Content Shock has arrived [#ChartoftheDay]

The number of social shares per blog post suffers from a massive 89% decline over the past five years

Mark Schaefer originally coined the term content shock 3 years ago. Since then we’ve seen a massive explosion in the amount of content produced - an almost seven-fold increase -but a huge crash in engagement with each post.

An October 2016 study by TrackMaven analysed over 65,000 blogs and found that the number of blogs produced increased by 800%, but the number of social shares per posts crashed by a massive 89%.

We can see this huge drop off in engagement is impacting brand’s decisions - the number of articles published has plateaued since August 2015.

In an attempt to cut through, brands have been driven to creating not just more, but longer content. The average number of words in each post increased by 100 words, to 750 words per post on average. But as you can see from the chart below, it’s failing to increase engagement, at least in terms of social shares.

• Source: TrackMaven
• Sample Size: 65,000 blogs
• Recommended resource: Content Marketing Strategy

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/content-management/content-marketing-planning/content-shock-arrived-chartoftheday/

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New study reveals Facebook’s massive reach on third party sites

47% of the 100,000 most popular sites now contain one or more Facebook technologies, giving Facebook unprecedented access to data and web traffic.

The results of the new study from SimilarTech shows the scale of Facebook operation beyond its own domain, with insights on the platform’s reach and exposure through the use of Facebook technologies, giving Facebook its competitive edge on audience data and referral traffic to its site.

This enormous audience reach has been achieved through the widespread popularity of the company’s technologies and plugins such as ‘share buttons’ or ‘comment boxes’ on 3rd party sites which deliver traffic to Facebook and strengthens the presence of the Facebook brand across the web.

The most popular technologies from Facebook being used on the top 100k sites are Facebook Connect, followed by Facebook Social Plugin and Facebook’s Like Button. 

While Facebook web technologies are present in almost any content-oriented site on the web, for the first time we are able to see the magnitude of their operation in terms of reach.

Considering Facebook’s brand reach resulting from the visits to the sites currently using Facebook technologies, the exposure of Facebook grows tenfold. Facebook is indirectly accessed by more than 300 billion visits in Sept 2016 which were exposed to Facebook products on 3rd party sites.

The Facebook Social Plugin is present in more than 17 million websites, making it their most widely used technology. It’s important to take into consideration that while some Facebook technologies such as Facebook Comments are embedded in fewer sites (1.3 million), many of the domains where they are used are major media outlets such as USAtoday.com, Politico.com, NFL.com and Vice.com  

Facebook’s online presence seems stronger than ever and it shows no sign of decline, especially when they have managed to create technologies which sites across the web have become so dependent on.

Read the full research findings on this link.

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/facebook-marketing/new-study-reveals-facebooks-massive-reach-third-party-sites/

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10 extremely costly AdWords mistakes you need to avoid at all costs

Make sure you don’t fall foul of these common but expensive AdWords mistakes

When it’s used correctly, Google AdWords can be a fantastic way to drive relevant visitors to your website and generate new enquiries or online sales for your business. AdWords works well for all sorts of products/services and you don’t need a huge budget to get started. Plus, it’s quick and simple to set up a basic AdWords campaign even if you’ve never done it before.

And that’s where the problems start. Yes, it is very easy for a beginner to set up and run their own AdWords account, but if you just accept all the default settings and don’t take the time to properly understand all the finer points of how AdWords works, you’ll end up spending a lot and getting very little return on your advertising budget.

Here we provide a list of the top 10 most costly ad-word mistakes we most frequently find marketers guilty of.

1. Choosing the wrong keywords

If you bid on the wrong keywords, you’ll waste money driving the wrong kind of visitors to your website – the kind of people who have little interest in the products or services you sell. Visits from more specific searches tend to have higher conversation rates, so bidding on lots of non-specific keywords will mean your wasting far more money than you would if you properly researched the highest converting keywords.

2. Using the wrong match types

If you don’t specify anything different, all your keywords will be set to broad match by default. With broad match your ads will potentially appear for any search that Google thinks is related to your keyword – even if the relationship is very weak. This can lead to a lot of your ad spend being wasted.

3. Not using the search terms report

Negative keywords are a way of telling Google that if a searcher includes one of those negative keywords in their search query then you do not want your ad to appear. This means you can filter out the kind of visitors that are of no interest to you and avoid wasting money driving them to your website. Too many businesses aren’t using this feature and are thus wasting a lot of their PPC spend.

4. Not understanding Quality Score

A lot of people (including some who have been using AdWords for a while) think that the position of your ad on the search results page is determined purely by how much you bid, and that the more you bid the higher up you’ll appear. But in reality, your position on the page is heavily dependent on something called Quality Score (QS). You need to understand what this is and how to improve it if you want your AdWords spend to be used as effectively as possible. We detail how to do this in our new guide on costly Adwords mistakes.

5. Setting up AdWords and then walking away

Even the most perfectly configured account will need optimising and adjusting in the light of the real-world data that your campaigns will be gathering on an ongoing basis. You can find out how to keep it in tune by reading our new guide to costly AdWords mistakes.

6. Having poor quality ads

There are lots of ways you can make your ads more eye catching and more engaging. Doing this will increase your CTR and hence improve your QS, which means you pay a lower cost per click. Our new guide on Adwords mistakes details examples of things you can do to your ads to make them more clickable.

7. Having a poor account structure

If you simply follow the default options and put all your keywords and ads into one Ad Group you won’t get a good degree of control over a whole number of factors that can affect the effectiveness of your AdWords spend. You need to develop a properly thought out account structure using Ad groups if you’re to get the most ROI possible.

8. Not measuring phone calls

Tracking conversions in the form of online purchases or enquiry form submissions is pretty easy, either with AdWords itself or by coupling it with Google Analytics. But for many businesses (particularly service-based ones) a lot of the enquiries or sales will happen over the phone. These conversions via the phone are just as important as online ones but, by default, you won’t get any data about them in your AdWords reports. This then means you loose out on one of the most important metrics for judging AdWords ROI. With incompete data you’re far more likely to make bad, ill-informed decisions about future budget allocations.

