Persado's Emotional Rankings Report

RANKINGS REPORT

EMOTIONAL

PERSADO’S

Table of Contents

Background ..................................................................................................................................................................1

Persado’s Emotional Categories .............................................................................................................................2

Data ................................................................................................................................................................................2

Data collection ........................................................................................................................................................2

Organization of Data ..............................................................................................................................................3

Emotional Rankings ...................................................................................................................................................4

Emotional Categories by Industry (worldwide, across Channels) ................................................................4

Emotional Categories by Channel (worldwide, across Industries) ...............................................................5

Emotional Categories by Geographical Region (across Channels and Industriess) ................................9

Emotional Categories by Engagement Type (worldwide, across Channels and Industries) ................11

Observations ..............................................................................................................................................................13

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................13

About Persado ...........................................................................................................................................................14

Copyright © 2015 Persado Inc. All rights reserved.Proprietary and Confidential

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Background The mantra of the marketing cloud has always been “the right message for the right person at the right place and time”. With sophisticated technologies and the application of data driven processes, marketers have essentially been using math to solve for the right person (consumer intelligence, CRM systems, segmentation) at the right place (ad exchanges, attribution, cross-channel marketing) and the right time (dayparting, customer journey maps, programmatic marketing campaigns). The one piece of the puzzle that has been left to guesswork is creating the right message... until now.

By using advanced algorithms, Persado’s Persuasion Automation technology generates persuasive language for digital communications designed to drive action. These communications are not only tailored to defined segments, such as vertical or geography, but also tailored by channel, accounting for the lifecycle stage of the customer.

Persado, the inventor and pioneer of Persuasion Automation, has accumulated linguistic attribution data that spans years and billions of digital impressions. Each word and phrase, machine-generated by Persado is tagged, scored and organized into five semantic classifications, presented in the table below. Get excited... :) You are on your way to get an extra 50% (just click on “shop now”)

Persado’s language classification with descriptioon and example

Language Classification Description Example

EMOTIONAL words and phrases that have an emotional impact “Get excited”, “you are on your way”

DESCRIPTIVE different ways of describing the offer and its specifics, or the product and its features “to get an extra 50%”

FUNCTIONAL the necessary CTA to facilitate action just click on “shop now”

FORMATTING stylistic or structural elements :)

POSITIONING the placement of all the difference components in the message

“Get excited... you’re on your way” vs. “You’re on your way...

get excited”

Copyright © 2015 Persado Inc. All rights reserved.Proprietary and Confidential 1

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Through billions of analyzed digital marketing impressions, it has been observed that emotional language contributes upwards of 70% to the performance of a message. The importance of this contribution is further amplified by the fact that the response variance between the best performing message and the worst performing message can, in some instances, be upwards of 800% (this report refers to the best and worst performing message, word or phrase as most persuasive or least persuasive respectively).

This Emotional Rankings Report evaluates emotional categories based on their performance in direct response digital marketing campaigns, revealing emotional nuances within the language and the effect that these nuances have on customer engagement.

For the first time, emotions are calculable, for the purpose of marketing.

Persado’s Emotional Categories Persado’s emotional ontology consists of 19 categories of emotion that are classified as either positive, neutral or negative, and then further classified based on the intensity of the emotional language as well as other subtleties specific to the changes in how emotions are interpreted (i.e. quiet vs. intense). Persado’s emotional ontology comes from extensive and ongoing research and is based on academic categorizations of emotions, adapted to the context of marketing and supported by billions of data points. Persado’s language database, built using natural language processing techniques, encompasses over a million words and phrases including hundreds of thousands of ways to convey the 19 emotions represented in Persado’s iconic wheel of emotions.

Persado’s wheel of emotions

Data

Data Collection

Persado’s Emotional Rankings schema measures the effectiveness of the emotional language across Persado’s campaigns by taking into account several parameters. These parameters include the number of times each emotional category has been tested, the performance of each emotional category across all experiments as well as the quantitative difference in their performance compared to the rest of the emotional categories represented in the same experiment.


1 Ontology: an organizational system, a way of organizing concepts, information and ideas.2 Natural language processing: algorithms that help a machine to process language or text that is written or spoken by humans.3 Persado’s wheel of emotions: a visual representation of the emotional ontology.

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The data in this report was gathered by running structured marketing experiments for hundreds of customersworldwide and implementing experimental design to measure the success of language at a granular level.

