By Bill Higbee*
Retail’s busiest sales period is almost here, Cyber Week, which includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With the pressure to maximize sales during this time, it’s vital that businesses prepare to deliver personalized, high-quality customer experiences. We recently hosted a Cyber Week 2024 preparation webinar with experts from Twilio, Shopify, and Klaviyo to discuss best practices for success during this peak sales period.
It was a pleasure to speak with one of our most innovative customers when it comes to customer engagement and communication strategies during Cyber Week, which is why we’ve summarized some of the key insights and tips for digital engagement and strategic investments we uncovered during this webinar. The panelists highlighted the staggering scale of communication that took place during Cyber Week 2023, showing how platforms like Twilio, Shopify, and Klaviyo support such high volumes of interactions during this time. Last year, Twilio sent 68 billion emails and messages, while Klaviyo users sent over 11.6 million messages per minute during peak hours, generating nearly $$60 million in attributed value to Klaviyo per hour.
Shopify, which accounts for over 10% of total U.S. e-commerce, saw 61 million consumers worldwide purchase from Shopify-hosted stores during Cyber Week 2023. These impressive numbers underscore the importance of robust communications strategies during this time.
Best Practices for a Successful Cyber Week
Given the scale of volumes sent during Cyber Week, preparation is key to success. Here are some best practices to consider:
- Start preparing early – Cyber Week success depends on year-round preparation. As Kiersti Esparza of Klaviyo says, “Preparation for the next Cyber Week starts the day after this one ends.” To make sure you’re ready, start planning your strategies, campaigns, and operational processes as early as possible;
- Ensure deliverability – Deliverability is crucial for Cyber Week. High volumes of messages make deliverability issues even more risky, with the potential to appear on spam blocklists or have your messages throttled. Make sure you only send to engaged customers who have given explicit consent to receive your communications. Shopify’s Chris Borgia highlighted the importance of maintaining list hygiene and validating your lists using tools like SendGrid’s Email Validation API;
- Target audiences – Personalization is key to driving success. Last Cyber Week, nearly 47% of purchases made by Klaviyo customers came from repeat buyers. Leveraging segmentation and targeting based on customer behavior – such as order frequency, average spend, or engagement metrics – can help increase repeat purchases and strengthen customer loyalty. Targeting the right audience with personalized messaging across preferred channels ensures your campaigns are relevant and engaging;
- Maintain compliance and monitor metrics – Compliance requirements have evolved and best practices are now required standards. To avoid blocklisting and penalties, keep your complaint rates below 0.1% and, for messaging (e.g. SMS), always obtain documented consent. Shopify has emphasized using metrics like delivery rate, open rate, and conversion rates to assess performance. The key is not just the volume of messages sent, but how effective those messages are at driving action.
Overcoming challenges: stability, delivery capacity and customer expectations
The webinar also addressed common challenges during Cyber Week, such as platform stability, deliverability issues, and rising consumer expectations. Both Klaviyo and Shopify emphasized the importance of “observability,” or constant monitoring of communication systems and metrics to ensure everything is running smoothly.
Shopify’s Chris Borgia noted that while deliverability concerns during Cyber Week are similar to those of any other time of year, the stakes are much higher. With more risk, there’s less room for error. So businesses need to consistently monitor performance metrics like inbox placement and complaint rates to mitigate issues before they escalate.
The importance of multichannel strategies
Another key point discussed was the power of using multi-channel communication strategies. At least 751% of consumers are open to receiving text messages from brands that interest them, and 911% of consumers expect brands to communicate through their preferred channels. This highlights a significant opportunity for retailers to increase satisfaction, increase brand loyalty and ultimately drive more conversions through the integrated use of channels such as email, SMS and push notifications.
Top Recommendations for a Successful Cyber Week
- Focus on quality over quantity – As tempting as it may be to increase the volume of messages during Cyber Week, speakers reiterated that success lies in the effectiveness of your communication – not just the amount you send. Often, less can mean more if messages are personalized and relevant;
- Monitor engagement – Keep an eye on engagement metrics like click-through rates, open rates, and conversion rates. These metrics indicate whether your messages are reaching and resonating with your audience;
- Compliance is non-negotiable – Adhering to compliance regulations is critical, regardless of the communication channel you’re using. Make sure you have documented consent and meet relevant federal, regional, or vendor compliance requirements.
*Bill Higbee is a Senior Product Manager at Twilio.
About Twilio
Today's leading companies rely on Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) to build direct, personalized relationships with their customers around the world. Twilio's core communication APIs allow businesses to engage with their customers through voice, conversations, messaging, video and email. Twilio Segment, the leading customer data platform, enables companies to create highly personalized interactions and automated customer profiles based on first-party data from multiple channels. Twilio enables companies to use communications and data to add intelligence to every step of the customer journey, from sales to marketing, growth, customer service and many other engagement use cases, in a flexible and programmatic way. In 180 countries, millions of developers and hundreds of thousands of businesses use Twilio to create magical experiences for their customers.
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Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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