(As seen in Total Retail)

In the age of the customer, personalization has become critical to retail marketing success. Email personalization, specifically, has proved particularly effective, improving clickthrough rates by 14 percent and conversion rates by 10 percent, according to Aberdeen Group.

Despite the proven value of email personalization, however, many retail marketers continue to rely on inefficient legacy tactics. The creative teams churn out emails based on what worked last year or what merchandising wants to feature and highlight a single category (e.g., black dresses) or theme (e.g., casual shoes) for the day and “batch and blast” to their entire email list. They blindly repeat this process with each email, and perhaps — best-case scenario — they implement some form of segmentation, or incorporate product recommendations (e.g., “You May Also Like”) at the bottom of their email to “personalize” it.

To improve email marketing campaign effectiveness, some retail marketers employ A/B testing to help them identify which content they should send to whom. While A/B testing is helpful in understanding what content resonates best, test sends take this one step further, revealing new customer segments and building up profiles of each customer over time.

Interested in learning what insights can be gleaned through email test sends? Head on over to Total Retail to read Coherent Path CEO James Glover’s latest article: http://www.mytotalretail.com/article/3-things-retailers-learn-from-email/.

Also published on Medium.