While the use of the term “Cyber Monday” in retail e-mail subject lines has skyrocketed, consumers don’t respond to the phrase the way they do to a good old-fashioned sale.
The number of e-mails using the phrase Cyber Monday this year spiked 1,300% over 2006 and 265% over 2007, according to Email Data Source, a New York firm that tracks companies’ e-mail marketing and coinciding traffic to their Web sites.
However, the messages don’t seem to be having their intended effect.
E-mails sent out pitching Cyber Monday specials on Friday, Nov. 28 coincided with spikes in traffic to retailers’ sites—but on the 28thor Black Friday, not on Dec. 1 or Cyber Monday, according to Bill McCloskey, president of Email Data Source.
“The people who sent out e-mails with Cyber Monday specials and sent them on the 28th [of November] got tremendous traffic on the 28th but almost nothing to speak of on Dec. 1. They probably got the traffic they were going to get on Black Friday anyway,” said Bill McCloskey, president of Email Data Source.
According to McCloskey, Cyber Monday retail Web site traffic for the most part simply did not stack up to that of Nov. 28.
For example, Kmart sent a Cyber Monday themed message out to its e-mail subscribers on Nov. 28, but traffic to its site was 112% higher on Nov. 28 than on Dec. 1, according to McCloskey.
Macy’s also sent a Cyber Monday pitch on Nov. 28 and saw a 68% lift on traffic on Nov. 28 from Nov. 27 and just a 5% lift on Dec. 1, McCloskey said.
The lesson? Most consumers have no idea what Cyber Monday is and promoting using the term is a recipe for a failed campaign.
“I think consumers are confused by the term. You’re better off promoting a good old-fashioned sale,” said McCloskey. “The people who didn’t use the term Cyber Monday but just promoted a special did better than those who put Cyber Monday in their subject lines.”
For example, Neiman Marcus sent a one-day sale e-mail out on Dec. 3 and matched its Web site traffic of Nov. 28, said McCloskey.
Most top retailers not only sent Cyber Monday themed e-mail pitches, they led their subject lines with the term, using up precious real estate with it, according to McCloskey.
“Most said things like ‘Cyber Monday: 50% Off,’ or ‘Cyber Monday at Rugs Direct.’ What does that mean to people?” McCloskey said. “The great majority of them led with Cyber Monday. But look at Neiman Marcus. On the third [of December] they simply put out ‘one-day sale’ and they get their day-after Thanksgiving traffic back and they did nothing on Cyber Monday.”
Cyber Monday was coined by the National Retail Federation in 2005 to refer to the traffic spikes online merchants began typically seeing the Monday after Thanksgiving as people returned to work and took advantage of their employer’s high-speed Internet access.
There is evidence, though, that Cyber Monday is waning as a phenomenon as home high-speed Internet access increasingly becomes the norm.
