REGIONAL DIVE-IN
APAC
Overall score
This year, our APAC evaluation ventured beyond Oceania to include more brands from Asia. Singapore's Charles & Keith scored highest in Asia, winning in the email experience and cross-channel experience categories thanks to a responsive live chat offering and compelling ad retargeting. The brand also offered Telegram as an alternative messaging option.
Overall score by category
Email Experience
Customer Experience
Cross-Channel Experience
EMAIL EXPERIENCE
ASIA WINNER
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
ASIA WINNER
CROSS-CHANNEL EXPERIENCE
ASIA WINNER
Australian brand The Iconic scored best in Oceania at 66% overall, also taking the regional top place in both email experience and cross-channel experience. It excelled with its smooth Facebook Messenger experience, featuring prepopulated questions to help busy consumers interact effectively with its chatbot. The Iconic carried its seamless customer experience through to its emails, which offered fast, easy access to its preference center to change recipient settings. The company took a thoughtful overall approach to data gathering by prompting for gender information during the signup experience to help enhance its segmentation. Its use of radio buttons for this information gathering demonstrated a perfect balance between data collection and low-friction initial engagement.
EMAIL EXPERIENCE
OCEANIA WINNER
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
OCEANIA JOINT WINNERS
CROSS-CHANNEL EXPERIENCE
OCEANIA WINNER
APAC brands seemed to subscribe to the notion that less is more when it comes to email. They are less inclined to send promotional content, as opposed to US brands who are more prolific in their emails. It was also common to see some preventable missteps - for example, text placed directly onto images, which could prevent subscribers from reading it if the email provider or client blocks images by default.
EXPERT COMMENTARY FROM:
The adoption of technology in Japan has improved in recent years, and merchants are incorporating traditional approaches to marketing and tech-driven customer services. From telephone orders, catalogs, and cards to chat services and email, Japan is starting to see a more diverse and personalized way to engage with customers. This diversification helps merchants with attracting customers from various backgrounds and age groups, which is noticeably increasing their entrance into cross-channel marketing. Brands in this region could also improve their email experience by providing clear access to preference centers. They often forced subscribers through an unsubscribe option to reach the preference center, which introduces more friction and might prompt some people to unsubscribe instead of simply changing their preferences.
of brands' emails contained clear/visible and accessible preference management centers
provided an explicit SMS opt-in option at point of purchase or elsewhere during signup
received a PWA audit score of 50+ (out of 100)
