What is Recency and why is it important in Email Marketing?

The recency is a concept used in psychology to refer to one of the ways in which memory tends to operate.. Let's use two examples to explain this. Suppose we attend a talk in which an expert speaker talks about a certain topic. Suppose also that a person has arrived at the event just as it was ending,  asks us to tell you three facts or issues discussed during the talk. Most likely (and this is always the case), we will refer to the last three issues discussed by the speaker. Our memory remembers the most recently perceived data, the last ones. Another classic example is the "shopping list". If we are given a list of 15 shopping items to memorise, we tend to remember the ones that came last.

The notion of recency refers to this mode of operation of memory; what has been perceived most recently is recalled.

EMAIL MARKETING RECENCY

In marketing, it makes sense to ask the question "...".the likelihood of a user responding to a call to action".and to address this issue the notion of recency has been shown to be of great value. Let's look at it. A possible "translation" of the "psychological" recency into marketing would be: a user will be more likely to respond to a call to action (e.g. email, cold call, direct marketing...), the more recent their last interaction with the brand issuing the call.. For example, if I send an email marketing campaign to my database and cross-reference the responses (opens, clicks and conversions) with the date on which the user opted-in, I will find that those users registered in the last 30 days get higher response rates than those registered between 30 and 60 days, and that these get higher response rates than those who registered between 60 and 90 days from the date of sending.

The chart above shows a real case study from one of our clients showing the recency effect applied to the relationship between opens and opt-in date. The more recent the opt-in date, the higher the ratio of current opens, and the less recent the opt-in date, the lower the ratio of current opens. This concrete example would be used to justify, for example, the implementation of a "reactivation" action on inactive users and old users. Another measure that we could consider would be to promote the constant attraction of new users, as these are the users who will convert the most.

In short, if I want to communicate an offer to users with a higher propensity to respond, I will do so to those with a higher recency value (understood as the closest in time).. The notion of recency has multiple applications in marketing in general and email marketing in particular, and is key to understanding user behaviour.