Over the coming weeks, Dotdigital’s channel experts are sharing their top tips for driving standout results in 2026, alongside the latest benchmarks from Dotdigital’s Global benchmark report. Each blog breaks down what the numbers really mean and how you can use them to improve performance across every stage of the customer journey.

In our first blog, we explored what email engagement looks like in 2026 and how to optimize campaigns for stronger opens and clicks. In this blog, Lisa Dixon, Dotdigital’s Deliverability Consulting Lead, turns the focus to email deliverability. Lisa is sharing practical strategies to make sure your emails land in the inbox and get seen by your audience.

What’s the difference between email delivery and email deliverability?

First up, let’s quickly explain the difference between two key terms.

Email delivery is getting an email from your email marketing platform of choice, e.g., Dotdigital, to the receiving mail servers of your recipients, e.g., Gmail.

Email deliverability is about what happens after it is accepted, and can also be known as inbox placement. Email deliverability is the ability for your emails to successfully land in your subscribers’ inbox, instead of spam or junk.

Ultimately, delivery is about acceptance; deliverability is about inbox placement.

Why is email deliverability important?

Even the most beautifully designed email won’t drive results if it never reaches the inbox.

Strong deliverability means:

• Higher open and click-through rates
• Better customer engagement and retention
• More accurate performance reporting
• Stronger ROI from your email program

What is a good email delivery rate?

A good delivery rate is generally considered to be 97% or higher. Dotdigital’s Global benchmark report for 2026 shows that delivery rates among Dotdigital customers are impressively high, with a global average of 99.21%.

Dotdigital’s focus on compliance and customer trust helps keep all of our senders in good standing, maximizing deliverability and customer reach.

How to test email deliverability

While delivery rates are high, inbox placement still depends on ongoing deliverability best practices.

Testing deliverability helps you spot issues before they impact performance. Key ways to do this include:

• Inbox placement testing to see where emails land across providers
• Monitoring bounce rates and spam complaints
• Reviewing engagement metrics like opens and clicks
• Checking sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

Using a platform with built-in reporting and deliverability insights makes it easier to diagnose issues early and keep campaigns performing.

How to boost email deliverability

High bounce rates or spam complaints can damage your sender reputation and reduce the visibility of your campaigns. Here are three actionable ways to maintain healthy inbox placement:

1. Acquire contacts carefully
   • Send only to people who have opted in
   • Protect sign-up forms with CAPTCHA to avoid fake addresses
   • Use confirmed opt-in to validate consent and ensure the email belongs to the subscriber
2. Maintain a clean list
   • Implement a sunset policy to filter out inactive contacts or those no longer engaged
   • Regularly review bounce, complaint, and unsubscribe data to identify contacts who should be removed
3. Send emails that your contacts want to receive
   • Align content with subscriber expectations and preferences
   • Monitor negative engagement metrics (bounces, complaints, unsubscribes) as indicators of list health
   • Avoid sending irrelevant or unwanted emails, which can harm deliverability over time

Three rules to boost inbox placement

At the heart of email deliverability are three critical requirements that all marketers should prioritize:

1. Authenticate emails: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prove your messages are legitimate.
   • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Lists which servers can send emails from your domain
   • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Verifies emails weren’t altered in transit
   • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): Tells receivers how to handle emails that fail SPF/DKIM
2. Make unsubscribing easy: Include a one-click unsubscribe option using a list-unsubscribe header or footer, as well as a visible link in the email body. If opting out is difficult, spam complaints can rise.
3. Only send wanted emails: Beyond having legal consent, make sure you respect your audience’s preferences, interests, behavior, and preferred frequency. This helps maintain a positive relationship and reduces the risk of your emails being marked as spam.

Failure to follow these rules can result in delayed delivery, emails landing in spam, or emails bouncing.

What is a good bounce rate?

Global email delivery rates

Here’s a look at the average bounce and delivery rates across Dotdigital customers worldwide.

• Soft bounce rate = 0.74% (Number of soft bounces ÷ number of emails sent) x 100
• Hard bounce rate = 0.05% (Number of hard bounces ÷ number of emails sent) x 100
• Bounce rate = 0.79% (Number of overall bounces ÷ number of emails sent) x 100
• Delivery rate = 99.21% (Number of emails sent ÷ number of delivered emails) x 100

You can get bounce rate benchmarks for your industry and region in the full 2026 Global benchmark report here.

Email deliverability in 2026

Strong delivery rates are the backbone of any successful email strategy as they reflect healthy data, responsible sending, and a platform that works well with inbox providers. Delivery rates and deliverability are something you should monitor and optimize continuously.

Hopefully this blog has given you a clearer understanding of the topic as well as practical tips to take away and action. If you’d like support from myself or another member of the Deliverability team, check out the email marketing services we provide – we’d love to work with you.

