What emailers can learn from Thanksgiving Weekend sales surge

According to a new report from Bronto, emailers sent an average of 15 messages to their lists in November, compared to 10 in October; nearly 7% of those message contained some 'Black Friday' information, with most holding on to their Black Friday headlines until about mi-month (11/18 on average). More than three-quarters (76.9%) of brands sent only 1 Black Friday message.

"Email volume steadily increased beginning the Tuesday before Black Friday. Wednesday and Thursday saw a similar amount of hits to the inbox. While this builds anticipation for the main event, messages sent on Tuesday may stand a better chance of cutting through the clutter of the other pre-Black Friday days. Saturday saw the lowest amount of traffic with a 41% decrease in emails received compared to the previous day," writes the company.

As for Cyber Monday, less than 4% of emails contained 'Cyber Monday'; most of these were very close to the actual date. Bronto found the average hit inboxes on the Saturday before Cyber Monday. Most (70.2%) sent only one Cyber Monday message.

"Volume immediately begins to increase at midnight and reaches full steam at 6:00am. While this time may seem to catch customers when they are waking up, it is important to consider that Cyber Monday (for most subscribers) is a work day. Shoppers will likely stay up late the night before or wake up earlier than usual to shop Cyber Monday deals before starting the typical Monday morning routine," writes the company.

Other interesting findings include:

• Subject lines hit 52 characters on average, the shortest was 8 characters
• The average email file size hit 29 kb, with most around 17 kb
• Peak volume hours had some retailers sending 'apology' emails - including additional discounts

Tags: 2012 holiday trends, Bronto, email marketing, email tips, email trends