Shop.org, the online division of the National Retail Federation, and BizRate Research have released a new study that looked at the various marketing campaigns and promotions used by the retailers for the holiday season.

The study called “2006 Online Retail Holiday Best Practices” analyzed the holiday promotions that worked best including the best sales drivers for etailers. It ranked the various promotional strategies according to effectiveness and provided a measure of the usage of said strategies.

Some of its findings include:

1. Holiday Promotions that Worked Best

• Free shipping with no conditions — ranked 4.4 in terms of effectiveness and used by 25% of the sample
• Free shipping with conditions — ranked 4.3; used by 79%
• Offline-online sale — ranked 4.2; used by 39%
• Free shipping with upgrade — ranked 4; used by 48%
• Online only sale — ranked 3.9%; used by 59%

2. Best Sales Drivers of a Website according to effectiveness:

• Buy online and pick up store
• Product customization
• Personalized/site triggered email
• Featured sale item page
• Gift idea center

You can download a summary of the report at shop.org