Organization of Data For the purpose of the Emotional Rankings Report the effectiveness of specific emotional categories was analyzed for four different segments: Industry, Channel, Country and Engagement Type. Furthermore, these segments were sub-segmented into the following categories:

• Industry• Finance & Insurance• Retail & eCommerce

• Channel

• Email Subject Line • Email Body• Web Banner

• Country• North America • South America• Europe

• Engagement Type

• Subscription • One-time action

This report presents the comparison of specific emotional categories for each segment, providing unique insights into the effect of emotions on marketing message performance. Additionally, it reveals the increase of the response rate that can be achieved using the most persuasive emotional category in a marketing message for each sub-segment, compared to the least persuasive one. Examples and definitions of the emotional categories are also presented in a number of cases for deeper understanding.


4 Experimental design: a statistical method that allows you to explore relationships between data points (to explore a cause and effect relationship between varables) using the least amount of resources. Good experimental design maximizes the amount of information that can be obtained.5 For each of the report segments, results from at least two hundred experiments have been taken into account.6 For the purpose of this report we treat Email Subject Line and Email Body as two different channels. Persado’s platform is channel agnostic, but for the purposes of maintaining statistical accuracy we will only be analyzing Subject Lines, Email Body and Web Banner ads.7 The chosen emotional categories are randomly selected and are not necessarily the most persuasive of each sub-segment overall.

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Emotional Rankings

Emotional Categories by Industry (worlwide, across Channels)

In this section of the report emotional categories are analyzed for two distinct industries. The findings have been derived from experiments Persado has conducted with customers from all over the world having run campaigns through Persado’s Persuasion Automation platform:

1. Finance & Insurance 2. Retail & eCommerce

Upon analyzing the performance of emotional categories, it is apparent that emotions can have different and distinct effects on varied industries. A specific emotional category that is among the most persuasive in driving action in one industry can at the same time be among the least persuasive in another industry.

Safety vs. Intimacy

When comparing the positive emotional categories of Safety and Intimacy, for the industry of Finance & Insurance, we can see that Intimacy, (”addressing or saluting in a way that implies some sort of relationship” as defined by Persado) is more effective in direct response marketing campaigns than Safety. For Retail & eCommerce, Safety (“eliminating worries or doubts”) is more effective.

Finance & Insurance Retail & eCommerce

Anxiety vs. Exclusivity

Comparing the negative emotional category of Anxiety with the emotional category of Exclusivity, it wouldbe expected that the latter would be more persuasive for both industries because of the overall efficacy of positive intense emotions. While this is true for Retail & eCommerce, it is not the case with Finance & Insurance, for which Anxiety is more persuasive when inspiring customers to take an action associated with a marketing campaign.

Finance & Insurance Retail & eCommerce

4Copyright © 2015 Persado Inc. All rights reserved.Proprietary and Confidential

vs. vs.

Intimacy Safety

Safety Intimacy

vs.

Exclusivity

Anxiety

vs.

Anxiety

Exclusivity

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Most Persuasive Emotion vs. Least Persuasive Emotion by Industry

As observed in this report the change in response rate of marketing messages conveying different emotions is significant in both industries. More specifically for the industry of Retail & eCommerce a marketing message that conveys the most persuasive emotion for the industry is expected to increase the response rate by 34% more on average compared to a message that conveys the least persuasive emotion, which in this case is Gratification.

Here’s an example of a subject line from the industry of Retail & eCommerce that conveys Gratification:...Enjoy great savings up to 50%...

For Finance & Insurance on the other hand, a marketing message conveying the most persuasive emotion can generate an increase of 116% more on average in the response rate than a message conveying the least persuasive emotion, which is Celebration.

An example of a marketing text from the industry of Finance & Insurance that conveys Celebration is the following: Celebrate FREE! Totally free federal returns...


MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

higher response rateon average116%

Finance & Insurance

Celebration

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


Retail & eCommerce

Gratification

*

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9

8 The most persuasive emotional category is kept confidential to all non-Persado customers.9 Percentage change, not absolute.

* Contact Persado to find out which are the most persuasive emotions in each case.