We’ll break down what the numbers really mean for your marketing, and share practical, actionable ways you can outperform the benchmarks.

In this first instalment, Brianna Martinez, Dotdigital’s Email Marketing Strategist, dives into everything you need to know about email engagement in 2026 and how to make sure your campaigns are set up for success.

What is a good email open rate?

The first step of engaging with an email is of course, an email open. Dotdigital’s 2026 Global benchmark report shows that email open rates are up across the globe year-on-year, even as send volumes continue to climb. This suggests audiences aren’t tiring of the channel – but how they interact with emails is changing. Click behavior tells a more nuanced story, which we’ll explore later in this blog.

The global average open rate for emails sits at 55.4%, with unique open rate sitting at 37.3% – highlighting the difference between total engagement and individual reach.

You can get open rate benchmarks for your particular industry or continent in the full 2026 Global benchmark report here.

How to calculate email open rate?

The formula to calculate email open rate is: (total number of opened emails ÷ total number of emails delivered) × 100

For unique email open rate, it’s: (number of unique recipients who opened the email ÷ total number of delivered emails) × 100

All good email marketing platforms will automatically calculate this metric for you and include it in your email reporting dashboard.

How can I increase my email open rates?

If you find your email open rates to be below the benchmark, don’t panic. There are lots of things you can do to improve this metric.

Three areas to start optimizing:

1. Rethink your subject lines
   • Create urgency and grab attention (e.g., “You’re invited to our VIP flash sale” or “You’re missing out on something big!”)
   • Add personalization where possible (“Natasha, see what everyone’s talking about!” or “You have $5 to redeem before December!”)
   • Use relevant emojis to stand out in crowded inboxes and add color to your subject line

Dotdigital’s AI analyzes your customers’ past behavior to suggest engaging subject lines and generate split-test variations for you to run.

2. Make the most of your preheader text
   This space is often overlooked, but it is an opportunity to build on your subject line. Use it to add context, include personalization, and bonus points if you can inject humor to grab your audience’s attention.
3. Experiment with your friendly from name
   While it shouldn’t change too often, this field can help your emails feel more human and familiar. Using a recognizable person’s name can create connection and trust, for example, “From: Milan Patel, CEO of Dotdigital” or “From: Brianna, your personal digital stylist.”

As well as these tips, find out what resonates with your unique audience. My number one rule is to always split test!

What is a good email click rate?

Open rates show that your brand is worth listening to, while click-through rates reveal how well you convert that attention into action. Together, they offer a view of performance combined with interaction.

This year’s report shows a slight decline in click rates year-on-year. Unique click-through rate has seen a decline of 1.6% and click-to-open rate has seen a decline of 8.3% year-on-year.

Consumer behavior is changing, and a decline in click rates is not because email is losing relevance, but because audiences are becoming more selective with what they interact with.

It’s a trend that mirrors what’s happening across digital channels: attention is fragmenting, and people are consuming information in more passive ways. Almost 60% of Google searches on mobile now end without any clicks.

Global email click rates:

• Click-through rate = 3.7%
• Unique click-through rate = 1.4%
• Click-to-open rate = 3.7%

You can get click rate benchmarks for your industry and region in the full 2026 Global benchmark report here.

Effective emails do more than drive clicks, they spark curiosity, strengthen relationships, and keep your brand top of mind.

How to calculate email click-through rates

The formula to calculate email click-through rate is: (total number of clicks ÷ total number of delivered emails) × 100

The formula for unique click-through rate is: (number of unique recipients who clicked at least one link ÷ total number of delivered emails) × 100

The formula for click-to-open rate is: (total number of clicks ÷ total number of opened emails) × 100

How can I increase email clicks?

Don’t worry about the slight year-on-year decline in unique CTR and CTOR, but you should pay attention to how subscribers interact with your content to know how to pivot.

When email clicks are down, there are different strategies to try. Here’s where to focus:

Three ways to increase email clicks

1. Analyze what’s working: Review your top-performing email campaigns to uncover what drove the most engagement and then use these insights to repeat what resonates.

• Do your top five click-driving emails share common traits, e.g., product type, tone, layout, or topic?
• Analyze which sections drove the most clicks, and also study which type of CTA worked best. Was it in-copy links or CTA buttons? Implement split tests to optimize what performs well, e.g., if buttons drive most of your clicks, test the language on your buttons, such as ‘Buy now’ versus ‘Learn more’.

