Category results for "Industry-Research"

Industry Research

Wearable developers say biggest challenge is lack of information on consumer usage

October 2, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Two-thirds of wearable app developers reported that the greatest challenge they faced as first movers was the lack of information and research available on how, when, and for what consumers would use wearable technology, according to research by Clutch, a source of reviews on application development companies. Clutch spoke with experts from 15 businesses with experience designing and developing for a variety of wearable platforms. To gain insight into the development process, Clutch’s research aimed to identify the challenges encountered and the steps taken to overcome them.

In addition to a notable lack of information about how consumers use wearables, the developers interviewed also revealed four additional development challenges:

8 out of 15 emphasized the incompatibility between the perceived ideal uses for wearables and the technological capabilities of the platforms.

8 out of 15 referenced the difficulties involved in designing and developing an application before the release of the wearable device.

7 out of 15 claimed that the small screen space on most wearable platforms limited applications’ features and functionalities for the user.

4 out of 15 explained how the necessity of troubleshooting on a new platform lengthened the development process.

Clutch’s interviews also explore related topics, such as the trends shaping the future of wearable technology, the motivating factors for engaging with wearables, and the lessons learned from the design and development process. In addition to an infographic, Clutch published 16 in-depth examples of how these businesses applied the new technology to accomplish specific goals.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Digital news audiences shift to mobile as platform widens margin vs. desktop

September 30, 2015 DCN

The rise of mobile among digital news audiences has been swift and relentless, and in just the past half year has gone from being neck-and-neck with desktop audiences to nearly 50% greater. How has mobile been able to surge ahead so quickly, and what are the implications for digital media economics as audiences shift?

To better understand the audience dynamics in today’s digital news environment, I conducted an analysis of leading digital news properties along with Andrew Lipsman, comScore VP of Marketing & Insights. We pulled together a selection of 25 leading news publishers, which ran the gamut from traditional print publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post to digital-first news entities like Buzzfeed and Vox, and computed their average audience and engagement metrics across desktop and mobile, app and mobile web.

As the above graph shows, the average number of desktop unique visitors to news sites was moving more or less in tandem with the average number of mobile unique visitors until late 2014. At that point there began to be a noticeable divergence in the two curves. As mobile unique visitors continued to quickly rise, desktop unique visitors softened. These opposing trends have continued on through June, indicating that more and more people are choosing to get the news on smartphones and tablets rather than on desktop.

Is Mobile Now Cannibalizing Desktop in the News Category?
The question arises whether it’s fair to suggest that mobile may finally be cannibalizing desktop. But first, some good news: on balance, news audiences are growing overall because the huge gains in mobile audience are substantially outweighing any softening on desktop. So in theory, this should be a boon to the digital news business because bigger audiences should translate into more ad or subscription dollars.

But the economics are not that simple. If mobile ad CPMs are, on average, lower than desktop ad CPMs the potential for cannibalization is real.

What is actually happening in terms of content audiences and engagement? The metrics below suggest that cannibalization might indeed be happening. When we looked at the six-month period beginning December 2014, which marked the start of the trend divergence, desktop news experienced a 13% drop in average audience while mobile news jumped 14% during that span. We also observed a 5% drop in desktop news engagement while mobile engagement jumped 21%.

Mobile is picking up the slack for desktop, and then some. And while desktop is in no real risk of cratering, it’s clear that audience growth today is coming from mobile and that digital news organizations should be pointing their strategy in the direction of that opportunity. This begs another important question as to what is the best path for mobile growth: apps or mobile web?

Apps vs. Mobile Web: Which Matters More to News Publishers?When a news consumer reads a New York Times article on their phone, are they more likely to do so via the newspaper’s app or on the mobile web, and which access method drives more overall consumption of content? The answer is while the mobile web is a much more important driver of audience, apps have a disproportionately high impact on engagement.

The graph above shows that an overwhelming majority – 93% – of these news publishers’ mobile audiences come from the mobile web rather than from an app. This is likely because many people get their news fix by way of social referral, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. This has the positive benefit of expanding news brands out to new audiences, but many of these “drive-by” visitors are more promiscuous with their news consumption. Loyalty is generally not their forte.

On the other hand, while apps comprise an average of just 6% of the 25 news properties’ mobile audiences, they account for nearly half (45%) of the time that audience spends with those properties. So although news apps may not be the most popular access method, their audience is clearly engaged in a way that the mobile web audience is not.

