The New Digital Role in Shopping

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012

According to a new study by Ryan Partnership, branded shopping apps are the strongest driver behind unplanned purchases. Branded content on social networks drives people to try new products, and texts and social media are most likely to influence where people shop.
The study finds that consumer usage of digital tools to support shopping has grown tremendously in just 18 months. In 2010, usage of digital shopper tools was more limited to early adopters, while in 2012 the vast majority of shoppers have woven them into multiple points throughout their path to purchase. The RetailNet Group projects that this shift from analog to digitally-influenced shopping will continue for the foreseeable future.

Projected Influence of Digital Tools on Shopping Trips
Influence	2011	2016
Analog	54%	36%
Digitally influenced	38	53
Source: RetailNet Group, September 2012

“Digital retail,” in the study, is defined as the use of digital communications to engage shoppers along the path-to-purchase and drive incremental sales. Any marketing-related digital interaction that the shopper has in-store would be considered part of the digital retail universe.”
Shoppers' usage of digital retail tools, ranging from store websites and mobile coupons to daily deal sites and QR codes, has doubled or even tripled, depending on the tool, in the previous 18-month period. 96% of the survey respondents said they have used at least one digital shopping tool, with the majority using multiple tools.
The five most heavily used tools were:

• Store websites (64% of respondents)
• Downloadable coupons (61%)
• Search engines (51%)
• Retailer emails (53%)
• Brand websites (49%)

Additional tools mentioned include daily deal sites, brand social media, mobile coupons and shopping apps.

Digital Tools Used When Shopping Or Planning To Shop (% of Respondents)
Digital Tool	2012	2010
Store websites	64%	28%
Downloadable coupons	61	28
Search engines	59
Retailer Emails	53	25
Brand sites	49
Brand emails	47
Daily deal sites	37
Reviews/recommendations	36	12
Load to card coupons	28	10
Brand social media	26	12
Retail social media	23
Mobile coupons	18	5
Retailer texts	16	5
Shopping apps	14
QR codes	8
Source: RyanPartnership, September 2012

Kim Finnerty, VP, Consumer and Shopper Insights at Ryan, says "... usage of digital tools during the planning phase of shopping is... virtually ubiquitous..."
The survey of 8,000 primary household shoppers about their usage of various digital retail tools found that shoppers use different tools for different purposes, and which tools impact which behaviors.

• Social Media from retailers is the strongest driver of new brand and product trial. Brands launching new products should feature their new offerings not only in their own social media efforts, but in their retailers' as well.
• Shopping Apps and retailer tools are strongest drivers of unplanned purchasing.  It is important for the Brand to be a part of the retailer's digital tools as their traditional tools, opines the report.
• Texts Messages from Retailers and Brands are most likely to influence choice of where to shop.

Tool Impact on Product Trial (% of Respondents Who Bought Products/Brands Never Before Purchased)
Influence Tool	% Bought
QR codes/bar code readers	22%
Shopping apps	32
Retailer texts	21
Mobile coupons	19
Retailer social media	36
Brand social media	32
Load-to-card coupons	20
Reviews/recommendations	29
Daily deal sites	26
Brand emails	26
In-store brand sites	25
Pre-shop brand sites	29
Brand sites	19
Retailer emails	21
Search engines	16
Downloadable coupons	18
In-store retailer sites	15
Pre-shop retailer sites	17
Retailer sites	15
Source: RyanPartnership, September 2012

The study points to shopping apps and social media updates as the tools best poised for near-term growth, because they deliver the strongest combination of shopper utility (such measures as "makes shopping more fun," and "makes me feel like a smart shopper"), and behavioral impact ("I make more unplanned purchases," "I try products or brands I never bought before," "I spend more than I planned").
The impact of digital shopper experiences on the selection of a retailer was quite strong.  Interestingly, retailers’ own social media updates were the strongest driver of a shopper’s selection of a retailer. Although quantifiable ROI data can be challenging to come by, retailers’ recent efforts to scale up their social media following seem to be bearing fruit, notes the report.

