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Greta Thunberg is schooling us all, says M&C Saatchi CCO Ben Golik

March 30, 2020 No Comments

M&C Saatchi’s chief creative officer, Ben Golik says that great ideas are those that travel and that one word says it all, Greta. “A seventeen-year-old woman is schooling us all.”

Ahead of The Drum Chip Shop Awards 2020, of which he is the chair of the jury, Golik talks to us about breaking the rules of advertising, why the industry is afraid to take risks, the effect social platforms have on creativity and what the future holds.

Is there a lack of ambition from the agency/creative community to break the rules?

Wow. That’s a negative start. But perhaps not an unfair one. It’s true that much of our work passes through the world unnoticed. So maybe we need to break some rules to bust that collective ennui?

But what are the rules of ambitious work? Let’s assume they stem from what we make, and how we make it.

What we make has never suffered so much innovation. Big data, bigger tech, countless channels. Park this stuff. The single most innovative thing we can offer, is insight. That unexpected prop, dramatised beautifully, is still the best way to add value to our clients’ businesses, and to our own.

As for how we make it, despite repeated calls for a “new agency model”, bright people bouncing ideas off each other still proves mightily successful. The ambition here has to be in achieving diversity throughout that process.

Work that truly understands the people it’s for? That’s ambition enough for me.

Who can break the rules and who can set them?

Another interesting question, because it’s really asking – where does the real power lie? The truth is, it’s never been with agencies. Or with clients. It’s always been with customers. With this view, I prefer to think that there is more opportunity than ever.

Customers are more marketing savvy than ever. So we must think smarter to excite them. Customers are more visually savvy than ever. So we must look better to entice them. Customers are more aware of the data we hold than ever. So we must respect what we know, and use it without entitlement. They’ve leveled up. So must we.

What is that one creative idea from the last decade that went way beyond advertising?

I believe that great ideas are those that travel. They enter the language. Other people claim them as their own. To do that, they need a handle – an easy way of being picked up, and carried forward. I’ve hated some of the best recent handles.

Make America Great Again. Four words. (Or one red cap.) But it smartly evokes a time when America led global culture, and their own suburban dream had not soured. Take Back Control; Get Brexit Done. Each three words. Each emotionally charged. Each totally intoxicating, and bang on for their disenchanted audience. Extinction Rebellion. We’re down to two words now. What a fucking great brand. Totally punk. Brilliantly British.

But, ultimately, I can get it down to one word. Greta. Thoroughly compelling. And without compromise. She stands by her ideas, and ideals, in a way that we fail to. Does everyone agree? Sadly, no. Has everyone heard? Hell, yes. A seventeen-year-old woman is schooling us all.

There are so many rules on social platforms that breaking the morale, the lines of creativity could have a negative impact. Could social platforms potentially have affected creativity negatively?

I do think social media has put new pressure on our output. Not because we were insensitive Luddites blindly abusing humankind, but because we haven’t always grasped nuance. A stereotype is an easy reach for a creative short on time. But it can also make the work fairly broad-brush.

How amazing, then, to have this newfound spotlight of social critique? We must actually understand people, include them, and respect them. Genuinely, our work now has permission to have all the quirk, nuance and specificity of society itself – which can only be a brilliant invitation for ideas that stretch beyond the expected?

Do you think advertising is afraid to take risks with its model?

I think individual agencies are desperate to take risks. With remuneration models, and to push back on the pitch process. But individually, we can feel powerless. We know that we’ll immediately be undercut, or over-promised, by an agency more desperate keen than our own.

So we toe the line. We give away too much, for too little. We devalue our best people, and our best ideas, in the hope of acceptance. That elusive ‘yes’. The only way to truly change the paradigm is to align. Agencies must work together for a system that better serves us all.

I see a brighter future where we don’t give away the farm, for the chance to plough a field.

Over the next decade, how can agencies/creatives be pushing the boundaries of creativity? How can they move the industry forward?

I’ll take the creatives option of the question for this answer. Creatives need to spend more time with planners, not with their briefs. Creatives need to spend more time with clients, not with their feedback. Only by driving the conversation, can we drive change.

What are your expectations for The Chip Shop Awards entries?

The best stuff in The Chip Shop Awards is never the work the client was right to swerve. It’s the work that was born brave but somehow didn’t survive the system. We’ll be looking for ideas that are smart, and sensitive, and suitable. But that sadly found their final media placement on slide 72 of the PowerPoint.

It’s brilliant and bonkers that we award work that might not even have been made. (No wonder people judge us.) But ultimately, that’s why we all keep turning up. To make great stuff that sometimes sees the light of day. (Maybe that’s why we’re so happy to give it away?) Big up the Chip Shop for shining some light into the bottom drawer. Let’s hope someone pays us to make it next year.