Someone who absently scrolls through their newsfeed on their phone and opens an interesting story only to close it moments later, might also open the New York Times app and spend a considerable amount of time cycling through each section. How they arrive at that content matters, and how they feel about that brand before engaging with the content determines how much time they’re likely to spend with it. “The mobile browser on a smartphone is a point of convenience,” Dow Jones’ chief innovation officer said recently. The app, on the other hand, “is the place where you discover engagement.”

But – and this is a big but – it’s not enough for a publisher to simply get their app on someone’s phone. The app must also occupy that hallowed real estate – often the homescreen – where users are more likely to engage with it. This is easier said than done. However, there are many clever strategies out there that publishers have yet to employ or even yet to discover.

Jacob L. Nelson (@JNelz) is a doctoral student in Northwestern University’s Media, Technology, and Society program and spent the summer working as an intern at comScore. A former journalist, his research looks at news consumption and media metrics.

Industry-Research

Two out of every three digital minutes are spent on mobile

September 29, 2015 DCN

Consumers’ digital usage continues to increase its concentration in mobile. According to comScore’s 2015 Mobile App Report, mobile phones now account for two out of every three digital minutes or 62% of time spent online, up from 51% in 2013. In contrast desktop usage only accounts for 38% of digital time, down from 49% two years ago. Further, mobile users spend more than 44% of their digital time using smartphone apps.

Mobile App usage is the key driving force in the overall growth of digital media. In fact, nine in 10 minutes spent on mobile are spent on a mobile app. Smartphones apps have a slightly higher share of total minute at 88% versus table apps at 83%.

It’s not surprising that Facebook and Google own eight of the 10 most-visited mobile apps among unique visitor, age 18+. Facebook leads with nearly 126 million unique visitors and close to half have installed the app.

Interestingly, millennials’ mobile usage time is dominated by social, video, music and communications. They spend on average almost 26 hours a month on Facebook, 7 hours on Instagram, 6 hours on Snapchat and Tumblr each and 3.5 hours are spent on Twitter.

The millennial audience is the most engaged digital audience spending an average of two hours a day on social and entertainment apps, more than any other demo. In fact, half of all time spent on smartphone apps is spent on the person’s most used app and approximately 60% usage for tablets’ most popular app.

ComScore also reports mobile ads to be quite effective with 2-3x greater point lifts with regards to aided awareness, favorability, likelihood to recommend and purchase intent. Mobile ad effectiveness can be attributed to mobile ads placement in a less ad clutter environment and also the immediacy to a point of purchase.

Mobile offers publishers a unique opportunity to expand their brand across platforms. It’s also a key opportunity to attract millennials as long term and engaged users.

Industry-Research

Video effective for content marketing despite challenges

September 24, 2015 Research Team—DCN

Video is proving to be one of the most effective types of content marketers are using to achieve their objectives. However, according to research released by Ascend2, challenging obstacles continue to hinder video marketing performance. To examine these challenges, Ascend2 fielded the Video Marketing Strategy Survey and completed interviews with 280 marketing, sales and business professionals from around the world.

Increased brand awareness (47%) and online engagement (45%) top the list of objectives for a video marketing strategy followed closely by improving consumer education (43%) and increased lead generation (41%).

Video marketing is rated very successful at achieving important objectives by 25% of companies and another 60% rate it somewhat successful. A total of only 15% say that they are struggling to achieve success with video marketing.

Lack of an effective strategy is the most challenging obstacle to video marketing success according to nearly half (48%) of companies surveyed. A strategy with sufficient resources and budget to produce compelling content are critical to successful outcomes.

Lack of compelling content is a top challenge for video marketers due in many cases to the degree of difficulty required to create some types of content. The most difficult types of video content to create are customer testimonials, project reviews or case studies.

The report found that more than half of respondents say their video content marketing budgets are increasing marginally (51%) while only 18% predict a significant increase.

Industry-Research

Building consumer trust in digital brands

September 22, 2015 DCN

It is essential for digital publishers to understand what key factors connect user satisfaction and brand trust and monitor to ensure growth of user engagement. In a Neustar sponsored study, conducted by The Ponemon Institute, a leader in cyber security research, three key components were identified to be influencers of online trust.

The first factor connected to digital brand trust is accuracy. According to more than 9 in ten respondents (91%) inaccurate content causes users to lose trust in a website. Further, inaccurate content goes beyond just getting the information wrong, it also includes misspellings, broken links to content or outdated offerings. In addition, advertising that interferes with content (55%) and ads that redirects users to sites they don’t want to see (52%) also has negative effects on a website’s brand.