Most Important Tools Influencing Retailer Choice
Tool	% of Respondents
Retailer social media	44%
Product reviews/recommendations	42
Pre-shop brand sites	42
Shopping apps	40
Pre-shop retailer sites	37
Retailer emails	37
Brand social media	36
Brand emails	34
Source: RyanPartnership, September 2012

Finnerty concludes that "... two years ago, early adopters were the only consumer segment using shopping apps and following retailers' updates on social media... Now, the vast majority of consumers are weaving these digital tools into their path to purchase,..".

Report: Mobile Now Driving 36 Percent Of All Email Opens

Sep 10, 2012 at 5:38pm ET by Greg Sterling

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Reading email is one of the primary activities of smartphone owners. Indeed, several reports over the past year have indicated that more and more email interaction is happening on mobile devices. Adding to that narrative Knotice today released its latest Email Opens report covering the first half of 2012.
Since 2010 the company has documented the rise of mobile email, which obviously corresponds to increasing smartphone penetration in the US.

Source: Knotice (9/12)
The report benchmarks everything to PC open rates and related email marketing data. The PC still dominates most email interaction and sees 64 percent of opens overall. However, mobile (tablet + smartphones) sees the other 36 percent. That’s up from 27 percent at the end of last year.
If the current pace of mobile email growth continues nearly 45 percent of “on the go” consumers will be reading email on their smartphones or tablets by this time next year. Indeed, Knotice recommends that email marketers “begin planning for a point in time when mobile users will be the majority audience.”
Email Open Rates:


Source: Knotice (9/12)
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear or explained iOS devices dominate Android when it comes to open rates.

Source: Knotice (9/12)
Knotice says that iOS and Android, in the US, “account for 99.19 percent of all mobile email opens.” Financial services and consumer services (whatever that means precisely) were the two categories that saw the highest percentage of mobile opens.

Source: Knotice (9/12)
Knotice added that “the distribution of [email] opens occurring on phones is more heavily concentrated within the first 3 hours following email delivery . . . Knotice data [also] reveal email engagement by phone is significantly higher in the first 90 minutes, with negligible differences between phone, tablet and desktop email engagement after approximately 5 hours.”
Accordingly the Knotice report had some basic “best practices” recommendations:

• Embrace a “mobile first” mindset
• Recognize that now, by default, email marketers are effectively mobile marketers
• Know your mobile audience (via data and analytics)

Finally Knotice tries to explode the “myth of multiple opens” where multiple devices are allegedly used to look at or revisit the same emails. In a retail case study, Knotice found that very few emails were revisited on a separate device.

The implications of all this are fairly straightforward: take mobile seriously and be ready to optimize email campaigns for an increasingly large mobile user base. For marketers that are complacent or skeptical of mobile, there’s a chance that email campaigns not optimized for mobile will simply no longer be seen.

Starts Ups

Hovr
A Pinterest addict's dream. Hovr attempts to remedy that awful Pinterest (or similar website) frustration of finding something you like, but have no idea of where to buy. As a browser add-on and mobile app, Hovr lets you "hover" over the image of a coveted item (say, a perfect little black dress), and gives you a list of comparables that can be instantly purchased online. The mobile app can also be set to send an alert when you are close to a retail store with said LBD in stock. A somewhat juxtaposed take on the impulse buy?
Event Holler
This one's for event planners, organizers, and general party people. Event Holler is an event management and ticketing system that lets planner create their event on the system for free. Connected to a network of promoters, planners can set ticket amounts and promoter commissions before, essentially, waiting for RSVPs to roll in. The organizer just pays when a ticket is sold. Event Holler has been operating in beta since July, with the average promoter reaching 885 people.
MyGoodNight
And speaking of party people, MyGoodNight is for those who want to plan a night out on their own. Still in stealth mode for now, the guide will allow users to browse honed lists of night-out-options based on the preferences they plug in. The platform will integrate information from social media, venues, promoters, publishers, artists and more, while offering the option to purchase tickets online and share the plans your night out. For those who don't mind the occasional party crasher, of course.
GameDay Interactive
Something to occupy your interest during those too-frequent sports commercial breaks. GameDay Interactive is an app that allows users to interact with broadcasters, team reps, and other viewers in real time while watching the game. Users participate in a social media quiz where they can try to predict what will happen next in the game (such, "I bet the Leafs will blow this power play") and answer questions about sponsors (oh hey there, advertisers) with the opportunity to win prizes. Participants log in via their Facebook pages.
So, what do you think? Would you give any of these burgeoning companies capital to expand?

