How to Optimize Your Touchcard Campaign for Maximum ROI
At Touchcard, we’ve noticed that most high ROI campaigns tend to improve over time. In fact, this is very often the case with most advertising mediums.
The reason for this is simple: Optimization plays a key role in successful campaigns.
Our most successful customers understand this, which is why they put effort into optimizing their campaigns until they are getting consistent positive ROI.
With that in mind, we put together this short optimization guide to help increase your Touchcard ROI, and start scaling your campaigns once they are profitable.
Before we begin, here are a few best practices to keep in mind…
✅ Make sure you start with a good performance benchmark so you know what you’re looking to improve on.
✅ Track performance as you optimize so you can easily attribute improvements to changes you’ve made.
✅ For accurate results, always compare apples to apples. E.g. If you sent 1000 postcards with 8X ROI, make sure your next sample also includes 1000 postcards.
To get an idea of your campaign’s current performance, visit the “Dashboard” section in the app.
ℹ For more detailed reports, email us at support@touchcard.io.
???? Targeting:
You might have a great postcard design, but if you’re sending to customers who just aren’t that interested, your results will reflect this. Fortunately, you can control which customers get postcards using the basket size filter.
Increasing your basket size filter can help improve ROI by targeting a smaller segment of potentially higher-value customers who have spent more money in your store.
In addition to this, you’ll also be sending to fewer customers which means less ad spend and more room to improve ROI.
Alternatively, If you’re already getting good returns, decreasing basket size filter to send to more customers is a way to start scaling your success.
Implementation:
Increasing the filter to improve ROI:
If you’re raising the filter to improve ROI, then you’re looking for the spot where overall ROI is best. Start adjusting the filter up while tracking results. Do this until you’re happy with the ROI, or, until performance stops improving.
????Tip: If you already have a good amount of conversions, review your data to see what segment most of your revenue is coming from and consider making changes based on that.
Decreasing the filter to scale good ROI:
In this scenario, you should be on the lookout for a decrease in ROI. Decrease the filter until you notice a drop. Your sweet spot should be right before you noticed ROI starting to decrease.
Your goal with decreasing the basket size is to be sending to as many customers as possible while still maintaining good ROI.
???? Offer:
Another great opportunity to consider for optimization is your offer.
The more your customers perceive value your offer, the more likely they are to take action. Making your offer more appealing can do a lot to improve performance.
The key here is figuring out what will get your customers excited enough to take the action you desire.
Implementation:
If you’re looking for direct ROI, then discounts are a good place to start.
Add value to improve ROI:
Our data suggest discounts between 15-25% get the best response. So, If you’re below this range, start by testing a higher discount to make your offer more exciting.
If you want to push this concept further, continue increasing incrementally while tracking performance. Do this until you find the discount that produces the best overall return.
Worried doing will erode your margins? Consider that an increase in conversions from a higher discount can make up for lost margin and often result in higher overall ROI.
????Tip: If discounts aren’t producing great results, consider testing other offers such as bonus items, free shipping or combinations like a bonus item and discount together.
Optimizing to improve good ROI:
If you’re already seeing good ROI, you can also take the adding value approach mentioned above to improve even further.
Or, you can consider the opposite approach. Start lowering your discount slowly until overall ROI begins to drop. Again, your sweet spot will be right before you noticed ROI start to decrease.
Your goal is to find the lowest possible discount that you can offer while maintaining the same conversion rate. If you can manage this, your ROI will have improved.
???? Discount Expiration:
A clear expiration date along with your offer should be a given. You should also consider what affect the length of the expiration window has on conversions and ultimately ROI.
Discount windows that are too long may result in your customer procrastinating on taking action, or worse forgetting completely.
Alternatively, windows that are too short can make your customers feel pressured to redeem the discount before they’ve decided they actually like your product.
Implementation:
We’ve seen ROI jump by over 100% just by adding urgency with an expiration date. So, if you’re not using some type of expiration window, your first step is to add one.
If you’re using an expiration date but think the timing may not be ideal, or, you just want to test some alternatives to try and improve performance here’s a good approach.
