We’re looking for a Head of Digital – Digital Lead to join us here in Ripple Marketing!
An exciting opportunity is available for a motivated digital marketing professional to drive current digital campaigns and drive digital growth within the business.
Our business is growing and varied, and we are looking for an energetic Head of Digital who is keen to join a hardworking, fun loving team and drive the digital growth of Ripple Marketing!
Key responsibilities include:
In this role, you will have the opportunity to drive the digital channels, google adwords and SEO/organic component for clients and meet a brief to deliver on their digital needs. In this role, you will be given the opportunity to take ownership over a large portfolio of Digital Marketing clients and will be tasked with and incentivised to grow this portfolio and take Ripple’s already impressive Digital Marketing offerings to the next level.
You will have full ownership and drive end to end digital projects for the organisation, engaging with current and new clients and working closely with an already established digital team.
This role offers a flexible work environment, where a candidate’s career progression and work-life balance are of equal importance!
If the below sounds like you, please get in touch!
Degree in Marketing/Digital Marketing (or related discipline)
4+ years’ experience in the online marketing space
A proven track record of delivering and managing digital projects
Comprehensive awareness and understanding of current digital marketing trends
Experience in digital advertising and budget management
Relevant strong experience in strategic planning, content creation, management and reporting across multiple digital channels
Ability to manage and inspire a marketing team.
A proven ability to identify and drive new business and growth within the Digital Marketing sphere.
A proven track record of generating sales/leads via digital channels
Flawless attention to detail
A can-do attitude with superb work ethic
Salary range depending on experience- €50k-€60k
As a reward for your commitment to the role you will receive an excellent salary and the chance to work with some of the biggest brands and events in Ireland. You will join and drive a young dynamic team with the opportunity to influence and create major digital marketing campaigns and contribute to driving further business growth.
According to a recent report by IDC, digital transformation spending is expected to surpass $6 trillion dollars within the next four years, and it’s believed that enterprises globally will spend more than $1 trillion on digital transformation before the end of 2019 alone.
The report also notes that industries like process and discrete manufacturing and transportation will be some of the biggest spenders. These investments are fueling the growth of machine learning (ML) and the internet of things (IoT) to improve customer experiences and operational efficiency and accuracy. As companies have begun adopting digital transformations, there are a few things I’m looking forward to seeing more of in 2020.
1. Big Data Grows To Ginormous Data
According to a Network World article, “IDC predicts that the collective sum of the world’s data will grow from 33 zettabytes this year [2018] to 175ZB by 2025, for a compounded annual growth rate of 61%.” (One zettabyte is equal to one trillion gigabytes.) This means that we’ll see not only a massive increase in the amount of IoT-generated and real-time data, but an abundance of new data created and managed by enterprises.
By 2025, nearly 60% of the 175 zettabytes of data will be created and managed by enterprises versus consumers. Driving this growth is IoT edge devices sending waves of information to the cloud.
2. IoT And ML Are No Longer Future Technologies
The workforce is just not equipped to analyze such large amounts of data, so enterprises will be (and already are) looking for new ways to do so using ML and augmentation. As a consequence of ginormous data, IoT should be viewed as the backbone of today’s data-driven economy. To make sense of this data, the evolution of IoT products and services will become less focused on core technology and more focused on technologies that make better use of the data gathered.
3. Data As A Service
With all of the data developed day to day — in 2020, every person will create 1.7MB of data per second — it only makes sense to use this data to make more knowledgeable business decisions.
For example, KAR Global has released a platform that gives automotive dealers a wide-angle view of cars currently in demand. The platform also shows the best ROIs and how dealers can move less-desirable vehicles, in addition to inventory segmentation analyses and recommendations for remarketing. All of this uses data available from KAR and its customers in a proprietary way that benefits the auto sales industry as a whole. We should expect other industries to begin using the DaaS model in the same way for decision-making.
4. The Decline Of Packaged Apps
Instead of downloading apps, soon progressive web apps (PWAs) will be much more commonplace. PWAs are accessed the same way as those downloaded from app stores, but they load faster, they are more secure and they are far smaller in size. Companies such as Lumavate help developers in industries such as motorsports, medical manufacturing, construction, and financial services move from native applications to cost-effective PWAs that ultimately deliver a better user experience and free up space on devices.
5. Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive analytics goes beyond forecasting possible options and instead suggests a range of actions and the potential outcomes of those actions. As more tools become available, this type of data analyzation is becoming a holy grail.
Autonomous vehicles are fantastic examples. A self-driving car must make millions of calculations based on analyzed data to decide when to turn, change lanes and so on.
Oil and gas industries are also using prescriptive analytics to assess supply, demand, pricing and impacts on the industry when they change. Prescriptive and predictive analytics work together as business intelligence that gives executives insight, as well as foresight, into their company data.
6. More Jobs Will Actually Be Created From AI Rather Than Lost
AI is predicted to eliminate 1.8 million jobs but also create 2.3 million jobs in 2020. Industries such as healthcare, education and the public sector will see growing job demands. While middle- and low-level positions will take the biggest hits, new roles for these types of workers will open up in sectors such as solar-powered energy, which is now the fastest-growing industry for job creation. Industrial manufacturing is also an industry working to reskill its workforce, marrying the technical and nontechnical know-how of its employees for the digital transformation.