Ad Preferences Of Social And Mobile Users

Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012

Following on yesterday’s Research Brief on connected TV ad preferences, a new study from Harris Interactive on behalf of MediaBrix shows that only 28% of Facebook users prefer to see standard banner ads in Facebook apps and 72% prefer to see immersive and interactive ad units.
Additionally, 40% of smartphone owners prefer to see standard banner ads in mobile apps while 60% prefer to see immersive and integrated ad units. Immersive and integrated ad units include those that offer people virtual rewards or currency and interactive video ads that occur during natural breaks in the app or game.
The survey findings, says the report, indicate that there are inadequacies in the way that social and mobile developers are monetizing, and reveal that the digital advertising industry needs new creative advertising formats for social and mobile platforms to meet consumer preferences.
According to the report, 33% of Facebook's one billion users say they have used an app on Facebook in the past twelve months and 65% of Facebook app users say they have played a game on Facebook in the past twelve months. According to recent figures from The Wall Street Journal, more than 45 billion apps have been downloaded, with free and paid apps for the Apple and Android platforms registering explosive growth.
The survey results also reveal consumers' preferences towards video advertising in social and mobile apps. According to the survey:

• 37% of Facebook app users prefer to be shown pre-roll ads in Facebook apps
• 63% prefer to either initiate the video ad or have it shown during a natural break in the game or app
• 38% of smartphone owners prefer to be shown pre-roll video ads in mobile apps
• 62% prefer either to initiate the video ad or have it shown during a natural break in the game or app

Tamara Bousquet, executive media director, MEA Digital, says "... people are turned off by standard online advertising... in social and mobile environments... "
Social and mobile app users prefer free apps that are ad supported. According to the survey:

• 87% of Facebook app users prefer free Facebook apps versus 13% that prefer paid apps that contain no advertising
• Of those Facebook app users that prefer free Facebook apps, 83% prefer to keep apps free with relevant advertising that appears during natural breaks in the game or app, while 17% prefer to keep apps free by making in-app purchases

Also according to the survey:

• 61% of smartphone owners prefer free mobile apps and 39% prefer paid apps that contain no advertising.
• Of the smartphone owners that prefer free mobile apps, 88% prefer to keep apps free with relevant advertising that appears during natural breaks in the game or app and 12% prefer to keep apps free by making in-app purchases, including virtual goods or virtual currency.

The report concludes by suggesting that since “... social app and mobile app developers cannot continue to rely on standard advertising patterned after web-based models as a way to monetize their apps... they should incorporate immersive advertising units to monetize and... to engage consumers... (in keeping) with their preferences... “

New Facebook Metric For Sponsored Stories: Average News Feed Position

David Cohen on August 14, 2012 10:30 AM Facebook began offering advertisers using its sponsored stories a new metric to help them analyze their campaigns: average news feed position.
22squared Senior Digital Strategist Justin Oh tipped off sister blog Inside Facebook about the launch of the average news feed position metric, which was first discussed with Facebook Preferred Marketing Developers in June, but did not appear on the social network’s ads application-programming interface until late last week.
Inside Facebook pointed out that while the new metric will allow advertisers to see separate news feed data for each placement, desktop and mobile are not broken out.

