

“Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" - nearly double the conversion rate. - aresant
http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/12/%e2%80%9cmerry-christmas%e2%80%9d-vs-%e2%80%9chappy-holidays%e2%80%9d-nearly-double-the-conversion-rate/

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jrockway
I think people think the "Merry Christmas $name" email is not spam (it looks
like a message from a friend), so they open and read. "Happy Holidays" is
something that only people trying to sell you something say, so you mentally
filter that email.

The conversion rate is just a depressing example of how people will buy
anything you tell them to. Once you get people to read your email, you'll much
more likely to convert. (You get Viagra spam because _somebody_ clicks it and
buys.)

This is basically why I give everyone a unique email address, and /dev/null
the address after I stop needing it. People like the author of this post try
to abuse my attention, and that is not OK with me.

~~~
jordan0day
While I very much agree with your sentiment (email marketing is usually a _bad
thing_ ), this article seems like a small example of "psychological hacking"
and I hate to admit how interesting this sort of thing really is.

It frightens me to know that there are people who spend as much time
optimizing the performance of their marketing messages as we do on algorithms.
The key difference (at least this is what I tell myself) is that while my work
improves the actual product, the marketers work does no such thing.

~~~
bigiain
If you keep thinking that way, you're doing yourself a great disservice. No
matter _how_ great your algorithms are, without letting people know about it,
you won't sell anything.

Like everywhere else, 90% of everything is crap and "marketing" is no
exception, but how many bingo cards do you suppose Patrick would have sold if
he wasn't greatly skilled at some oft-disparaged disciplines like SEO and
email marketing?

Marketing done wrong is just as useless as all the programming done wrong you
laugh at on Daily WTF. If you think you can run a profitable startup while
religiously _not_ doing "marketing", I think you're wrong. I'd love to hear
how you pitch that philosophy to investors though....

~~~
jordan0day
Hey, I said it was evil... I never said it wasn't a _necessary_ evil.
Obviously having salesmen is just the way the world works, and just like how
libertarianism, communism, and utopian markets could all work in an ideal
world, I recognize that's not the world we live in.

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jeffreyg
And I bet if you sent 'Happy Hanukkah' vs. 'Happy Holidays' you'd get much
more traffic from Jewish recipients. Repeat with any holiday specific to a
group.

~~~
electromagnetic
The conversion rate could be much better because people rarely see Merry
Christmas any more. I'd have bought something from Walmart if they just said
'Merry Christmas' over 'Happy Holidays'. I'm sorry, I'm not celebrating 'happy
holidays' I'm celebrating mother fucking Christmas.

I'm not religious, it's just the goddamn holiday. I don't say 'happy holidays'
to a Jew, because it's flat out _rude_. They're Jewish, it's their religious
holiday and I respect that. I'll say happy Kwanzaa if I knew someone
celebrated it. I'll say happy noodle day to a spaghetti monsterist.

I like respect. If I'm spending money, I want some damn respect or I'll go to
the little store downtown and buy something that's actually celebrating the
holiday I'm buying for: _Christmas_.

~~~
ugh
„Frohe Feiertage“ is the German equivalent to “Happy Holidays” (usually only
referring Christmas and New Years because minorities play a much smaller role
in German society) and I’m not aware of anyone who was ever offended by it.
(I’m also not aware of anyone who was ever offended by „Frohe Weihnachten“,
the German equivalent to “Merry Christmas”.) The local catholic priest will
get very angry at Santa Claus but he will say „Frohe Feiertage“ (“Happy
Holidays”) without even flinching.

To me this looks like a thoroughly ridiculous and awfully US-centric
“controversy”.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I have to say that I have never met anyone who was offended by Merry
Christmas. I'm an atheist and I hate "Happy holidays." I know what the holiday
is: just say its name. My Druid ex-girlfriend would point out to me that it
was a Christian usurpation of a pagan festival and then wish me Merry
Christmas after the lecture :-)

I've known more people who were upset by "Merry Xmas" than anything else.

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qeorge
One problem: you did this test on Dec 21, well after Hanukkah had passed (it
was December 1-9 this year).

So for a big portion of the folks who are supposed to appreciate your PC-ness
you missed the holiday by almost a month. Hardly surprising the remaining
segment liked "Merry Christmas" better.

~~~
aresant
Lots and lots more agnostics and aethiests than Jewish people in the USA:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#M...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#Main_religious_preferences_of_Americans)

But fair point - would be interesting to test a happy holidays message earlier
in the season.

~~~
qeorge
That's fine, but plenty of atheists/agnostics/other non-Christian folk
celebrate Christmas (at least in the gift buying sense, which is what you care
about).

So for people who do celebrate Christmas, regardless of religion, of course
the more specific "Merry Christmas" would beat the generic "Happy Holidays."

Of the folks who _don't_ celebrate Christmas, but _do_ celebrate a gift-buying
holiday, Hannukah is pretty important. My gut tells me that Jewish folks are a
big portion of this segment, and running the experiment 3 weeks after Hannukah
would pretty much kill any chance of conversion for them.

Still, the takeaway from your experiment is solid: if you're running an email
campaign 4 days before a major holiday, go ahead and focus on those who
celebrate it.

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civilian
"Happy holidays" smacks of politically-correct pandering and pussyfooting.
(I'm a Christmas-celebrating atheist.) Merry Christmas, HN!