A second component involved in a site’s brand trust is stability. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents identified a site’s downtime as a trust eroding practice. Also a site’s general usability and its capacity to work with different browsers, plug-ins and flash are important to the perception of a site’s stability.

Lastly, website security is an important feature connected to a site’s brand trust. Both the speed of overall site performance and page downloads are related to security concerns. More than three-quarters of respondents (78%) reported that security concerns them when a site performs slowly. Further, 67% of users lose trust in a website when its pages take a long time to download. In addition, close to two-thirds of respondents (63%) report distrusting brands whose data was breached.

As consumers spend more time online, monitoring accuracy, stability and security is key to delivering an exceptional brand experience.

Industry-Research

Smartphones can tell when you are bored

September 15, 2015 DCN

Given today’s information and sensory overload, capturing someone’s attention is a high commodity. Researchers at Telefonica Research in Barcelona, Spain recognized that peoples’ attention are available when they are bored. And most often, when people are bored, they turn to their cell phones. This is why the researchers developed a machine-based learning model that detects when mobile phone users are bored and pushes content to them.

The researchers identified usage patterns that were indicative of boredom and confirmed the specific behaviors patterns were related. This data was then used to predict patterns of boredom; the predictions were correct 83% of the time. Interestingly, they also noticed the more bored the participants, the more likely time had passed between the participants sending and receiving phone calls, SMS, or notifications. Importantly, users were significantly more likely to open and engage with content pushed to them on their mobile phones when the model predicted them to be bored.

These findings have major implications for future applications in being able to predict when a user is bored couple and knowing a user’s location could provide content in relation to specific context. New apps are already being developed along these lines. As well boredom detection could be a great way for publishers and marketers to know when to push content or messaging for it to be most receptive.

Industry-Research

Twitter: a major news hub

September 11, 2015 DCN

New research from the American Press Institute supports Twitter’s role as a real-time news network for social media users. Approximately nine in 10 users (86%) report using Twitter for the news with nearly three-quarters (74%) using it daily for this purpose.

Interestingly, nine in 10 Twitter news users get their news by either scrolling through their timeline or looking through tweets they follow. Close to three-quarters of Twitter news users (73%) follow individual journalists, writers and commentators and 30% report getting their news from trending topics.

News publishers incorporating Twitter into their game plan will find it valuable. API recommends that journalists are active on Twitter and focus on the present with live events and breaking news. Offer new angles to storylines and know that sports and politics work well on Twitter. Use hashtags only when related to breaking news since most hashtags draw small followings and ensure your tweets are mobile friendly. Eight in 10 Twitter users are accessing via their smartphone with almost three-quarters (72%) using its mobile app.

Overall Twitter users tend to be younger (median age 36) than the average social media user (median age 46). Almost half of Twitter users are single (49%) and 22% are likely to be married. More than half of Twitter users (57%) have a college degree or higher.

Industry-Research

Data Key to Digital Ad Revenues

September 9, 2015 Research Team—DCN

As the number of screens and ad impressions continue to proliferate, advertising dollars are moving from traditional to digital environments with Forrester predicting that overall digital display advertising dollars will grow from an estimated $20 billion in 2015 to $38 billion by 2019. Publishers’ ability to leverage real-time data will be key to capturing their share of the digital ad spend. According to a commissioned study Real-Time Data Analytics: Empowering Publishers to Make Better, Faster Decisions, which was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of PubMatic, 67% of publishers – large and small – believe that real-time data is important to their efforts, and 62% find that it leads to an increase in revenue, yet only 27% report receiving data in real-time.

Among the key findings from the research:

Real-time data drives publisher growth.
However, the vast majority of publishers do not receive their data in real time.
As publishers grow, so, too, does their appetite for data and their need for analytics and insights that are actionable.
Aggregating multiple data streams into one holistic view remains a challenge.

On behalf of PubMatic, Forrester conducted a survey of 110 media analytics professionals responsible for revenue management and decisions for analytics reporting tools. Sixty of the surveys were from US media and publishing companies, while 50 were from the UK. For the purposes of this paper, small publishers are defined as those with fewer than 500 employees, representing 43% of the respondent base, and large publishers are those with 500 or more employees, representing 57% of the total respondents.

Industry-Research | Video

Consumers Pay More for More Online Video

September 4, 2015 DCN

As overall online viewing continues to, so has consumer willingness to pay a premium for content according a new study from Vimeo, “Online Video Viewing and Purchasing.” The research examines consumption habits of online video viewers today as compared with a year ago to provide insights into the purchasing habits of digital video content viewers in an effort to help filmmakers market and sell their work more effectively.