Screen shot courtesy of Justin Oh, via Inside Facebook

How earned media can drive mobile app downloads

June 18, 2012 6:59 AM
Gilad de Vries

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With more than a decade of digital media experience, I’ve seen plenty of bad ideas posing as innovation. For example, a few weeks ago I noticed a QR code that was incorporated into a mobile display ad. I stared quizzically at the screen on my mobile device and thought: How the heck am I going to take an image of that QR code when my camera is on the opposite side of the screen?
It’s baffling to me how someone could think that was a good idea. Not all such efforts are as obviously laughable. For years now, marketers have spent countless dollars and man-hours urging consumers to download mobile apps using solely mobile display ads. Think about it: How often have you seen an ad encouraging you to “DownloadMobile App Now”?
Now ask yourself how often you’ve actually clicked on the ad and rushed to download that app. Not often, right?
The reason mobile display ads don’t work at the top of the marketing funnel is because they don’t give consumers any indication of the app’s value-add. Your iPhone is already cluttered with dozens of other apps, so why should you respond to a display ad that doesn’t provide any insight into the benefit of adding this particular app?
According to recent study from mobile ad network xAd, click-through rates for typical mobile display ads are only 0.6%. A 2011 MediaMind study tells a similar story, revealing that click-through rates for mobile ads on iPhone are 0.37% (higher than any other smartphone, if you can believe it). With these numbers, it’s clear that consumers have responded to mobile marketing by simply not responding. So if mobile marketing doesn’t work, what are the alternatives for those of us tasked with driving mobile app downloads?
Believe it or not –a comprehensive content marketing program that is driven by earned media is a powerful, but often-overlooked strategy for driving mobile app downloads. Instead of largely ineffective mobile ads, why not let your app’s fans – particularly those in media – do the talking?
Here’s a three-step approach to get you started:

1) Get your app in front of the media

This may sound daunting, but there is an entire segment of media – from tech writers to mommy bloggers – dedicated to rating and reviewing mobile apps of all kinds. And if you have a great product, it’s just a matter of finding the right audience for it. If you don’t have a dedicated PR team, you’ll need to do your homework to figure out which outlets to send your app to. A service like TestFlight makes it super simple to send apps that are still in beta or aren’t yet available for download (and ideally, you should be pitching your app to media before it launches).
Once a review is published, it becomes a valuable piece of evergreen content. And perhaps best of all, positive earned media will ultimately be more reliable to consumers than any ad copy your creative minds can conceive.

2) Put your earned media front and center

After you’ve received a positive review from a reputable media outlet or blogger, utilize this asset and make sure to drive as many people as possible to it. You’ll get some traffic from search and social shares, but you probably also need to help people to discover those reviews. Sending traffic to these reviews via a content recommendation platform can help you get your earned media in front of readers when they’re already in content consumption mode.

3) Use mobile display ads to seal the deal

When awareness for your app has reached its pinnacle, your display ad can go from a nuisance to a value-add. Reminding consumers to download an app after they’ve read a positive review will save them the time of having going to the app store to search for it. Be sure to stay away from generic copy like: “DownloadMobile App Now.” Fine-tune your messaging by citing a sentence from earned media that explains the value and capabilities of the app. Place your logo next to the quote and consumers will intrinsically understand that the next action is a click-to-download. By leveraging the earned media in your display ad, you’ve given consumers a clear window into value they’re going to get out of downloading the app.
Companies that employ content marketing and earned media as the foundation of their campaigns are witnessing double digit (!) conversion rates. Marketers must test all mediums to assess what’s right for them, but rarely will running a mobile display ad campaign without first making sure people know your true value-add be enough to drive the results you need.

4 Rules For Creating Interactive Content For A Multi-Platform, Multi-Device World

By: Miller Medeiros and David Vale

Miller Medeiros and David Vale of digital agency Firstborn discuss the principles of responsive web design and how brands should be thinking and creating beyond the desktop.

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The interactive world is constantly changing, and the number of different devices that connect it all is growing every year. The problem that arises is that there are no rules for the game. As big corporations create new products with different systems and technology, it’s inevitable that we’ll have to come up with creative ways to adapt.
Responsive Web Design is not a new concept, but it has gained people’s attention in the past couple years as a good alternative to designing for different screen sizes and aspect ratios for all desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Put simply, responsive design is the creation of a single website with a fluid proportion-based grid that automatically adapts to users’ browsers and the devices they are using. This is not a trend—it’s the future.

"Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience." (Ethan Marcotte)

This means that brands now have more control over how users access and interact with their content. These are huge changes. Most brands focus on desktop experiences only and leave the other devices aside. Now, more than ever, consumers are interfacing with brands from anywhere and everywhere; often they are using mobile as a way to augment or enhance another branded experience. By compromising content accessibility, brands position themselves negatively.
Access is good, but it’s not that easy. As we are dealing with multiple platforms, we have to plan ahead and prioritize the content as well as the format that it will be displayed in, to users. In our opinion, that’s the biggest challenge for brands--prioritization. The next step will be to take all that information and adapt it to a single template using the simplest code possible, making sure that it will be displayable on devices that have fewer capabilities.
This is not a simple task for huge brands with countless products and services, but some brands like Starbucks and Sony are already catching up. They’ve both launched new responsive websites that adapt to all formats and devices, thus maintaining a great user experience.

Miller Medeiros

Another good case of responsive web design, created by Firstborn, is the new Mountain Dew website. We designed a site that brings together assets from across the Dew universe: action sports, music, promotions, product lineup and social channels. Beyond just making the design responsive, we created a personalized experience where users can also filter the content and display only what is most relevant to them.
During the design and development of previous projects at Firstborn, we learned some simple rules that should be taken into consideration if you want to target multiple platforms.

1. Plan Ahead

In order to create an efficient and responsive design, we must plan things properly. The design process is a little bit different than what we usually have with a traditional website, especially because we can’t base the layout on a fixed viewport size and there is no simple way to design to every single size. We’ve found that it’s easier to design as few breakpoints as possible and then interpolate the layout between these breakpoints.

"The grid, like any other instrument in the design process, is not an absolute. It should be used with flexibility, and when necessary it should be modified or abandoned completely for a more workable solution." (Allen Hurlburt)

If the layout is based on a grid, make sure the grid still makes sense on smaller/bigger screens and that the size of the grid can be easily adapted.
Most people agree that it’s best to start your grid structure from the mobile version, focusing first on the smaller screens with as few features as possible. That way it’s possible to have a "bare bones" version of the site that works on the oldest phones/tablets, and an "enhanced" version for the most capable browsers. On this project, we worked on both dimensions (desktop and mobile) simultaneously as we wanted to ensure the best experience for each view.
The relationship that a user has with a desktop is different than with a mobile, and therefore it shouldn’t be treated as the same. Priorities change, content needs to be much more clear and concise on a mobile version than on a desktop. A good example is if you access the Chase mobile site, it only gives you three options that are very clear and probably all you need. Review your priorities and only deliver the user what they’re most likely to want.
Remember that on tablets and mobiles there are no "roll overs" and most of the navigation elements that were designed for the desktop version will not work with gestures. Lately I have been noticing that we are blending some usabilities from across platforms. For example, the new mouse from Apple utilizes the scrolling references from the iPad and iPhone. This is a good trend, as sites should adapt to us and not the other way around.

David Vale

2. Prototyping is Fundamental

Prototyping is really important for testing, validating the grid size and making sure the whole structure will scale to multiple pages. Since we won’t be doing designs for all of the possible widths, it is much easier to set some of the breakpoints on the prototype itself. Prototypes are also a good tool to introduce the project to the client. They show how the design will adapt to different screen sizes and help determine the content priorities that lead to an enhanced user experience.

3. Keep it Simple

The simpler the site is, the greater the chance that it will work across multiple devices. Simple blogs are much easier to adapt than a complex interactive site. Technical limitations should always be taken into consideration if you want the best experience on the broadest range of devices. Sometimes we need to simplify the interaction and complexity of the layout to improve accessibility.

The amount of breakpoints should be kept to a minimum, since each new breakpoint makes the system harder to test and maintain--especially if each breakpoint changes the design drastically and relies heavily on JavaScript to work.

4. Break the Rules

It is important to understand why a rule was created and if it really applies to your project. Sometimes a remarkable experience is the most important thing; don’t let these rules bind you.