7. Work Augmentation Through Machine Learning
Machine learning used to mean automating tasks and replacing human work. The focus now is on ML’s ability to augment human work to make us more productive and efficient. In 2020, we’ll see machine learning models engineered to optimize logistics, retail and robotics. Things like recommendation engines, fraud detection, and robotic process automation will become standard and make industry competition fierce.
8. Robot Process Automation (RPA)
This year, Deloitte saw enterprises double the number of intelligent automation tools (e.g., robot process automation) for day-to-day business tasks such as inventory management. The manufacturing industry, in particular, has been watching RPA for several years and will increase its adoption in 2020. Already, successful RPA solutions in manufacturing include order fulfillment, purchase order processing, inventory reports and transportation management. Executives who have implemented RPA note that employees are more engaged by way of strategic and creative thinking.
No matter the industry, investments in IoT, ML and data analytics will increasingly be required to stay competitive. Most of what we’ll see in technology next year and in the future will center on IoT products and services that enable us to comprehend data acquired by the second. Building and analyzing data now gives enterprises more information than ever before. In 2020, they will use this data to elevate customer, employee and stakeholder experiences.
ata Science is such a broad field that includes several subdivisions like data preparation and exploration; data representation and transformation; data visualization and presentation; predictive analytics; machine learning, etc. For beginners, it’s only natural to raise the following question: What skills do I need to become a data scientist?
This article will discuss 10 essential skills that are necessary for practicing data scientists. These skills could be grouped into 2 categories, namely, technological skills (Math & Statistics, Coding Skills, Data Wrangling & Preprocessing Skills, Data Visualization Skills, Machine Learning Skills,and Real World Project Skills) and soft skills (Communication Skills, Lifelong Learning Skills, Team Player Skills and Ethical Skills).
Data science is a field that is ever-evolving, however mastering the foundations of data science will provide you with the necessary background that you need to pursue advance concepts such as deep learning, artificial intelligence, etc. This article will discuss 10 essential skills for practicing data scientists.
10 Essential Skills You Need to Know to Start Doing Data Science
1. Mathematics and Statistics Skills
(I) Statistics and Probability
Statistics and Probability is used for visualization of features, data preprocessing, feature transformation, data imputation, dimensionality reduction, feature engineering, model evaluation, etc. Here are the topics you need to be familiar with:
a) Mean
b) Median
c) Mode
d) Standard deviation/variance
e) Correlation coefficient and the covariance matrix
f) Probability distributions (Binomial, Poisson, Normal)
Most machine learning models are built with a data set having several features or predictors. Hence familiarity with multivariable calculus is extremely important for building a machine learning model. Here are the topics you need to be familiar with:
a) Functions of several variables
b) Derivatives and gradients
c) Step function, Sigmoid function, Logit function, ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit) function
d) Cost function
e) Plotting of functions
f) Minimum and Maximum values of a function
(III) Linear Algebra
Linear algebra is the most important math skill in machine learning. A data set is represented as a matrix. Linear algebra is used in data preprocessing, data transformation, and model evaluation. Here are the topics you need to be familiar with:
a) Vectors
b) Matrices
c) Transpose of a matrix
d) The inverse of a matrix
e) The determinant of a matrix
f) Dot product
g) Eigenvalues
h) Eigenvectors
(IV) Optimization Methods
Most machine learning algorithms perform predictive modeling by minimizing an objective function, thereby learning the weights that must be applied to the testing data in order to obtain the predicted labels. Here are the topics you need to be familiar with:
a) Cost function/Objective function
b) Likelihood function
c) Error function
d) Gradient Descent Algorithm and its variants (e.g. Stochastic Gradient Descent Algorithm)
Programming skills are essential in data science. Since Python and R are considered the 2 most popular programming languages in data science, essential knowledge in both languages are crucial. Some organizations may only require skills in either R or Python, not both.
(I) Skills in Python
Be familiar with basic programming skills in python. Here are the most important packages that you should master how to use:
a) Numpy
b) Pandas
c) Matplotlib
d) Seaborn
e) Scikit-learn
f) PyTorch
(ii) Skills in R
a) Tidyverse
b) Dplyr
c) Ggplot2
d) Caret
e) Stringr
(iii) Skills in Other Programming Languages
Skills in the following programming languages may be required by some organizations or industries:
a) Excel
b) Tableau
c) Hadoop
d) SQL
e) Spark
3. Data Wrangling and Proprocessing Skills
Data is key for any analysis in data science, be it inferential analysis, predictive analysis, or prescriptive analysis. The predictive power of a model depends on the quality of the data that was used in building the model. Data comes in different forms such as text, table, image, voice or video. Most often, data that is used for analysis has to be mined, processed and transformed to render it to a form suitable for further analysis.
i) Data Wrangling: The process of data wrangling is a critical step for any data scientist. Very rarely is data easily accessible in a data science project for analysis. It’s more likely for the data to be in a file, a database, or extracted from documents such as web pages, tweets, or PDFs. Knowing how to wrangle and clean data will enable you to derive critical insights from your data that would otherwise be hidden.
ii) Data Preprocessing: Knowledge about data preprocessing is very important and include topics such as:
a) Dealing with missing data
b) Data imputation
c) Handling categorical data
d) Encoding class labels for classification problems
e) Techniques of feature transformation and dimensionality reduction such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA).