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Emotional Categories by Channel (worldwide, across Industries) In this section a comparison of the effectiveness of different emotional categories for different marketing channels is presented. There are nuances that differentiate the emotional tone and language used to speak to customers on acquisition channels, such as display and social advertising, versus retention channels, such as email, SMS and web. Recognizing these differences, and adjusting the language to account for these nuances drives a deeper understanding of customer affinities, and ultimately drives greater loyalty and deeper lengths of retention. As the medium of serving messages represented in this report changes, the effectiveness of the same emotions changes drastically as well. The data for this report has been derived from experiments Persado has conducted with customers all over the world in three main channels:

1. Email Subject Line2. Email Body3. Web Banner

Luck vs. Exclusivity

Luck and Exclusivity, both positive emotions have different results for a marketing campaign depending on what the communication channel is. More specifically, a Subject Line conveying Luck can better persuade the audience to respond compared to a Subject Line conveying Exclusivity. Similarly, for Email Body the emotional category of Luck is more powerful than Exclusivity. For Web Banners, Exclusivity is more persuasive than Luck.

Subject Line Email Body

Web Banner


vs.vs.

Luck Luck

Exclusivity Exclusivity

vs.

Exclusivity

Luck

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Excitement vs. Guilt

Another example of how different emotions can elicit different responses in different marketing channels is the impact of Excitement compared to Guilt: For Subject Line, Excitement (“Introducing something enthusiastically,” as defined by Persado) is more effective than Guilt (“Appealing to a sense of regret”), while for both Email Body and Web Banner, a marketing text conveying Guilt is actually more persuasive.

Subject Line Email Body

Web Banner

Most Persuasive Emotion vs. Least Persuasive Emotion by Channel

Comparing the impact of the most persuasive emotion for Subject Line with the least persuasive for that channel (Celebration), an increase of 42% is observed in the average response rate. Here’s an xample of a Subject Line conveying Celebration: Let’s celebrate! Summer’s best bets under $35

vs.vs.

Excitement Guilt

Guilt Excitement

vs.

Guilt

Excitement

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


Subject Line

Celebration

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Likewise, the most persuasive emotion for Email Body is expected to improve the response rate by 130% on average, compared to Fascination, which is the least persuasive emotion for the same channel.

Here’s an example of marketing copy conveying Fascination, which is part of an Email Body that was sent from a luxury fashion company: ... must-have minis under $100...

Finally the most persuasive emotion for Web can increase the response rate by 49% on average, as opposed to the least persuasive emotion for the channel - in this case, Encouragement.

Here’s an example of Finance & Insurance Web Banner conveying Encouragement: ...Now you can do your own taxes...


MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

Web Banner

Encouragement


MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


Email Body

Fascination

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Emotional Categories by Geographical Region (across Channels and

Industries) This section provides a sample of Persado’s Emotional Rankings Report by geographical region. The findings are based on experiments that Persado has run in three geographical areas:

1. North America 2. South America3. Europe

Intimacy vs. Relief

Using as an example the positive emotional categories of Intimacy and Relief, we can see how their ranking varies by geographical area: in North and South America, a marketing text conveying Relief is expected to generate better results than one conveying Intimacy. By contrast, words or phrases conveying Intimacy seem to be more persuasive for European audiences.

North America South America

Europe

Gratification vs. Urgency

Comparing the positive emotional category of Gratification with the negative emotional category of Urgency, the latter seems to be more effective for both North American and European audiences, while in South America the opposite result is observed: Gratification is more persuasive than Urgency.

vs.vs.

Relief Relief

Intimacy Intimacy

vs.

Intimacy

Relief

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North America South America

Europe

Most Persuasive Emotion vs. Least Persuasive Emotion by Region

Comparing the impact of the most persuasive emotion with that of the least persuasive emotion in North America (Challenge), an increase of 64% is observed in the average response rate.

In South America, the most persuasive emotion can increase the response rate by 90% on average compared to the least persuasive emotion which is Guilt.

vs.vs.

Urgency Gratification

Gratification Urgency

vs.

Urgency

Gratification

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


North America

Challenge

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


South America

Guilt

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Finally, in Europe the most persuasive emotional category renders a response rate that is 50% higher on average than the emotional category of Fascination, which is the least persuasive emotional category for this region.

