This year’s Black Friday is shaping up to be sales madness once again, even if some retailers, like Staples and Costco, won’t be opening its doors beforehand on Thanksgiving Day. However, not every retailer is making the most out of sales opportunities for the day, according to new numbers provided by Yesmail.
The data, reported by VentureBeat, indicates that digital marketers have been trying to reach shoppers through social media and email, but the timing hasn’t been effective. According to the report, the worst day to email shoppers during the week of Thanksgiving is on Black Friday itself. Yet, most retailers prefer this time to ramp up their advertising, with over a third of Black Friday messages being sent out the day of the event.
This chart shows the stats between 2013 and 2014. Email open rates tend to drop off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, only to pick back up during the holiday. However, 2014’s numbers show that Black Friday’s numbers dropped, down from eight percent to negative one percent compared to hitting 8 percent the year before.
Facebook and Twitter also saw a number of posts relating to Black Friday on the day it was happening, with Yesmail reporting that this resulted in the second-largest number of Black Friday themed tweets getting the lowest engagement rate.
So what’s the problem The company notes that, with so many promotions going around, it’s easy to tune out certain deals by deleting emails or skimming over lesser posts on Twitter or Facebook. Finding the right time to post offers has become a challenge, especially with the competitive market being the way it is.
It appears that the most effective method is sending messages earlier in the week, which results in higher engagement. Engagement levels between 2013 and 2014 are similar, so Sunday appears to be the best day when it comes to Facebook engagement, while Tuesday is better for email and Thanksgiving day is ideal for Twitter.
With that, marketers have a prime opportunity of not only timing their messages properly, but making sure the personalization is nailed down, which should be relatively easy with the availability of consumer data. It’s just a matter of being able to properly capitalize on it, which a lot of companies don’t seem to be doing.
The full report can be found here.
