Consumer Brands in India are Seeing 12X Higher Conversion Rates from Personalized Emails- MoEngage Study

In an era where brands are scaling back their paid and digital marketing efforts due to severe budget cuts and a looming recession, email marketing continues to deliver. This economical channel provides a high return on investment (ROI), enables brands to send personalized communications and provides immediate, measurable results.

But this means that all brands are turning towards email as an optimal consumer marketing solution. Consequently, customers receive hundreds of emails each day, and brands need to go the extra mile to ensure their emails stand out in the inbox. Earlier, click-bait titles and topics might have done this job, but customers are now wary of such tactics and expect brands to be more honest.

Email personalization is a great solution here. Brands can ensure that every aspect of their communication speaks right to the customer and addresses their specific needs. Personalization gives brands a way to reach customers when they want to be reached, about products or services they’re interested in.

A study by MoEngage has shown email personalization to be supremely effective — conversion rates increase by up to 12X, CTOR increases by 12X, and unsubscribe rates reduce by up to 88%. The report outlines email benchmarks for multiple industries, and every industry is showing a great increase in metrics from personalization strategies.

This holds true for conversion rates, open rates, CTORs, and unsubscribe rates too. In fact, customer journey-based personalization is shown to increase CTOR by about 5.4X and open rates by 13.8X.

The email benchmarks report for 2023 outlines similar metrics on a case-by-case basis for multiple industries like Retail and E-commerce, Banking and Fintech, Travel and Hospitality, Media and Entertainment, and more. Every metric across industries sees a direct correlation with sophisticated personalization strategies based on buyer journey stage or customer behavior, when compared to regular attribute-based personalization.

"Today’s customers are seeking more than just a transactional experience. With personalization, brands can make every interaction feel inherently human and authentic, enabling customers to develop a deep and meaningful connection with the brand - not just its products or services. That is precisely where an insights-led customer engagement platform with an AI-powered recommendation and optimization engine comes in, helping paint the whole picture, through a 360-degree customer view, understand customer behavior, and engage across the most preferred channel, at the right time, with the right message, thus offering hyper-personalized experiences while driving business growth," said - Raviteja Dodda, CEO, MoEngage. 

Moreover, old-school personalization methods such as those that relied only on demographics or first-name, don’t seem to be as effective any longer. What’s working is Behavior-based personalization and personalization based on the stage of the buyer journey.

Such advanced personalization tactics require a deep understanding of the customer and a reliable customer engagement tool.

Kids Consumer-Tech Firm Cub McPaws Raises Pre-Series A Funding from Global Investors

Cub McPaws, the kids consumer-tech company has raised its Pre-Series A round from a syndicate of investors from US, Japan, Dubai and India. The company has raised a total of USD 800K from institutional investors and top angel investors.

Launched in December 2018 by ex-Pepperfry colleagues Abhay Bhat and Kinnar Shah, Cub McPaws is a kids consumer-tech company for Generation Alpha - kids born after 2010. The company uses its patented augmented reality technology to create an unparalleled engagement with its merchandise. The company has recorded a strong 50% MoM growth even during the COVID times.

The Pre-series A round was led by a Dubai based global family office. A syndicate of top angel investors from Japan also invested in this round. It includes Mr. Takayuki Sugiura, CEO of Circus Capital, Mr. Daisuke Takagi, Executive Director at UBS, Ms. Motoko Tanabe, Founder of HMF Corporation, Mr. Toshiro Wakimaru, ex-COO of MedPeer Inc, and Mr. Taichi Nakamura, CEO of Venex Ltd.

Existing investors including institutional investors like Samyakth Capital re-invested in this round. The company is backed by renowned investors such as Venture Catalysts, Mr. Ambareesh Murty, CEO Pepperfry, Mr. Robin Joffe, MD at Frost and Sullivan, and Mr. Anuj Golecha, co-founder Venture Catalysts.