Feature Credit Image:Greta Thunberg is schooling us all, says M&C Saatchi CCO, Ben Golik

By Danielle Gibson

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How to ace the influencer marketing game in 2020

February 24, 2020 No Comments

By Alessandro Bogliari.

Influencer marketing has proved to be a reliable marketing resource throughout the years.

A number of companies have allocated a large portion of their overall marketing budget to influencer marketing activations. It is a great way to get user-generated content, feedback from users/customers, improve brand awareness and increase sales (especially when a specific discount code or time-sensitive offer is used by an influencer in a TikTok video, YouTube video or Instagram story).

Yet, as we enter a new year, agencies and brands should be aware of the biggest challenges the influencer marketing industry will face in 2020. They should pay attention to the following:

How much do I compensate influencers?
What metrics should I track?
How to be truly authentic?

As the campaign budget expands, it becomes even more crucial to gauge compensation to the influencer and calculating payment isn’t as simple as one may think. In fact, calculating an amount per post published that is based only on the number of followers would not be accurate, since it is fairly simple to manipulate that metric (for example buying fake followers). A good number of brands and agencies pay influencers based on the number of followers and engagement rate. This is also additional metric that is easy to manipulate by purchasing fake likes or participating at engagement pods (private groups where influencers exchange comments to each others social media posts).

With that being said, a brand or agency should take more factors into consideration when it comes to compensating influencers and I’ve listed some of the main factors below:

Country of the influencer
Geo-location of the audience of the influencer
N. of followers
AQS (Audience Quality Score) that can be calculated using free tools online that analyze a sample of the followers of an influencer to find any fake profiles or follow/unfollow pattern
Quality of the comments: Are they related and specific to that content or just generic and full of emojis?
YouTube videos: are they strong for SEO? What’s the traction of a specific video? You can use a tool like VIDQ to make an- in-depth analysis
Time spent in: creating the storytelling, shooting a video or a series of photos, editing and post-production, number of contents sent to the client or agency for approval

Once you have decided on the amount that you are going to pay a specific influencer or group of influencers, it becomes crucial to track the right metrics that will determine whether or not your campaign will be successful. Before even beginning the campaign, the agency and the client have to be on the same page to avoid any miscommunication. KPIs and metrics have to be decided. KPIs and metrics depend on the type of campaign and goals of a specific campaign, but some examples could be:

Organic reach
User-generated content
Sign-ups generated on the client’s website
Number of download of the client’s app
Sales on an eCommerce
N of. Time a promo-code has been used during the campaign

It is important to remember that an influencer marketing campaign is not directly associated with generating sales or signups of an app. In fact, influencer marketing is one of the many touch points to get in contact with potential users and customers that will see the promotion from one of their favorite influencers, and they might activate and become paying customers or download the client’s app in a second moment. Results can even be seen weeks after the marketing campaign has been completed. For that reason, is important not to compare influencer marketing with display ads, programmatic or remarketing activities, as they are completely different ways to communicate to the users.

Lastly, It will be even more vital for influencers to be authentic in 2020. Users are enjoying less of the same perfect and aesthetic Instagram content. In turn, starting to prefer more raw photos and videos. TikTok is the best example of how to be authentic and relatable: Gen Z users want to feel accepted and share their emotions and feelings with other peers of the same age around the world. Less photoshop and more “be yourself” will gain some wins in 2020.

By Alessandro Bogliari

Alessandro Bogliari, co-founder and CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory.

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Why marketers must look beyond cookies and rethink data in the 2020s

February 7, 2020 No Comments

By Thomas Hobbs

Marketers must stop prioritising strategies built around cookie data if they’re to succeed in the 2020s. Speaking on a panel at The Drum’s Predictions 2020 event at Sea Containers this week, Andy Chandler, Adjust’s VP for UK and Ireland, called for brands to evolve in the post-cookie world and start to work out whether they’re truly adding value to their customers’ lives.

“With Google Chrome getting rid of third party cookies, brands need to start looking at data differently or they’re going to very quickly get left behind,” he explained. “We are moving into a cookie-less world, where consumers are interacting more with apps than browsers, so the way we measure data needs to truly reflect that. We need to keep evolving and keep up with where people are, ensuring we add real value to their lives.”

A recent feature by The Drum explored the impact of Google’s plans to “render third-party cookies obsolete” and how brands must now respond. According to Ed Preedy, chief revenue office at Cavai, one solution could be for brands to use online messenger apps to speak directly to their consumers. He says messenger apps can ensure more tailored advertising and better conversion rates when it comes to making a purchase.

He added: “In 2019, there were 73 trillion posts across all messaging apps. And in markets like APAC and Latin America, something like 63% of consumers purchased over a messaging app or spoke directly to a business. These are becoming hotbeds for commercial opportunity and it will only grow in the decade ahead in the UK too.

“Messaging apps allow for a genuine two-way interaction. They qualify what users want and who they are almost instantly, so therefore the advertising that runs is contextually relevant. They will become so much more important as cookies start to dissipate. I think there will be a wider move to more personalised platforms, where advertising is less random.”

