Helping your customers design a great multichannel campaign to drive sales? Historically, you would remind them to incorporate the great quintuplet of offer, design, messaging, list, and timing. But today, brands must consider another factor, as well: intentional, planned delay.
Whether using direct mail, email, or a banner ad, your customer’s goal is to get shoppers to buy something. Yet chances are, your customers also stand ready to incentivize shoppers with a discount if they don’t. Thus, while brands want people to respond to an offer right away, they have likely trained them not to.
Shopping? Wait for It!
According to The Consumer Psychology Report by Wunderkind, less than half of potential buyers who respond to an offer actually make a purchase right away. The others may go online, browse, and even put things in their carts, but then they wait for a sweeter deal—because they know it’s coming.
For example, Wunderkind found…
- 26% of shoppers will browse a website, leave, and wait for an email or text offer before purchasing.
- 28% will put things into their online carts, then abandon their carts intentionally and wait for an email or text offer before finishing checkout.
- 21% will wait until the shipping deadline for the best deal.
How does this change by demographic?
- Boomers and Millennials are most likely to respond to an offer by going online and making a purchase—57% of Boomers and 53% of Millennials. Men are more likely to do this than women—50% vs. 45%.
- Gen X are more likely to browse a website, leave, and wait for a better offer (31%) compared to 26% overall. Not surprisingly, Boomers are the least likely to do so (19%).
- Gen Z (33%) and Boomers (30%) are most likely to put items into their carts, then abandon their carts and wait for an email or text offer. Women (31%) are more likely to do this than men (26%).
- Millennials (29%) are the most likely to wait until shipping deadlines for the best deals (compared to 21% overall).
The takeaways? Delays such as cart abandonment or leaving a website without purchasing are not always signs of lost interest. For some, it is part of a shopping strategy.
What can you do about it? Nothing. Plan for it instead:
- Incorporate post-browse and post-cart automation (e.g., retargeting, email, SMS) as core campaign components, not backup plans. For many buyers, the second or third contact triggers conversion, not the first.
- Use tiered offer strategies. Design offers with escalating urgency or incentives—e.g., initial offer, cart abandonment follow-up, and final shipping deadline discount. Plan around shipping cutoffs, especially for Millennials.
- Segment by demographic behaviors.
Use behavioral data to customize flows. For example, Boomers might convert with a straightforward offer and no follow-up, while Gen X and Gen Z may require automated follow-ups to close the sale.
Today’s consumers are strategic and patient. Brands need to stop thinking of conversions as immediate and instead embrace a whole customer journey that includes strategic delay. Encourage customers to lean into multi-touch, timed, and demographic-aware campaigns that reflect how people actually shop, not just how we want them to.