"Cub McPaws is already a phenomenon among kids and parents across India. The new investment will help us scale our technology offering and create a complete range of products. We will explore international markets where our products have generated significant interest . We are in discussion with an ex-Facebook, Uber senior executive to head our technology team”, said Abhay Bhat, founder at Cub McPaws.

"We are already in discussions with Global Venture Capital funds for our Series A investment round. The current investment enables us to fuel growth over next few months and allows us to create a world class customer experience. Further, this will add benefits of scale, thereby increasing our gross margins significantly. Receiving this investment during such difficult times also shows the strength of our business model. "Kinnar Shah added.

“The unique and disruptive approach of Cub McPaws and its potential to easily expand globally make it an interesting investment opportunity. The team at Cub McPaws has built a fundamentally strong business and have demonstrated growth even during the tough times. The integrated technology offering, including the patented AR technology, gives it an edge over other consumer companies as it can give disproportionate growth to the brand” said Mr. Sugiura on behalf of investors.

"The confidence of existing investors reinvesting in this round stems from two important factors - the robust growth of the brand during the challenging COVID time and a loyal consumer base it has created in a short time span. Cub McPaws has thus solved the two key challenges faced by consumer brands and is ready to scale up from here", said Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma of Co-Founder & President Venture Catalysts

Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.

Affle2.0 wins A Significant Contract for Singapore-citizens-engagement project

Affle International Pte. Ltd. (“Affle”), the leading consumer intelligence platform company, today announced that it has won the contract from the Singapore Government to build a ‘Digital & Cloud-based Commuter Survey Platform’ for Land Transport Authority (LTA).

Affle’s mobile marketing platforms will enable interactive surveys for citizens in Singapore to drive LTA’s objective of building a people-centered land transport system. The total value of the contract is over USD 1Mn. Affle’s platforms were first accredited by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore in 2018, and Affle is actively engaged on 6 projects across multiple Singapore government agencies as on date.

Commenting on these developments, Anuj Khanna Sohum, the Chairman, MD and CEO at Affle said “We would like to thank LTA as well as all other Singapore government agencies for the opportunity to prove our platforms and our ability to drive meaningful citizen engagements on connected devices. We would also like to thank IMDA for accrediting our platforms and their continued support. These wins are significant validation of our Affle2.0 verticalization strategy and strengthen our long-term growth trend.”

Commenting on the win, Charles Yong, Chief Architect and Chief Technology Officer of Affle said“We are delighted to be a part of the project with LTA. Our platforms are verticalized towards delivering citizen data platform (CDP) services and personalized citizen engagement through our data management platform - ‘mDMP’, programmatic marketing platform – ‘RevX’, omnichannel engagement platform - ‘Vizury Engage360’, and our mobile ad fraud prevention platform - ‘mFaaS’.”

"We are excited for Affle to be empowering citizen-centric engagement projects with LTA and other Government agencies, contributing to a customized experience for the citizens/customers. We hope they will continue to help drive the digitization journey for both the Government and enterprise sectors in Singapore", said Mr. Edwin Low, Director of Innovation & Tech Ecosystem, Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore.

These milestone celebrations come soon after Affle completed one year of a successful IPO in India on 8th August 2020.

About Affle

Affle is a global technology company with a proprietary consumer intelligence platform that delivers consumer engagements, acquisitions and transactions through relevant Mobile Advertising. The platform aims to enhance returns on marketing investment through contextual mobile ads and also by reducing digital ad fraud. While Affle's Consumer platform is used by online & offline companies for measurable mobile advertising, its Enterprise platform helps offline companies to go online through platform-based app development, enablement of O2O commerce and through its customer data platform.

Affle International Pte. Ltd. is the Singapore based subsidiary of Affle (India) Limited which successfully completed its IPO in India and now trades on the stock exchanges (BSE: 542752 & NSE: AFFLE). Affle Holdings is the Singapore based promoter for Affle (India) Limited, and its investors include Microsoft, D2C (An NTT DoCoMo, Dentsu & NTT Advertising JV), Itochu, Bennett Coleman & Company (BCCL) amongst others.