It was a frank assessment that Tanzil Bukhari, managing director for EMEA at DoubleVerify, very much agreed with. He insisted consumers now want to see more relevant advertising and that getting rid of cookies will ensure this happens more consistently. “The Google Chrome announcement will mean publishers have to offer much richer and directional content, and that’s only a good thing.”

Using data in the right way

But there was also a message of caution in the air, with Vodafone’s brand director Maria Koutsoudakis warning that brands and agencies who prioritise data too heavily risk becoming irrelevant, on a panel earlier that morning alongside Ogilvy CEO UK, Michael Frolich. Koutsoudakis asked the audience: “When was the last time you spoke to a customer? If you stood back from click attributions and A/V testing then what do you really know about your customers now?

“By only really focusing on data, there’s a risk we create a generation of marketers who don’t understand brand, consumers or behavioural change and aren’t agile enough to cope with it. There needs to be more of a blend of people being on the ground, really speaking to their customers, as well as having a good data strategy. If marketers only care about digital metrics then there’s a risk they become irrelevant in marketing in the 2020s.”

With consumer data obviously so important to the UK mobile network’s business, she admitted it has taken a back step to ensure it’s precious about protecting it. “We don’t sell this data as we can’t afford to lose our consumers’ trust,” she admitted. “Being so cautious might mean we get left behind, but I think it’s worth it as we can’t take any chances.”

Frolich agreed with Koutsoudakis’ sentiment. In the 2020s, he said ad agencies shouldn’t be using client and third party data unless they can absolutely prove it has a positive impact on creativity and this in turn enriches the lives of their customers.

“We aren’t a data company, we are a creative agency,” he insisted. “We use client data and third party data to feed our creativity and build better work that consumers then enjoy. If you’re using this data and it isn’t creating better human insights then you’re using it incorrectly.

“Agencies have bought big data companies and it isn’t working because they’re not using the information to create better marketing. If we can work with a client like Vodafone and use their data to feed better creativity then we’re winning.”

The sentiments around trust were picked on another panel, where Courtney Wylie, VP of product & marketing, Mention Me had a word of caution: “We’re going to continue to see this evolving trend of lack of trust. A declining trust in influencers, brands, marketing channels.”

However, the way the relationship between agencies and brands works will become a lot more adaptable over the coming years, with a one-size-fits-all approach now completely redundant. John Readman, CEO & Founder, Modo25, explained: “In past there were only two options: work with an agency or do something in-house, but we will see these lines blurring more and more. There’s no reason why a combination of both won’t be the best way forward.”

Talking about the way forward, Andrew Challier, chief client officer, Ebiquity predicted that the industry will finally see “the rebirth of creativity and the importance of creativity in engaging people and reaching people in a meaningful way.”

A more ethical way of thinking could impact Facebook and Amazon

As we move further into the 2020s, some of the event’s panellists warned that established retailers and social media brands could start to fall short, as consumers switch to a more ethical way of thinking.

“Yes, lot’s of people still buy off Amazon, but the fact Brits also want to become more engaged with their local community means independent retailers should be confident heading into this new decade,” predicted Hero Brown, founder of Muddy Stilettos.

She explained further: “We’ve noticed a real shift in our readers wanting to support the high street more and more, and there’s this ethical thinking coming through, which could be detrimental to an Amazon. Shoppers want real-life experiences, even from online brands. They’re starting to get tired of faceless fast transactions and want to see brands brought to life in a more physical way. This trend will only intensify in 2020.”

Meanwhile, Darren Savage, chief strategy officer at Tribal, would like to see Facebook’s dominancy recede in the social media space. “I think major firms who consistently lie will come unstuck in the 2020s as people won’t put up with it anymore,” he said. “An immoral toxic cess-pit like Facebook will come tumbling down.

“The blatant lies they tell around consumer data will mean people will leave the platform in much bigger numbers. Truth is more important than ever before and just being a big business isn’t going to protect you if you mislead consumers.”

Proving you’re making a difference

This ethical way of thinking also extends to a brand’s commitment to sustainability, and Misha Sokolov, co-founder of MNFST, believes this will only rise in importance over the coming years.

“I spoke recently to someone at the Volkswagen Group and he was telling me how they calculated they were responsible for 1% of all global emissions, and that’s why they now want to be carbon neutral within 10 years,” he said. “The smartest brands won’t just put a nice message on their packaging, but do something that has a provable positive impact on the environment and helping reduce climate change. It must happen automatically as brands will lose market share if consumers don’t think their being ethical enough. There’s no excuse in the 2020s.”

And businesses shouldn’t just think of sustainability in environmental terms either, with it also being just as wrapped up in how a brand and business treats its employees. Stéphanie Genin, global VP of enterprise marketing at Hootsuite, says employee advocacy will be a huge trend moving forward, as consumer want to ensure their favourite brands treat their staff good before supporting them with a purchase.

