Black Friday and Cyber Monday customer communications become more conversational

Research from global cloud communications platform Infobip shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday interactions on its platform reached new highs this year, as rich conversational channels become important for customer communications. Black Friday interactions increased to 2.36 billion this year. Cyber Monday interactions to 2.12 billion.

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(Graphic: Business Wire)

Infobip’s analysis shows a 112% increase in multimedia messaging (MMS) and a 10% increase in WhatsApp interactions on Black Friday compared to a typical November Friday this year. Meanwhile, MMS and WhatsApp interactions increased by 120% and 13%, respectively on Cyber Monday compared to a typical Monday in November.

Interactions on both days reached new highs this year as businesses and brands messaged their customers earlier to drive sales. Highlighting the continued popularity of the promotional days, Black Friday interactions were up 48% compared to an average Friday in November. Cyber Monday interactions increased by 44% compared to an average Monday in the same month.

The U.S. was the main driver of growth, where interactions increased 66% on Black Friday and 65% on Cyber Monday compared to 2021.

Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, said: “Our data shows that businesses and brands increasingly favor rich and more conversational communications channels to communicate with their customers across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Conversational experiences and same-day sales offers drove an increase in multimedia, chat app, and mobile app interactions. Meanwhile, in the year of its 30^th anniversary, SMS continues to remain a critical channel, especially on Black Friday itself.

“This year, we focused on increasing our presence in the U.S., which is visible in the uplift Black Friday and Cyber Monday interactions in the region. We made growth possible by understanding customer needs and enabling enterprise customers to drive meaningful communication through our platform, supported by U.S. operators providing on-time delivery capacity.”

Infobip’s research also shows brands can achieve conversion rates as high as 39% through marketing automation across multiple channels. This can be attributed to messaging channels which have much higher open rates than some others. For instance, consumers open some 98% of all SMS messages.

Infobip’s analysis also highlights the trend towards conversational experiences across a range of sectors:

• Chat apps increased 101% year-on-year on Black Friday and 192% on Cyber Monday in the media and entertainment industry in India
• Chat apps increased 123% year-on-year on Cyber Monday in the finance sector in Asia Pacific
• Mobile app messaging increased 91% year-on-year on Black Friday in the finance sector globally
• In North America, multimedia messaging increased by 113% compared to 2021 on Black Friday and 141% on Cyber Monday in the marketing and advertising services sector

Goran Juršić, Vice-President of Business Intelligence at Infobip, continued: “Our insights demonstrate that sectors worldwide now want to offer their customers more conversational experiences when it matters. But to offer such experiences, businesses and brands must first embed global real-time omnichannel communications to create meaningful relationships that boost loyalty and drive sales.”

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to 70+ offices globally. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected directly to over 700 telecom networks. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.

Recent award wins include:

• Infobip named a leader in the CCaaS Leaderboard, Juniper Research (Aug 2022)
• Omdia Ranks Infobip as Leader in CPaaS Universe Report (May 2022)
• Ranked the leading service provider in CPaaS by Juniper Research in its new Competitor Leaderboard CPaaS Vendors (October 2021)
• Infobip named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) 2021 Vendor Assessment (doc #US46746221, May 2021)
• Best A2P SMS provider for the fourth year running by mobile operators and enterprises in ROCCO’s annual Messaging Vendor Benchmarking Report
• Best CPaaS Provider of the Year, Best RCS Provider of the Year, and Mover & Shaker in Telco Innovation at the 2021 Juniper Digital Awards

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