Product images behind Black Friday email headline: higher clickthrough
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding promotional product images behind a "Black Friday Bargains" email headline won on unique clickthrough rate, though it first looked like a tie.
Ferguson Enterprises ran the test on trade customers, published as a MarketingExperiments case study.
The team called it after the usual four hours on a Sunday send, and data collected later showed the image version should have won.
- After four hours, unique clickthrough rates were the same for both emails.
- With more data by Monday, the product-image version came out ahead on clickthrough.
- No figures were shared, so the size of the lift is unknown.
- Because the tie was called early, the weaker email went to the wider list.
The change
Variant places promo product images behind the headline
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A holiday promo email to B2B trade customers with a "Black Friday Bargains" headline and no products shown.
Variant
The same email with promotional products shown behind the "Black Friday Bargains" headline.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Showing actual products tells trade buyers what is on sale before they click.
- B2B readers often open email during the work week, so a Sunday send likely needed a longer read window.
- People who respond within hours on a Sunday may not behave like the full list.
Caveats: No numbers or sample sizes were shared. The early call was made after four hours on a Sunday send, and the later reversal shows how a short test window can mislead.
Who ran it
Ferguson Enterprises ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Ferguson Enterprises →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we show promotional products in the email header, then more trade customers will click through because they can see what is on offer at a glance.
- Primary metric
- Unique clickthrough rate
- Guardrails
- Conversion rate on the landing page
- Unsubscribe rate
- Who should test it
- B2B and lead-gen businesses running promotional emails, especially with a product catalog. Let the test run long enough to cover your audience's normal reading pattern, which for B2B lists sent on weekends may mean several days.
Questions
How long should an email A/B test run?
Long enough to capture most of your list's responses.
Four hours worked for this team on weekdays, but a Sunday B2B send needed longer, and calling it early picked the wrong winner.
Do product images help promotional emails?
In this test they did once enough data came in.
Showing what is on sale gives readers a concrete reason to click.
MarketingExperiments