Emotional Categories by Engagement Type (worldwide, across Channels

and Industries) Another interesting comparison of emotional effectiveness concerns the kind of action that a marketing text drives the consumers to take. The performance of an emotional category can be affected by the level of commitment that the consumer is making by responding to a direct marketing campaign. In this section, we examine the effect of emotions from the perspective of two different levels of consumer engagement:

1. Subscription2. One-time Action

Intimacy vs. Relief

Measuring the effectiveness of the positive emotional categories of Intimacy and Relief, the former is more persuasive than the latter for Subscription. On the contrary, Relief is more effective than Intimacy for One-time Atction.

Subscription One-Time Action

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


Europe

Fascination

vs. vs.

Intimacy Relief

Relief Intimacy

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Guilt vs. Urgency

When gauging the persuasive power of Guilt and Urgency, two negative emotional categories, the first is shown to be more effective for Subscription, while the second is more powerful for campaigns that require One-time Action.

Subscription One-Time Action

Most Persuasive Emotion vs. Least Persuasive Emotion by Engagement Type

As far as Subscription is concerned, using a marketing text that is flavored with the most persuasive emotional category results in an average increase of 40% in the response rate, compared to the least persuasive emotion. In this case, the least persuasive emotional category is Curiosity (“intriguing or teasing by being vague”) - here’s an example: You’ll want to see this...

For One-time Action marketing campaigns, the average increase of the response rate for texts including the most persuasive emotional category is 49% higher on average than Gratification, which is the least persuasive emotional category for this segment. This is a Subject Line conveying the emotion of Gratification: Enjoy great savings with this one-time deal

Guilt UrgencyUrgency Guiltvs. vs.

Guilt Urgency

Urgency Guilt

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


Subscription

Curiosity

MOSTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION

LEASTPERSUASIVE

EMOTION


One-time Action

Gratification

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Observations

• Celebration is the least persuasive emotion for Finance & Insurance across Channels and for Subject Line across Industries

• Fascination is the least effective emotion for Email Body worldwide, as well as across Channels and Industries in Europe

• Encouragement is the least persuasive emotion for Web Banner • Challenge is the least persuasive emotion for North American audiences • Curiosity is the least persuasive emotion for Subscription-based direct marketing campaigns • Guilt is the least persuasive emotion in South America, but is more persuasive than Urgency when it comes

to Subscription • Gratification is the least persuasive emotion for Retail & eCommerce when it comes to Industry and for One-

time Action when it comes to Engagement. • Urgency is more effective than Gratification in North America and Europe, as far as Region is concerned • Intimacy is more persuasive than Relief for Europe across Industries and Channels, as well as for

Subscription worldwide. Additionally, it is more effective for Finance & Insurance compared to Safety • Luck brings better results than Exclusivity when it comes to Email, for both Subject Line and Body • Exclusivity performs better than Luck when it comes to Web Banner • Relief is a more persuasive emotion than Intimacy for One-time Action marketing campaigns

worldwide and also in North and South America across Industries and Channels

Conclusion

For the first time, the effectiveness of emotions in direct marketing can by quantified for brands. Persado’s platform observes distinct variances in the effectiveness of emotional categories across four different segments for direct marketing campaigns: by Industry, by Channel, by Geographical Region and by Engagement Type. Persado’s platform reveals not only that emotional categories have different and distinct impacts on campaigns of different sub-segments, but also that using the most persuasive emotional category of a specific target group can actually produce a significant increase in the response rate compared to the least persuasive emotion.

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About Persado

Persado invented a way of using computers to write natural language called Persuasion Automation. The platform uses advanced math and science to generate the most persuasive language for digital communications intended to drive action. Through various message types and ad units like emails, display ads and mobile messages, the engine of the commercial internet is driven on short, digital, persuasive messages. Calculating the optimal emotional language to use, Persado’s Persuasion Automation has shown an average 75% greater performance compared to copy created in the traditional manner, by human copywriters without the help of algorithmic assistance.

Copyright Notice and Disclaimer

All materials contained in this presentation are protected by United States copyright law. You may not reproduce, adapt, modify, distribute, transmit, display, publish, broadcast or create derivative works of these materials without the prior written permission of Persado Inc. Please contact Julia Spano ([email protected]) with all requests. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from any copies. Disclaimer: The information contained in this material is subject to change and is indicative only. Past results do not guarantee future success. The material is provided on an “as is” and “where is” basis and Persado Inc. accepts no responsibility or liability for any use, reference to, or action taken in reliance on such materials.

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Persado's Emotional Rankings Report

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