She added: “Employee advocacy and employee generated content will become so so important. When you empower employees to be the communicator of what your business stands for it really adds to brand value and boosts sales. I think marketers are missing a trick by not prioritising this more heavily.”

However, Readman, added none of this will work unless it’s part of a global governance policy. “It’s all good being sustainable and doing good things for employees in one market, but if it’s not something you’re doing consistently across the board then consumers will work it out and there will be a backlash.”

Meanwhile, for John Young, executive creative director and co-founder, M-is, as brands start to really understand the consumers through personal engagagement, “the advertising budgets will transfer into experiential budgets.”

Be as safe as possible

Another topic of conversation that came up throughout the day was brands ensuring the data they keep on consumers remains safe, especially as more and more of their ads are traded programmatically.

Francesco Petruzzelli, chief technology officer at Bidstack, said that 13% of global ads are currently fraudulent and that while major brands know it’s a “big issue”, they’re not necessarily doing enough to prevent it. “We acquired a publishing guard to protect publishers, but I find a lot of people aren’t thinking seriously enough about this issue. It won’t go away!”

Dan Lowden, chief strategy officer at Whiteops, added how he recently worked with a major brand who believed bots were accounting for up to 5% of fake views of its £10m campaign, but says his team worked out they were actually accounting for 36% of traffic.

Looking ahead, he concluded: “The bad guys aren’t going to let up and will keep on persisting with cyber crime in the 2020s. We all need to be serious about tackling this problem and do more to collaborate as an industry to ensure that marketing dollars are genuinely being spent on human engagement and not just robots.”

By Thomas Hobbs

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Gideon Spanier: Booming advertising world is riding high

January 21, 2020 No Comments

By Gideon Spanier

Growth is forecast to rise 6% in 2020 and digital promise fuels confidence in the future…

Get Brexit done — Boris Johnson’s election-winning slogan, proved the power of an effective marketing message and the UK ad industry begins the new decade in optimistic mood. Rapid changes in technology and consumer habits caused huge disruption in the last decade but digital advertising has been a growth engine as the UK, enjoying ten years in a row of rising ad expenditure. Here are some key trends for 2020:

A Boris ad bounce?

Even before last month’s decisive election result, leading agency groups were forecasting ad growth of around 6% in the UK in 2020 — in line with recent years, and ahead of most Western countries.

Advertisers keep ploughing money into search and social media as the UK is a leader in ecommerce and mobile.

Outdoor billboards are also generating more revenue as poster companies invest in digital screens. Greater “certainty” at Westminster could boost confidence, according to WPP’s media-buying arm, Group M, which sees “some potential for unlocking of advertising budgets — at least in the short-term”.

Brands are still obsessed by digital disruption

Some agency folk say the ad industry should stop talking about “digital” because it is no longer a silo and should permeate everything, but plenty of clients disagree as they grapple with transforming their businesses. Unilever has just appointed Conny Braams as its chief marketing and digital officer — with “digital” added to her job title as the FTSE 100 company behind Dove and Marmite emphasised it wants to become a “future-fit, fully digitised organisation at the leading edge of consumer marketing”.

Similarly, drinks giant Diageo is in the final stages of a global review of its ad-buying account as it seeks to be “at the forefront of media planning and data-driven marketing”.

The rise of streaming and “chasing the missing viewer”

The streaming wars will hot up when Disney+ debuts in the UK on March 31 as a rival to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Subscription video on-demand is a worry for advertisers because many of these services carry “no ads”, as the marketing for BritBox, a joint venture between ITV and BBC, boasts.

Zenith, a media agency whose clients include RBS and Disney, has warned “available audiences” for advertisers are shrinking as consumers “replace television viewing with non-commercial video”. One marketer talks about “chasing the missing viewer”, who is now on Netflix, surfing the web or playing video games.

Too much targeting?

Another worry is getting the balance right between mass marketing to big audiences and data-driven targeting of niche groups. Some brands, including Adidas and TopShop, have admitted in recent months that they have focused too much on digital, performance marketing to drive sales, and neglected brand-building. Truth is, advertisers want both. ITV, led by Carolyn McCall, plans to launch a targeted, online video ad-buying service, Planet V, in February.

Holding tech giants to account

Governments and advertisers have struggled for years to hold Google and Facebook to account but the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority could take a lead when it completes a big inquiry in July — with the potential to recommend regulation. The CMA warned last month that “a lack of real competition” in the digital ad market could be harming consumers and other media companies such as news publishers.

Agencies must adapt

Ad spend is rising but some clients are using technology to bypass agencies and “legacy” players are struggling to adapt. Publicis Groupe, Dentsu and M&C Saatchi all warned of poor trading before Christmas. The future for agencies is to be nimbler, more consultative and more strategic, which is creating room for new entrants.

