There’s a lot to learn from Kiehl's ecommerce marketing strategy. Here, you can pick their marketing strategy, learn lessons, and take inspiration for your own eCommerce business.
Kiehl’s, a leading skincare brand, always focuses on innovative ways to connect with customers instead of relying only on traditional marketing. Since 1891, their strategy has aimed to bring more people to their stores and build strong connections. They were also one of the first brands to introduce the “TRY BEFORE YOU BUY” approach, a new idea at the time that encouraged customer trust and engagement.
Let’s explore how Kiehl’s uses different strategies to drive more traffic to their stores.
Driving more traffic to stores leads to higher sales. Kiehl’s always focuses on this by promoting discounts through emails and ads and they clearly state that these offers are available both online and in-store.
Kiehl’s shares UGCs to promote their free in-store personalized skin analysis. These ads show how a customer moves from feeling unsatisfied to happy after receiving a personalized experience from Kiehl’s experts. The process includes analyzing the skin and recommending treatments using Kiehl’s products. This strong social proof can help to connect more people to their services and products, leading to more traffic to their stores and for sure more sales in both services and products.
Kiehl’s targets both women and men in their emails and ads. To attract more men to their stores, they also share ads featuring men using their free tech-based skin analysis service in their stores.
As shown on the screenshots, Kiehl’s website includes three key sections:
These sections show Kiehl’s focus on educating their website visitors both women and men, offering tailored product recommendations based on skin needs, and providing accessible support. This approach builds trust, positions Kiehl’s as a skincare authority, and drives more loyalty and sales.
They have a good email marketing strategy - if we look at their Average Spam score, it's excellent - being at -6,4 (it is basically a measure of how likely an email is to be considered spam by a spam filter. The higher the score, the more likely the email is to be considered spam.). But they seem less performant regarding to subject lines - Emails usually have a better open rate while keeping the subject lenght below 36. Here, as it's 43 characters, they're doing not good, it's too long. For example, on mobile phones, their subject line is almost impossible to read.
Fun fact - they're using emojis in 35.27% of their emails - the main ones they use are 🔥 ⭐ ⏰ 🚨 🤑 ❤️.
On Panoramata, we gather and analyze the entire Kiehl's email marketing strategy - along with other brands from the Personal Care industry. Amongst their last emails sent, two of them were 'GIFT GUIDE 2022' and '🤩 Find the Right Cleanser for Your Skin Type.'.
One interesting note as well, about their whole domain reputation and SEO - their Authority Domain Ranking is 76 on https://www.kiehls.com/. This is excellent - and hard to achieve, as it takes time, consistent SEO work and a solid SEO strategy.
One interesting thing that this data allow us to understand is a common trait for the best brands, in order to achieve success - they always deliver a consistent message across all channels.
Average subject length
What about
Kiehl's
then?
With their average of
43
characters, they're above the limit and should consider to shorten their subject line. Here's one good reason - usuallyy, subject lines that long are not shown entirely on email clients on desktop or mobile. And what's good on saying something that will never be read?
Stay short!
characters, they're right within the sweet spot, which is good! It basically says that you have enough characters to express yourself, but at the same time it will show up entirely on email clients. Just the right amount of characters you want for your own brand!
characters, which is rare - but it means that they have actually more space to express themselves and share their brand values.
Why does this matter? Well, for open rates. Keep it short - on average, you should aim for 16 characters. We consider that above 12 is good, and below 24 is great.
Average email size
Why does this matter? Well, for open rates as well - and especially to avoid the Promotions tab and to be less categorized as spam. The lower, the best.
Average spam score
We use Spam Assassin, the main platform used by email providers to score spam. Below 0, you're safe ie. not considered as spam. Below -2, you're great. If you're above 0, you'll likely to be categorized as spam.
So,
Kiehl's
gets a score of
-6.4
. What does that mean exactly for their email marketing strategy ?
Well, as stated, it's good! Any score below 0 generally means that the email will not be categorized as spam, especially the ones below -2 - it's a great score, one you want to keep because it helps a lot the deliverability of your emails!
It's good! It means that their email are not headed to the spam folder. However, a score below -2 would be considered even better.
Well, "oops". It's not that good, they're at a level where it could impact their email deliverability.
Does it means they're in the spam folder every time? No. The considered treshhold to be considered spam 100% of the time depends on a lot of factor (generally, consider that a score of 5 means that you end up there every time). Being between 0 and 5 means that it could happen though.
Usual sending provider
(soon)
Most common words
from - our - Kiehl's - Representative - This - Maks
Emoji use in subject lines
Most popular emojis
🔥 - ⭐ - ⏰ - 🚨 - 🤑 - ❤️
🔥 - ⭐ - ⏰ - 🚨 - 🤑 - ❤️
Average Weekly Emails vs. Industry
Average Daily Ads and Time Running vs. Industry
GIFT GUIDE 2022
Email from
Kiehl's
🤩 Find the Right Cleanser for Your Skin Type.
Email from
Kiehl's
Re: How to Visibly Renew Skin
Email from
Kiehl's
Kiehl's NEW Fast-Release Retinol Night Serum reduces fine lines in 5 days & deep wrinkles in 2 weeks!
Feed Ad from
Kiehl's
Kiehl's NEW Fast-Release Retinol Night Serum reduces fine lines in 5 days & deep wrinkles in 2 weeks!
Feed Ad from
Kiehl's
Kiehl's NEW Fast-Release Retinol Night Serum reduces fine lines in 5 days & deep wrinkles in 2 weeks!
Feed Ad from
Kiehl's
Domain Rating
Estimated Traffic
Total Keywords
Domains
Total Backlinks
Backlinks Profile
Backlinks Text
Backlinks NoFollow
Backlinks Redirect
Backlinks Images
Backlinks Frame
Backlinks Form
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As we start the countdown to the busiest shopping day of the year, you’ll definitely get yourself on the “right track” with these examples of email newsletters along with tips and tactics for your own business.
Email marketing is crucial for achieving your ecommerce business goals and a must if you want to establish your online presence. Through email, you can reach your audience, start a relationship with them, and use that connection to promote your products. This article will take you step by step through the process of writing a great ecommerce email.
To compare and analyze brands on Panoramata, you can create a list to group the best emails and/or advertisements of the brands.
You’re probably aware that you have competitors in your industry and you may even be checking out what they’re doing now and then. But are you doing enough to get ahead of your ecommerce competitors? What do you do with the information you’ve gathered about them? How do you differentiate your product and stand out from the competition?