Our aggregate data suggests that expirations set to expire 2 – 4 weeks after a customer receives their postcard tend to work well.
If your expiration date is less than 2 weeks, try increasing it slowly by a week at a time to see if giving customers a little more wiggle room will increase response.
On the other hand, if your expiration date is more than 4 weeks, try decreasing by a week at a time to see if adding more urgency will improve performance.
???? Tip: Depending on your business, you may want to consider when your customers are most likely to make their next purchase while optimizing your expiration window.
Try timing delivery and expiration so your offer expires when your customer is most likely to buy again. A well-timed Nudge at the right moment could be just what’s needed.
More on timing in the next section…
???? Send Delay:
As you may have gathered from the last section, timing can play a big role in your success. In fact, depending on your product, timing can make or break your campaign.
Consider the following scenarios…
Let’s say you sell fashion-forward clothing and accessories. A postcard that arrives a week after the order while your customer is still excited about their purchase might be perfect timing.
Or…
Let’s say you sell supplements in a 60 day supply. Having a card arrive 2 weeks before the supply ends with a well-timed expiry around the 60-day mark could be a home run.
Implementation:
First things first, you likely don’t want your postcard arriving before the order. So, If you think this may be happening, start by reviewing your send delay and fulfillment time.
If there’s a chance you’re cutting it close, consider increasing your send delay by at least one week. See our Setup Guide for estimated delivery times.
Of course, you’re free to test any delay you like, but if you’re unsure of where to start, try this approach.
On average, 1 – 3 weeks after the order arrives is a good time for the postcard to arrive.
If you fall on the low end of this range, start by increasing send delay incrementally while looking for changes in performance. If you’re on the high end, or above start by decreasing.
Either way, you’re trying to improve response and ultimately ROI by looking for the arrival time when your customers are most receptive to your offer.
While there’s no one size fits all for every shop, here are some ideas to consider.
If you sell an emotional product, such as fashion or home decor, think about having the postcard arrive shortly after the order. The idea is to have the postcard arrive while your customers are still excited about their purchases and engaged with your product.
Maybe your products are more commodity-based, or maybe they are consumables with a predictable repeat purchase window (E.g. supplements or cosmetics). Then, your postcard might arrive when the customer is most likely to be considering another purchase.
✈ US vs. International Sending
Touchard lets you decide whether you’d like to send postcards to all of your customers, or, just to customers with US addresses.
This is great if most of your customers are International. Or, if you’re seeing good ROI from your US customers, it’s also a way to start scaling up by sending Internationally.
Given that International sending costs more, turning it off if it’s not producing results can be a really simple way to improve performance.
Implementation:
Improving ROI by turning off:
If you’ve got a decent amount of US customers and are sending Internationally but ROI isn’t great, try this:
Figure out how much postcard revenue comes from US customers. If it’s a good bit more than you’re spending to send to those US customers, turn International sending off. Then, adjust your subscription to match the number of US customers you have.
This will almost certainly improve your ROI.
How to scale positive ROI by turning on:
If you’re happy with the ROI from your US customers, one way to try and scale is by turning International sending on.
Keep in mind, sending internationally costs more than sending in the US ($1.98 / card). So, take revenue per card and profit margins into consideration before trying this.
Turn International sending on for a month or two and then compare results to the
USA-only campaign. If overall profit is good, congratulations. If not, just turn it back off.
Unfortunately, scaling any ad campaign often means a drop in ROI. However, if the overall dollar value profit is higher it may still be worth it.
???? Design:
Good design goes a long way.
You’ve spent a lot of time making your website look top notch. So, as an extension of your brand, your postcard should look just as good.
Also very important, your postcard should be designed to sell.
Implementation:
If you think your design could look better, or do a better job of getting your customers to take action, consider a redesign. You’d do the same for a Facebook ad, right?
Make sure everything is aligned properly with good spacing, large easy to read fonts and high-resolution images. Keep your message and call to action clear and check for grammar and spelling.
In addition to the points above, there are a few very important elements we highly recommend having on your design if you want to get the best out of your campaign.
If you haven’t already, check out our design guide where we go over what to include in your design to make sure it does a great job selling your product!