4. Data Visualization Skills
Understand the essential components of a good data visualization.
a) Data Component: An important first step in deciding how to visualize data is to know what type of data it is, e.g. categorical data, discrete data, continuous data, time series data, etc.
b) Geometric Component: Here is where you decide what kind of visualization is suitable for your data, e.g. scatter plot, line graphs, barplots, histograms, qqplots, smooth densities, boxplots, pairplots, heatmaps, etc.
c) Mapping Component: Here you need to decide what variable to use as your x-variable and what to use as your y-variable. This is important especially when your dataset is multi-dimensional with several features.
d) Scale Component: Here you decide what kind of scales to use, e.g. linear scale, log scale, etc.
e) Labels Component: This include things like axes labels, titles, legends, font size to use, etc.
f) Ethical Component: Here, you want to make sure your visualization tells the true story. You need to be aware of your actions when cleaning, summarizing, manipulating and producing a data visualization and ensure you aren’t using your visualization to mislead or manipulate your audience.
5. Basic Machine Learning Skills
Machine Learning is a very important branch of data science. It is important to understand the machine learning framework: Problem Framing; Data Analysis; Model Building, Testing &Evaluation; and Model Application. Find out more about the machine learning framework from here: The Machine Learning Process.
The following are important machine learning algorithms to be familiar with.
6. Skills from Real World Capstone Data Science Projects
Skills acquired from course work alone will not make your a data scientist. A qualified data scientist must be able to demonstrate evidence of successful completion of a real world data science project that includes every stages in data science and machine learning process such as problem framing, data acquisition and analysis, model building, model testing, model evaluation, and deploying model. Real world data science projects could be found in the following:
a) Kaggle Projects
b) Internships
c) From Interviews
7. Communication Skills
Data scientists need to be able communicate their ideas with other members of the team or with business administrators in their organizations. Good communication skills would play a key role here to be able to convey and present very technical information to people with little or no understanding of technical concepts in data science. Good communication skills will help foster an atmosphere of unity and togetherness with other team members such as data analysts, data engineers, field engineers, etc.
8. Be a Lifelong Learner
Data science is a field that is ever-evolving, so be prepared to embrace and learn new technologies. One way to keep in touch with developments in the field is to network with other data scientists. Some platforms that promote networking are LinkedIn, github, and medium (Towards Data Science and Towards AI publications). The platforms are very useful for up-to-date information about recent developments in the field.
9. Team Player Skills
As a data scientist, you will be working in a team of data analysts, engineers, administrators, so you need good communication skills. You need to be a good listener too, especially during early project development phases where you need to rely on engineers or other personnel to be able to design and frame a good data science project. Being a good team player world help you to thrive in a business environment and maintain good relationships with other members of your team as well as administrators or directors of your organization.
10. Ethical Skills in Data Science
Understand the implication of your project. Be truthful to yourself. Avoid manipulating data or using a method that will intentionally produce bias in results. Be ethical in all phases from data collection, to analysis, to model building, analysis, testing and application. Avoid fabricating results for the purpose of misleading or manipulating your audience. Be ethical in the way you interpret the findings from your data science project.
In summary, we’ve discussed 10 essential skills needed for practicing data scientists. Data science is a field that is ever-evolving, however mastering the foundations of data science will provide you with the necessary background that you need to pursue advance concepts such as deep learning, artificial intelligence, etc.
Plenty of people who would never jump into the performing arts become actors as soon as they enter the workplace. They put on a work face that differs from the person they are at home, and while that might seem like an effective short-term strategy, it could actually contribute to burnout and hinder their job performance over time.
According to data collected by Gallup, 67% of workers report feeling burned out on the job at least some of the time. These overstressed employees tend to be 63% more likely to call in sick and 13% less confident in their work. In fact, burnout makes employees half as likely to bring up performance goals with their supervisors. When workers refuse to admit their burnout to managers and ask for help, they carry on with a business-as-usual act that only leads everyone deeper into a quagmire of reduced productivity, engagement and satisfaction.
Forbes contributor Mike Robbins sees this as a result of the compartmentalization we expect of ourselves and our co-workers. In his book, Bring Your Whole Self to Work, he advocates shedding the veil between our personal and professional faces to change the way we feel about work and our part in it.
In a Forbes interview, Robbins declares, “Bringing our whole selves to work means showing up authentically, leading with humility and remembering that we’re all vulnerable, imperfect human beings doing the best we can. It’s also about having the courage to take risks, speak up, ask for help, connect with others in a genuine way and allow ourselves to be truly seen.” New York City Executive Coach (and my business partner) Ora Shtull says, “When employees show up as wholly human at work, they create a ripple effect. Their willingness to live authentically gives those around them permission. This creates a work environment where talent is engaged and creative.”