~~~
tptacek
I'm a Christmas-celebrating Catholic and I say "Happy Holidays". This notion
that the words "Happy Holidays" are a political statement is bullshit. People
said them long before Bill O'Reilly declared that there was a war on
Christmas.

It's not "politically incorrect" or offensive to say "Merry Christmas" to
someone who isn't celebrating Christmas (or, as is far more likely now, is
instead preparing to celebrate New Years). It's _stupid_.

~~~
walkon
Saying "Happy Holidays" to someone who isn't celebrating any holidays this
time of year (e.g. a Chinese Buddhist) is also stupid.

~~~
tptacek
If I was in China, I wouldn't say it. In North America, I'm safe in assuming
they're at least celebrating New Years, because they're probably getting the
day off.

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jordan0day
That's a pretty interesting finding, I wonder if anyone else has done similar
testing and would care to share their results?

Also, I can't help but grin about "conversion" and the religiously-tinged
"Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" debate. Perhaps the already-converted
are more likely to... convert?

~~~
fecklessyouth
Or maybe Jesus rewards those who keep "Christ in Christmas" with higher
conversion rates.

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Vivtek
Now that's interesting. I wonder if it's because businesses tend to use HH
while personal mail tends towards MC?

I just love to see this kind of experimental results.

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kmfrk
Just to take a step away from the particular discussion at hand, I found the
very similar season greetings cluttering my inbox to be a nuisance.

It's worth remembering that the conversion rate only applies to the people who
clicked at all - remember the surly curmudgeons like us who don't. :)

Just before you think about applying this to your business.

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rwhitman
Um, what was the unsubscribe rate on this particular campaign?

While they converted 16% they probably alienated another 16%

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tejaswiy
I'm possibly wrong, but for me, Merry Christmas has a direct association with
buying, sales, or e-mails about a sale etc., while happy holidays doesn't
conjure up the same meaning, and hence a higher probability of me opening an
e-mail?

Maybe fewer percentage of the people even opened the e-mail and the click-
through percentage of the people that actually opened the e-mail was the same?

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btilly
An important note about email conversion rates.

There is a conversion funnel to actual paying customer. For this kind of test
they are testing conversion from one step to the next. At other steps in
funnels that I've seen, I've found that the increase in conversion at that
step goes fairly straightforwardly to conversion to paying customer. However
for email in particular at a couple of different places I've seen that
improvements in clickthrough rates do _not_ convert linearly to improvements
in revenue.

While 100% more people may have clicked through, I'd be willing to bet that
actual purchases went up by substantially less than 100%. This is not to
discount the value of, say, a 20% increase in sales. But you really should
measure that instead of clicks. (That said, people like this company like to
measure clicks because it is very easy to do so.)

~~~
aresant
Valid point.

In this case the results were nearly linear, this is addressed in the article:
"While we haven’t included the buy rate in the chart above due to client
confidentiality, the results were similarly impressive."

~~~
reinhardt
"similarly impressive" is deliberately vague; I certainly wouldn't take it to
imply nearly linear.

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jimmyjazz14
"Merry Christmas" always seemed more personal to me than "Happy Holidays".
Family members wish me "Merry Christmas", corporations wish me "Happy
Holidays". Its not really a religious thing in my mind its more a matter of an
meaningful gesture vs an empty statement.

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mindstab
Google agrees, "Merry Christmas" reigns supreme:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=merry+christmas,+happy+holida...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=merry+christmas,+happy+holidays)

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jordanlyall
What the writer is referring to is the "Click Through Rate". A "conversion" is
when the user takes an action post click (submits info, downloads, purchases,
etc.).

He also incorrectly calculate the CTR. The CTR on an email campaign is clicks
divided by opens. He divided clicks over sends, which since fewer people
opened the "Happy Holidays" email, fewer would have naturally clicked. "Merry
Christmas" still performed better, but not at the rates he's suggesting.

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alanh
Who cares about offending people who consider Christmas exclusionary when your
CTR doubles? Most Americans still consider Christmas a “religious holiday” so
this email means, to most people, your company is “picking” Christianity. I
personally disagree with this practice. There’s enough Christian privilege to
go around as it is.

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elvirs
I hear Happy New Year more than Happy Holidays

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warrenwilkinson
'Happy Christmas' remains awkward.

~~~
waqf
"Happy Christmas" is accepted in the UK, just not in the US.

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Misha_B
From 30 Rock:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS is what terrorists say. Merry Christmas, Avery and Jack.

