Nearly Two-Thirds Of Shoppers Influenced By Direct Email

Nearly two-thirds of shoppers (64%) are likely to stop whatever they are doing and open an email received by a retailer, a report from price comparison website Give as you Live has found. Direct email marketing has therefore been found to be the most popular prompt for online shopping.

Over 4,000 UK shoppers were questioned for the report in November of this year, and it was found that email marketing came before any marketing attempts made by brands via social media or advertising, which influenced 10% of consumers.

The most popular email distractors came from fashion and retail websites; 42% of respondents said that emails from clothing brands distracted them more than any others, with 28% saying they got easily distracted by travel websites and 25% saying the same for DVD and gaming websites. In terms of the number of times the UK respondents were distracted by retailers on an annual basis, it reached to be over 600 times, with 33% also regretting or forgetting why they clicked on a link.

Pop-up ads proved to be the least effective method of engaging a target audience, with only 7% of respondents saying they were likely click through on a pop-up ad for a company or brand whilst browsing the internet.

The head of consumer insights for Give as you Live, Steff Lewis, expressed surprise over the fact that “direct email marketing is the most distracting to consumers over social media posts and advertisements, given the amount of marketing emails we all receive day-to-day and the dominance of social media particularly in our everyday lives.”