Luke Smith, co-founder of Croud, a Shoreditch-based digital agency that has just sold a £30 million stake to private equity, says bullishly: “There are very few industries globally that have as much energy as the digital marketing space in London.”

London versus the regions

The number of people working in UK creative industries grew 30% in the past decade to two million — with half of them in London and the South East. However, some rebalancing away from the capital towards the regions is likely to be a theme in post-Brexit Britain.

Channel 4 will complete the opening of its new, national headquarters in Leeds this year, Dentsu is to move hundreds of jobs out of London in a cost-cutting move and WPP is planning a “campus” in Manchester to drive expansion.

Advertising matters

All of this change and growth is exciting because new, British disruptors from Starling Bank to On The Beach are using advertising to build their brands and it can add value. Shares in US exercise bike company Peloton, another “new economy” brand, slumped after the poor reception for its “sexist” Christmas ad campaign.

Ultimately, advertising matters because it is how a company communicates what it stands for. And, unlike Brexit, it’s a job that is never done.

Feature Image Credit: Gideon Spanier: Brands are still obsessed by digital disruption when it comes to advertising ( AFP/Getty Images )

By Gideon Spanier

Sourced from Evening Standard

In News

Emotion: The Super Weapon Of Marketing And Advertising

December 3, 2019 No Comments

By Valentin Saitarli.

Conventional marketing tactics usually lead to typical outcomes — what if we try something different? I’m sure each of us has a dress, shoes, a tie or a bag that we bought only because a salesperson in the shop was kind to us, or just because we were in search of positive emotions. Most of us strive to be happy in our personal lives, so we often seek ways to feel good and are willing to pay for them.

Emotional connection plays a significant role in the choices we make as consumers. As reported by Psychology Today, “functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences), rather than information (brand attributes, features, and facts).” So as marketers, why not aim to trigger the right feelings and make an emotional impression to attract attention to your product or service and boost sales?

I’ve worked with many clients on fixing some of the major issues with their marketing. Some of these clients were delivering an outstanding product to the market that, unfortunately, failed. And it was because their marketing strategy never emotionally engaged their target customers. Many companies seem to have a really hard time understanding how their particular product can make their clients happy. They forget that even though we’re in the age of digital marketing, there are still real people — a real Jake, Melissa or Jessica — on the other side of the screen, and those people care, laugh or cry the same way that we all do.

As a result of this tendency, when our team brings emotional marketing to the table, we’ve found that 80% of our clients seem to doubt the strategy — until we deliver results. For example, 10 months after bringing one client’s medicine-related app to the market using the emotional marketing strategy, the app doubled its revenue and our client saw a significant increase in brand recognition. We helped another client, a skincare company, hasten their sales growth and attract new investor funding by concentrating marketing efforts on triggering customers’ emotions.

So just how potent is it, this magical emotional connection? American poet Maya Angelou is often quoted as having said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Emotional engagement inspires a potential customer to notice and remember your marketing campaign if you do it right.

Research further illustrates the power of emotional advertising. Fast Company reports that “in an analysis of the IPA dataBANK, which contains 1,400 case studies of successful advertising campaigns, campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well (31% vs. 16%) as those with only rational content (and did a little better than those that mixed emotional and rational content).”

Some brands seem to organically make emotional connections with consumers, while others have to work at it. But in my experience, any product can evoke an emotional response. So where do you start?

First, recognize that you can’t always aim to evoke happiness with your marketing. Research from the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow found that we have only four basic emotions: happy, sad, fear/surprise and disgust/anger. So determine which feeling you intend to inspire. This will give you the right insights for copywriting, graphics, photos, music, etc.

Then, to get in touch with your customers’ emotions, identify their critical motivators. We strongly recommend putting more effort into research to discover the sole critical motivators that are typical for your niche and target audience. It’s crucial to provide customers with what they genuinely need, though they may not always be able to say what that is. Try to figure out what your customers care about, whether it’s standing out from the crowd, well-being, freedom, a sense of belonging or the environment. And make sure to leverage that. Their motivators may be secondary to the underlying emotions that drive them, but take them seriously. They can provide you with a more in-depth understanding of your customers’ emotions.

Once you understand what drives your customers, use these insights to create a broad marketing strategy based on making emotional connections. This strategy should include every link in the chain, from product launches and sales to marketing and service. Storytelling can be an indispensable tool here. Stories can be compelling and easy to share. They can help trigger the emotions you may need to get your desired outcome.

Dale Carnegie once said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” Emotional connections in the marketing field are not a secret strategy anymore — but they can be a real advantage. To be successful, find out how your customers feel and what they need and be able to identify what motivates them. This customer-oriented attitude and strategy can help you inspire customers’ devotion.

By Valentin Saitarli

Managing Director at Exclusive PR Solutions, overseeing Brand Strategy and Marketing. Read Valentin Saitarli’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Why are mobile conversion rates lower than desktop?