9. Not optimising Mobile separately

By gathering data across the whole customer journey you can properly assess the true conversion rate of mobile visitors (those browsing on mobile but converting on desktop) and plan your bids accordingly. If you don’t do this you will either be loosing business because your not bidding highly enough for mobile users and loosing them to competitors, or be loosing money because your bidding too highly for mobile users less likely to convert.

10. Not keeping up to date with new features

Google is forever releasing new features for AdWords – some of them very useful and others less so! It’s important you keep abreast of these changes and enhancements because, if you don’t, it gives your competitors a chance to get one step ahead of you. To find out more about new Adwords features, read our new guide to AdWords mistakes. Unlike this post, it details how to prevent each mistake and gives real word examples to illustrate how critical it is to avoid these common and costly mistakes.

Download resource – 10 Costly AdWords mistakes

Yes, it is very easy for a beginner to set up and run their own AdWords account, but if you just accept all the default settings and don’t take the time to properly understand all the finer points of how AdWords works, you’ll end up spending a lot and getting very little return on your advertising budget. In this guide, we explain the top ten (often very costly) mistakes that people make with AdWords so as you can avoid getting your fingers burnt.

Access the 10 costly AdWords mistakes

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/paid-search-marketing-ppc/paid-search-strategy/10-extremely-costly-mistakes-need-avoid-costs/

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Which are the most important e-commerce traffic sources?

Data from 65 million ecommerce orders shows the crucial sources of traffic for ecommerce websites

Ecommerce and online retail is a booming sector, but because the latest marketing techniques change so rapidly it can be tricky to keep up with the latest trends whilst also keeping your feet on the ground.

In a new report, Yotpo collated data from 65 million ecommerce orders representing $2 billion dollars in transactions over 120,000 ecommerce stores, and established what the industry average is for digital media.

The results make for slightly surprising reading. On the face of things, Social makes up a healthy 6%, but this is still a relatively small slice over the overall pie. Paid makes up 5%, which leaves considerable room for growth, whilst email makes up a rather small 3%. It would be interesting to see the conversion rates by traffic, as it may be that referrals from emails are on the site because they’ve decided to purchase, whilst those from other sources may be more likely to be there to browse or research. I was slightly surprised search didn’t make up a larger share, since it is how most customers generally start their buying journey. Investing in better content marketing efforts could be more than worth it for many ecommerce stores, as if done well it will attract quality links and boost SEO.

Relying too much on one source of traffic leaves you exposed to risks, just because a channel is fantastic for generating traffic today doesn’t mean it will continue to be. Some sites lost out when Panda put penalties on certain SEO linking practices. Others lost out when Facebook decided to massively restrict organic reach. If your site had relied exclusively one of these sources of traffic then the changes may have put you in some serious trouble.

The best way to avoid these risks is by hedging your bets by acquiring your traffic from a considerable variety of sources. But what is a good variety? That’s where the data comes in.

Direct

The big surprise in many ways is how large a proportion of traffic comes from direct. Fully 40% of traffic came from direct, which accounts for more ecommerce traffic than any other single source. Direct in theory is the people who have typed in the URL directly to their browser, but in reality it means anyone who arrives at the site from a source that cannot be tracked. The source of this traffic is generally links that have been sent to friends/colleagues and then copied and pasted into web browsers. Traffic of this kind is generally referred to as ‘dark social’, as it is comprised of links that are shared socially, but cannot be tracked. This means ‘dark social’ actually accounts for a considerable percentage of direct traffic.

Dark Social

By its very nature, it is difficult to accurately account for what percentage of your direct traffic is actually ‘dark social’. However with direct accounting for 40% of of ecommerce traffic it seems likely dark social is making up a large proportion of the total. A general rule of thumb is that for every three people reaching your site via social, a further 7 will be arriving from ‘dark social’, which will appear as direct. If this is true for ecommerce traffic then dark social accounts for half of all the direct traffic, which is 20% of the total traffic. This makes dark social the 3rd largest source of ecommerce traffic by a considerable margin. Bear that mind when designing you’re landing pages and crafting the copy for your social shares. Social is probably more important to your bottom line than you think.

Other statistics on the most popular traffic sources and media channels for retailers?

If you’re not aware of it the excellent Custora Ecommerce Pulse showing orders by channel is also of interest for retailers to benchmark against. This is the latest data in 2016 from the end of 2015.

It’s a compilation of traffic or media sources from some of the top US retail sites which drive sales.

What channels draw the most engaged traffic?

Not all clicks are equal, and some visits are more valuable than others. Some channels bring traffic that is more likely to spend plenty of time reviewing the site, whilst others are more likely to bounce back relatively quickly. Email, Instagram and referral are the stars here. Conversely, Pinterest and Facebook bring traffic likely to spend only half as much time on site as the top performers. It is important to tie this information into budget allocation models, as a click from an email may be worth considerably more than one form Pinterest for example.

How important is mobile?

Mobile has been a buzz word in digital for several years now, to the point where it seems almost out-dated to talk about how important it is as everyone should know by now. Mobile now makes up the majority of visits across the web, but this is not the case for ecommerce. Because of the fiddly nature of payment forms, mobile accounts for slightly over 1/3^rd of all ecommerce visits. If your rate of mobile traffic is lower than this it might be worth seeing if your site needs further optimisation for mobile. Responsive design should be your first priority, and if this is already in place then it may be worth a bit of user testing to see if the customer journey is as smooth on mobile as it is on desktop.

We hope this ecommerce traffic data has been helpful for benchmarking where you currently are against the industry average. If you want more data on ecommerce traffic you can see the full report from Yotpo. For more advice on making the most of your ecommerce traffic check out our ecommerce design pattern guide.

