Thursday, 20 December 2012, 11:43 PM

ASOS Are Testing Variations of All Their E-Mails

The advancement of ASOS in the Nordic countries is much admired. And when I check the e-mails I get from them I can see that they continuously are testing and evaluating the responses they get from their various e-mails and newsletters. In this blog post I’d like to show you some of the tests they do concerning subject line or title. If you want to know how to form a good subject line – maybe ASOS can inspire you.

I will also show you something that I personally like a lot. Despite ASOS’ focus on sales they do vary their e-mails; sometimes ”e-mails for selling”, sometimes ”e-mails for value”. When they give their customers something of value they can probably expect to sell even more in the following newsletters. You can call it bartering. ASOS gives the customers value and then ASOS can expect that they’ll buy something from them later on.

I am registered by two addresses with ASOS and I’m happy to have two different examples of the same e-mail every time. Otherwise I wouldn’t have discovered this. Look at these two e-mails: The same e-mail, but the introductions are a little different.

In this case they choose to have the very first words identical, but in the first one they add something to see if they will get more customers to open the e-mail. What about the rest of the letter? The headlines in the newsletter aren’t the same as in the subject line of the preview pane.

And the second one:

Another example:

In the second example above they are testing the effect of being a little provocative. I think that’ll work quite well in some countries. But I think I would be somewhat careful using ”Hey hot stuff!” I think about spam filters. The same goes for the word ”Game”. Though in this case it worked since it landed in my inbox. This time the two varieties had the same head title.

I also noticed that in several e-mails the top of the newsletter and the first offer were identical, but after that the offers were different, or the pictures and the title were different – but the offer was the same. Obviously they did this for the sake of testing what was more attractive to the recipients further down in the letter. Here is an example of that same e-mail, but with a different layout of the same content.

The other alternative:

So it is possible to put together the same content, but vary the look of the offer to see what works best OR to have exactly the same content, but try out the order of the content. I sure would like to work more with this when you e-mail service providers give us a SIMPLE function to use 🙂

Last, but definitely not least: In what ways do ASOS vary their messages in the different newsletters and e-mails? Well, it’s a lot about selling – but they blend in letters of value also. I know there are a lot of e-commerce people out there who claim that it’s only sales messages that are worth while … Yes, I know you feel that way. But in order to keep more than 25 % of your customers shopping you have to vary content more, especially if you don’t personalize your newsletters. If you follow my advice you’ll see a long lasting effect – and I’m sure you would like to give your dear subscribers a value now and then instead of always be nagging about selling.

See what I mean? Sales, sales, VALUE, sales, sales, sales, VALUE, sales a.s.o.

One of their ”value-emails” looked like this:

And look how they structure the newsletter and make it easier for their readers to find suitable category – and how well it’s adapted for portable reading devices, too. Nothing about selling, just a guide to find the right clothes. Do you think I shop from ASOS? You bet I do!