November 28, 2019 No Comments

By Graham Charlton

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.

By Graham Charlton

Graham Charlton is editor in chief at SaleCycle

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Ad revenues remain a bright spot for Amazon as profits falls flat

November 18, 2019 No Comments

By Rebecca Stewart

Amazon‘s profits might have fallen for the first time in two years, but its advertising revenue outshone its overall sales growth in the most recent quarter – showing brands are taking it seriously as a challenger to the Google-Facebook duopoly.

During its most recent earnings call on Thursday (24 October), the e-commerce giant revealed that sales were up, but profit had slumped year-on-year for the first time since mid-2017.

The business reported a third-quarter profit of $2.1bn, a drop of 28% on the previous year, which was put down to investments in shipping and warehouses to help its core retail business maintain its edge.

Over the past three months, the businesses has garnered $70bn in revenues; up from 24% on on the same quarter last year.

Advertising revenue growth was a bright spot in the company’s results, with ‘other revenue’ (which principally refers to Amazon’s ad business) hitting $3bn over the three months to the end of September, up 45% on the same quarter last year.

Driving ‘relevancy’ and looking beyond search

The firm’s chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said it was “very happy” with its ad sales progress and that it was now focused on helping brands deliver more targeted ads within the Amazon ecosystem.

“We continue to focus on advancing advertising experiences there, [making them] helpful for customers and helping them to see new products. We want to empower our businesses to find attracting and engage these customers and it’s increasingly popular with vendor sellers and third-party advertisers,” he added.

“It’s still early and what we’re focused on really at this point is relevancy, making sure that the ads are relevant to our customers, helpful to our customers, and to do that, we use machine learning and that’s helping us to drive better, better and better relevancy.”

Earlier this month it was reported that Amazon was eating into Google’s search dominance, with eMarketer forecasting that Amazon’s share is expected to grow to 15.9% by 2021, with Google’s expected to contract to 70.5%.

However, Dave Fildes, Amazon’s director of investor relations said that increased adoption among brands was pushing the company to expand its video and OTT offerings.

Pointing to the ad-supported movie streaming service it recently launched on IMDb and live sporting deals, Fildes said it planned to ad more inventory to the latter and across its Fire TV apps via Amazon Publisher Services integrations.

“[We’re also looking at] streamlining access for third-party apps and really just making it easier for advertisers to manage their campaigns and provide better results,” he continued.

Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer, at self-service ad platform 4C Insights highlighted how quickly Amazon is ramping up its ad platform.

“It has the unique ability to close the loop from purchase intent to sales and allow brands use that data for ad targeting and measurement,” he explained, saying clients using 4C’s platform had upped their spend by 250% in the past year.

Feature Image Credit: Advertising revenue growth was a bright spot in the company’s results / Amazon

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

In News

It’s not about length: SEO content trends to stay ahead of in 2020

November 14, 2019 No Comments

By Paul Melis

Hard as it may be to believe, it’s that time of year again – and no, I’m not talking about making Christmas lists, planning how best to avoid the in-laws over the festive season, and having mild panic attacks about how you’re going to afford all the presents and festivities that the coming months have in store. No, it’s the end of another year, which means it’s time to speculate about content trends for the coming 12 months.

Here are four trends that I think will have a significant impact on SEO content in 2020:

It’s not about length – it’s what you do with it that counts

As digital marketers, we sometimes get a little obsessed with hard and fast rules. It’s inevitable. We work in an industry based on understanding and algorithms, on following best practices, using fool-proof formulae, getting the inputs just right to achieve a precise result. A lot of the time, I think that’s what makes what we do rewarding. But I think one of the mistakes we make is to look for a right answer when there isn’t one.

The question of how long a piece of content should be is divisive because there really is no right answer. Actually, it’s worse than that. There are a lot of right answers. People have short attention spans, so writing concise, 500-word blogs is the way to go, right? But if you look at the top result for just about any search, you’ll find the word count rarely dips below a thousand. So longer must be better, then. Well, you can’t argue with the fact that most readers only get about halfway through a piece of content, and that many don’t even scroll to begin with. The reality is that there’s no ideal length for content, because length in itself doesn’t mean anything. What does matter is how well you’re answering the question, or addressing the needs of your reader.

In my experience, it’s safer to lean towards the longer side. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing a great-sounding blog title, and opening the link to find 200 words of half-baked, keyword-stuffed content that doesn’t really say anything at all. It’s equally painful, though, when you start reading a long-form article and realise the writer is trying to draw out a 300 word idea into 3,000. Ultimately, longer content is good, but there are certainly diminishing returns.

Voice search will make you question everything

‘Always read your writing aloud.’ That might be the single best piece of advice I’ve ever heard as a writer. And, since voice search is expected to account for as much as half of all online search traffic by 2020, it takes on a new meaning: if you aren’t reading your own writing out loud, Google’s going to do it for you, and you’d better make sure the results are good enough to drive interaction or conversion.