Download Expert Member resource – Ecommerce design pattern guide

We created this guide to give our members a definitive reference of best practice for the design of key website page templates essential in retail ecommerce websites.The purpose of this guide is to give you a toolkit to use to review tests to optimize existing templates, or alternatively, as a blueprint that can be adapted when you are planning a site redesign.

Access the Ecommerce design pattern guide

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-analytics/important-e-commerce-traffic-sources/

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Approaching Robust Data: Tips and Tricks From the Front Line

The task at hand was clear: collect, organize, and interpret data for the upcoming Retail Mobile Benchmark Report, which examines the disparities between mobile and desktop performances for average US websites. A broad topic like this could easily span 20 or 30 industries.

As this was my first time approaching this data (based on analyses of more than 290-billion visits to more than 16,000 mobile sites and over 85-billion app launches), I’ll admit that I was a little more than overwhelmed. But, knowing that it would take significant effort on my part to familiarize myself with the data well enough to report something interesting, I jumped right in. What I learned along the way will, undoubtedly, save me time as well as a lot of headaches in the future. Following, you will discover some of my takeaways — the lessons I learned, key insights I gained, and perspectives that shaped my experiences all along the way.

1. Manage Expectations From the Beginning.
Almost immediately, I discovered that the key to approaching data of this size was to understand, in advance, exactly what it was that I wanted to deliver. Access to this much information can surely seem imposing, but without a plan, it’s almost impossible not to become lost in the process. This meant that I had to look closely at the kind of data I had access to and think about how I wanted to present it. Taking time in the beginning to devise a strategy helped me plan, so not only could I deliver what my audience was seeking, but also manage expectations for the results.

2. Plan for Both the Data and Its Analysis.
A. Pull Data in Advance.
One of the first challenges I faced was trying to decide how I wanted to slice the data. Should I break it down by states or by industries? Did I want visits to retail websites separated by state or by mobile-device type? The most efficient method was to plot all the different options and pull all the data up front — which meant you wouldn’t find yourself halfway through a project, wishing you had sliced the data by industry rather than state.

B. Know What Your Audience Cares About and Align Data Accordingly.
With a robust dataset, it’s easy to simply dive right in and create tons of charts. However, if you don’t know what your audience cares most about, you could very likely be wasting your time. An internal, pre-analysis review helped us make sure expectations were aligned before we began tackling main ideas.

With regard to this report, for instance, I knew a shift was taking place. People are moving away from using desktops (the traditional browsing method) and toward using mobile instead. While interesting, the crux of the issue isn’t the move itself, but rather, how much the move is costing companies. After identifying what my audience cared most about, I focused on the implications associated with people leaving desktops and moving toward smartphones, and then I was able to align the data accordingly.

3. Build the Case, Visualize the Results, and Make It Interesting to Your Audience.
The ultimate goal for any data analyst is to communicate insights clearly and effectively — to build the story behind the data. Internal support is critical to achieving this, and asking senior-level analysts for technical assistance is a very smart move. Having an expert on hand with whom you can collaborate and bounce questions off of is invaluable. In many cases, a senior manager can resolve an issue in mere minutes that could otherwise take several days to resolve. It was extremely helpful to have an expert nearby, especially in the beginning phases when I was slicing data.

A. Step Back and Look at the Bigger Picture.
Often, data contains contradictions or unexpected surprises. In this case, for example, I knew smartphone usage was climbing, as tablet use was dwindling. I also knew that there were major behavioral differences between smartphone shoppers and desktop shoppers. But, what was happening overall? What were the net effects? Taking a step back to view the full context surrounding the data helped me to compare a specific data piece against other views of it to solidify the narrative.

B. Balance Tech With Storytelling.
Any great data analyst is driven to capture audiences’ attentions using compelling headlines. But, it’s also imperative that you guarantee technical accuracy so you can defend the results to your peers. This is why the time you spend vetting data and making sure it’s clean is so crucial. Nevertheless, what you ultimately create must also make sense. A strong manager is an excellent resource for helping to balance tech-heavy aspects while shaping the story behind the data.

C. Welcome Feedback.
To ensure accuracy, data analysts are often required to vet data against any questions senior analysts have. Doing this well means spending some time studying the industry, understanding trends, and making sure that whatever you find is defendable. Identifying the reasons behind various findings, uncovering issues, and adjusting for them via feedback are critical steps in the process.

Ultimately, the Best Tips Begin With You.
The biggest lesson I learned in the course of this project also turned out to be the simplest: remain organized. From the very beginning to the absolute end of the process, carefully following steps, avoiding shortcuts, and doing things right the first time proved essential. If you can manage those things correctly, you’ll have set yourself up for success.

The post Approaching Robust Data: Tips and Tricks From the Front Line appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/adobe-digital-insights/approaching-robust-data-tips-tricks-front-line/

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The Power of Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) Beyond Retargeting

Many advertisers are using dynamic creative optimization (DCO) for retargeting high-value website visitors who, based on their actions on the brand’s website — such as visiting product pages and adding items to shopping carts — have shown purchasing intent. Advertisers get a second chance to drive a conversion. Retargeting is a proven, always-on tactic for most advertisers. DCO allows deeper personalization of retargeted ads, driving better engagement and performance.

While we hear a lot about using DCO for retargeting, what about employing DCO for prospecting campaigns?

Advertisers can use DCO across the marketing funnel — for everything from retargeting and loyalty programs to new-customer acquisition and awareness campaigns. Even if very little is known about the audience or user that is viewing the ad, DCO can deliver a lift in performance. For one Adobe customer, using algorithmic creative optimization for geotargeted campaigns resulted in a 10-percent lift in click-through rate (CTR) over standard display ads. The more we know about the audiences across the funnel, the better the performance. Performance results for this brand ranged from a 10-percent lift in CTR for prospecting campaigns to a 71-percent lift in performance when retargeting users who visited specific property pages.

Target Audiences Across the Funnel With DCO.

Algorithmic Creative Optimization
For prospecting campaigns, the creative elements within the ad — images, border and button colors, messages, offers, call-to-action text, data-feed components, and recommended products, for instance — are optimized to meet the advertiser’s performance objectives. An advertiser could simply target their ads by region or zip code and allow DCO to optimize the ad’s creative elements to drive the best engagement and performance.

