It immediately makes sense, doesn’t it? What company could profit more from a targeted email campaign and suck up tons of incremental business (in tune with the sucking up of gallons of Guinness) than the one that will tonight safely shepherd home millions of green-gilled revelers?
Yes, Uber was one of the standout emailers in eDataSource’s scan of the nation’s inboxes over the past month, and its campaign was ever so expertly directed, skipping the fares and focusing on the drivers with the simple message: “Earn big on St. Patrick’s Day—no luck needed.” Uber emailed 179,000 of these messages and earned a 20% open rate.
All in all, though, emailers were hardly Irish Rovers, sending 50% fewer emails than they did in 2015 for this year’s wearin’ of the green, according to eDataSource, which tracks billions of branded emails on a weekly basis.
“I think the reason was that Easter is really close to St. Patrick’s Day this year. With only 10 days between St. Pat’s and Easter, they put their money on Easter,” says eDataSource director of analytics John Landsman.
The biggest St. Patrick’s Day emailer was Amazon, with 940,000 sent—no big surprise in that the pan-category e-com giant looms large in every minor holiday category. It scored a read rate of 24%. Victoria’s Secret played the simple “Let’s slap an Irish theme on our planned promo” game and won with an 18% open rate on a mailing of 436,000 for a 20%-off bras campaign.
Houlihan’s scored a 16% read rate and the prize for best tagline: “Hou What When Where RYE.” Cheers!
