How Paper Source Drove 171x ROI From Black Friday to Cyber Monday 2020

Challenge

Facing a holiday shopping season like no other, Paper Source was looking for a new way to directly engage busy shoppers and drive incremental revenue.

Solution

Paper Source partnered with Attentive to engage their audience during the holiday shopping season and beyond with personalized text messaging. The brand launched custom onsite mobile and desktop creatives—featuring an exclusive Cyber Week incentive—to quickly scale their list of text messaging subscribers. Paper Source also leveraged Attentive’s Journeys to send triggered personalized text messages based on behavioral data to automatically drive incremental sales.  

We quickly launched our program and scaled our list of SMS subscribers with Attentive ahead of the holiday season. From the get-go, we’ve seen that our text messaging subscribers are more likely to convert. Being able to directly engage our most loyal subscribers has already made a tremendous impact on our holiday performance, placing us in an incredibly strong position heading into 2021.”
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– Liz Owens, VP of Marketing, Paper Source

Strategy

Paper Source seamlessly drives both email and text messaging subscriber opt-ins on their mobile and desktop websites, using Attentive’s email-first sign-up solution. Paper Source recognized the opportunity to rapidly scale their list of subscribers during Cyber Week—a period of increased web traffic for retailers—and launched custom sign-up units featuring an exclusive incentive.

After a subscriber joins, they receive an automated welcome message introducing them to Paper Source’s text messaging program, including a link back to their website so subscribers can take advantage of their holiday offer right away. If a subscriber has not redeemed their offer within 24 hours of receiving the first welcome message, Paper Source automatically sends them a reminder to use their limited-time offer.

Knowing their subscribers were likely completing the majority of their holiday purchases during Cyber Week, Paper Source automatically sent personalized reminders to subscribers who left items in their online shopping cart. If a subscriber leaves just one item in their shopping cart, the message is personalized with the product name to remind shoppers of what they’re missing out on. By doing so, Paper Source was able to recover otherwise lost revenue, without any extra work during Cyber Week.

To ensure a seamless shopping experience, Paper Source sent subscribers a text message in the days leading up to Black Friday inviting them to “beat the crowds and save time with curbside pickup.” The brand linked directly back to their website so subscribers could find their nearest location, along with a coupon to redeem for their curbside order. Highlighting this omnichannel shopping experience helped Paper Source stay top-of-mind ahead of Black Friday and drive early Cyber Week sales—especially as in-store and curbside pickup purchases increased 52% over last year.

Paper Source maintained their omnichannel strategy on Black Friday, when they invited text messaging subscribers to shop exclusive offers online and in-store. The morning of Black Friday, the brand sent SMS subscribers two different limited-time offers to redeem online or at their nearest location: a buy one, get one offer for games in-store, and a percentage off online orders exceeding $75.

Paper Source broke through the noise and stayed top-of-mind on Cyber Monday by sending a mid-day reminder to shop their limited-time sale. The message encouraged shoppers to prepare for the holidays by purchasing stocking stuffers, gifts, wrapping paper, holiday cards, and more. Paper Source included a direct link back to their website where shoppers could enjoy 20% off their online order.

Results

Paper Source’s Cyber Week list growth strategy built an audience of incredibly engaged subscribers: the brand’s holiday welcome message saw a 54.7% click-through rate and ultimately drove a 51.1% conversion rate. Overall, their automated messages drove 85% of their total SMS revenue from Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The direct and engaging nature of text messaging powered an overall program ROI of 171.3x. Paper Source’s text messaging campaign strategy helped the brand immediately reach shoppers while ensuring each subscriber could shop their preferred way—online, in-store, or by using curbside pickup options. The brand’s pre-Black Friday message alerting subscribers of their curbside pickup option drove a 10.9% conversion rate. On Black Friday, their in-store and online sale announcement drove a conversion rate of 14.9%. Finally, the brand’s Cyber Monday sale reminder drove a conversion rate of 18.2%.