The DCO algorithm evaluates all possible ad permutations and optimizes delivery to the winner. Below is a simplified example.

Advertisers are able to turn creative optimization on or off as desired. For retargeting campaigns, an advertiser may prefer to set rules to drive ad-content decisions using the data feed. Once the feature is turned on, the settings below — some of which are customizable — are activated.

• Confidence level (99.1-percent default settings)
• Optimization key performance indicators (KPIs): Clicks, conversions
• Impressions per permutation (75,000 default)
• Lookback window: Data to be considered in learnings (30-day default)
• Test allocation: Percent of test-campaign impressions (15-percent default)

Other Cool DCO Capabilities
DCO has many features that can help deliver better performances for your prospecting and retargeting campaigns. Personalize your ads with DCO and spice them up with some of these features:

• Promotion Countdown Clock: Your ad includes a timer that counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until your next sale, promotion — or the weekend.
• Search Box: Users can search for city location, zip code, product, and more.
• Drop-Down Menu: Users can select an option from the menu and be directed to a relevant landing page.
• Product Carousel: Users can scroll through product recommendations within the ad.
• Retail Circular Ads: Promote products from weekly circular ads within the ads.
• Product Price Comparison: Within the ad, you can show your low price compared to competitors’ rates.
• Adobe Marketing Cloud Audiences: Both Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager segments can trigger an ad layout in DCO for deeper personalization. Audience Manager segments can include first-, second-, and third-party data.

Moving Beyond Retargeting to Get the Most of DCO
DCO allows an advertiser to target audiences across the marketing funnel. Beyond using DCO for reconnecting with and retargeting site visitors, advertisers can use DCO to deliver relevant experiences and better performances — for new-customer acquisition and awareness programs — and help fill the upper marketing funnel. Consider applying the full power of DCO to all your marketing programs to deliver deeper personalization and more relevant experiences for your users as they travel through the customer journey.

This is the fourth article in a five-part series on DCO. Check out the first three articles:

1. 5 Reasons Now Is the Time to Implement Dynamic Creative
2. Creating Relevant Ad Experiences Without Thousands of Ad Units
3. Supercharge your Retargeting Campaigns with Dynamic Creative

And stay tuned to learn more about what DCO can do for advertisers.

The post The Power of Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) Beyond Retargeting appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/advertising/power-dynamic-creative-optimization-dco-beyond-retargeting/

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Driving Competitive Advantages With Enterprise Mobile Apps

The mobile app landscape is changing — no one can argue with that. But, the results of the 2016 Enterprise Mobile Apps Report — conducted by Edelman in partnership with Adobe — shine a very bright light on a key corner of the industry: the enterprise app landscape. These internal-facing apps are changing industry-wide discourse in many ways, pushing companies to reexamine not only their enterprise mobile strategies, but also the processes and workflows that have often defined these businesses since day one.

It’s a seismic shift — and one that the report delves into, providing comprehensive insights into today’s enterprise mobile app landscape, including the priorities, preferences, and barriers to entry. Together, these powerful forces are shaping all aspects of enterprise mobile adoption, integration, and ultimately, evolution — from who’s investing to who has the true competitive advantage at the end of the day.

Where We Are TODAY
So, what does it all look like right now? According to the Enterprise Mobile Apps Report, two-thirds of companies already have these apps in place, and of those, nearly 7 in 10 have 2–5 in use. Further, for those who have integrated enterprise mobile apps within their organizations, it’s clear that employees are embracing them at higher and higher rates over time — 66 percent of companies that use these apps say the number of employees tapping into them has increased year over year.

All of that said, it’s evident that we’re both in the enterprise mobile app adoption period, and that we’re seeing a massive uptick in usage simultaneously. In many ways, this one-two punch is what fueled the added investments and increased push to get these up and out the door. And, as a result, they’re receiving solid ROIs.

Though the specific goals tied to these mobile apps vary from company to company, they tend to revolve around a few key objectives:

• Increase employee productivity;
• Enhance and streamline task performance;
• Ensure employees have immediate access to tools and information they need to succeed; and
• Connect with customers and stakeholders in simplified, real-time formats.

Now, for the big question: What’s driving this rapid adoption and breakneck growth? According to the report, it’s a fear of being left behind. More than three in five respondents agree: companies that haven’t deployed enterprise mobile apps are at a clear disadvantage. Why? Because they have less-efficient operations (61 percent), seem outdated (51 percent), and miss out on new client/sales opportunities (47 percent). In other words, if companies don’t have these apps in place, they see themselves as missing out on these essential performance indicators. That’s why enterprise mobile apps have become such a buzzworthy topic — that’s why they’re becoming must-haves in all corners of the industry.

Understanding Employee Adoption and Corporate Integration
Again, these apps aren’t being launched into the abyss. Employees are increasingly integrating their companies’ enterprise mobile apps into their job functions, helping them navigate a host of key tasks and responsibilities. Usage is up since this time last year, and performance is improving and increasing right along with it. On average, companies with enterprise mobile apps are seeing their ROIs hover around 35 percent — and, with numbers like that, it’s no surprise that more than half of these departments expect to increase their investments in the next 12 months.

The ROI is driven by a number of different factors; though, the majority center around one thing: productivity. Enterprise apps enable employees to do more work, communicate better, and remain motivated from start to finish. Think about the sales reps at typical tech firms — specifically, think about the number of emails and newsletters flying into and out of their inboxes 24/7. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to have all of that essential sales information available in a mobile app, one that sent a push notification every time new and important information was added? Wouldn’t it streamline communications and, as a result, ensure stakeholders were more in the know?

But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. ExxonMobil, for example, is using enterprise mobile apps for recruitment. Their recruiting app, Working at ExxonMobil, enables prospective interns and entry-level employees — in most cases, millennials who are used to getting all of their info and intel through their devices — to get a taste for life inside the company. The app offers a preview of the new Houston campus and digs into different career paths within the organization.