Of course, this doesn’t mean showing up in bunny slippers with a remote control in hand. It also doesn’t give employees carte blanche to act disrespectfully in the name of self-expression. Instead, bringing a whole-person mentality to a job involves being genuine and intentional, all with the end goal of boosting your confidence and your performance. Authenticity is the foundation of effective personal branding. And personal branding helps you align who you are with what you do and how you do it.
If you struggle to recognize the image in the mirror at work, or you feel like you’re playing a fictional role when you enter the office, you are only stifling your productivity and increasing your stress. Adopt the following strategies to help you feel more engaged by embracing and showcasing your truth.
1. Overcome your derailers.
Think about the things that have threatened to hold you back. Kerry Goyette, president of Aperio Consulting Group, calls them her “derailers.” As Goyette explains, “our derailers cause us to act in ways that push away those who might be huge supporters or helpers.” They are those feelings of self-doubt that keep us from achieving or, in some cases, even trying.
The way to eliminate your derailers is to face them head on. Write down all the negative comments you say to yourself or the self-sabotaging actions you continually take. Then, create new, transparent, ambitious goals that fly in the face of those derailers. If you have always felt you weren’t good enough for the C-suite, for example, strive for promotions and seek out leadership opportunities. Pushing your derailers aside helps you feel less scared to reach for and talk about your dreams.
2. Embrace a hobby or two.
Feel as if you’ve become a one-trick pony? Pursuing a hobby can change your perspective and enhance your ability to innovate at work. Research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychologyunearthed a correlation between having hobbies and being more creative. Plus, nurturing a hobby has been known to relieve stress levels, according to a study in the Journal of Leisure Research.
When you have a hobby, you can turn off both the derailers and the stressors that come with working. Focusing on something enjoyable outside of your career gives your brain and emotions a much-needed break. You’ll bring fresh perspectives when you return to your desk, enabling you to tackle your workload with renewed energy.
3. Lean into your vulnerabilities.
It’s easy to heed our flight tendencies. Why would we want to dive headfirst into a situation that makes our palms sweaty or our heart race? Yet Brené Brown, University of Houston research professor, asserts that moments of intense vulnerability should be embraced, not dodged. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change,” Brown says. “If you’ve created a work culture where vulnerability isn’t okay, you’ve also created a culture where innovation and creativity aren’t okay.”
It can be tough to constantly put yourself into experiences that feel uncomfortable, but they’re the moments that allow for complete authenticity. It should be fine to tell members of your team that you’re not certain of answers or that you need their help to bring a project to completion. Showing vulnerability and being true to the moment offers you a chance to grow and shine. Nothing is as freeing as being 100% authentic, and that’s what having the courage to be vulnerable is all about.
If you’ve been burdened by burnout and laden with imposter syndrome, take heart. It’s possible to bring the whole you to the job—what’s more, your work will be better for it. Over time, you can change not just the way you feel about yourself, but the way you react to stressors. And you can do it all without the need to play an imaginary role.
William Arruda is the cofounder of CareerBlast and creator of the complete LinkedIn quiz that helps you evaluate your LinkedIn profile and networking strategy.
Are you using Instagram Stories to its fullest potential? Want to make your stories more consistent and engaging?
To explore how to use Instagram Stories for your brand, I interview Sue B. Zimmerman on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.
Sue is an Instagram marketing expert and author of The Instagram Strategy Guide. Her online course is called Ready, Set, Gram.
You’ll find tips and techniques for using Instagram Stories to help your business stand out, and discover how to use the new Create features that just dropped.
TikTok is attracting a small but growing group of publishers eager to master the short-form video platform and its young and growing audience.
While most are still in an experimentation phase when it comes to using TikTok, they’re learning what works and what doesn’t on an app that doesn’t yet have publisher-friendly resources like discovery tabs or the sharing of ad revenues. For now, few have dedicated resources to the platform, choosing instead to treat it as an experimental channel.
Vice, which just started using TikTok earlier this year, is finding its TikTok followers crave exclusive content. Next month, Vice is planning to launch a Munchies by Vice account on TikTok and Vice Chief Digital Officer Cory Haik said the account will feature exclusive content made specifically for TikTok by Vice’s own social innovation team, which produces content for a variety of platforms.
“We need to go in with a specific offering that feels native to what users of TikTok are producing themselves,” said Haik. “We can’t do a derivative.”
Those daily short-form videos, she said, “will still feel like Munchies,” but will also “feel very TikTok. It will have a different voice.”
Vice is still figuring out exactly what kinds of videos to post on TikTok for Munchies, but some early ideas include celebrating food bloopers, using recipes many people know but often mess up on, but embracing those failures. Or developing viral skits that look more closely at trending food items or themes. One example is, if throwing cheese on walls is trending on TikTok, Munchies might create a video that looks at which cheeses stick and why.
“It sounds like a big investment but we’re just optimizing teams that already exist,” Haik said.
