The numbers speak for themselves: two-thirds of consumers shop in more than one channel – and those that do have a 30% higher lifetime value. It makes sense that multichannel shoppers are going to be your most valuable, but did you know they are also your most active and engaged?

We studied over 1.4 million subscribers that clicked-through at least one email during the fourth quarter of 2017 to see if multichannel subscribers – those who are subscribed to both an SMS and email list – are more engaged than email only subscribers. And the results prove that they are.

We started by comparing the number of subscribers who only clicked once to those who clicked two or more times and found that the number of multichannel subscribers who only clicked once in Q4 was 8.9% lower than email only subscribers. However, multichannel subscribers had 6.1% more multiple clicks in the same time period.

Breaking it down further, you can see that as the number of clicks grow, so does the engagement rate of multichannel subscribers. In fact, SMS and email subscribers who clicked-through emails 11 or more times in Q4 was 25% higher than email only subscribers.

An even closer look shows just how consistent increased engagement is for multichannel subscribers:

This added engagement boosts site traffic and conversions. We've seen SMS increase site traffic 3-4%, which leads to a 1.5% increase in overall site conversions on average. And the SMS visitors have a 6.4% lower bounce rate when compared to visitors who clicked-through an email, again proving that SMS subscribers are the most engaged. While email still reigns as one of the top conversion channels, SMS subscribers had the same conversion rate as the organic site traffic.

These rates are expected to rise as more and more consumers choose to engage with brands.