And, ExxonMobil isn’t alone. In 2014, REI launched its first enterprise mobile app, a Floor Set Guide Trainer that leveraged Adobe Digital Publishing Suite — now Adobe Experience Manager Mobile. The goal of the app was to help associates set up visual displays in their own stores while ensuring their sales teams were promoting the right merchandise and, above all, best serving their customers. The results were staggering: two out of three associates who participated in the 10-store pilot said the app enabled them to spend more time on the sales floor, and all participants said the app was a “valuable resource.”

The REI enterprise initiatives continued, and today, the brand has 5 apps and 63 folios boasting more than 10,000 downloads that, together, have elevated employee engagement and overall service. What’s more, through built-in analytics, REI is able to gauge usage, engagement, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure future rollouts deliver meaningful employee and customer value.

The TRUE Competitive Advantage
While it’s clear that enterprise apps deliver major internal and external advantages, many companies still haven’t embraced the trend. Furthermore, even those that have may not have fully evolved strategies, which can leave them at a definite disadvantage. While more than three in five say it’s important to be ahead of the competition, nearly two in three consider themselves on par with — or even behind — their competitors. It’s a major disconnect that rests solidly in organizations’ inabilities to modernize their strategies and execute on those strategies before their competitors do.

Ultimately, your success in building and using enterprise mobile apps comes down to selecting platforms that will position your company to achieve success — now and in the future. They should integrate well with your existing business systems and, of equal importance, be able to scale and grow as your business needs change. App content management is key to delivering an exceptional user experience. And, it all begins with making sure you have the right tools and processes in place to drive continuous updates and easily integrate, edit, and organize content on the go. Enterprise content management systems, like Adobe Experience Manager Mobile, can support this piece of it by utilizing content from across the enterprise and keeping it fresh and up to date. From there, they can help companies understand KPIs, analytics, and other personal indicators. It’s a more positive user experience on both sides.

The (Not-Too-Distant) Future of Enterprise Mobile Apps
To evolve and bolster your organization’s enterprise mobile app initiatives, it’s essential to focus first on mission-critical apps that meet the needs of your increasingly mobile workforce. According to the Enterprise Mobile Apps Report, some examples include:

• Customer service (61 percent);
• Customer-relationship management (60 percent);
• Sales enablement (59 percent); and
• Messaging/collaboration (59 percent).

Once established, the next step is to scope out and integrate the core capabilities necessary for success — from security and business systems to ease of publishing and multiple-platform support.

Another key step is to be sure you have a team in place to oversee challenges, opportunities, and barriers to adoption. Respondents indicated that their biggest challenges included security, update-driven errors, and lack of in-app customization — your team should be able to deftly maneuver through these common barriers, providing efficient, effective solutions to steer your company through. This team can also help with employee adoption and perception, including making sure apps are productive and make employees feel empowered. Close to 9 in 10 respondents agreed that this is essential to success.

There’s much more to the conversation and a lot more to come on the enterprise mobile app front. Download the complete 2016 Enterprise Mobile Apps Report to learn more about how enterprise mobile apps can help guide your business’s productivity.

The post Driving Competitive Advantages With Enterprise Mobile Apps appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/driving-competitive-advantages-enterprise-mobile-apps/

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Don’t forget about the Wireless with Onmichannel Marketing [#ChartoftheDay]

Radio isn’t dead. Don’t make the mistake of writing it off.

The importance of omnichannel marketing is an ever increasing reality for high street retailers to succeed. Online-only retailers are starting to see the benefit of having physical locations to serve their customer in the real world, this year has already seen Amazon opening its own high street bookshops. As consumers across the globe demand more from every retailer big or small, our shopping habits are changing and the internet has opened a new always-on world, where if we want it, we want it and nothing else will do.

Retailers are wising up new customer experiences and implementing real digital transformation change across their business’s, to give their customers the choice they desire, to buy online or in-store for home delivery or store pick up, but the marketing departments still have work to do, to prioritise their marketing activities across the whole customer lifecycle.

The Nielsen Comparable Metrics Report found that while 37% of adults spend their time online using smartphones, tablets, PCs & TV connected devices, 63% of adults spend their time watching TV or listening to Radio. This raises an interesting question for ecommerce brands, How do you get 63% of adults who are not using a digital device to your online store?

Millennials are spendings over 10 hours a week listening to the Radio, could this be the missing piece of digital marketing strategy you didn’t know you needed?

Provided you provide a strong offline to online or store call to action within your advertising you have the potential to drive an untapped audience into the top of your purchasing funnel. Traditionally Radio has been a cost effective marketing channel for  only brands This coupled with a creative targetted remarketing campaign bringing non-converting customers  back to your store, you might be surprised at the ROI you can achieve.

• Source: The Nielsen Comparable Metrics Report
• Recommended toolkit: E-commerce/Retail Toolkit

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/multichannel-strategies/dont-forget-wireless-onmichannel-marketing-chartoftheday/

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6 automated customer lifecycle marketing trends for 2016-17

Automated customer lifecycle marketing will be the future of email marketing

To look forward to the future of email marketing 2020 - a report I have contributed to from Litmus, I believe we need to look back to appreciate how little the support for marketers from email marketing platforms has evolved to deliver customised lifecycle messaging. Frankly, I have been amazed how few companies have adopted email as a strategic communications tool for personalised, behavioural based email across the years since I started training on email marketing in 2001.

Research on the adoption of email targeting still shows us a reality where the majority of email marketing involves either no segmentation at all or targeting of just 4 to 6 segments.