BuzzFeed, which also started using TikTok earlier this year with four different accounts, isn’t creating exclusive content for TikTok just yet, but said reception to its repurposed video content has been positive. One of BuzzFeed’s most popular posts is from Nifty, demonstrating a baking hack.
“One of our motivating factors to be on TikTok and create a Tasty account was that we were finding a lot of copycat Tasty accounts on TikTok,” Tabir Akhter, head of platform strategy at BuzzFeed said. “People want to see food content on TikTok. It’s not only videos from high school bathrooms. It’s more than that. It’s a huge and robust platform of lots of people with lots of different interests, and people are really responding to our huge viral food videos on Tasty.”
She said her team has been very strategic and thoughtful about how they adapt existing video content for TikTok so that “it doesn’t feel like an imposter. If feels very native.” BuzzFeed is also thinking about launching more original TikTok content next year.
Hearst Magazines, which has been using TikTok and its former iteration, Musical.ly, since May 2017, also repackages content from other platforms onto TikTok. It’s found certain types of content to be the most engaging: namely, anything featuring celebrities and “mesmerizing” content, said Sheel Shah, Hearst Magazines’ vp of strategic partnerships and consumer products. One of Seventeen’s most popular TikTok posts, he said, was one that showcased the art of bullet journaling.
Historically, publishers have been reticent to spend time and money on platforms where it’s not clear how they can generate revenues. Currently, there is no mechanism for creators or publishers to directly monetize on TikTok, such as with sharing ad revenue, but all three publishers are hopeful there will be one day.
The short-form nature of TikTok videos, however, makes it relatively cost-effective to produce new content as Vice intends to do, but it also forces creators to get creative, even when they’re adapting existing content.
“What makes TikTok unique is the hyper-speed at which content is created and consumed,” said Akhter. “We do enjoy the really short-form nature of the videos … it forces your creativity in the adaptation process.”
Shah, however, said he wonders if TikTok will eventually allow longer-form video content like Musical.ly did before, since he finds the 15-second video format somewhat limiting.
All three publishers said they view TikTok primarily as a long-term way to engage and grow their respective audiences, similar to how they did with Snapchat a few years before.
“For TikTok, right now it’s more about long-term audience development and one day, maybe, monetization,” Shah said. “We want to figure out what this audience is interested in and how we can extend this understanding onto other platforms where we do have ROI.”
The strategies for the two platforms, however, are different, although both TikTok and Snapchat appeal to younger user bases and feature short-form video content.
“Snapchat, for us, is very curated and magazine-like,” said Akhter. “But on TikTok, there’s a huge potential for binge behavior and to go into a rabbit hole of our content, and we’re eager to serve them with that.”
At Vice, Haik said they’ve gotten their Snapchat strategy “down to a science” and they are not aiming to do original content on that platform, or on Instagram in the same way they’re doing it on TikTok.
One thing all can agree on about TikTok, however, is that its user base skews young. A leaked ad pitch deck fromJune 2019 said the majority of TikTok users (69%) are from Generation Z (ages 16 to 24), while 25% are age 25 and older. Most users are also female (60%). In the U.S., TikTok has more than 30 million monthly active users who spend, on average, 46 minutes on the app, per user, per day. Globally, the number of monthly active users is 800 million, with 500 million based in China.
Snapchat, by comparison, has 210 million daily active users worldwide, and eMarketer estimates it reached 297.7 monthly active users this year.
“We still believe, more so than ever, there’s a huge audience on the platform,” Shah said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to engage and interact with that new generation of consumers. We want to make sure that we’re there. We can get feedback on what this audience likes and doesn’t like, which informs our broader content strategy.”
While all three publishers have participated in trending hashtags on TikTok, none we spoke to have purchased a hashtag challenge or branded lens.
Looking ahead, Vice’s Haik said she wonders if TikTok will enable creators to have direct-sell ads and she thinks it could also be a platform where Vice could place branded content. She, along with Shah and Akhter, also said they wonder if and how TikTok will eventually make it easier for users to discover creators, their media titles included.
Smartphone traffic now accounts for the majority of visits to retailers, but mobile conversion rates lag behind desktop. We take a look at the reasons for this.
A decade on from the release of the first iPhone, mobile shopping is massive. Much of this is thanks to Apple, and the many smartphones which followed, but there are still obstacles for retailers to overcome.
According to stats from Monetate, smartphone traffic worldwide to retailers is at 56.2%, and 34.5% for desktop.
However, this mobile traffic is converting at less than half the rate of that on desktop, at 2.25% compared to 4.81% for desktop. Even tablet fares better, converting at 4.06% on average.
We’ve seen the same pattern in our own stats. Around half of all visits to retailer’s sites come from mobile, but just 36% of purchases take place on mobile.
It seems that people are happy to browse on mobile, but many still prefer to buy on desktop, so let’s look at the reasons why.
There are several reasons why people prefer to buy on a laptop or PC. For one, it can be easier to navigate around the site and view images on a bigger screen, so some shoppers may browse on mobile and select products later on.
