Chart of the Day: Customers around the world chose retailers with loyalty programs over ones which don't.
As this chart from Nielson shows, customers spending decisions are highly likely to be influenced by the presence of a customer loyalty program, with 65% of US and European customers reporting they'd buy from a retailer with a customer loyalty program over one that didn't, all else being equal.
A majority of those surveyed also reported they'd be more likely to continue doing business with a company that has a loyalty program, and on average over 60% said they'd be more likely to shop at online retailers if they provided similar loyalty benefits as in-store retailers.
That said, before you go rushing off to start a customer loyalty program for your online store, there is one caveat. All the survey respondents for this data set were themselves already members of a customer loyalty program. This means they may be predisposed to…
Chart of the day: Marketers are finding the difficulty of external/internal linking and web page load speed outstrips the effectiveness
In the November 2016 Search Engine Optimization Survey from Ascend2, they found that 57% of the 256 respondents understood that relevant content creation was the most effective tactics to boost their SEO traffic but at the same time it was also the most difficult. I'd suggest that this is mostly due it being time-consuming for marketers to create great content but also the competition to make it unique is high when it seems like everyone is doing inbound marketing.
Interestingly, the two tactics that were marked are more difficult than effective were external linking and web page load speed. Generating links to your site is hard and requires dedication from everyone in the marketing team to create high-quality engaging content that other site/bloggers will want…
Chart of the Day: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Cart Abandonment Rates Jump to 68%
Cart Abandonment is the scourge of e-commerce retailers everywhere, and this year it seems to be on the increase, particularly where there are promotions. New data emerging from the two busiest ecommerce days of 2016 (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) shows extremely high cart abandonment rates across the board. These are particularly high on mobile devices, where 78% of carts are abandoned.
E-commerce retailers should be asking themselves, are 4 out of 5 people abandoning their carts because they're having second thoughts about purchasing, or is it because the checkout pages aren't properly optimized for mobile? If a customer has to use fiddly forms that are hard to complete on a Smartphone they are far more likely to abandon their cart.
It's not all bad news though. Although the cart abandonment rates are huge, many of these customers can be nudged…
Chart of the Day: New experiment on outbound links shows their impact
A lot of discussion of SEO is around the right type of backlinks, links into a site, and rightly so given their continued importance to ranking. But what about links out from a site, do they have an impact? These are discussed less often, but can have an impact as the chart from this experiment by Reboot Online shows.
The experiment involved purchasing 10 new domains which mentioned the niche term "Phylandocic". Each article mentioned 2 authoritative, related websites. On 5 of the websites, mentions are in plain text whilst on the other 5 sites, they are hyperlinked. The domains were all registered at the same time to remove any domain age influence. All domains contained 10 random but pronounceable characters and all domains were confirmed as having 0 search volume produced in Google. All sites were co-hosted to minimise any…
With the news that social influencers being a big hit with hard-to-reach men online, recent research suggests that brand ambassadors and ongoing relationships with brand ambassadors are the most effective forms of influencer marketing.
The study was conducted online with 1,753 influencers and 102 marketers, by Tapinfluence and Altmeter and investigated marketers impressions of influencer marketing and discussed how they are using it.
Ongoing ambassadorships and product reviews are the most effective forms of influencer marketing, as ranked by marketers. Only Less than 11% believe affiliate marketing links are effective, whilst many marketers are also using brand ambassadors for mentions of event coverage, relationships are crucial to the long term success of this form of marketing.
The study also found that only 50% think sponsored content is the most effective form of influencer marketing, yet almost 82% use sponsored content, whilst 52.5% use brand…
Chart of the Day: iOS captures 45% of US Smartphone market in Q3 2016, but Android leads with 51% of users
Us marketers are used to hearing our ilk banging on about the need to optimize for mobile. If you are thinking about going that step further with mobile marketing and developing your own mobile app, you'll want to know which mobile operating system you should build your app for. The latest third quarter results from the US market point to a more or less equal divide between Android and iOS operating systems, with a slightly larger market share going to Android but iOS capturing a healthy 45% of the market.
This shows the immense popularity of Apple's iPhone, which tends to be purchased by higher income demographics and thus visitors using them tend to have higher average order values than visitors using other devices. The chart is also interesting in showing how the market is almost…
Chart of the Day: 74% of Black Friday weekend consumers are planning to shop on the big day.
Black Friday is finally here, whether you love it or hate it, there is one undeniable fact - Consumers spend big during this period.
Consumers in America are buzzing to see the deals online and high street retailers have on offer during the biggest shopping weekend of the year. An estimated 137.4 million people are considering hitting the shops this weekend, that's 59% of the population.
While there is plenty of competition for consumers attention across the whole weekend, the days with the highest potential for your business is on Black Friday and Saturday. With most Black Fridays sales lasting from Thanksgiving (Thursday) to Cyber Monday (and beyond), which day will drive the most sales for you? An annual survey from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics shows that less than half are planning to shop…
Chart of the Day: Third Quarter Smartphone ownership stats show near total adoption among under fifties
A whopping 97% of under 45s in the US own a Smartphone. That's just about as high a rate of adoption as it's possible to get. The adoption rate is now as high as it is for fridges! A technology that's almost 100 years old Vs a technology that only really became widespread after 2008.
It's also interesting that Smartphone adoption is by no means restricted to the young and middle ages. Even the over 65s have a fairly high adoption rate of 68%. If current trends continue we can expect adoption rates of 80% or higher among the over 65s within just a couple of years.
Customers of all ages are now using mobile devices to search for products, browse and consume content. The people are mobile first. You should be too.
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Chart of the Day: Ecommerce becomes the preferred method for Christmas Shopping among UK consumers for the first time ever.
Ecommerce has notched up double-digit sales growth every year for over a decade now. In certain markets, like white goods or electricals it really dominates, where as in others, like FMCG it's miles behind bricks and mortar stores.
It's the time of the year where consumers are thinking about where to buy their Christmas prezzies and marketers are thinking about putting their lovingly developed Christmas marketing plans into action. This year we've got some seriously good news for ecommerce marketers. Bobatoo surveyed over 2000 UK consumers and found that almost two-thirds plan to conduct the majority of their shopping online this year. This is a huge jump on the 2015 figure, when the majority of consumers said they would be conducting most of their shopping in physical stores. If the figures are to be believed,…
Chart of the Day: Top 20 Instagram Mobile App Advertisers in the USA
This week saw Instagram release a bunch of new features to their increasingly popular Instagram Stories. They announced what they called 'the biggest update to Stories since launch in August'. The app now allows you to tag your friends and integrates Boomerang, so you can add the 'wacky' looping videos into your stories.
Notice how the Disney account has tagged the Mickey Mouse and Good Morning America accounts - Oh and Happy 88th Birthday Mickey.
A unique feature released just for verified users (the ones with the blue tick) is the ability to add links to websites. This has always been a downside for marketers and influencers using the platform to promote their brands. Before this update, you could only add one link to your profile unless you were willing to invest in advertising spots. This…