2. Refine personalization and relevancy: We know that personalization and relevancy aren’t the same, and consumers crave both. Make your emails feel timely, helpful, and uniquely targeted to the individual by:

• Including product recommendations based on past purchases or browsing behavior
• Highlighting loyalty status exclusives and reward redemption opportunities
• Tailoring messaging to subscriber preferences, seasonal interests, or engagement patterns

3. Lead with attraction: Building on what you learned in points 1 and 2, focus on what your audience finds appealing and make it personally meaningful:

• If they engage most during promotions, focus on highlighting value that’s unique to the subscriber – highlight their exclusive access to VIP offers and run email-exclusive sales
• If they respond to social proof, use authentic UGC (user-generated content) and reviews related to the types of products they browse

Email engagement in 2026

Keeping track of your email engagement is how you know what’s working and what’s not. Sometimes trends will be down to something bigger than your own brand, such as Gmail changes or a shift in customer behavior across the board. These benchmarks give you the context to see what email marketing engagement numbers the wider industry is seeing, so you can tell if you’re falling behind or if you’re doing well against your competition.

These tips are designed to give you some pointers on where to start optimizing for stronger results, and always remember to test and find what works best for your email subscribers. If you’d like some direct support on your email marketing strategy, take a look at the email marketing services we provide to help you meet your marketing goals.

While this report provides valuable context, it’s essential to focus on your own metrics. Optimization is crucial for continuous improvement, thereby helping your brand stay competitive. It’s about learning what truly resonates with your audience through regular testing and refinement.

In this guide, we explore what marketing optimization is and provide practical strategies. We’ll also show you how Dotdigital’s features can help you achieve better results with every email you send.

What is marketing optimization?

Marketing optimization is all about tweaking and improving your marketing campaigns to get the best possible results. It’s like fine-tuning a car engine to make it run smoother and faster. Instead of just guessing what might work, you use data and analysis to figure out what’s actually effective and what isn’t.

It’s not a one-and-done deal; it’s an ongoing process of testing, analyzing, and making adjustments. The goal is to make your marketing more efficient and effective, whether that’s driving more traffic to your website, generating more leads, boosting conversion rates, keeping customers around longer, or getting the most bang for your buck.

Think of it as a scientific approach to marketing. You set clear goals, identify key performance indicators (KPIs), make changes, and then measure the impact of those changes. This way, you can learn what really clicks with your audience and keep refining your strategies to get better and better results. 

Key marketing optimization strategies

So, how do you actually do marketing optimization? Let’s dive into some of the most effective strategies you can start using today.

1. A/B split testing

Ever wonder if your marketing could be doing more? Like, a lot more? That’s where split testing comes in. It’s like a friendly competition between different versions of your marketing materials to see which one your audience loves best. Think of it as a way to let your customers vote with their clicks.

Why is split testing so effective?

Imagine you have two ideas for an email subject line. Instead of guessing which one is better, you can use split testing. You send one subject line to half of your audience and the other subject line to the other half. Then, you can see which one gets more opens. Just like that, you know which one works better. Then you can use this knowledge when writing future subject lines. 

Split testing is incredibly useful because it eliminates the guessing game from the process. Instead, you’re using real data to make informed decisions. This means:

• Data-driven decisions: Forget subjective opinions and “best guesses.” Split testing provides concrete data to support your marketing choices, leading to more effective campaigns and a higher return on investment. You’re no longer relying on instincts; you’re basing your decisions on actual results.
• Improved performance: By consistently identifying and implementing the strategies that work best, you can enhance your campaigns over time and achieve progressively better results. It’s a process of incremental improvement, where each test builds on the insights gained from the previous ones.
• Deeper audience understanding: Split testing offers valuable insights into your audience’s preferences, behaviors, and pain points. By understanding what motivates your audience, you can tailor your messaging for maximum impact and build stronger relationships.
• Increased ROI: Optimized campaigns lead to higher engagement rates, improved conversion rates, and ultimately, a stronger return on your marketing investment. By focusing on what works, you maximize the effectiveness of your marketing spend.

Split testing made simple with Dotdigital

Dotdigital’s split testing tool makes it easy to create different variations of your campaign. You can adapt subject lines, ‘friendly from’ names, and campaign creatives to test and compare.

Once your campaign is live, you can easily see in the reporting tab which version performed better and use that as a basis for your next test.

Just remember to test one thing at a time so you can be sure which change generated the boost in engagement.

Split testing ideas to get you started

Are you not sure where to begin split testing? Here are some ideas to kickstart your efforts:

Subject line variations

Experiment with different lengths, tones, keywords, and formats. Try incorporating emojis, posing questions, creating a sense of urgency (FOMO), or personalizing subject lines.

Friendly from name

Test different sender names, titles, or even brand personas. Vary your friendly from sender. Perhaps you send a newsletter – give it a name. Sending an end of year message from your CEO? Use their name as the sender. Adding variation and context in this way takes moments but can really engage your audience. 

First name personalization

Test the difference between ‘Hey there’ and ‘Hey, first name’. Adding a simple personalization shouldn’t take you long and you’ll soon be able to see if it’s worth it. 

Email copy

Explore different headlines, body copy, tone of voice, and storytelling approaches. Test different lengths of copy and see if shorter, more concise messages perform better than longer, more detailed ones.

