June 19, 2013
This year, many marketers' lead prospecting aims are focused primarily on finding new customers, while relatively few are looking only to retain current or reactivate former customers, according to Chief Marketer's 2013 Prospecting Survey [download page]. Marketers are ramping up their use of prospecting tools across the board, and while email remains the most common prospecting channel (86.7% using this year), some of the biggest changes are reserved for content marketing, retargeted ads, and website registration/opt-in. Read more »
June 19, 2013
Based on an analysis of 1 trillion impressions from its 100,000-strong publisher network during Q1, Infolinks has released a set of findings concerning online ad click-through rates (CTRs) by time of day, day of the week, and US state. The data suggests that CTRs are highest between 11AM and 2PM, rising to 14% above the average during that time period. CTRs on either side of that period are also high, at 10-11% above-average, while falling in the evening hours into the late night and early morning. Read more »
June 17, 2013
In light of recent data from comScore suggesting that a majority of display ads go unseen (at least per the 3MS standard for 50% of pixels in-view for at least a second), it's worth taking a look at viewability benchmarks according to PointRoll's latest benchmark report [pdf]. Covering 2012 activity, the data shows that viewability rates were lowest on shopping and auction (34.3%) and ad network (36.7%) sites, and highest on employment (68.5%), news (67%) and music and streaming media (66.1%) sites. Read more »
June 14, 2013
SMS messages achieve a high response rate across industries, and much of that engagement occurs in the first 15 minutes, finds Dynmark [download page] in a new study. Derived from an analysis of almost a billion SMS transactions through 1,500 networks across 42 mobile operating systems and a multitude of countries, the data reveals that the finance and banking and travel and transport sectors garner quick responses, with 57% and 54% of their responses, respectively, coming in the first 15 minutes. Read more »
June 12, 2013
Around the world, consumers and marketers alike believe that traditional media such as newspapers and TV are better advertising sources than digital platforms such as websites, social media pages and blogs, finds Adobe in new data from its "Click Here: The State of Online Advertising" report. The new data builds on previous research conducted within the US (results covered here), by expanding into the UK, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, and South Korea and offering a global average from all the countries. But while consumers and marketers are in agreement that traditional media sources are better for advertising and more credible sources of information, consumers tended to rate traditional media higher, while marketers were comparably more favorable to digital sources. Read more »
June 12, 2013
It appears that marketers must walk a tightrope when it comes to email: they need to use it as consumers' preferred communications channel, but they also need to be careful not to abuse it by sending too many messages. According to results from a Lyris-sponsored Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) [pdf] study of consumers in the US and UK, an overwhelming 80% said that one of their top 2 frustrations about companies' use of online communications was too many unwanted email messages. But, when asked how they prefer to be introduced to a new consumer product (other than through mass-market advertising), respondents pointed to email first. Read more »
June 6, 2013
Email volume increased by 11.6% year-over-year in Q1, following a 5.4% year-over-year increase in Q4, details Experian Marketing Services in its Q1 Email Benchmark Study [download page]. Multi-channel retailers increased their email volume the most rapidly, by 20.2%, as 70% of brands sent more emails compared to the prior year. Travel brands saw the next-highest growth, of 113.6%, although only half of the brands increased mailings. Read more »
June 4, 2013
"Amazon has joined Google as the two most important digital properties in consumer purchase behavior," declares a new study from GroupM Next and Compete. In their analysis of more than 168,000 purchases of consumer electronics in which the consumer used digital media somewhere along their purchase path, the researchers found that Amazon.com appeared in an impressive 17% of the journeys. Given that every other retail site combined appeared in 34% of the purchase journeys, that means that when consumers visited a retail site online, 1 in 3 went to Amazon. Read more »
June 3, 2013
Compete and GroupM have released a new report that analyzes more than 168,000 purchases of consumer electronics in which the consumer used digital media somewhere along their purchase path. The study, revealing that digital media and advertising heavily influenced almost half of all purchases, identifies 6 types of digital shopper. The researchers argue that purchase journeys are more influenced by behavioral factors than demographics, as each shopper segment sports "remarkably" similar demographics. Read more »
May 30, 2013
23% of social media users in the UK have researched a product or service as a result of reading something on social media sites, according to a recent report from YouGov, representing a 6% point increase from a year earlier. Additionally, 13% have bought something as a result of reading something on a social media sites, up 7% points from the April 2012 survey. While that suggests that brands are more effectively engaging with social media users, their efforts are also proving to be a turn-off to some. Read more »