So, by mid 2017 I’d like to see more support within platforms to deliver on the promise of Email Marketing Automation including:

1. Automation of benchmarking and recommendations. Given current variable adoption of best practices, by 2020 systems should step marketers through all the best practices for customised lifecycle marketing, creative and delivery. This should be based on ongoing benchmarking and anonymous comparison against other similar companies.
2. Automation of customer lifecycle sequences for the individual. Platforms need to evolve beyond ‘drag and drop’ editors to libraries that automate creation of lifecycle sequences.
3. Automation of segmentation. By 2020 platforms will automate creation of target segments based on profile, behaviour and value propositions available from a brand.
4. Automation of reporting to show the true effectiveness of email in providing relevance to the individual and value to the company. Much reporting is still based on performance of an individual broadcast. Reporting needs to be smarter, showing success in engaging individuals over time based on segmentation, targeting and value offered to subscribers.
5. Automation of creative optimisation. Much testing of email creative is still limited to subject line testing. Why? For larger lists, systems should evolve to better support AB and multivariate testing as has been more widely adopted for websites.
6. Automation of integration. Email marketing isn’t a separate activity, but often email activity isn’t integrated with other experiences as a subscriber browses the website or uses a mobile site.

Today the Single Customer View is still a myth for most businesses. Let’s hope this can change if the integrations within Marketing Cloud services improve such that email is just part of the overall digital experience across website and mobile interactions integrated with apps and messaging systems provided by messaging systems like Facebook’s Messenger. But will this happen? Platform vendors have just 4 or 5 years to achieve this; not long given how well-established email marketing is. 

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/behavioural-email-marketing/customer-lifecycle-trends-2016/

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Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly

This week’s articles explore the influence of customer-relationship management (CRM) data on data-driven marketing, the best methods for driving influencer engagement through retail, the most beneficial timing for reminding shoppers of abandoned carts, and much more.

• CRM Strengthens Data-Driven Marketing [eMarketer]: A new survey reveals customer-relationship management (CRM) data is the most popular method for augmenting data-driven marketing data and decisions.
• How to drive influencer engagement through retail [Mobile Commerce Daily]: As more than 70 percent of consumers turn to social media before making purchasing decisions, the role of influencers has become even more significant, and opportunities abound for organizations that want to make the most of influencers’ voices in the market.
• When Should Retailers Remind Shoppers of Abandoned Carts? [eMarkteter]: A new study finds that retailers achieve the highest conversion rates when they send the first retargeting email within an hour (compared to 24 hours) after consumers have abandoned online carts.
• HALLOWEEN BY THE NUMBERS [INFOGRAPHIC]: CASHING IN ON SALES LIKE A PIRATE [The Shelf]: Halloween is an important holiday for retailers to consider — especially since nearly $8.4 billion is estimated to be spent on Halloween this year.
• Experience-Based Commerce: Zero Friction. Total Engagement [Adobe Blogs]: Twelve tips for becoming an experience-led commerce business.
• Applying the Scientific Method to Ecommerce Marketing [Practical Ecommerce]: By applying the scientific method to digital marketing, e-commerce marketers can increase return on ad spend and support growth.
• Huge majority of passengers willing to trade personal data for better airline experience [Tnooz]: More than 80 percent of airline customers are willing to give airlines and airports more personal information to gain better travel experiences.
• Travel brands poised to grow exponentially with mobile marketing [Mobile Commerce Daily]: With a majority of mobile hotel bookings made within 24 hours, brands need to consider the aspects of mobile marketing — such as local SEO, social media, and personalized content.
• Growth of Mobile Travel Bookings in 6 Charts [Skift]: More and more travelers are turning to mobile to book flights and hotels, but growth hasn’t included all markets.
• Ancillary spend by passengers on airlines has many regional differences [Tnooz]: Many airlines are moving to an à la carte approach for additional purchases — and across global regions, variety exists with regard to what is purchased.

The post Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/news-and-resources/point-sale-retail-travel-weekly-26/

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15 Website Personalization and Recommendations Software Tools

A listing of personalised production recommendation services to increase conversion and Average Order Value

These website personalisation tools enable you to segment visitors and then deliver personalised messages within containers as with the classic Amazon personalized recommendations – read their published methodology from this fascinating whitepaper from back in 2003. I originally wrote this post in 2010 when there were fewer options. I have updated annually since with the help added by commenters - thanks!

Access resource – Web Personalisation guide

Our E-learning topic will show you
the options for delivering more persuasive, relevant dynamic web content at relevant points in the onsite customer journey for B2B and B2C sites. As well as the techniques and tools available for personalisation based on audience characteristics and behaviour.

Access the Website and Ecommerce Personalization Guide

Personalization integrated with web analytics

• Coremetrics Intelligent Offer IBM Coremetrics is widely used by retailers for analytics – and increasingly personalization for cross and up-selling.
• Adobe Test and Target One of the best established personalization engines evolving from the original Touch Clarity back in 2004.
• BT Buckets A lower cost option that integrates with Google Analytics.

Personalization Software as Service (SaaS) for Ecommerce

The second category we review here is specifically for E-Commerce merchandising giving automated product placements using aggregated behavioral data (those that viewed this, also viewed that) and personal recommendations (you previously bought this and might like that).

I’m indebted to an anonymous contributor who has recently reviewed and recommended these for the original article.  He says: “The following offer enterprise level SaaS solutions to deliver increased sales and a better customer experience“.

• Barilliance - Saas Personalisation for Ecommerce
• Pureclarity - Ecommerce Personalisation
• Bunting Website Personalisation
• Marketizator
• Monetate Personalisation Software
• Rich Relevance 
• ChoiceStream 
• Personyze
• Apptus 

Personalisation features available as part of CMS or Commerce management systems

This category wasn’t mentioned in the original post since personalisation features were limited in CMS when the post was originally written in 2010, but I have updated in line with a suggestion in the comments.

According to the comment from Damien of Digicon, Episerver, Sitecore, Kentico and Adobe with Target have built in tools to personalise content based on various rules, such as geo-location, search terms, referrers, lead scores and also provide more advanced personalisation based on user behaviour and profiles.

Episerver have an interesting approach to personalisation which they describe as ’No-rules personalisation: more intelligence, less-work’. Rather than traditional rules-based personalisation used by many of the specialist services, this applies machine learning and statistical analysis to visitor behavioral data to tailor category and product pages without rules configuration.

