Promotional call-to-actions in emails for access-based “moments of luxury”: Evidence from a large-scale randomized field experiment

Abstract

With emailing as a strategic tool, promotional emails need to be optimized, notably in how they encourage customer reaction through the call-to-action (CTA) button. The effects of promotional emailing especially remain unclear when tourism services are embracing the sharing economy and new forms of digitalized accessibility to propose access-based “moments of luxury.” This study uses two research context studies and a large-scale randomized field experiment conducted with a peer-to-peer boat-rental company to investigate the effects of a promotional CTA button in emails from a sharing economy platform proposing access to “moments of luxury” in the tourism industry. We find a detrimental impact of promotional CTA on click-through rates and a positive impact of prior engagement and multichannel use of customers on email metrics. This research thereby contributes to tourism-related access-based “moments of luxury” and promotional email CTA from both theoretical and managerial perspectives.