are even better.”
Automated Messages Performed up to 10X Better
Researchers at Omnisend found that action-triggered (or automated) emails, SMS, and push notifications performed much better than scheduled messages. Automated messages included those sent to customers when they abandoned their cart, registered for a newsletter, or when their favorite item came back in stock.
For automated emails, the click-to-conversion rate improved from 8% to 45%, and for SMS, it increased from 3% to 7%. Automated push notifications saw their conversion rate jump from 5% to 51%.
Evolve Your Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
Start exploring other channels of communication. If you only used email to communicate with your customers before, SMS and push notifications are a good place to start expanding your digital marketing methods. Identifying the best channel to talk to your customers will help you generate more sales and increase conversion rates.
Use automations. Whether it’s email, SMS, or push messages, automated messages significantly outperform scheduled campaigns. If you’re unsure where to begin, start with the most effective automated messages: cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and welcome messages.
Focus on growing your lists through different channels. Growing email, SMS, and push message lists helps brands maximize their ROI by keeping order data from all channels in one place, allowing them to market to an unsubscriber of one channel (like email) via another (like SMS).
Optimize email templates for conversion. Analyze your email templates and add items that can help turn email openers into buyers. You could make your email campaigns more effective by promoting value-adds like free shipping, return policies, satisfaction guarantees, and customer service availability. Adding social proof highlights, such as product review star ratings and customer testimonials, could also be effective.
Canadian digital marketing data is rare and invaluable to brands and marketers in this country. How will you use it to improve your multi-channel marketing over the coming year? Please share your plans or questions in the comments below, or join us in the Online Business Canada Facebook group.
Related Reading
6 Ways the Pro’s Turn Traffic Into Subscribers, Leads & Sales
5 Top Types of Email Coupons for Website Traffic and Sales
For weekly inspiration, insights, tips, and resources, sign up for the Online Business Canada newsletter!
7 Recession Proof Online Businesses To Start From Home
Expert help to choose, start, and run a successful online business!
“Almost 200 pages of pure gold…”
GET IT ON AMAZON
Or Other Major Ebook Retailers
——————————————
© CanadiansInternet.com – Content on this website may not be used elsewhere without expressed permission. Thank you for respecting the effort that we have put into our original content.
DISCLOSURE:Â We may receive compensation for links to products on this website. Â As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Our content is provided for informational purposes only and does not guarantee results.
Melody McKinnon is an internet entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in a wide range of online business models, backed by a formal business education and enhanced by training and mentorship. She has owned or managed both educational and ecommerce websites. Her book, 7 Recession Proof Online Businesses to Start From Home, is available from all major ebook retailers.
Melody has worked with many businesses & brands in a multitude of capacities. She can often be found on CanadianDigitalMedia.com, CanadiansInternet.com, CanadianFamily.net, and AllNaturalPetCare.com, as well as other quality digital publications. Her content has earned reference links from highly-respected websites, magazines and university textbooks.
WOW! Some eye opening Canadian stats there!
Isn’t it funny how we started with email and it’s still so effective? all of the advancements in online marketing can’t compare to it.