Call-to-action (CTA)

Test out your CTA buttons. Something as simple as changing it from ‘learn more’ to ‘buy now’ or vice versa can see really different results. Play around with CTA language, placement, and frequency to gain a stronger understanding of how to drive clicks.  

Images and visuals

Test different image styles, sizes, placements, and even the use of GIFs or videos. See what kind of visuals best capture your audience’s attention and drive engagement.

Send time optimization

Experiment with sending your campaigns at different times of day or days of the week. Analyze your data to identify the optimal send times for your specific audience.

2. Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is all about boosting the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, like making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, downloading a resource, or requesting a demo. It’s about making the most of your existing traffic by turning more visitors into active users.

Landing page optimization

Your landing page is often the first impression potential customers have of your brand. It’s where they arrive after clicking on an ad, email link, or social media post. Optimizing these pages is key to maximizing conversions. Focus on:

• Clear and concise messaging: Your headline and copy should quickly communicate your value proposition and what you’re offering. Avoid jargon and highlight the benefits for the visitor. Keep it short and to the point.
• Compelling call-to-action(CTA): Your CTA should stand out and clearly indicate the action you want visitors to take (e.g., “Shop Now,” “Get Your Free Trial,” “Download the Guide”). Use action-oriented language and make the button visually appealing.
• Persuasive design: The layout, colors, and imagery should create a visually appealing and trustworthy experience. Ensure your landing page is easy to navigate and mobile-friendly.
• Social proof: Include testimonials, reviews, or case studies to build trust and credibility. Seeing that others have benefited from your product or service can significantly influence conversion rates.

Personalization

Personalization is a necessity for boosting conversion rates. By tailoring the user experience to each individual visitor, you create a more engaging and relevant journey that drives conversions. Dotdigital’s powerful personalization engine provides the advanced tools you need to use your customer data and deliver truly personalized content and offers.

Dynamic personalized banners

Your hero banner is prime real estate. It’s the first thing visitors see, and it needs to grab their attention and instantly communicate your site’s value. Dynamic personalized banners allow you to display the most relevant images and messaging to each visitor, based on their past behavior, demographics, or other key data points. This means your headline will be more likely to keep your visitors engaged.

Product recommendations

We take product recommendations to the next level, allowing you to customize not just what products are shown, but also how they’re recommended. This granular control lets you optimize for different stages of the customer journey and maximize engagement. Here are just a few strategies you can implement:

• Homepage: Experiment with different recommendation strategies on your homepage. A/B test “Bestsellers” against “New Arrivals” to discover which drives longer browsing sessions and higher click-through rates.
• Product listing pages: Make shopping a breeze by reducing friction. Show recommendations that are perfectly tailored to each shopper, preventing them from feeling overwhelmed by too many choices.
• Product detail pages: Turn every product detail page into an opportunity for upselling and cross-selling by suggesting complementary products that enhance the main item.
• Cart pages: Give shoppers a final chance to discover more items they might love before they check out.

Countdown timers

Countdown timers can be a great way to create a sense of urgency and inspire immediate action from your visitors. By showcasing limited-time offers or deals that are about to expire, you tap into the psychology of scarcity, which can help boost conversions. 

Form optimization

Forms are often a necessary step in the conversion process, but they can also be a major source of friction. Optimizing your forms is essential for making it as easy as possible for visitors to convert. Consider these best practices:

• Keep it short and sweet: Only ask for the information you absolutely need. The longer the form, the more likely visitors are to abandon it.
• Clear field labels: Use clear and concise labels for each field to avoid confusion.
• Easy-to-use fields: Make sure the form fields are easy to fill out on all devices.
• Progress indicators: If the form has multiple steps, use a progress indicator to show visitors how far they have to go.
• Error messages: Provide clear and helpful error messages if a visitor enters incorrect information.
• Security and privacy: Reassure visitors that their information is safe and secure. Display security badges or privacy policy links.

3. Customer segmentation

Customers are not all alike; they have unique needs, preferences, and motivations. Trying to communicate with everyone using the same generic message is like shouting into a crowd—you’re probably going to go unnoticed.

That’s where customer segmentation comes in. It’s a key way of optimizing your marketing. Segmentation helps break down your audience into smaller groups with similar traits, allowing you to customize your messaging and make a bigger impact.

Each audience persona has its own set of preferences. Tools like a single customer view (SCV) and persona lookalike tools are really helpful in uncovering these differences and creating more effective segments.

Single customer view (SCV)

A SCV is a central hub for all your customer data. It collects information from different sources—like website interactions, purchase history, email responses, and CRM data—to create a complete picture of each customer.

Having this thorough understanding helps you spot patterns and preferences that might otherwise go unnoticed.  For example, you might discover that one segment of customers prefers a casual, conversational tone in your marketing, while another segment responds more positively to a formal approach.

