January 3, 2013
Smartphone penetration is high among younger consumers and drops significantly among their older counterparts, but that pattern is less pronounced when it comes to tablet adoption, at least in a selection of developed markets. That's according to survey results [download page] from Deloitte released in December 2012. The study, which looked at smart device ownership across 8 developed markets, found 18-24-year-olds to be almost three times as likely as the 55+ group to own a smartphone (58% vs. 21%), but less than twice as likely to own a tablet (19% vs. 11%). Read more »
December 12, 2012
4 in 10 emails sent are now being read on a mobile device, says Return Path in a new report, up 300% in the past 2 years alone. In fact, that 38% of email opens in the US now occurring on a mobile device surpasses the share of opens using a webmail account on a browser (31%) and via email desktop clients (also 31%). Read more »
December 6, 2012
67% of American Millennials believe it's their responsibility to share feedback with companies after a good or bad brand experience, finds Edelmand Berland and Edelman 8095 in a new study released in December. The survey, of 4,000 Millennials (aged 18-33) across 11 markets, finds that these consumers want to engage with brands, and see themselves as exerting a high degree of influence on others' purchase decisions. Read more »
December 6, 2012
It's the holiday season, and online spending is already breaking records, with the latest figures from comScore showing 14% year-over-year growth for the first 32 days of the season. But while e-commerce sales growth might be outpacing in-store sales growth (and getting more of the buzz as a result), it turns out that most Americans prefer shopping in-store to online, according to survey results from Ipsos. Read more »
October 22, 2012
Facebook ads got cheaper in Q3, says TBG Digital in its latest Global Advertising Report. In the US, average cost per click (CPC) tumbled by 40% quarter-over-quarter after passing $1 for the first time in Q2. The big drop in the US dragged down the average among the 5 major markets examined: while Canada (-27%) and the UK (-2%) also saw lower CPCs, the reverse was true in Germany (15%) and France (19%). All told, across those 5 markets, average CPC fell by 34%. Read more »
October 19, 2012
Global advertising spending rose 2.7% year-over-year in the first half of this year (H1), and once again, online advertising revenues grew more quickly than any other medium, details Nielsen in its Global AdView Pulse report. Advertisers upped their investments online by 7.2%, with the developing markets of the Middle East and Africa (+30.3%) and Latin America (+20.6%) in particular pouring more money into online advertising. The online ad spend figures are based solely on display ads. Read more »
October 16, 2012
Less than 1 in 4 Chinese executives believe that their brand's strength and reputation is an advantage for them as they target international markets for sales or investment, according to [pdf] a new report from Ernst & Young. These companies certainly have an uphill battle to climb, at least within the US: while a plurality (47%) of Chinese executives cited product and service quality as an advantage, recent survey results from Perception Research Service indicate that a majority of US shoppers who notice "Made in China" claims are less likely to buy those products, based largely on quality concerns. Read more »
October 12, 2012
The online marketing services support industry contains a vast array of players, but Borrell Associates, in an October 2012 report has generalized them down to a more accessible list, and has estimated that 51.7% of North American small and medium size business (SMB) online marketing service dollars are spent on the web presence category. This represents $202 billion in spending in 2012, and includes such services as website design and management, hosting, and social media management. Read more »
October 11, 2012
US paid search advertisers saw a 21% year-over-year increase in impressions and a 20% increase in click volume in Q3, according to [download page] a new report from Marin Software. Click-through rates (CTRs) were stable, while costs-per-click (CPC) continued to drop, down 14% to $0.82. But, not all verticals tracked followed this pattern. In fact, CTRs for each of the isolated verticals - auto, B2B, education, finance, healthcare, retail, and travel - all dropped on a year-over-year basis, with most of those verticals seeing increased CPCs. Read more »
October 3, 2012
Global real-time bidded (RTB) media inventory continued to grow in Q3, up 88% year-over-year and 29% quarter-over-quarter, according to an October report from Accordant Media. While this was a slowdown from Q2's 128% year-over-year growth rate, it shows advertisers and publishers venturing further into the RTB market. Q3's growth was fueled largely by increased RTB adoption in Western Europe, Brazil and Australia, with North America's Q3 growth rates (+62% year-over-year; +21% quarter-over-quarter) trailing the global average. Read more »