The key thing to realise here is that voice search is fundamentally different from text search. The average text search phrase, for example, is around one to three words, while the average voice search phrase hovers more around three to six words. Voice searches are also far more likely to be phrased as questions. People talk to their voice assistants like they’re talking to a real person, so it follows that content should respond in kind if it hopes to meet the needs of the searcher.

For content to soak up the lion’s share of voice searches, it needs to be written more conversationally than you might be used to, and it needs to hone in on answering the questions that the user is asking. Content that answers questions head-on, shows a clear understanding of search intent and sheds as much of the unnecessary detail as possible is bound to perform better for voice search traffic, so expect this trend to become increasingly prevalent in the coming months and years.

Zero is greater than one

Another consequence of voice assistants becoming the go-to search channel is the importance of Position Zero: whenever a user inputs a voice search query, their assistant will read out the position zero result before delivering the rest. So, even if you’re dominating the search results for the entire first page, a competitor with the zero spot is going to soak up 100% of the voice search traffic and leave your hard-fought position one content starved for clicks.

Gartner estimates that around a third of searches will be done without a screen at all in 2020, which means that anything beyond the position zero result might as well not exist for voice search purposes. Expect blogging content and other written forms to include an increasing amount of structured data, rich data snippets, and content specifically designed to rank above position 1. This will be particularly important for content with a local element (since a large part of voice search queries centre around local search) and bottom-of-the-funnel searches.

This time, it’s personal

There’s no doubt that personalised marketing messaging works. We live in the age of the individual consumer: people are accustomed to their social media feeds, email inboxes and mobile experiences being tailored to their preferences and interests. So, it follows that expectations are the same for any content they engage with while searching or browsing.

For advertising the remedy is rather simple: serve ads that are targeted at specific factors and show an awareness of the individual customer’s context, preferences and their position in the sales funnel. But for ‘raw’ SEO content – that is, blogs, website copy, landing pages, etc. – it’s a little less straightforward. Depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, you could include forms, quizzes and surveys to understand exactly who you’re talking to before serving them tailored content, or you could go the simpler route and profile your user base into different personas who are likely to respond to different messaging.

Expect increasingly tailored, topic-focused content to come to the fore even more so than it already has in recent years. Again, customers are increasingly engaging with content that makes real conversation with them and demonstrates an understanding of their context, preferences and what they’re looking for. The more granular you can get when it comes to understanding those factors, the better you’ll resonate with your readers.

By Paul Melis

Sourced from The Drum

In News

Semantic content analysis will disrupt marketing – for the better

November 4, 2019 No Comments

By Jergan Callebaut

We know that exceptional content is what makes a brand. We also know that analysing our data to very specifically target audiences is crucial for great ROI. But we rarely put the two together and use the data available to actually analyse what content works – and why.

Yet knowing exactly why content works can give us that winning edge. And, luckily, the ability to see what indisputably resonates the most with our audience – and drives our bottom-line – is already in our hands.

The state of play

In the climate of the current ‘data boom’, audience targeting naturally takes precedence, with the majority (55%) of marketers saying ‘better use of data’ for audience targeting is their priority in 2019, according to Econsultancy.

It makes sense. On a daily basis, we’re faced with countless blogs, podcasts, speakers and everything in-between promising that if we perfectly optimise our targeting, our messaging will beat the daunting odds of the 0.9% CTR cited by WordStream. And so, we dedicate hours and hours every week to creating personas, hypothesising about audiences, segmenting users and running lengthy A/B tests to find the piece of content that our audience love. We add to our already-complex marketing stacks tools that tell us what messaging has been more successful, in order for us to optimise.

But when we do find that winner, do we know why it works? Do we know exactly what features caused the higher CTR? Do we know how we’re going to recreate it in our next campaign, to make it better, even?

This lack of knowledge – despite all the tools and techniques we use to offer insight – is what we at Datasine call the ‘black box’ because when it comes to understanding why, we are left in the dark. Just looking at results doesn’t give us the insight needed to truly understand content preferences in an actionable way.

Semantic content analysis

To crack open the black box, we need to start conducting in-depth semantic analysis of our content. Only then can we begin to truly understand why some content resonates and some doesn’t.

As experienced marketers, we come prepackaged with a deep understanding of – and fascination with – psychology and our audience, meaning we’ve already got the skills on paper to analyse our content. It’s simply a matter of breaking it down into parts. We’ll look at this in terms of images and text.

If you want to analyse your imagery, you can take all the image assets you’ve ever created and note down the particular elements you used in each, then check to see if there are any patterns which relate those choices to your ad performance.

For example:

Did you use a photo of your product outdoors? Or in the showroom?
Were people visible in the shot?
What was the size of the text, and the colour of any overlays or CTAs?

It may even be worth inviting a panel to judge your images on the emotions that they evoke, or photographers to assess the quality and composition of the shot.