Finding your lookalikes with persona tools

Once you’ve identified these preferences, you can use a persona lookalike tool to create segments based on these insights. This tool helps you find other customers who share similar characteristics with your identified personas. By segmenting your future sends to fit these preferences, you can tailor your messaging to resonate more effectively with each group.

Segment your customers

By digging deep into your results and using these tools, you can create highly targeted segments that reflect the unique preferences of your audience. This allows you to optimize your campaigns for each segment, leading to higher engagement and better overall performance.

Measure the metrics that matter

Tracking the right metrics is important for understanding how well your optimization efforts are working. Here are some key performance indicators (KPIs) you should keep an eye on:

• Open rate: This is the percentage of recipients who opened your email. If your open rate is low, it might be time to rethink your subject line or sender name. Even though overall open rates are less reliable since Apple’s updates, tracking your open rates from send to send will give you an insight into each campaign’s performance.
• Click-through rate (CTR): This measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in your email. A high CTR indicates that your email content and call-to-action are compelling.
• Click-to-open rate (CTOR): This is the percentage of recipients who opened your email and then clicked on a link. CTOR gives you a deeper insight into how engaging your email content is for those who open it.
• Conversion rate: This is the percentage of recipients who completed a desired action, like making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource. Your conversion rate is a key indicator of your campaign’s overall success.
• Unsubscribe rate: This is the percentage of recipients who unsubscribed from your email list. A high unsubscribe rate could signal problems with your email content, frequency, or targeting.
• Bounce rate: This is the percentage of emails that were not delivered to the recipient’s inbox. High bounce rates can hurt your sender reputation and should be addressed promptly.

By keeping track of these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into your audience’s behavior and preferences, allowing you to fine-tune your marketing for even better results.

Optimize your marketing with Dotdigital

Marketing optimization is a continuous journey, and Dotdigital is your ideal partner every step of the way. By using the strategies in this guide and tapping into Dotdigital’s features, you can enhance engagement, boost conversions, and reach your marketing objectives. With tools for A/B testing, segmentation, automation, and analytics, Dotdigital equips you with everything you need to get the most out of your marketing.

Marshalls Gardens is a UK online specialist gardening retailer that is run by gardeners for gardeners. Founded over 75 years ago, the company’s heritage and expertise is the supply of vegetable seeds and plants, including seed potatoes, onion sets, fruit plants and trees, to grow-your-own gardens.

Making the move from mass email marketing to hyper-personalized automations

Gardening is one of the most popular pastimes in the UK and Marshalls Gardens aims to provide a service to everyone. From green-fingered growers to those who are starting their horticultural journey, with little or no experience of what to grow, when and where, whether in a garden, balcony or allotment.

Pre-ordering garden supplies online makes perfect sense, as it ensures customers receive their seeds and plants at the optimal time to give them every chance of success in the growing season ahead. However, the changeable nature of the British weather and shifting seasons, as well as the emergence of new varieties of plants, means that Marshalls Gardens needs to be proactive in sharing its knowledge with customers to ensure they make the right choices.

Email is the main channel the company uses to share time-sensitive information with its customers, but it lacked the personal touch. Paul King at Marshalls Gardens explains, “When I joined Marshalls Garden in 2022 the email strategy was to send every campaign to every contact on the database. The bounce rate was high and open rates were low. One of my first tasks was deciding the best way to segment the database so that customers only received relevant content.”

Gaining a deep understanding of customer buying and browsing behaviour

Marshalls Gardens turned to Dotdigital to help develop a strategy to introduce segmentation, personalization and automation into its email marketing. Success in gardening and email marketing requires the right groundwork. The first step was to segment the customer database into the company’s four main areas of business – Grow Your Own, Ornamental, Seeds and Gardening (compost, feeds, tools etc). Identifying buying behaviour was made easier through an integration between Dotdigital and the Shopify system being used by the company.

To improve the quality of new customer data and to encourage greater engagement, the Dotdigital Professional Services team built a Customer Preference Centre. The page on the website encourages visitors to share details about themselves, their type of gardening and information they would like to receive.

A new email strategy was developed to deliver hyper-personalized product recommendations and care advice via campaigns and automations. Paul adds: “At this point, we also decided to move our cart abandonment campaigns from Shopify to Dotdigital, so that we could execute and manage our entire email strategy through a single platform.”

Today, Marshalls Gardens sends a wide range of emails that include personalized product recommendations, post-purchase advice on how to care for crops, cart and browse abandonment, and replenishment reminders, as well as its monthly email newsletter. Paul explains: “We are now able to recommend products we think the customer will like, along with the quantity they need, based on the size of the space they have told us they are working with.”