People are also more likely to buy on desktop when purchases are more complex. Travel purchases are generally more expensive and complicated – only 18% complete bookings on mobile.
Much of the issue comes down to checkout. Indeed, the add to cart rates shown above suggest this. While mobile conversion rates are less than half that of desktop, add to cart rates aren’t so far behind.
Even in sectors where shoppers are more likely to use mobile, such as fashion, mobile conversion rates still lag behind desktop.
Fashion sites attract a greater proportion of sales on mobile. In fact, this is the only sector to attract the majority of its sales from mobile shoppers (51.39%).
However, data from our recent Fashion Ecommerce Trends Report finds that fashion conversion rates are almost twice as high on desktop when compared to mobile.
Mobile usability on fashion sites has improved greatly, but some customers are still reluctant to convert via mobile devices.
The average mobile add to cart rate is 10.4%, compared to 12.9% for desktop. This implies that people are adding items to their cart at similar rates, but many more are bailing out during checkout.
The biggest issue behind lower mobile conversions is the checkout. So how can checkout be made easier? Here are three ways to do this…
People hate registering before they begin a purchase, and it seems like hard work for mobile shoppers, so providing a guest checkout option is one way to improve conversion rates.
It’s a barrier for customers, and one that isn’t necessary, as they can complete registration after purchase anyway. Streamlining forms makes checkout easier and faster, reducing hassle for shoppers, and removing sources of friction where people might abandon checkout.
Sites can allow users to autofill address and payment details saved on their phone’s browser, or postcode lookup tools to reduce the number of steps customers need to take.
Small details matter, such as defaulting to the most appropriate smartphone keyboard, like the numeric version for entering payment card details. It’s about making it easier for customers through marginal improvements.
Payment methods matter too, and providing alternatives can make it easier for mobile shoppers. Card details take time to enter, but PayPal and digital wallet options like Apple Pay can make payment fast and smooth.
Mobile is a challenge for retailers, but now that customers have shown they’re willing to browse and buy on mobile, it’s all about making the payment process smooth and easy for shoppers.
Feature Image Credit: Photo by William Iven on Unsplash.
As privacy concerns grow, companies like Google and Facebook that rely on data collection and advertising for revenue are increasingly in the spotlight. But is it really possible to give up Google’s vast range of services? Here are my recommended alternatives.
Over the past two years, I’ve been switching between a succession of iPhones and a series of Android devices, using each for an extended amount of time. Spending months with each mobile platform has been a tremendously useful exercise, helping me understand the strengths and weaknesses of the two dominant smartphone options.
But every time I pick up one of those Android devices, a nagging question pops up in the back of my mind. It’s the same one I hear from friends, family members, and readers every time the topic turns to smartphone platforms: “Aren’t you worried about your privacy when you run Google’s software?”
It’s a legitimate question, and there’s no easy answer.
Google, like Facebook, has a business model that’s built on surveillance. The company’s stated mission of “organizing the world’s information” also includes capturing as much as possible of your information. That information is the base layer of some undeniably useful services, which in turn fuel the advertising that makes up the overwhelming majority of Google’s revenue.
In the first six months of 2019, Google took in just over $75 billion in revenue. More than 84% of that revenue, about $63.3 billion, came directly from the advertising platform made possible by data collected from a few billion people, including you and me.
To be fair, Google provides ample privacy controls, including options to delete saved data. They also count on most people being too busy, distracted, or unconcerned to actually use those controls. And even if you meticulously delete your activity history. there’s not much you can do about the profile that Google and its subsidiary DoubleClick (and the advertising ecosystem that’s grown up around them) create based on those activities in real time.
Going through Google’s default privacy controls is an exhausting task.
Unlike the other giant of online advertising, Facebook, the option to delete your Google account isn’t very practical. It’s hard to imagine a world without Google’s outsized influence, but it is possible to rebuild your personal online environment around an alternate set of services and experiences.
There are plenty of options from smaller third parties, but for the most part the replacements for the Google services you know come from Apple and Microsoft. Those two tech giants have the requisite scale, but their business models don’t rely disproportionately on data collection and advertising. When your revenue comes mostly from high-margin hardware (in Apple’s case) and business-focused productivity services (in Microsoft’s case), it’s easier to place greater value on personal privacy, and there’s less incentive to design products and services that explicitly turn data into revenue.
So how do you reduce the role of Google in your tech life? I took a look at my own experience to see where you’ll find the most interesting alternatives. Note that some of these options require paid subscriptions, in contrast to Google’s ad- and data-supported services.
Say adios to Android
There are two and only two mobile device platforms that matter: Android and iOS. As a result, ditching Google means learning to love Apple hardware and software. Because of the way Google licenses Android, it’s almost impossible to find a device that isn’t loaded with Google services. And although you can tweak and tune privacy settings and replace default apps, you can’t easily get rid of the Google Play services and store.
Switching to an iPhone isn’t exactly painful (except perhaps for the pricetag). You get world class hardware, and you also avoid one of Android’s worst flaws: unpredictable updates.
