How to Generate 23% More Email Revenue in the Low Summer SALE Season Than in the High Season: PUMA Case Study

Among our partners, there are many with whom Netpeak has had a long and interesting history of cooperation. Such cooperation certainly produces great results. For this client, we had done global, large-scale, and long-term work with the organic channel and paid advertising in the SEO+PPC complex. This included individual campaigns that lasted only a month but generated significant revenues. This is our case study of email marketing for PUMA.

The client

PUMA is a global leader in the sports fashion niche and the market leader in Ukraine. Needless to say, PUMA clothing and footwear are popular worldwide and are known for their quality, unique style, and creativity.

The brand regularly launches collaborations and themed limited collections.

Accordingly, PUMA’s advertising campaigns always attract significant attention, as they tend to feature top sports and show business personalities. Many global celebrities also use PUMA products. Among them are Rihanna, Antoine Griezmann, Selena Gomez, Neymar, Cara Delevingne, Adriana Lima, Usain Bolt, and many more.

Campaign objectives

Our team was faced with the task of increasing revenue from the email channel during the off-season, i.e., during the summer sales period. It was an interesting challenge because we aimed to achieve higher results in June 2023 than in November 2022, which was when Black Friday was in full swing.

Our objectives:

1. Increase off-season sales by 20%.
2. Increase email engagement with existing and new contacts.
3. Increase conversions and revenue from email campaigns.
4. Diversify content during the seasonal sale.

Incidentally, the summer sale did not include any new seasonal products, so to interest the public in a less trendy assortment added an additional layer of challenge to the project. To overcome this, it was necessary to stimulate sales using various tools.

Team strategy

First, we analyzed past sales and results. We identified the best practices, improved them, and adapted them for the summer season.

1. Omnichannel marketing

Multiple channels were used to promote the seasonal sale: email, Viber, and web push. This allowed us to increase the number of sessions on the website.

Email:

Viber: 

Web push:

2. Special design for the sale announcement

During the sale, a special design was launched on the PUMA website. We synchronized the visuals of the emails announcing the sale with the design of the sale itself. These emails were repeated regularly to raise awareness of the sale, quickly associate it with the brand, and remind customers who had postponed their purchase for later.

This strategy proved highly effective during Black Friday and the winter sale, so it was used to promote the summer sale as well.

There were several phases to the sale. We amended the emails for each phase accordingly.

3. Adding a SALE message to emails on different topics

To keep subscribers interested in the emails and maintain open rates, we used different subject lines and a variety of content. But in each email, they were reminded of the seasonal sale.

Discounts on wardrobe essentials

Bestselling items with discounts

4. Using summer-related newsworthy events

To maintain the open rate and subscriber loyalty, we included summer news events to diversify the content. 

Children's Day

Summer trends

5. Gamification

To increase conversion, loyalty, and engagement, we used email gamification. Of course, each email contained a reminder of the sale.

Before evaluating the results of our promotion, it's worth mentioning that we were already engaged in a comprehensive email campaign for PUMA, which began in September 2022.

Additional revenue from growing the email base

From November 2022 to June 2023, new subscription forms helped grow the email list. This, in turn, increased revenue from promotional and triggered mailings. The average order value also increased compared to 2022.

Triggers and product recommendations

Because the site was running a summer sale, customers visited the site more frequently and added products to their shopping carts. In addition, a block of product recommendations titled You may also like was displayed on most pages. When a visitor viewed a product and added it to the cart but did not purchase it, we sent triggered reminder emails.

As a result, the PUMA site got more site visitors, more actions on the site, and more triggered emails. All of this cumulatively had a positive impact on revenue.

Increase products added to cart: June 2023 and May 2023

Promotion results

Internal analytics for promotional emails in June 2023:

CR is the click rate of all those who received the newsletter. CTR is the click-through rate of those who opened the newsletter.

Even though all the communication in June was about the summer sale, the open rate dropped only slightly compared to the previous month, when the newsletter topics were more diverse. So, we managed to keep customers interested in our newsletters while maintaining a consistent overall theme for the month.

At the same time, CR and CTR increased, which means that including the sales selections in emails with different topics increased interest in the products and drove conversions to the website.

The effectiveness of gamification:

We can see that the gamification emails have a much higher performance than the rest of the promotional emails for the month. Nearly a third of customers who received an email with the correct answer to a game containing a sales election clicked through to the website. It's also worth noting that the emails with the correct answer had significantly higher CR and CTR.

Email channel statistics for June 23 and May 23:

Email channel statistics for June 23 and November 2022:

Overall performance comparison: June 2023 vs. May 2023 vs. November 2022

In November 2022, the number of email sessions was significantly higher due to the peak season and the higher number of Black Friday campaigns.

In June 2023, we reduced the number of mailings, but this was offset by a higher number of triggered emails due to seasonal sales and increased customer activity on the website.

Conclusions

1. Increasing revenue from the email channel during the off-season is an achievable goal.
2. We increased revenue by +32% compared to the previous month and +22.85% compared to November last year, when the Black Friday sale took place.
3. Here is how we achieved this result:

• Created a systematic communication strategy in promotional emails during the summer sale.
• Held a seasonal sale on the website, which allowed us to work out triggers and product recommendations on the website more frequently.