Mobile

Executives at large companies (more than $500 million in revenues) who rate themselves highly in terms of their capability to use data analytics, deploy applications, and operate APIs are more likely than those who rate themselves poorly in those capabilities to have confidence in their future competitive position, according to [pdf] results from an Apigee Institute survey. These top digital performers also are more likely to report having outperformed their competitors in the past year across a range of factors, such as bringing new products to market and customer satisfaction. Read more »

The volume of smartphone impressions on the Millennial Media platform is increasing, but not as quickly as impressions from non-phone connected devices, represented primarily by tablets, according to [download page] Millennial Media's latest Mobile Mix report. In Q1, the company reports that non-phone connected devices accounted for 25% of total platform impressions, up from 20% a year earlier. That 5% point gain came entirely at the expense of smartphones, which dropped from 75% to 70% share of impressions. Feature phones, somewhat surprisingly, kept steady at 5%. Read more »

A global shift in marketing budgets from traditional to digital media has been well documented of late, and new survey results from Martini Media suggest that UK marketers are hopping aboard the digital marketing train. 95% of brand advertisers and agencies responding to the survey said they will increase their digital marketing spending this year, with fully 48% of total budgets going to digital media. In particular, 63% will increase their social media investments, 57% their mobile investments, 40% their video investments, and 36% their rich media investments. Read more »

Netflix isn't the only video service eating up North American bandwidth, although it is the largest, according to [download page] Sandvine's "Global Internet Phenomena Report 1H 2013." The report reveals that Netflix accounts for 32.3% share of North American peak downstream fixed access traffic, a slight dip from H1 2012, with YouTube next at 17.1%, up from 13.8% in the researchers' H1 2012 study. When it comes to mobile traffic, the opposite trends are true: YouTube leads with 27.3% share of peak traffic, but is down from 31%, while Netflix is far back at 4%, but up from 2.2% the prior year. Read more »

Some retailers aren't sold on the concept of digital channels being the primary driver of future growth, at the expense of stores. But most do see the value of digital channels in driving traffic to stores - and they have some thoughts on which work best once the consumer is actually in the store. Results from RSR Research's "The Relevant Store in the Digital Age" [download page] reveal that nearly all retailers see their e-commerce sites as having a lot (58%) or some (38%) value in driving traffic to stores. And while there's some angst about showrooming, 87% recognize that smartphones have a lot (50%) or some (37%) value in driving store traffic. Read more »

PointRoll has released data [pdf] from its upcoming 2012 Benchmark Report, revealing that in-stream video ads achieved an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.62% last year, far outpacing mobile (0.15%), rich media (0.14%) and standard banner (0.1%) ads. The findings support a similar conclusion reached earlier this year by DG MediaMind, which also found in-stream video ads to outperform those other formats, though with vastly different benchmark figures. (The DG MediaMind report put the US benchmark CTR for in-stream video at 1.11%, and mobile at 0.88%). Read more »

Senior executives from around the world aren't that enthusiastic about social media marketing, according to new figures released by Doremus and the Financial Times from their annual "Decision Dynamics" survey. 51% of respondents feel that advertising in social media is more intrusive than advertising in a magazine or newspaper, while only one-third believe that a social media presence enhances a company's reputation. The study results indicate that, in general, while executives are embracing online and mobile activities, they're not doing so at the expense of traditional media. Read more »

Wealthy consumers are as likely to make purchases in-store as online, and few have embraced showrooming, loosely defined as the practice of checking out a product in-store before buying online. According to new research from the Luxury Institute, 78% of wealthy consumers (earning at least $150,000 a year) had bought something in a store in the previous 12 months, and 77% had ordered something online via computer. Only 1 in 4 reported buying online after checking out merchandise in-store (the study did not mention the use of a mobile device in-store). Read more »

In conjunction with a new monthly e-commerce tracking initiative, Shopzilla has released research from a survey of online shoppers conducted immediately after their purchases from the Bizrate Insights Network of more than 5,200 e-commerce retailers in the US and Canada. The data shows that buyers were most likely to have first seen their most recent online purchase while surfing around online (29%) or when looking to find something specific (25%). Beyond those top 2 points of inspiration, store emails (11%) emerged as a key source, cited by more respondents than magazines (8%), ads (6%), blogs and other web content sites (4%). Read more »

Some tablet owners are spending a significant amount of time watching video on their devices, details GfK in a new data release. According to the study, among tablet owners, Millennials (born 1977-1994) spend on average 23% of their total video viewing time (time spent watching video on any device, including TV, in a 7-day period) with their devices. Millennial tablet owners are far more engaged with video on their devices than other generations: Gen Xers (born 1965-1976) spend 16% of their video viewing time with them; Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) spend 11%; and pre-Boomers (born before 1946) spend 6%. Read more »