Among the nine key insights provided:

People are spending more money on online video than they were a year ago.
Viewers will pay double or more for longer form content as compared with shorter form content.
Having both Buy and Rent options is optimal.
Niche content is worth a premium.
Ad-free viewing is also worth a premium.

Vimeo, which conducts studies in order to provide best-practices to the community of filmmakers who sell their work on the Vimeo on Demand platform, worked with independent international research consultancy Latitude to produce the study, which surveyed more than 1,000 people in the U.S. ages 18 to 54 who self-reported as online video viewers.

Industry-Research

The Golden Age of Connected TVs

September 2, 2015 DCN

SMART TV penetration has reached a milestone in Q2 2015 with 46 million U.S. internet households now owning a connected device. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service these devices include TVs, video game consoles, streaming media players, and Blu-ray Disc players that consumers can connect to the Internet giving access to over-the-top (OTT) content services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu for over-the-top content.

As connected devices increase in penetration, pay-tv subscribers see declines. Approximately 470,000 video subscribers dropped their pay-tv service in 2Q 2015, up from 305,000 video subscribers lost in 2Q 2014.

More connected televisions also impacts advertising placement. The Association of National Advertiser (ANA) reports that close to half of current connected TV and OTT advertisers (48%) plan to increase their OTT media budgets next year, with advertising dollars coming from traditional TV activity (71%) and digital media (37%).

Read NPD’s Connected Home Entertainment Report

Industry-Research

Survey Reveals Publishers Programmatic Frustration

August 31, 2015 Research Team—DCN

In a survey of more than 600 buy and sell side professionals Technorati found that almost half of publishers (45.45 %) say they are frustrated by not being able to have demand partners compete with each other on each impression. As a result they are forced to use tactics they don’t peculiarly like to try and maximize yield.

Almost half of those surveyed (49 %) say they use passbacks and floor prices to maximize yield of programmatic demand solutions, essentially “daisy-chaining” or waterfalling, the practice of giving each partner in a series a chance at an impression before moving it along to the next partner if it is not purchased. About the same percentage manually adjust ad serving rules based on estimated CPMs and fill and/or work with fixed-CPM partners.

Those surveyed identified the following as their biggest challenges when working with programmatic demand solutions:

Not being able to have demand partners compete with each other on each impression (45.45%).
Daisy Chaining or Waterfalling partners is inefficient and not as effective as I’d like it to be (43.43%).
Not having my own internal developers with time/resources/ expertise to support my needs (44.44%).
Not having the technology and tools that address my needs (43.43%).

Technorati also found that while the majority (64.71%) of publishers and buyers use just 1 to 5 programmatic partners, a significant segment of both groups use more than 6 programmatic partners (29% for buyers and 27% for sellers).

The majority of buyers (66.47) said that they buy ad inventory through private marketplaces. Publishers surveyed believe that inventory discovery, deal negotiation and inventory packaging all need to be improved in private marketplaces.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Do Millennials Consume Content, Ads and Shop Differently?

August 28, 2015 Research Team—DCN

A new report from Adroit Digital compares Millennials’ shopping behaviors and advertising preferences with those of their older counterparts. While Adroit points out that a great deal of research closely examines generational behaviors and attributes, this report focuses on behaviors, particularly how Millennials shop, consume content and respond to advertising as compared with older shoppers. Adroit Digital conducted a study to ask Millennials and those 35 and older about their shopping and content consumption habits. The study was fielded from April 24, 2015, through May 24, 2015 and targeted a random sample of 1,000 US and Canadian consumers who self-identified as 18–34 years of age and who owned both a smartphone and a personal computer, and 500 US and Canadian consumers who self-identified as age 35 and older and owned both a smartphone and a personal computer.

Key findings include:

Both Millennials and those 35 and older do the majority of retail browsing in-store—57% and 61%, respectively.
When it comes to which online social medium affects retail purchases the most, both Millennials and those 35+ chose online review sites, 55% and 54%, respectively.
The majority of respondents are also more likely to click on a mobile ad over a desktop ad—55% of those 18–34 and 52% of those 35+.
The majority of survey respondents replied that online and/or mobile advertising does affect what they purchase—75% of those 18–34 and 73% of those 35+.
Millennials are slightly more likely to click on a native ad than a banner ad—81% compared with 75% of those 35+.
Millennials are slightly more bothered by advertisers’ remarketing efforts—83% of those 18–34 vs. 77% of those 35+.
When it comes to noticing ads between devices, the majority of both age groups surveyed report that ads on their mobile devices grab their attention more than ads on PCs.