Apple devices get fully supported updates for years, and you are not at the mercy of a carrier to get the latest version. That support lasts a long time, too. The iPhone 6S, for example, which debuted more than four years ago, runs the brand-new iOS 13 and will be supported for another year. You can’t say that about any Android phones released in 2015.
In fact, even new devices often have to wait, sometimes forever, for upgrades. I have three Android phones on my desk right now, from Motorola, Samsung, and Google. All three devices were released in 2018, but each one is running a different Android version (8, 9, and 10). I have no idea if or when those two phones running out-of-date Android versions will get the latest features.
And I have to say I trust Apple’s biometric support more than I trust the same features on Android devices. A pair of snafus involving biometric technology this week, on the latest premium devices from Samsung and Google, make me even more comfortable with switching platforms.
Choose an alternate default web browser
If your objective is to cut ties with Google, you’ll need to choose a different web browser than Google Chrome, naturally. The logical alternatives are Mozilla Firefox and Opera; on MacOS and iOS, you can also choose Safari.
Several people in the comments section have recommended the Brave browser, a relatively recent addition to the category, led by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich and focused relentlessly on privacy. I tried Brave when it first came out and will take another look. It’s a strong contender.
The dark horse in this field is Microsoft’s new cross-platform Edge browser, based on the open-source Chromium engine. (I do not recommend the current Edge browser, available only in Windows 10, which is deprecated and will probably be replaced within a year.)
The most relevant feature is tracking protection, which offers this simple but easy-to-understand interface in the new Edge Settings pane on the desktop.
This Edge setting blocks trackers without requiring third-party software.
How effective is it? Click that Blocked Trackers link to see a running count. On this browser, the number-one source of trackers is Google, which accounts for more than 20% of the blocks on my production PC.
Although it’s technically in a beta release, the new Edge browser has been extremely stable on Windows 10 for me; it also runs on MacOS and has versions for iOS and Android. It allows you to install extensions directly from the Chrome Web Store, and pages you visit look like they’re running in Chrome.
The Bing brand is an easy punchline for anyone trying to get some cheap tech-oriented laughs, but the underlying data is no joke. In its just-concluded 2019 fiscal year, Microsoft brought in more than $7.6 billion in revenue from search advertising. That’s a fraction (less than 10%) of what Google makes, but it’s still a very big business on its own; that revenue makes it the fifth biggest division at Microsoft, one of the only companies big enough to compete with Google on this playing field.
But you don’t have to insert yourself into Bing’s advertising ecosystem, either. The privacy-focused DuckDuckGo (“the search engine that doesn’t track you”) returns results using Microsoft’s data along with a few hundred other primary sources,
In the comments, several readers have recommended Startpage.com, a Dutch company that uses Google search results repackaged in a privacy-focused format that eliminates tracking.
Replace Google Voice
I’ve always been reluctant to use Google Voice for any serious business-related purpose, because it seemed like yet another free service that Google would eventually kill off. One plausible theory I’ve heard is that Google Voice is so widely used by Google execs that discontinuing it is not an option.
Google Voice has the twin benefits of being device-independent and supporting SMS messages. That means you can use a virtual number other than your regular mobile phone number for security-related tasks, like two-factor authentication. That makes SIM-swapping scams dramatically less effective.
Google Voice also runs on multiple devices, which is handy for someone who switches devices regularly. Not having to reconfigure 2FA when you switch to a new device is liberating.
I can’t find a free alternative to Google Voice that I can comfortably recommend, but the venerable Line2 service, at $10 per month (or $99 a year, billed annually) fills the bill. YouMail, a call-blocking and voicemail service, includes a second line with SMS support as a standard feature on its $10.99 per month YouMail Professional products. I’ve used it for several years and recommend it.
Use something other than Gmail as your default email client
I’m old enough to remember when Gmail was a closed beta and you had to have an invitation to get your own account. In retrospect, we should have gotten a clue that something was amiss when the Gmail beta launched, officially, on April Fool’s Day, 2004. (Not a joke. DuckDuckGo it.)
Back in 2017, Google stopped its controversial practice of scanning the content of free Gmail accounts for the purpose of targeting ads, and the company says any processing it does of message content (to generate reply suggestions, for example) is done by machines. And, of course, paid GSuite business accounts have always been disconnected from Google’s ad infrastructure.
The main reason I don’t use Gmail, though, has nothing to do with privacy. It’s just that I really really don’t like the browser-based interface on the desktop, where I do most of my serious email work. Alas, that’s how Google wants its customers to use Gmail on PCs, and Gmail developers don’t seem to care that their service doesn’t play well with other clients.
For business accounts, I use Office 365, and most of my personal accounts are on Outlook.com. If your employer uses Gmail, you’re not free to switch, but for personal mail it’s easy to set up a new default address, forward messages from Gmail, and hardly skip a beat.
For paid business email, there are third-party alternatives if you’d rather avoid working with Microsoft directly. I recommend Intermedia, which offers hosted Exchange and Office 365 with a much less intimidating interface. Many hosting providers offer email options to go with your custom domain; for example, you can get Office 365 subscriptions from GoDaddy, with or without a hosting package. It pays to check with your current hosting provider.
