Black Friday 2021 Customer Survey

To help Emarsys improve its ability to support you over this Black Friday we are inviting you to participate in this short survey*. This survey has questions divided into 4 Sections:

Black Friday 2020 vs Black Friday 2021
Your Black Friday Preparation
Your Plan for running your Black Friday
Infrastructure checks

We thank you for your participation and your business.

Your Emarsys Team

*The results of the survey will be used by our Product and Marketing teams to document and share industry best practices, detail how other leading retailers and e-commerce businesses are preparing for Black Friday, and to help you be the best.

Black Friday 2020 vs Black Friday 2021

Question Title

* 1. What changes have you made to improve your customer engagement for this years’ peak period? Choose all that apply.

Invested in customer data infrastructure

Connected offline and online data

Built automated marketing programs & campaigns

Invested in mobile app or mobile engagement

Branched into new marketing channels

Connected with internal teams (such as contact centre, merchandising, stores & operations) to develop better customer experience

Improved use of data

No improvements

Question Title

* 2. When planning for this Black Friday, will you use more marketing engagement channels as compared to last year? Choose the additional channel(s) you plan to use this year.

Email marketing

Web Push / Personalization

SMS

Mobile App

Mobile Push

Direct Mail

Paid Social

Organic Social

No, it will be the same as last year - please specify

Question Title

* 3. What offline channels (if any) will be used for supporting your Black Friday campaign?

None

Direct Mail

Outdoor advertising

Print Ads

Telemarketing

Other

Question Title

* 4. Do you think IOS 15 Update will impact your Black Friday campaigns this year?

Yes

Question Title

* 5. What concerns, if any, do you have in regards to iOS 15 and how it will impact Black Friday this year?

I’m a bit anxious about the success of my Black Friday campaigns

I'm not concerned about the impact

I’m concerned but we have alternative solutions planned or in place.

I would like advice on how to limit the impact

N/A

Black Friday 2021 Preparation

Question Title

* 6. What help are you expecting, or would like, from Emarsys? Choose all that apply.

Platform functionality (such as segmentation, automation)

Strategy

Metrics and measuring success

Testing methods and strategy

Deliverability, industry, ISP information

Other

Question Title

* 7. How far are you through your marketing preparations for Black Friday 2021?

Just starting Black Friday preparations

Have a plan in place but haven’t started implementing it

Have a plan and are in the process of implementing it

Have finished all of the preparations for Black Friday

N/A — We won’t be running any marketing campaigns for Black Friday this year

Question Title

* 8. Which of the following statements apply to you? Choose all that apply

My company already has the right technology stack in place to manage Black Friday in 2021

We are investing in new technologies to support Black Friday 2021

I expect fewer people to shop in-store during Black Friday 2021 than in previous years

My company has previously taken part in Black Friday promotions and activities but won’t this year

We have considered cancelling our physical Black Friday events due to Covid-19

We will actively encourage customers to shop online rather than in-store

We have put a contingency plan in place in case there is another lockdown this Black Friday / Christmas

N/A

Question Title

* 9. Based on last year's Black Friday performance, are you making any changes this year?

Yes (please specify)

Your Marketing Strategy

Question Title

* 10. What KPIs do you follow for measuring success of your black Friday campaigns? Choose all that apply

Number of Opens / Open rate %

Number of clicks / Click rate %

Conversions / converstion rate %

Email revenue

Website traffic

Size of mailing list

Increased engagement

Avoided problems (complaints, unsubscribes, blocklists)

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 11. What types of personalisation are you planning to use?

Segmented sending groups for functional reasons (eg deliverability, send timing)

Personalised content based on broad groups / personas / customer lifecycle stage

Dynamic elements at scale (product recommendations etc)

None – everyone will get the same campaign.

Question Title

* 12. What will you use to segment into target audiences, or split campaigns? Choose all that apply.

Recent opens

Recent clicks

Recent Purchase

Previous Black Friday /sales activity

Demographics

Product interests

N/A (no segmentation or targeting)

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 13. How often do you plan to send out email marketing campaigns during the busiest period of Black Friday?

5+ times per day

2-5 times per day

1-2 times per day

2-5 times per week

1-2 times per week

N/A

Question Title

* 14. Do you plan to perform any testing?

None

AI Subject line optimization

a/b subject line testing

a/b copy/content testing

Rendering testing

Functional testing (automation, segmentation, links, images, unsubscribe process, etc)

Infrastructure Checks

Question Title

* 15. Does your company send emails using dedicated, shared or a mixed IP(s)?

Dedicated

Shared

Mix of dedicated and shared

I don't know

Question Title

* 16. Are you aware of any limitations for your company to successfully deliver emails currently?

Low inbox placement/high spam folder placement

IP address blocked

Domain blocked

Declining engagement metrics (opens, clicks)

No known issues or limitations

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 17. When was the last time you were dealing with any of your sending IP addresses or domains ending up on a blocklist?

Never had any similar issues

Had an issue more than 6 months ago

Had an issue in the last 6 months

Had an issue in the last 3 month

Had an issue in the last month

Had an issue in the last week

N/A

Question Title

* 18. Is there anything you'd like to ask our experts to help you better prepare for Black Friday this year?

Question Title

* 19. Your Contact details

Name

Company