Battle of the eCommerce Marketing Automations: Ocado vs. Morrisons

We love it when we see our two office loves—food and email marketing—combined, and lately we’ve seen some great eCommerce marketing automations that do exactly that, from some of the supermarket giants.

As the battle of the home delivery service hots up, we’re comparing email automations from two of the biggest players—to find out who really is top dog when it comes to the weekly shop.

In the red corner, we have Ocado: middle-class middleweight of the posh online shop. In blue corner is Morrisons: the everyday grocer which prides itself on delivering great value. Let the battle of the eCommerce marketing automations commence!

Round one: Welcome emails

Getting in the first punch is key to winning any fight and both brands appear to be quick off the mark with well-timed, automated welcome emails.

By using behavioural targeting software you can automatically welcome people to your eCommerce site as soon as they sign-up and send messages to get them to start purchasing with you.

Morrisons gets off to a good start by using email personalisation to address their customer by name:

But, it’s Ocado that makes it easier to take the first step and actually start buying. They appeal to first-time online shoppers with simple instructions and target new recruits who’ve previously shopped with competitors with an ‘Import your favourites now’ button:

Ocado clearly understands that in the saturated online grocery market, you need to make using your service simple and fast for everyone. For this reason, Ocado is the welcome email winner in our eyes.

Round two: Rate your delivery driver emails

Both retailers get a big thumbs-up for coming back to their customers with an automated email asking them for feedback once they’ve received a delivery.

These supermarket brands understand that it’s the service the customer receives from the driver that’s a deciding factor on whether the customer chooses to shop online again.

This time it’s Morrisons that makes it easier to engage with the email. By using clear, simple visuals and reducing the amount of text used, they make the email easier to scan. This increases their chances of getting a response from the recipient:

When they get a reply, Morrisons can always follow up negative feedback with another email for more detail which provides an excuse to carry on the conversation. Morrisons also sends this feedback automation every time a customer orders.

In contrast, Ocado appears to only ask selected customers for feedback and specify what customers should and shouldn’t feed back on, despite their claim that they’re only as good as their last delivery:

Morrisons wins the the feedback email battle, as far as these examples go, by inviting feedback from everyone, not just a random selection.

Round three: Come back and shop emails

In the final round, we take a look at what happens once you’ve shopped. And it would seem each brand takes a very different approach to getting you to stay loyal.

In a rather amusing sign of who the brands think their core audiences are, they incentivise their customers in very different ways with these two re-engagement emails.

If you keep on shopping with Morrisons you may win and risk (depending on your viewpoint) a visit from geordie funny men Ant and Dec:

In contrast, Ocado romances you with free champagne or chocolates:

We like the way Ocado keeps customers engaged—asking them to choose their free gift in advance by sending an automatic email when they start shopping. This means customers are far more likely to become invested and keep shopping to get the gift. For these reasons, we judge Ocado to have won the battle for loyalty in this round.

Takeaway

These are just a selection of the email automations both companies send their customers. From the examples we’ve looked at, Ocado appears to have a more detailed and thoughtful strategy when it comes to sending customers automatic emails.

As it stands, Morrisons is missing key automations in its communications strategy. These include emails triggered by events such as customers abandoning orders, lapsing and requests to refer or recommend friends to the brand.

So, for now it looks like Ocado is the winner when it comes to delivering communications that really pack a punch. Their series of nicely thought-out emails automations look set to keep customers coming back and buying more.

Find out how our eCommerce solution can power your marketing automations and help you win the battle for consumer attention.