Magento also has personalisation extensions available such as Product Personalisation, Commerce Stack.

B2B and publisher personalisation tools

Evergage is recommended as a tool that fits best in this category that has a wide range of options for serving personalisation for content marketing in different placements on a site.

Of course, Recommendations aren’t limited to websites only, as you will know from Amazons’ newsletters. To learn more, I recommend this article explaining the inner workings of email marketing recommendation engines which reportedly boost click rates by 50-400%. It shows what to look for when finding the right tool to serve the recommendations inside your newsletter.

Thanks for all the comments sharing options in the post so far, please share others you recommend to build this list.

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/web-personalisation/web-personalization-software/

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Penguin 4.0 and Disavow: The Hard Truths that Need to be Told

Just because Penguin constantly updates, doesn’t mean you can throw out the disavow file

When taking to the familiar waters of the social media swimming pool this morning, instead of enjoying my relaxed, smooth, exercise regime, I was met by the sound of shrieking and splashing from the children’s pool of Twitter. Upon investigating, I see there is a lively debate about the implications of disavow in the fallout of Penguin 4.0.

The main topic for the heated discussion? With the new incarnation of Penguin and its constantly refreshing live scrutiny when it is evaluating domains and URLs, is the presence of a disavow file even necessary for your business going forward? There are arguments both for and against this, there are those who are of the inclination that complete and utter removal of the disavow file is in their best interests as Google Penguin 4.0 algorithm is only doing minor devaluing and penalties.

“The largest majority of the websites don’t need to do anything with the disavow because like you said, we are able to pick up the normal issue anyway and we can take care of that.”  John Mueller, Google.

Then on the other side of the argument are those who state that removing the disavow file and laying bare everything linking to your domains and URLs at the feet of Google is the worst idea this side of Greedo shooting first!

I am of the mindset that there is no need for this debate or argument, but there does need to be a discussion about how anyone with SEO experience could ever see value in removing one of the greatest tools on their utility belt. The disavow file is vital to continued SEO support for your domains, as Google Penguin 4.0 scrutinises at the URL level and penalises if spam is detected. As such, losing the ability to disavow at ANY level, let alone the URL level, is nothing short of short-sighted. The importance of disavowing at the URL level is embedded in the fact that granular disavow saves both overall time and rescues the positive links that would otherwise be lost to the disavow file. Standard disavow methods are based on disavowing the entire affected domain, this is a prime example of overkill. When you disavow the entire domain, you let the diamonds sink with the ship.

Confucius said: “Never use a cannon to kill a fly.”The actual Confucius quote is “never kill a chicken using a cow knife”, but we thought the quote above that is frequently but wrongly attributed to Confucius worked a little better.

“Used properly, the disavow tool can be a fine scalpel to remove the last few traces of poor quality links remaining from a clean-up effort – it certainly isn’t a scatter-gun that can devalue an entire backlink profile.” – Matt Cutts, Google.

Dismissing the disavow file is like opening Pandora’s Box and tearing the hinges off. Once that box has been pried open everything that had been hidden away and unacknowledged crawls from that dark place and lands under the microscope of Google, to be dissected and categorised.

This has the potential to be rather embarrassing, if previous SEO agencies or teams had been disavowing at the domain level (being honest, I’m sure many SEO specialists reading this will know times they have done that), then they will see the hidden URL gems that, unfortunately were painted with the same brush as the bad eggs. There will also be penalty worthy pages in there which, since you have removed the disavow blockage, show that you are not acting within the guidelines set by Google. The swift penalising gavel of Google is quick to pass judgment at both domain and URL level, while some say that they are minor penalties, in our industry there is no such thing as a minor penalty. Time a vital page is offline is information not being displayed, support not being delivered, business not being created and audience not being reached.

If you are considering dumping out the disavow file and “cleaning house” with it, it would be wise to keep in mind the old phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” or, in this case “don’t kick all of your eggs out of one basket!”.

When going through the disavow file, using a fine toothed comb and extra sets of eyes to check each and every domain and URL to find the diamonds in the rough. Will this process seem impossibly long? Yes. Will this be a strain on your company and sanity? Yes, absolutely, but by the end of it, you will have a potential gain in your linking domains and URLs and you will have done all you can do for now to keep the riff raff out of your web presence and in the broom cupboard of disavow where it rightfully belongs.

“I’d personally just keep it the way it was before. I know there’s some sites that have gone in and said okay, we’ll just disavow everything that’s been linking to us, and that was probably a bad strategy before and just as bad a strategy now and that’s something you might want to clean up. But in general, if you were using the disavow file for what it was meant to be used for, I would continue to use it like that.” – John Mueller, Google.

With all the talk about disavow, there is strong, sensible advice clearly stating that SEOs need to keep utilising the disavow tools and the disavow file when they know bad links raise their heads from a time when bad link building took place on the site.

I have seen a lot of people declaring that they are doing tests on experimental sites to see if there is a benefit to removing the disavow file. This is a waste of time and resources and will do nothing but tarnish your reputation, not to mention illogical. It is a blind gambit for people who do not have access to the tools necessary for advanced SEO tactics, especially if those people are still learning the trade.

A lot of this debate stemmed from a rumour, the rumour was that Google was changing the interaction of disavow, many people have jumped up on the band wagon, for both sides, without really getting the facts straight. They say if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. They don’t say “If it isn’t broken, smash it, throw it out, dump it in the river and go with an opposite plan”. Since the lively discussion took place, Google have said that there has been no change to the disavow plan with the penguin 4.0 launch, and there is no plan as yet to change it any time soon.

So, with that explanation now out there, I hope the debate can end, people can see the wisdom and make sense of what is happening, and we can look to our own in house strategies going forward, if indeed they need to change. But for the very few of you who are still on the unnecessary fence out there, I just have this for you: if you are concerned, if you are in any doubt whatsoever as to which way you should hop down just remember, when in doubt, use the disavow.