By running all of our email marketing through Dotdigital we have been able to make decisions on what campaign and even what version of an email to send to people in real-time, rather than having to make these decisions manually days before sending

Paul King, Email Marketing Manager

Segmentation, personalization and automation see revenue grow to £1.7 million

This proactive way of working is also allowing Marshalls Gardens to run follow-up campaigns, with decision nodes dictating if a contact is eligible for a resend, or whether they are enrolled in an automation and don’t need to be followed up within the original programme.

The impact has been impressive with Marshalls Gardens growing its email list by more than 44,000 contacts in the last 12 months. By engaging and sharing its expertise with more customers the company has also seen a huge increase in revenue from its email activity, with a 61% increase to £1.7 million in its 2023/2024 financial year.

Your online store is a living, breathing entity, as alive as the shoppers who browse it. It requires constant attention to ensure it’s as user-friendly and conversion-boosting as possible. What worked when you set it up won’t necessarily work for today’s shoppers, and that’s where testing and optimization comes in.

In marketing, testing and optimizing is the process of testing variations of content, design or functionality, monitoring test results and fine-tuning your website, emails and other customer touchpoints.

It’s a constant process, with each test building upon the results and insight from previous tests. When purpose-led and done consistently, it allows you to incrementally improve your website and other marketing channels to become more in-tune with your customers’ needs and behavior, as well as your business goals. This helps you increase revenue and improve the user experience.

Benefits of testing and optimization

The process of testing and optimizing is packed full of benefits for your business:

• It eliminates guesswork and helps you make data-driven decisions
• It enables you to collect useful customer insights
• It helps you refine and optimize your onsite personalization
• It improves your customers’ shopping experience, which in turn means…
• It reduces cart and browse abandonment
• It boosts conversion rates
• It boosts ROI

Methods of testing

A/B testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method that compares two versions of a variable (for example a web banner or whole web page), showing each version to equal numbers of users at random to determine which performs better against a business goal.

In an A/B test, A is the ‘control’ or original variable, and B is the new version.

When it use it

A/B testing is useful when you want to test two specific variables against each other.

Multivariate testing

Multivariate testing (MVT testing) is a method used to test multiple variables. Conducting multivariate tests is more complicated than the A/B approach, but can yield rich results as the goal is to assess which combination of variables performs best out of all possible combinations.

An example of this could be testing different variations of your hero banner, headline and CTA text to find out which combination of the variables for the three elements produces the best results for your website.

When to use it

This method is most suited to businesses who receive a significant amount of traffic to their websites or have a significant email database.

Multi-armed bandit

Multi-armed bandit is a ground-breaking approach that produces faster results. It allows you to test several variations and uses machine learning to automatically serve the variation that best meets your pre-defined goal, such as increasing average order value, conversions or identification rate of site visitors. Plus, it will keep monitoring all variants, which means if one variant suddenly starts performing better, it will show that one to more visitors.

When to use it

Multi-armed bandit is a prime method for boosting conversion rate and can be particularly useful for businesses where the opportunity cost of lost conversions is too high, such as luxury goods.

Since multi-armed bandit produces fast results, it’s also an effective method to use during short-lived campaigns, such as during peak season promotions.

Testing and SEO

While conducting tests to improve the customer experience is a big tick from Google, there are a few technical considerations to take into account.

SEO issues

The main SEO issues that arise from carrying out tests are due to the following:

1) Cloaking

Cloaking is when you present one version of a web page to search engine bots while showing a different version to the users who visit it. Search engines can interpret this as foul play.

We treat search engine bots the same as we treat real visitors interacting with your site, so your efforts will not be seen as a manipulation.

2) Page duplication

Duplicate content can negatively impact your search engine ranking and dilute the visibility of your content. This is because search engines rarely show multiple versions of the same content and are forced to choose which version to rank for query results.

If you’re using conducting tests on your website, you could unintentionally be creating duplicate content, since different visitors are served variations of content. If the original content is important for your web page’s search rankings, we recommend keeping this content onsite in the page’s static source code rather than completely replacing it with dynamic content.

3) Performance

Site speed is one of many key factors in Google’s search ranking algorithm. Here are some of the key ways to minimize the effect that testing can have on your site speed:

• Our content and scripts load asynchronously and are appropriately cached, so as not to slow down the page load time.
• The script is hosted on a global CDN to reduce the time to serve and ensure the site won’t have an additional external dependency.
• We configure DNS prefetching for all clients, speeding up the time it takes your site to load.

Server-side vs client-side testing

There are two technical approaches to take into consideration when testing your website: server-side vs client-side.

Client-side

Client-side is a common approach whereby tests and onsite personalization are rendered from the browser via a piece of Javascript on the client-side.

The client-side approach is easy to use, making it suitable for all stakeholders to implement. There’s more flexibility, since you can make changes quickly and easily. Plus, it doesn’t require advanced technical or scripting skills and it’s quicker to implement.

