# Segmented CS3 launch emails vs no email: +41% order rate

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Email (SaaS)
- Elements: Segmentation, Personalization
- Date shared: 2008-02
- Test run by: [Adobe](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/adobe/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/29000-roi-on-an-email-campaign-the-secret-is-one-word
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/adobe-cs3-segmented-launch-email/

Adobe's segmented Creative Suite 3 launch emails raised the overall order rate by 41% and direct orders by 72% compared with customers who got no email. Adobe ran the campaign, and it was published by MarketingExperiments from a talk at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit. Several things changed at once, and the comparison was against no contact, not against a generic email.

## Result

**+41% order rate**

- Overall order rate up 41% versus the no-contact group.
- Direct orders up 72% versus the no-contact group.
- Email campaign ROI reported at 29,000% in North America and 5,000% worldwide.
- These figures show the campaign beat sending nothing. They don't show how much segmentation added over a single generic email.

## Control

A no-contact group that received no launch email at all.

## Variant

Launch emails versioned for designers, photographers and educators, with calls-to-action tuned to early, mid or late adopters picked out by a propensity model.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Each group saw what it cared about: designers got a striking image, photographers got tech specs, educators got student outcomes.
- CTAs matched how ready each customer was to buy, based on the adoption model.
- Adobe also put extra direct marketing spend behind early adopters, which likely added to the result.

## Caveats

Bundled campaign compared with no email, not with a generic email, so the lift can't be credited to segmentation alone. Data is from a 2008 conference talk, and sample sizes were not shared.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we version launch emails by customer role and buying readiness, then more customers will order because the message and the ask fit what each group needs.
- Primary metric: Order or upgrade rate per recipient
- Guardrail: A generic-email holdout, not just a no-email holdout
- Guardrail: Unsubscribe and spam complaint rate
- Guardrail: Revenue per recipient
- Who should test it: SaaS and software companies launching a new version to a large base with distinct user types. With a small or uniform list, the extra versions may not pay for the effort.

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Credit: Adobe ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/adobe-cs3-segmented-launch-email/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.