Simple steps can make the difference between losing your online accounts or maintaining what is now a precious commodity: Your privacy.
Some of Google’s stickiest services are its cloud-based storage and collaboration tools: GSuite (Docs, Sheets, Slides), Google Drive, and Google Photos.
Office 365, which includes a terabyte or more of OneDrive storage with every subscription, is the logical alternative to GSuite and Google Drive. Earlier this year, I did a comprehensive comparison of the two services, “Office 365 vs G Suite: Which productivity suite is best for your business?” Read that for a quick refresher on what makes Office 365 different from GSuite.
You can also choose from a wealth of independent cloud storage providers, including well-known services like Dropbox and Box and others that are less well known but technically superior, like Intermedia’s SecuriSync, which is available bundled with email and Office or as a standalone product.
Google Photos is a harder service to replace. For the basic task of backing up and organizing your digital photos, both Apple (iCloud) and Microsoft (OneDrive) offer options to upload photos from the default camera roll on your mobile device to their respective services. OneDrive is the clear choice if you also want those photos to be accessible on a Windows 10 PC.
But no one quite does the AI-powered magic that Google does with Photos. Just be aware that all that magic also feeds Google’s insatiable appetite for data.
Consider Apple’s Maps app
In its early days, Apple’s Maps product was clearly inferior to Google Maps. That’s no longer true, and Maps now plays the same counterweight-to-Google role on iPhone that Bing plays to Google Search. Location tracking is one of the key privacy concerns of our time, so it’s worth at least trying to make the switch.
For those who decide Apple Maps is not good enough, though, you have no credible alternatives to Google.
How do you solve a problem like YouTube?
If you’re a YouTube fan, there’s virtually no way to avoid having your activities tracked by Google, with the inevitable algorithmic recommendations not far behind.
And there’s nothing quite like YouTube on the planet. You can avoid some tracking by using your browser’s private/incognito mode, but that’s at best a partial fix.
Do you see any options I missed? Use the contact form to send me your thoughts via email, or share other alternatives in the comments section below.
Despite a strong third quarter, Snap’s future there are still concerns about future growth thanks to growing competition from other youth-targeted apps like TikTok.
Snap reported earnings after the bell on Tuesday. The company posted a 4 cents per share loss, beating the Refinitiv analyst estimate of a loss of 5 cents a share. It also had higher-than-expected revenue for the quarter, bringing in $446 million versus the $435.1 million estimate.
The report also noted that about 210 million accounts use Snapchat on a daily basis, above the 207 million user estimate. Each daily user opens the app about 30 times.
But despite the earnings wins and stock prices that have skyrocketed 154 percent year-to-date, Snap’s fourth-quarter guidance came in a little lighter than analysts expected. The company advised revenue would be $540 million to $560 million next quarter. Analyst estimates from Refinitiv expected the company’s midpoint revenue to be at $555.4 million.
Snap pitches its advertisers heavily on the fact that its app Snapchat is one of the only places to reach younger audiences who may no longer be watching traditional media like television. The company claims to reach about 90 percent of 13- to 24-year-olds in the U.S., and three-quarters of 13- to 34-year-olds.
“Snapchat helps brands reach Millennials and Gen Z, hard to reach and highly coveted audiences,” Snap chief business officer Jeremi Gorman said during an investor call on Tuesday. “Together, these generations have over $1 trillion dollars in direct spending power, and they are not as active on more traditional advertising mediums. Meaning to reach them, marketers need to find them on immersive mobile platforms, like Snapchat.”
However, Snapchat may not be the platform of choice for younger generations in the future. Video editing platform TikTok is already pulling in a strong youth base, despite only being a year old. According to Apptopia, about 48 percent of TikTok’s users are under 20, or about 288 million of their estimated 600 million monthly active users.
“Snap’s user base may be growing, but it now faces fierce competition not only from Instagram but also from TikTok when it comes to attracting advertisers eager to reach younger audiences,” social media marketing platform Socialbakers CEO Yuval Ben-Itzhak said via email. “There was a time when Snap was considered indispensable for reaching this younger market. But today, in addition to the ongoing threat from Instagram, many marketers see TikTok as the most relevant platform for reaching teens and young adults.”
Only 67 million of Snap’s user base are in their teens, per Apptopia data, and the 297.7 million monthly active user estimates from eMarketer doesn’t indicate the growth of habitual daily users. (Snap does not disclose monthly active users, only daily active user rates.)
“Competition from upstart social platform TikTok is still looming, however, and it could lead to lower engagement for Snapchat in the future because both platforms target the youth audience,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Willaimson via email.
Meanwhile, multiple publishers told Cheddar the cost of creating original, bespoke content for Snapchat was often not worth the ad revenue it would receive for the projects.
Snapchat is relying on original series to help draw in new users and keep them on the platform longer. Viewing times on the platform has increased 40 percent year-over-year, said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on a call with investors on Tuesday.
“Time spent and viewership on our content platform continue to grow rapidly, with more than 100 Discover channels reaching a monthly audience of over 10 million viewers in Q3,” he said.
