US radio advertising revenues have been mostly flat in recent years, with the RAB’s latest revenue report showing a 1% decline in 2015. While digital increases have been slowing, continued growth in off-air revenues and a rebound in network spending in 2015 were enough to offset digital’s declines. The auto industry was once again the top spender last year, hiking its spend by 4%.
It was followed by the communications/cellular/public utilities sector (-5%), financial services (+4%), health care (+5%) and professional services (+9%).
The following is a brief list of intriguing data points sourced from recent research.
- Mobile ad blocking is growing, with almost one-quarter of smartphone owners surveyed by Tune [download page] in the US and UK reporting having installed an ad blocking application. The report indicates that self-reported mobile ad blocking app installation is higher among men, Android users and UK smartphone owners. Separately, more than half of the almost 4,000 smartphone owners surveyed say that advertisers should be able to collect no data on them at all.
- Many small businesses are ignoring SEO, says Clutch in a survey of 352 owners and managers of small businesses in the US. Among those with a company website, only 30% engaged in SEO, though another 20% are planning to do so this year. Separate results from the study indicate that almost half (46%) of small businesses surveyed do not have a website.
- Mobile application “stickiness” last year rose to its highest level since 2012, reports Localytics, with app launches also increasing on a year-over-year basis. “Stickiness” is a measure of how frequently users engage with apps as well as how many still engage with them months later. In other words, it averages engagement (the percentage of an app’s users who have logged 10+ sessions in a month) and retention (the percentage of users who return to the app within 3 months of their first session). Both saw an uptick in 2015, with engagement growing to 31% of the average app’s user base (up from 26% in 2014, 25% in 2013 and 24% in 2012) and retention increasing to 18%.
- Apps aren’t optimizing their push notification send times, warns LeanPlum in a recent analysis of 671 million push notifications from around the world. For example, while weekday sends in North America spiked during morning commuter hours, lunch breaks and after school, opens were highest in the evening times, with brands recommended to send their notifications during the 6-9PM window. On the weekend, push notifications are best sent at 4-5PM rather than mornings, as engagement is still strong at those hours and send frequency is lower.
- Roughly 3 in 4 mobile users say that a good mobile experience has an influence on their loyalty to a brand, according to results from a Sitecore-commissioned survey of 4,500 adult mobile users in 11 countries. However, 6 in 10 respondents don’t feel that their mobile experience expectations are completely met. Problem areas include the user experience (where only 24% are completely satisfied), continuity between mobile and web experiences (23%) and getting adequate customer service (21%).
- As for customer service, consumers use a variety of channels, per a report [download page] from NICE and BCG that surveyed 1,704 customers of financial services, telecom services and insurance across 5 markets (US, UK, Australia, Netherlands, and France). Respondents, who were required to be 18-65 and live in a major metropolitan area, use call centers and web self-service most frequently, though mobile app usage frequency has increased over the past couple of years. The majority of respondents, meanwhile, report never using or not having the opportunity to use online forums, live chat, text, online forums and social media. Among the 65% not using social media, the leading reasons given were that it takes too long to address issues, has limited functionality (can only do a few tasks) and that it isn’t feasible for complex tasks.
- Turning to content marketing, a Rapt Media survey [download page] of 500 marketing creatives reveals that making content engaging (76%) is their top priority, ahead of personalizing it to different audiences (55%) and distributing it to the right channels (41%). However, the top challenge faced by creatives is creating content that is personalized enough, with more than 8 in 10 citing this challenge. Demonstrating engagement and personalization appears to be a much more crucial way of securing greater investment in content creation technology from business leaders than being able to demonstrate deeper analytics, per respondents.
- Switching gears, a report from BabyCenter [pdf] notes that 8 in 10 parents like seeing diverse families in TV shows, movies and advertising, and two-thirds say that a brand that respects all types of families is an important factor in their purchase decisions. In fact, 41% of Millennial parents indicate that they’re more likely to buy from brands that use more diverse family types in their advertising, while 7 in 10 have avoided purchasing something because they don’t believe in what the company stands for. The results are based on survey research was conducted using BabyCenter’s proprietary 21st Century Mom® panel as well as Research Now’s panel of 1,000 parents with children under the age of 18. YouGov, in cooperation with BabyCenter, fielded a survey among its national panel including 1,100 online adults.
- Finally, a study [download page] from Turner and 4C Insights finds that TV advertising is responsible for 1 in every 5 brand engagements on Facebook and Twitter. The research, which covered 26 brands and 6 months of advertising, can be accessed here.
Have a great weekend!