You can do the same for text content, approaching this by categorising how you describe your product or service. For example:

Do you appeal to your product’s ease of use?
Are you emphasising your innovative credentials?
Do you use particularly casual – or formal – language?

With this process, we can see which types of content are receiving the most engagement. And we can use these features to keep creating great campaigns that we further optimise as our understanding of customer content preferences grows.

Scaling content analysis

If we have just a few campaigns on the go, content analysis is easier, but it gets harder as we scale. It stops being practical to expect humans to spend days, weeks, even months labelling what goes into each piece of content. Here’s where machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) come to the rescue.

AI models can extract all of these elements in seconds by analysing image or text semantically to look at content like humans do. That way, we can cut back on lengthy, expensive A/B testing, and get rid of guesswork once and for all – a vision we at Datasine are working toward. Our AI platform Connect (formerly Pomegranate) automatically identifies the most effective content for your audience.

By embracing semantic content analysis and working collaboratively with AI, we can feel confident in understanding exactly what content is going to work before we hit send.

By Jergan Callebaut

Sourced from The Drum

In News

‘Who actually loves authentic content?’ Brands need to understand their value exchange

October 9, 2019 No Comments

By Ryan Reddick

A few years ago I was working on the Coffee vs Gangs content series. After a successful launch, which saw Kenco help young Hondurans out of gangs by training them as coffee farmers, l found myself in an all agency meeting. After some initial self-congratulatory backslapping, discussion of the ‘raw authenticity’ led to a new addition to the group confidently chiming in.

‘I loved the first series and was wondering if it might be possible to see some of the kids from the gangs drinking Kenco’.

Awkward pause.

We’ll come back to that.

Fast-forward a few years to The Drum Content Awards, of which I recently had the pleasure of sitting on the judging panel. To kick off the day all the judges took part in an ice breaker, where we were asked to share our thoughts on ‘authenticity’ in content.

A question like this is catnip for content professionals. And the 25 of us, all released from our respective agencies formed a warm cosy echo chamber. One which made us feel reassured that we are all saying the same things to our clients and none of us are doing it wrong.

I listened. But I contributed nothing. Because the only thought I had ringing around my head was ‘isn’t all this just bollocks?’ Which wouldn’t have gone down well at all.

That’s not to say that my fellow judges didn’t engage in an intelligent and considered discussion. But this wasn’t about them. It was about the concept of ‘authenticity’ itself.

Before I go on, I dare any current creative or content specialist to review their proposals, treatments and pitches delivered in the last three months and not cringe at overuse bordering on abuse of the word.

The truth is, it’s become a dog whistle we blow on in front of our colleagues and clients to try and sell ideas without thinking about it. But when you actually think about it, it means very little on the outside world.

When was the last time anyone saw a piece of content and said ‘I love it because of its authenticity’?

Never.

Because no one ever says that.

Alongside ‘disruptive’, ‘authentic’ has become a nonsense husk of a word that means nothing and everything to us in our comfy communications and marketing circles.

That’s not to say that Kaepernick or Patagonia Black Friday didn’t come from a truly brilliant place. In the same way that featuring a bunch of troubled kids from gangs drinking Kenco obviously comes from a hideous one. But let’s not over inflate the sentiment behind this too much. Or to bastardise the words of Scroobius Pip –

Nike. Just a brand

Patagonia. Just a brand

Kenco. Just a brand

When a consumer engages with any form of content made by a brand or business an unspoken contract is entered into. ‘I know you are trying to sell me something or make me like you so I eventually buy something. But I’m willing to let you do that in exchange for getting something back’.

And this is far more authentic than authenticity. Because authenticity may be dead, but the authentic value exchange is very much alive.

I am willing to engage with your marketing, communication or advertising in exchange for you entertaining me. Making me laugh. Teaching me something new. Helping me with utility that enables me to do my job better.

Authentic value exchange. Much better. Not hiding behind the fact that something is authentic just for the sake of it when we all know what’s going on. Consumers are not stupid.

And that’s what was great about judging The Drum Content Awards. To see so many examples of exceptional work that creates a compelling value exchange between brand and consumer.

Examples that used comedy in exchange for brand trust around online security (Santander), that answered fuel economy questions in exchange for consideration of an electric alternative (Nissan Leaf) and that showed future parents what having children really looks like to build market share of their baby wipe brand (WaterWipes).

And by the way, in case you were interested.

We never featured any gang member drinking Kenco.

Now that’s authentic.

Feature Image Credit: ‘Who actually loves authentic content?’ Brands need to understand their value exchange

By Ryan Reddick

Ryan Reddick, creative director, Edelman is a judge for The Drum Content Awards 2019. A full list of the finalists can be found here. The awards ceremony will take place in London on October 30 at The Marriot Grosvenor Square Hotel, tickets can be purchased now.

Sourced from The Drum