But the downsides of this approach are that the personalized elements load after the main page has loaded, developers have less control and it doesn’t integrate with web deployment frameworks as changes can be deployed at any time.

Server-side

Many businesses are now also making use of the server-side approach to implement tests and onsite personalization without any impact on performance. This approach allows businesses to call tests and personalized experiences on the back-end side before the page is rendered. It means that all changes are made on the server, before it reaches the browser, allowing businesses to reap the benefits of faster page speed.

This approach also integrates well with proprietary frameworks. There’s also increased data security, since sensitive data doesn’t need to be stored client-side, and your personalized content cannot be blocked by script blockers, cookie blockers or other privacy protection approaches.

On the downside, this approach requires much more involvement by technical teams and developers, there’s a longer implementation period and it can be hard or impossible for marketing and commerce teams to make rapid tests and changes.

Best approach

It’s important to look for a testing and personalization platform that offers a hybrid approach, so you can get the best of both worlds.

For example, you could use a client-side approach for initial testing via front-end personalization, because it’s easy to change, quick to iterate and agile. Then once you know which personalized experience performs best, you could switch to a server-side approach for faster loading of personalized content and optimal SEO.

What to test

Now you know more about the benefits and different methods, it’s time to think about what to test. Here are four ideas to get you started.

1) Wait times for triggered emails

Triggered emails are emails that are sent automatically after an individual takes a certain action, such as abandoning their cart before completing their purchase. Experimenting with different wait times (for example, 20 minutes versus two hours) can be an effective and simple step towards increasing conversions.

Example

Since setting up their browse abandonment emails, Awaze has been testing deployment times to compare the difference in performance between sending the first email 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes after abandonment. After one month, the team found that browse abandonment emails sent 15 minutes after abandonment yield the best conversion rate for their cottages.com and Hoseasons brands.

2) Dynamic hero banner content

The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text, which means your hero banner image does a lot of heavy lifting and it’s worth experimenting to see what resonates best with your audience.

Example

Getting Personal tested the effects of dynamic name personalization on their emails with a series of A/B tests. The results showed that with dynamic name personalization, click-through rates increased by 15% and conversion rates increased by 7%. What’s more, they saw a 37% uplift in sales.

3) Types of product recommendations

Product recommendations are a staple of all good eCommerce and travel websites. But with lots of different types of recommendations to choose from, it’s useful to test which ones work best for your website.

For example, try measuring the difference between bestsellers vs new arrivals. Showcasing bestsellers is a great way to give your customers a helping hand with their purchase decision by harnessing wisdom of the crowd, while new arrivals can help shoppers by playing to our built-in expectation that something new must be better than what came before. They are both effective types of product recommendations but one might be a particularly effective conversion booster for your website.

Look Fabulous Forever displays best selling items on their homepage, while Space NK showcases new arrivals.

Tools to help you test and optimize your marketing

Test hypothesis with just a few clicks and intelligently optimize strategies for maximum ROI with our comprehensive testing and optimization functionality.

You can:

• Intelligently allocate traffic to variations that are performing well with automatic optimization
• Use A/B tests to try new marketing ideas on a subset of shoppers and refine your personalization
• Dive into up-to-the minute insight with real-time analytics and reporting
• Automatically end tests on a set date or number of impressions and display the variant that generated most revenue
• Determine the influence of the tested variable on results with control groups

Learn more about Dotdigital personalization and book a demo to discover how we could help you achieve your business goals.

FAQs

What are the different types of testing in eCommerce?

In eCommerce, there are various types of testing including:

• A/B testing to compare two versions of a webpage or element
• Multivariate testing to analyze multiple variables simultaneously
• Usability testing to evaluate user experience
• Split testing to assess different strategies’ effectiveness in increasing conversions

What is the role of A/B testing in eCommerce optimization?

A/B testing compares two versions of a webpage or element to determine which performs better in terms of conversions and user engagement. It identifies changes that lead to increased sales, improved user experience, and overall website enhancement.

Why is eCommerce optimization important?

eCommerce optimization enhances the online shopping experience, increases conversion rates, boosts revenue, and maximizes the efficiency of digital marketing efforts. It ensures that websites and strategies are finely tuned to meet customer expectations and business goals.

In 1965, Sportif USA began as a small business in Southern California, headed by John G. Kirsch. In true entrepreneurial style, Kirsch sold tennis shorts from the back of his family’s station wagon, gradually building a reputation for quality and comfort.

As this reputation flourished, so too did the market for high-quality outdoor clothing. To reach a wider customer base and deliver products that met their unique needs, Sportif USA acquired new brands over the years, including the conscious clothing line, Aventura Clothing. Today, the family-owned business is a leader in the outdoor apparel industry and offers a diverse range of comfortable, functional, and sustainable clothing.

