The Challenge 🤔
A regional landscape supply retailer wanted to validate email marketing as a revenue channel ahead of the busy spring season. They had never run email campaigns before and needed to prove the channel could drive incremental sales, re-engage past visitors, and grow a subscriber base for future promotions. The first 30 days (August 6 to September 6) were about testing the email’s impact, not large-scale revenue.
ScaledOn’s Strategy and Execution 🧠
We launched a lean but effective email strategy to establish proof of concept:
- Seasonal Promotional Campaigns: Targeted emails highlighting high-demand products, crafted with clear subject lines and calls to action.
- Abandoned Cart Automation: A simple follow-up flow designed to recover missed sales opportunities.
- Welcome Popup Capture: A signup form on the site to convert visitors into subscribers from day one.
- Deliverability Best Practices: Careful monitoring of inbox placement and engagement to ensure a strong initial impression.
The Key Results 🙌
We saw strong early performance, with results that compare favorably to both global and Australia-based benchmarks:
- Total store revenue more than doubled (≈ +101%) compared to the previous 30-day baseline.
- Email marketing contributed ~8% of total revenue in its first month, which was a meaningful incremental lift for a newly launched channel. Mature ecommerce operations often see 10–15% from email. (Source: M+R Benchmarks 2025)
- Promotional campaigns achieved 95% deliverability, ~35–36% open rates, and 3.69% click rates, which is competitive against Australia’s 46.34% national average open rate (Spinifex Communications) and typical retail benchmarks of 30–40% opens and 2–4% clicks (Selzy, Growth-onomics).
- The abandoned cart flow achieved ~55% open rate and 5.19% click rate, which matches or slightly exceeds the common benchmarks of 50–55% opens for abandoned cart flows and is well above Australia’s ecommerce click-through averages (~3%) (Gorilla360).
- Returning customer rate jumped ~167%, suggesting email is not only attracting new business but also re-engaging past buyers.
- While click rates and conversion performance for some flows remain below top-performing benchmarks (e.g., abandoned cart order rates are often ~3.3%), this points to clear opportunities for optimization. (Source: Klaviyo Benchmarks)
Key Takeaways ✅
- Incremental Lift Is Meaningful
Email accounted for about 8% of total revenue in its first month, an encouraging start compared to the 10–15% contribution common among mature programs. - Strong Engagement Against Local Norms
Campaign open rates and abandoned cart performance are competitive relative to Australia’s 46.34% national average open rate and APAC ecommerce click averages. There is clear potential to approach or exceed those local benchmarks. - Early Wins Fuel Momentum
With overall revenue more than doubling compared to the prior month, email’s measurable lift confirms its role as a high-ROI channel worth scaling. - Growth Opportunities Remain
Expanding automations such as browse abandonment and post-purchase flows, refining audience segmentation, and continuing list growth will increase email’s share of revenue over time.
In just 30 days, email marketing moved from an untested idea to a proven revenue driver, contributing ~8% of total sales while overall revenue more than doubled. By outperforming or matching both global and Australia-specific benchmarks, these early results position email as a high-potential channel for continued investment.