Thanks to Martyn Clayton for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Martyn Clayton is the Director of Client Relations at Intelligiants, an experienced SEO, keen to spread the word about the changes that are constantly occurring around us in the SEO landscapes. He like long walks, candle-lit dinners and heralding the changes in our industry that will affect your business.  You can follow him on @ TheMartynC or connect on LinkedIn.

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-optimisation-seo/seo-strategy/penguin-4-0-disavow-hard-truths-need-told/

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Let Big Data Make A Big Difference for Your Marketing

The post Let Big Data Make A Big Difference for Your Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/let-big-data-make-big-difference-marketing/

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7 examples of the applications of the Internet of Things which are here now

Examples showing how Products become media and a service

Marketers love new tech and new trends, sometimes they don’t get them quite right at first, or sometimes they nail them (e.g. Buzzfeed on Snapchat). One of the biggest technology trends right now is the Internet of Things, which promises to bring the connectivity of the Internet into every facet of our lives. Making our devices and homes smarter and more efficient. The internet of things promises to be a revolution on par with the original connectivity revolution that the internet has unleashed over the past twenty years.

There are expected to be 75 billion connected devices by 2020, meaning there will be ten times as many devices able to talk to one another as there will be people on the planet! The implications are huge and far ranging. All this sharing of data will transform the way we live our lives. Yet to date it has been unclear how the Internet of Things will affect marketers. This is something which marketers will have to get to grips with as the Internet of Things expands and becomes ever more relevant.

It is easy to talk about the potential of the Internet of Things in future. One day it will be possible for your light bulb to tell the manufacturer when it has broken, who can then automatically send the person who purchased it a coupon for a new light bulb. That day isn’t far off, but it is still a few years away. We want to give you examples of how the Internet of things can be used for marketing right now.

Products as Media

With the Internet of Things, products are smart, and thus can be used to market themselves in a way that was previously unthinkable. A bottle of Prosecco could have a chip that links to your Smartphone via Bluetooth that if you allow it to could post to your social media accounts when it’s opened telling your friends that you are enjoying a drink and whereabouts you are when you are enjoying it. Just look how many people do that already and you’ll quickly see there is demand for such a product! The Product thus becomes a media device that is able to market itself digitally.

FitBit

A real world example of this that already exists is FitBit. The product allows the user to post the stats that the FitBit gathers from a run to their social media, essentially advertising the main benefit of the product to their friends. This massively increases the reach of the product on social media and acts as a form of social proof. Users can see their friends are using the product and are enjoying doing so, and so will be encouraged to purchase.

Diageo

Products can get a lot more personal when the Internet of Things makes them smart. Diageo whisky decided to position itself as the drink to celebrate fatherhood by connecting 100,000 bottles to the internet so they could be used to send a personalised, one-to-one digital video message to fathers. The givers (of the Whisky) were able to personalise the message with their own content. By doing so it calls upon the giver to create what is, in effect, the advertising message to augment the product, making this an example of participative (and, at scale, crowdsourced) creative.

The results were fantastic. Diageo saw a 72% sales uplift on the lead up the father’s day, and the cost of the campaign was repaid five times over. It also helps portray the brand as innovative and positioned whiskey as the perfect fathers day gift in a way that will pay off for years to come. The campaign also won the International Advertising Associations top award.

You can read more about the Diageo case study on their Marketing Agencies site

Amazon – Tide

Connected products don’t just have to be tools for marketing; they can also be used for sales! Products that order more of themselves are somewhat of a holy grail for B2C brands, and that is just what tide has achieved in cooperation with amazon. Amazon’s dash buttons connect to your home wi-fi and link to the Amazon app. They can be pressed whenever you are running low on a given product- i.e Tide detergent, and the product the button corresponds to will turn up on your door in a couple of days. Talk about a customer loyalty program! This way your customers aren’t in a supermarket looking at 100 different brands of detergent which do similar things and make similar promises, instead they’re in their house looking at the almost empty bottle of detergent and thinking they could do with a bit more, so they just press the button and they’re done. It also makes the purchase process so frictionless that it literally is at the touch of a button.

Product as a service

The Internet of Things also means that products can include features that would previously be impossible, and these can be highly attractive selling points that differentiate you from other brands.

Big Ass fans

Worth mentioning purely for their fantastic name, Big Ass fans have created what they call ‘the worlds first Smart Celling fan’. The fan has speed, light and temperate sensors, and can be controlled by a Smartphone app and learn you comfort preferences, tailoring fan speed accordingly. This sets it apart from other ceiling fans on the market and thus is a great USP.

Tesla Motors

Tesla is known for their ground breaking electric car technology. But they also are pushing the boundaries of connecting devices. They updated all their car’s software remotely so improve performance without any inconvenience whatsoever to the consumer. Updates to physical products that happen in a similar way to the kind of updates we are now used to with the software we use will increasingly become standard and expected.

Gooee

Gooee are a lighting provider who aims to turn lighting into a service. Their connected light bulbs can provide predictive and pre-emptive maintenance, warranty and proof of performance, energy savings, smoke detection, data analytics and even light! These put them considerably ahead of the competition, and thus are a prime example of using the product to provide a service via connectivity which couldn’t have been possible without it.

Eco-system connect products

Uber – Spotify

Uber and Spotify have linked their services so that customers can connect their Spotify account to their Uber app, and then when taking a ride in an Uber you can use the Uber App to play music through the car’s speakers via your Spotify account. This is two Apps talking to one another, and then talking to a car! There could hardly be a better example of the Internet of Things. It improves the customer experience and helps retain customers by getting them locked into their product ecosystem.

Conclusion

The internet of things presents a fantastic opportunity for marketers. Products that market themselves, order themselves and integrate into an ecosystem that will increase customer retention. 10 years ago marketers could only dream of such things, now they are a reality. These trends have to be seized by marketers, as those that do will see fantastic growth, whilst those that don’t will rapidly fall behind.

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/7-examples-applications-internet-things-now/

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