1. A video is worth a thousand pictures
Case Study: Holland America Line
Sophisticated email marketing program experiences 100%+ increase in email
channel engagement and higher click-to-open ratios with Liveclicker in-email
video.
www.liveclicker.com
Liveclicker, Inc.
2055 Junction Avenue
San Jose, California 95131
info@liveclicker.com
(408) 540-6200

2. CASE STUDY:
GOALS “Featuring video
 Provide a differentiated inbox experience within the email itself
 Increase email channel click-through rate allows us to share a
 Deliver compelling value to the brand richer experience of
 Increase audience engagement what a Holland
America cruise is like
CHALLENGES – effectively and
immediately. This
 In-email video was unproven helps strengthen our
 Deliverability concerns brand while we
 Higher per-campaign costs engage our email
audience at a deeper
level.”
With 136 years of experience, Holland America Line is recognized as - Mari Ström,
the undisputed leader in the cruise industry’s premium segment. The eMarketing Manager
company’s fleet of 14 ships offers nearly 500 cruises to 320 ports of
call in more than 100 countries, territories or dependencies. Parent
company Carnival dominates the global cruise industry with an $89
billion market cap worldwide.
Holland America Line has long maintained a strong offline direct
marketing program and notes how important its network of travel
agents and direct mail activities are to its overall success. “Our
guests are generally 55+ years old but are technically savvy and
engage with us in multiple channels,” says Mari Ström, eMarketing
Manager. “Guests booking a cruise with Holland America Line are
seeking a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We are committed to
delivering on this expectation regardless of the channel.”
Unfortunately, providing guests with a compelling, rich experience in
the email channel remained a perennial challenge due to ongoing
deliverability and rendering challenges. “Before engaging Liveclicker,
we were unable to deliver video in email. Instead, we relied on
providing a rich experience only on campaign landing pages and
elsewhere on our web site,” says Ms. Ström. “Liveclicker solved the
technical challenges for us so we are now able to deliver video in
email to over 75% of our HTML-enabled audience, with smooth
failover for those unable to see video directly in the email. We have
seen higher audience engagement and clickthrough.” In addition to
the increase in hard channel metrics, video in email provided other
unforeseen benefits to the email program. “Within the company, there
is a lot of buzz that goes on when we use Liveclicker with our
campaigns. People across the organization are giving the channel
much more attention now that they see the possibility of what email
can do from an experience perspective.”

3. After making the decision to experiment with in-email video and experiencing the
early results, Holland America Line quickly decided to roll Liveclicker out across
a broad suite of its email marketing programs. Today, Liveclicker videos are
included in product emails, trade emails sent to travel agents, and branding
emails. Because Liveclicker integrates seamlessly with any Email Service
Provider or in-house email marketing software, Holland America is able to launch
new video email programs immediately through Liveclicker’s self-service web
interface.
To support its ongoing video email efforts, Holland America Line relies on a rich
library of video content including destination video footage and professionally-
produced footage of guests onboard ships. “It is much more compelling to show
people on the ship, in the spa, in the dining room, or otherwise enjoying the
Holland America Line experience when using video,” says Ms. Ström.
Liveclicker’s built-in engagement reports
precisely track subscriber engagement over
time, yielding metrics that inform the email
program well beyond video.
Holland America Line recommends keeping in-
email videos short (no longer than 30 seconds)
and to focus on driving clickthrough by using
engaging, creative video content. Additionally,
testing audience segments to see how different
sets of subscribers react to video is
encouraged.
Today, Holland America Line is aggressively
using video across an increasing number of
email programs. Now that the initial concerns
about deliverability and engagement have
been laid to rest, the company is focused on
driving innovation within its email programs
through video.
BEST PRACTICES
 Keep in-email videos short – no longer than 30 seconds
 Focus on driving clickthrough with engaging, creative content
 Test audience segments
RESULTS
 Drove 100% increase in the number of subscribers clicking on in-email
video elements vs. static images in controlled A/B tests
 Observed higher clickthrough rates and higher click-to-open ratio for
video email vs. static email in broad consumer segments
 Achieved deliverability parity for video-enabled email vs. static emails
 Generated positive internal buzz around the email channel, which
helped support an increase in the overall email marketing budget