Chart of the day: User researchers are taking advantage of multiple user experience (UX) research techniques
A study discovering the UX research techniques used most often reveals that researchers are using multiple methods with key techniques and emerging techniques equally important.
Task analysis, journey mapping, design reviews, user stories and prototype testing are the most popular methods. You can click on the chart below to see an enlarged version.
The study by NNG, leaders in UX research, also found:
Surveys are still heavily used, providing reliability
Remote user testing is not as popular as in-person research
Diary studies are used by just 2 in 10 (22%) researchers and just under half (47%) use search log analysis.
Researchers seem committed to using multiple techniques, which should continue to increase the quality of user research, experience and conversions.
Source: NNG - the study is referenced here and …
Chart of the Day: Mobile ad spend continues to skyrocket, but customer perceptions of mobile ads are still in the doldrums
Armani don't do infomercials. Rolex doesn't do direct mail. Ralph Lauren don't do coupons. Why do they ignore these often successful marketing tactics? Because if you put your ad for Rolex watches on a crappy leaflet and shove it through someone's door it degrades the brand. It detracts from it's luxury, it's exclusivity.
The lesson is that it's not just the content of the ad that matters. The medium it's delivered in matters.
This should make marketers wary about rushing head long into mobile ads when customers are reporting so many issues with them.
There's no doubting that such a rush is occurring. Spending on mobile ads doubled in just two years - and will reach an impressive 143 billion this year according to Statista.
And…
Chart of the Day: Snapchat was the most used social media app for twice as many people in 2016.
Today's Chart of the Day is influenced by the latest news of Snapchat trialing two new features to increase a marketer return on their ad spend on the channel.
But before we get into the new features (scroll to under the chart if you can't wait), this chart from the infinite dial 2016 report from Edison research shows that while Facebook is the most used social media channel by a significant margin, Snapchat is the only brand to make major gains when compared to 2015 by moving from 4% of users to 8%. This is only made more incredible for Snapchat when you consider that Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest had their share reduced and Instagram remained the same. For more information on snapchat, see our article on Snapchat Marketing Stats.
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Chart of the Day: A case study shows how integrating these channels increases purchase
This chart of the day is a little different from the typical insights we have about consumer and business use of digital media and tech. It fits with our current integrated marketing theme, showing how two channels can be more powerful than one. We know that is the theory of integrated communications, but you only get to see the reality when a 'hold-out' test is run for a campaign with a control group who saw one media type only. These are rarely published, so this isn't new, but the principle still applies.
Here's the test design, you can see that some of the audience of the retailer who ran the test just got to receive an email (the control group), others were served Facebook ads, but the interesting group are the combined 16% who opened emails and…
Chart of the day: The biggest challenges for growing email list size include increasing sign-up rate and improving content
New research from Ascend2 found that improving email sign-up conversion rate and improving content quality and relevancy are both the biggest challenges for marketers when it comes to their email marketing list.
The research also found that improving list hygiene and reducing unsubscribe rates are also important.
Naturally, conversion rate increases are the biggest challenge but content is important to marketers, who realise that quality, relevancy and value of content is key to email marketing. It ultimately is what will encourage customers to interact with the brand.
Source: Ascend2 - Email List Growth Trends
Sample: 255 respondents split between B2B and B2C, most in a senior role (such as manager)
Recommended resource: Email Marketing Pre-Send checklist (Expert member resource)
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Chart of the Day: New research shows average Moz Domain Authority across industry
Domain Authority is a metric created by Moz (a provider of SEO tools), which logarithmically ranks websites ability to rank in search engines on a scale from 1 to 100. It's an extremely useful metric for SEOs, because they can judge the value of getting a link from a site based on its domain authority. To calculate domain authority Domain Authority, Moz use over 40 signals from the website and match it to the results of machine learning against Google's algorithm to best model how search engine results are generated.
It is therefore, important to pay attention to domain authority, as it is probably the most accurate metric out there for how likely your site is to be ranking in search engines and drawing in large volumes of organic traffic. Its value as a metric also extends to helping you see…
Chart of the Day: The Fashion and Sports Industries are getting the most out of the Instagram community
Instagram's popularity seems never ending, and every time a new feature is released the opportunities for brands to reach audiences keep growing. In the last year, Instagram has introduced us to Stories, Instagram Live, Stickers, Mulitple photos and video in one post and much more. While the top followed accounts are dominated by celebrity accounts with Selena Gomez leading the way (if you discount the official Instagram account) top B2C/retail brands have been able to capitalise on this too.
If you are new to Instagram or even if you're not The Rock's account is a personal favourite, it really shows how a personality has used the platform to promote himself as a brand.
In todays chart of the day, I ranked the 10 most followed brands on Instagram excluding celebrities.
At the top of the…
Chart of the Day: Predictive Analytics Users Get Better Results
Predictive Analytics isn't a new marketing technique, but interest in it has increased with the hype around using Artificial Intelligence for Marketing. This typically involves using Machine Learning, a key AI technique for marketing, by analysis of historical results of campaigns to inform future targeting and creative.
In this research, analysts Aberdeen Group review the impact of Predictive analytics on different ROI metrics as presented in the chart below.
But, before we take a look at the results, what is predictive analytics? Aberdeen define predictive analytics as:
'A technology allowing firms to analyze structured and unstructured data, be it captured in the past or in real time. Such analysis reveals key trends and correlations while also predicting the likelihood of things such as customer churn'.
This is a broad definition since most marketing applications focus on analysis…
Chart of the Day: What challenges you when it comes to email marketing? Part 4 of 4.
For email marketers, there will always be aspects of email marketing that are a challenge. This is the fourth of my four part series pertaining to issues faced in email marketing.
Previous problems discussed during the course of the series:
Targeting & Segmenting
Subscriber list growth
Tracking results
Main email marketing goal.
The final point we want to discuss is "what is your main email marketing goal"? We need a end result to strive towards and this is best to decide in the very beginning of the campaigns. In the chart it shows brand-building (47%) and lead generation (42%) are very close. While lead nurturing (11%) is far down the priority list. When you are deciding on what to use as your goal, remember that it is specific to your company.
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Chart of the Day: DuckDuckGo searches increase tenfold in five years
For those of us busily involved in the thankless task of getting algorithms to like our content and display it in the SERPs, how we attempt to optimize our content to appear high on results pages depends in large part on which search engines our audience are using. For most of us, this will mean optimizing for Google, which handles the lion's share of search queries in the majority of countries. Some SEOs may also optimise for Bing/Yahoo (they are both powered by Bing's algorithm), AOL if they are American or Baidu if they're in China.
But there is a new player on the block, which although still tiny in comparison to Google, is increasingly eking out an ever larger share of the search market. With over 14 million searches a month and growing rapidly, DuckDuckGo could soon become more than just a bit…
