The Email Wars

So these past 7 weeks (July 17th to August 27th), I have been reporting and tracking the email campaigns from Abercrombie and Fitch on the use of WIDE, horizontal email formats. I have seen 12 in total over this period of time and have been fascinated with the results that they might be getting from these tests. It is not very often that retailers, or anyone for that matter, use this format and as I saw more and more come out I was sure that it was due to great results.

Why? Well they are a smart marketing machine. After hypothesizing on my own and with others in the industry, I thought it was time to reach out to their team and ask. Since we had placed our “Spy” KillROI (the eROI Spam fighting Robot) into the AF offices some time ago we had an in. I reached out at the end of last week to see if they had some details that they would not mind sharing publicly with the rest of us to learn from. Now what I can share is not going to be the top secret results. As there are others out there that they compete against that would love to copy what they are doing (actually I have now spied American Eagle ripping off, I mean testing, the same WIDE idea) and we don’t want that.

The results are that the emails are working inline with the results they would expect from traditional vertical formats. I am sure that they will be testing more and mixing up the two formats based on opens, clicks and conversions (sales). This is good news to me as we often try new things like this and the client reactions are mixed at the approach. It is not for everyone and there has to be a good reason for using the wide format.

So why would they try the wide format?

Have you ever visited their site? If you have not you should as it might all make sense. The entire shopping experience scrolls from left to right, just like you would do with a wide email format. Interesting, huh? So those people that opt in and shop from AF would be accustomed to viewing an email in the same manner, even though traditionally we don’t often get emails that scroll left to right. So the subscribers have already been conditioned for this email format.

Now in the 12 that I received, I noticed that widths were different in some cases. Why is this important to note? Well many of them were built too wide for Outlook, which I would assume could make up a significant percentage of the subscriber base. We have learned from creating wide emails that Outlook has some width conditions that fail if the creative is over 2200 pixels wide. Good thing to know if you want to ever experiment and test this layout format, right? Well looks like they learned after a few tests as the size started to standardize at or around 2200 pixels. In the future it is even better to err on the side of caution (a little under 2200 px)  just in case you have some odd backgrounds or padding associated with your email delivery system.

I have included some examples of some of the tests that I have seen from them. Also included are two others we’ve created and used for a client in a medium that is all about changing traditional behavior.

So you know, it all makes sense when to build on these approaches to testing. Doing something different does not always mean radical but rather unexpected. The inbox is filled with expected so look to test something in your industry vertical that might get you some attention.

Go forth and mix it up, measure, and learn. Testing does not kill your results, resting on your success does.

UPDATE: Make that a Baker’s Dozen (13) now for AF. Another one arrived this AM in the WIDE style. And it was was 2250X750 Pixels. Little too wide for all email clients.

See it here.