Searching for an advanced marketing automation and customer data platform

As Sportif USA knows, managing multiple apparel and footwear brands all under one roof can be tricky — especially amid stiff competition in the clothing industry. This was made even more challenging by a suite of marketing tools that lacked flexibility when it came to segmenting diverse audiences and delivering content that truly mattered. As a result, the marketing team struggled to bolster engagement, increase sales, and drive ROI.

As Ken Holden, Digital Marketing Manager with Sportif USA recalls, it was clear that they needed a more reliable platform as the company grew — one that would empower them with advanced cross-channel marketing automation and better customer intelligence.

“Having multiple brands within our company created the need to move to a more reliable and secure platform,” Ken says. “When we realized that our previous provider, StreamSend, wasn’t capable of managing this multi-brand platform, we knew it was time to move on.”

Leveraging Dotdigital’s advanced features to drive engagement and personalization

Sportif USA set out on their search and met with several potential providers. They quickly discovered that Dotdigital was the best fit thanks to its seamless integration with Magento and advanced capabilities like dynamic personalization and product recommendations. When they began the implementation process soon after, they were delighted by how Dotdigital went above and beyond to ensure they were set up for success.

“One of the biggest advantages of onboarding with Dotdigital was that there was always someone by our side,” Ken explains. “They took the time to walk us through their process, which seemed complicated at the start, but they worked hard to simplify it, sharing their wealth of knowledge at every step along the way. They wanted to ensure deliverability from the very get-go.”

Backed by a dedicated support team, Sportif USA’s transition to a new cross-channel marketing automation set-up was fast and seamless. Once they were up and running on Dotdigital, the team was able to focus on building innovative strategies that weren’t possible with their previous provider. As Ken explains, segmentation was one of the most powerful solutions for the team — and one that they embraced right off the bat.

“Segmentation has been pivotal in helping us gain a more granular understanding of our customers, improve deliverability, and increase open rates, so we’ve put a lot of attention into our segments and how we use them,” he says.

As Sportif USA gained more insight into their audiences, they began to better understand their customers’ unique reasons for shopping with the company, which ranged from the look of a product to its impact on the environment. This revealed that generalized messages weren’t always the best strategy to engage their varied audience. With Dotdigital’s segment builder, Sportif USA was able to group their customers based on certain criteria and target them with relevant messages. Dotdigital’s automation tools then let the team understand which content resonated most with their audience so they could create triggered campaigns.

“For instance, if we are talking to someone who is very passionate about fair trade, we have the ability to discover that within Dotdigital and create an automation program that builds on that message to educate the consumer on how we can help them in that area,” Ken adds.

Dotdigital’s landing pages and forms have also been incredibly useful. Sportif USA used these tools to promote a new online catalog offer. This made it easier than ever for customers to both order their catalog and browse a digital version that syncs to Sportif USA’s ecommerce site.

Sportif USA also created an online survey for customers who had made purchases, using simple building blocks in Dotdigital’s design tool. The team used their automation program to determine who to target and incentivized them to complete the survey to ensure a high response rate. The aggregated results were then exported into Google Data Studio, providing a strong visual representation of their customers that allowed them to more easily personalize future content to their preferences.

Using the vast amount of data collected through the platform, Sportif USA also created a variety of product recommendations through Dotdigital, enabling them to send personalized recommendations to their customers at the most optimized time in their journey. By suggesting relevant items based on shoppers’ browsed products, bought items, and more, the tool has made a huge impact in driving revenue.

Segmentation has been pivotal in helping us gain a more granular understanding of our customers, improve deliverability, and increase open rates…

Ken Holden, Digital Marketing Manager

Success with Dotdigital in driving ROI and revenue acceleration

Sportif USA was thrilled at the success they saw by partnering with Dotdigital. By sending meaningful messages that resonate with their audiences, their ROI in 2018 increased by over 35% and their revenue jumped an impressive 38%. Conversion rate on previously abandoned carts also rose 24%. Additionally, the team has saved time and worked more efficiently with automated campaigns, allowing them to focus on the bigger picture.

The massive impact of the partnership has been felt throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. With customers stuck at home and turning to online shopping in droves, Dotdigital helped Sportif USA maintain a connection with their audience when it mattered most. As a result, the company’s revenue grew by 100% in 2020. The use of the landing pages and forms has been invaluable, so much so that revenue is still up 20% this year.

Enhancing customer insights and campaigns with Dotdigital’s tools and strategies

In the months to come, Sportif USA plans to continue to gain deeper customer insights and deliver more relevant campaigns through the data collected by Dotdigital’s landing pages and forms tools. In addition, they are continually growing their automations on a weekly basis, and discovering new strategies to build these in areas like product abandonment, cart abandonment, and more.

“There are so many things that we can do now, thanks to Dotdigital,” Ken adds. “The hardest part is choosing just one area to focus on and grow, because all of it is so exciting.”