Email marketing · Field experiment with retention, usage, and profit analysis
Does Customer Email Engagement Improve Profitability? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Subscription Service Retailing
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2022
Summary
A one-month program with two emails increased five-month retention likelihood by 7.4%, lowered churn odds by 26.3%, and raised per-period service use by 7.0%.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
The core lesson is to evaluate lifecycle email against retention, usage, and margin by segment. A message that lifts engagement can still lose money for some cohorts.
Reported result
What the study found
A one-month program with two emails increased five-month retention likelihood by 7.4%, lowered churn odds by 26.3%, and raised per-period service use by 7.0%. Estimated profitability varied by subscriber tier and usage frequency; the authors recommend selectively targeting profitable groups.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Does email engagement raise subscription retention and usage, and is it profitable for every subscriber segment?
Design
Field experiment at a subscription-service retailer, analyzing retention and consumption with survival and difference-in-differences methods.
Sample and setting
Subscribers of a large U.S. car-wash chain with tiered subscriptions and RFID-tracked visits.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
A single physical subscription service; the abstract does not provide sample size or detailed randomization information. Segment profitability depends on this firm's service costs and customer behavior.
Research sources
INFORMS publisher abstract retrieved with Firecrawl; results and segment-specific recommendation follow the abstract.