E-commerce brands faced a holiday shopping season filled with uncertainty — uncertainty around when the shopping season would start in earnest, inflation’s impact on consumer spending, and the costs and performance of paid marketing channels. And with good reason.

Throughout the year, the cost and performance on channels such as paid social and paid search fluctuated, raising questions and concerns about holiday marketing spend on the channels. And if consumers just shopped less in general, how else might brands generate the sales they needed?

As it played out, Black Friday and Cyber Monday e-commerce sales were up slightly from the previous year's unusual dip. Accounting for inflation, however, indicates the increase in sales was due to the cost of goods rather than an increase in shopping. Cost effectively securing early holiday sales was important, and when it mattered most, brands seemed to shift back and rely more on established and consistently performing opt-in channels like email and SMS — and it worked.

Consumers Turned to Email Marketing When Shopping

According to a new holiday marketing report by Omnisend, year-over-year, email marketing was responsible for a 13.8 percent increase in orders on Black Friday, and a 34.4 percent increase during the Cyber 10, a 10-day span beginning on the Sunday before Black Friday through Giving Tuesday. The increase in sales was accompanied by a greater reliance on email marketing.

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