Email strategy teardown: Converse vs Toms
Great marketing is successful because it treats users as individuals.
Why Converse and Toms?
Great marketing is successful because it treats users as individuals — real living, breathing people— not just as email addresses. Great email marketing strategies succeed for the same reason.
I decided to break down the email strategy of two house name brands: local mega brand Converse and west coast giant TOMS.
I signed up for emails with Converse and TOMS. Took a few actions.
Then watched to see how the experience unfolded.
They’re both successful shoe brands that the Klaviyo team loves. We wanted to take a look under the hood and examine their email marketing strategy to see if they were doing everything that they could to send the best emails.
The backstory of Converse
Converse is a now-famous shoe brand with roots in Malden, Massachusetts right outside of Boston. Converse is known for their rubber sole and canvas upper shoe that was originally designed for basketball. In 2003, the company was purchased by Nike for $305 million.
A look at the history of TOMS
TOMS brand is built around their One for One business model, where they promise to donate a pair of shoes to someone in a developing nation for every pair of shoes sold. Founded in 2006 by a former contestant of the reality TV show “The Amazing Race”, TOMS has grown into a huge company.
Here's what happened with Converse
We signed up for their email newsletter and received welcome series and email newsletters.
We abandoned a cart and received robust abandon cart auto responders.
We purchased after the abandoned cart and received order confirmation and shipping emails.
Here's what happened with Toms...
We signed up for email newsletter and received promotions a few days later.
We abandoned a cart and they received an abandoned cart email series.
We purchased after the abandoned cart and received an order confirmation email.
Email deep dive
Let’s look at their three week email strategy.
1. Sign up for their emails
2. One week later abandoned a cart
3. Make a purchase a week later
Converse Emails
TOMS emails
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Email strategy deep dive
Let’s look at their three week email strategy.
1. Sign up for their emails
2. One week later abandoned a cart
3. Make a purchase a week later
Daily email strategy
Converse
TOMs
|
Welcome |
Abandoned cart |
Promotion |
Newsletter |
Order confirmation |
Shipping confirmation |
Promotion |
Newsletter |
Delivery confirmation |
Newsletter |
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|
Subscribed to emails |
Abandoned cart |
Purchase |
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|
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4 |
Day 5 |
Day 6 |
Day 7 |
Day 8 |
Day 9 |
Day 10 |
Day 11 |
Day 12 |
Day 13 |
Day 14 |
Day 15 |
Day 16 |
Day 17 |
Day 18 |
Day 19 |
Day 20 |
Day 21 |
Day 22 |
Day 23 |
Day 24 |
|
|
Subscribed to emails |
Abandoned cart |
Purchase |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Promotion |
Newsletter |
Abandoned cart |
Abandoned cart 2 |
Promotion |
Order confirmation |
Shipping confirmation |
Newsletter |
Newsletter |
Promotion |
Promotion |
Newsletter |
|||||||||||||
|
Newsletter |
The good, the bad, the ugly: Converse
Helpful visuals
They included pictures of the style that I abandoned and also included an image in the confirmation and order delivery emails that I received. Had I placed multiple orders, or done a lot of online shopping, this would have been really helpful.
Dynamic recommendations
They used dynamic product recommendations in many of their emails.
Multiple from senders
Stick to one from sender to minimize confusion.
Boring preview text
Converse should spice up their preview text.
Right now it isn’t saying anything or it is boring.
The good, the bad, the ugly: Toms
Dynamic coupons
The introduction of a dynamic coupon that auto-populates into a new subscribers shopping cart was interesting and kept me on the site. This seems to be a new play for them.
Shipping confirmation email
A timely shipping confirmation email was a great post-purchase experience.
Fix preview text
All of their preview text was broken. This is just good housekeeping and should increase opens.
Limited images
Toms should include images of the products that were abandoned in their follow up.
And the winner is..
With a strong brand, multi-touch abandoned cart, dynamic recommendations, and helpful visuals, Converse is the winner in this battle.
