Every year holiday sending volume increases dramatically, with email remaining the linchpin of most e-commerce operations in our transformed world. Last year almost 6.8 billion emails were sent on Black Friday and over 7 billion emails were sent on Cyber Monday on the SendGrid platform alone, a 22.2% uptick from 2020, which was a banner year for sending volume.

This begs a big question: How much impact do poor deliverability practices have on the bottom line? How much has been left on the table? 

Many clients come to Inbox Monster vaguely aware that their email programs are underperforming. We go deep to diagnose the issues and develop a plan to get each customer back to the inbox. An analysis of Inbox Monster clients across a variety of industries and send volumes shows a clear trend: Overall inbox placement improves an average of 30.8% in the first 30 days of uncovering an issue.

Overall inbox placement improves an average of 30.8% in the first 30 days of uncovering an issue.

Let’s take a typical e-commerce client on the platform as an example: This large online retailer had a total inbox placement rate of 77% before getting on platform–a metric they would not have even been aware of by looking at their ESP delivery rate alone. Following suit with similar retailers during the expanded Black Friday-Cyber Monday week, they will send to about 5 million people–but only find proper inbox placement for 3.85 million people. With a 3% open rate and a 16.6% conversion rate (based on past years), they could expect to make roughly $2.9 million in sales attributed to email. (Average order value is about $95 during this timeframe, according to holiday spend data provided by Salesforce.) Not a bad story to bring to the bosses, no doubt. 

But this season, after putting in the time before the holidays to correct some issues, they are sitting at a 99% inbox placement rate. Using the same volume, sending frequency and conversion rate, they could expect to make $3.7 million, or $500,000 more, just by improving inbox placement and other deliverability issues.

They expect to make $3.7 million, or $500,000 more, just by improving inbox placement and other deliverability issues.

Obviously there are many factors that influence consumer behavior, especially in the digital space during a frenetic time frame. But even with modest overall performance metrics, the power of getting your message to the recipient with the right placement can’t be denied. And the moment to start getting spruced up for the holidays is… now.