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Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Display advertising deserves more credit for inbound phone calls

According to Marchex’ 2015 Click-To-Call Commerce Mobile Performance Report, click-to-call has emerged as the most common form of purchase-oriented activity from mobile ads. They report that click-to-call commerce, in which a consumer makes a phone call from a mobile Web page or app and makes a reservation, appointment or purchase, will exceed $1 trillion this year.

In its most recent white paper, Marchex set out to determine whether display ads are influential in driving consumers to make purchase-oriented calls. According to The Missing 98%: Why Display Advertising Isn’t Getting the Credit It Deserves, “The advertising technology ecosystem has historically focused on tying display ad exposure to e-commerce purchases, or other online actions such as filling out a lead form or visiting a product web page. However, for most advertisers, the goal of a display advertising campaign is offline, such as an inbound phone call or in-store purchase.”

According to the report:

Not much click-to-call activity occurs directly from display advertising units.
Whereas a paid search campaign that uses call extensions may see call-through rates as high as 20%, Marchex research has shown that it can take an average of 500,000 impressions from a display ad with click-to-call functionality to generate a quality phone call.

But display advertising does influence consumers to make a phone call in the future.
Data from beta customers of Marchex Display Analytics shows that it can take an average of 8,000 impressions from a display ad to influence a phone call within 2 weeks. In other words, display ads influence 60 times more phone calls than they do a direct click-to-call. On average, they found that approximately 2% of phone calls occur directly from display ads or landing pages, and the rest occur in the days or weeks following exposure.

Marchex identified three major challenges of view-through attribution for phone calls:

  1. Lack of a common identifier across online and offline
  2. Cross-screen attribution
  3. Latency

The white paper outlines these challenges in greater detail and makes suggestions on how to address them.

Industry-Research

Smartphones dominate digital device popularity

Americans have an abundance of devices to choose from to meet their technology needs. Mobile phones have the highest penetration with nine in ten (92%) adults owning either a smartphone or a cellphone. Smartphones have also gain traction with 86% penetration among adults ages 18 – 29 and 83% among adults 30  – 49 reports the Pew Research Center.

Tablet penetration is next highest among adults at 45% with college students having the strongest demographic penetration at 62%. As well, given the popularity of smartphones and their ability to download and play music, MPS players registered a decline in popularity with only 4 in 10 adults (40%) having one.

Ownership of gaming systems like of Xbox and PlayStation remains at a standstill since 2010 at 40%. Portable gaming consoles such as Sony’s PSP or Nintendo’s 3DS are also stalled at 14% adult ownership dating back to 2009. Once again, smartphones may be a big contributor to its of lack growth among adults for handheld gaming systems. Users can easily download a gaming app for a nominal fee or even free on their smartphone.

Almost two in ten adults (19%) report owning an e-reader (a handheld device primarily used for reading e-books). This is a significant decline from last year when 32% of adults reported owning an e-reader. This latest Pew Research Center report confirms the appeal of the multiple utilities of a smartphone.

device pentration

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Consumer marketing preferences differ from common brand marketer practices

Marketers have a slew of on and offline marketing options today. However, according to research from MarketingSherpa, there’s a disconnect between marketer’s preferred practices and consumer preferences.

For example, email is the most preferred communication method for consumers to receive regular updates and promotions from companies they are interested in doing business with (60%). Email is also the top brand marketer medium for communicating with consumers at a nearly universal 90%. But differences emerge in how these emails are sent and received.

Insights from MarketingSherpa’s research include:

  • More than three quarters of brand marketers (76%) say they sent subscribers emails at a pre-determined frequency chosen by the brand. However, only a quarter (24%) of consumers say they desire to receive emails at a pre-determined frequency chosen by brands.
  • Nearly half of consumers (49%) prefer to subscribe to emails at the frequency they choose, while only 14% of brand marketers report that they actually send out email updates based on their subscribers’ preferences.
  • Social media is extremely popular with brands—77% of brand marketers offer their customers the opportunity to follow them on social media. But one in five consumers (20%) want to receive regular updates and promotions from companies they are interested in by following them on social media.
  • Traditional postal mail remains popular with consumers; 54% indicate they want to receive physical mail updates and promotions from companies they are interested in. Yet, only 19% of brands provide print updates in the mail, likely due to their cost.

The results are from a pair of consumer and marketer online surveys conducted by MarketingSherpa. The consumer survey was fielded from Aug. 20-24, 2015 with 2,021 adult respondents, ages 18 and over. The brand marketer survey was fielded from September 15-28, 2015, attracting 455 marketer respondents.

Industry-Research

Bot fraud breaches the trust of publisher and advertiser

Tracking digital ad fraud is more essential than ever in the marketplace. Distil Networks offers insight into publisher and advertiser concerns about non-human traffic (bots) and digital ad fraud in their report A Digital Publisher’s Guide to Measuring and Mitigating Non-Human Traffic. The report is based on an online survey among 138 buyers and sellers of digital advertising.

Surprisingly, many still know little to nothing in terms how online fraud activity is affecting their business transactions. Forty percent of buyers and 48% of suppliers reported that they did not know how much bot traffic negatively impacted their online campaigns and/or web properties. Interestingly, more than a third of advertisers (37%) are willing to pay at least an 11% premium for certified human traffic.

Buyers and sellers did however identify which types of bot traffic problems were important to their business:

  1. Click & impression fraud – bots loading and clicking on links (100% and 82%, respectively).
  2. Skewed analytics – difficulty of separating human traffic from bot traffic in order to optimize for human traffic (50% and 49%, respectively).
  3. Lead fraud and fake registrations – form spam and bot-driven form filling (32% each).
  4. Content theft – where web scrapers are simply taking down content from sites (23% and 14%, respectively).
  5. Login attacks – large numbers of failed username and password entries (9 and 8%, respectively).

In order to diminish bot fraud, Distil recommends focusing on the:

  • performance, incorporate and incentivize performance metrics to ensure quality impressions
  • total impressions, viewable impressions are easily impersonated by bots and non-human traffic.
  • quality, investing in premium sites
  • transparency, where ad suppliers provide proof of where each impression was served.

dist slide

Industry-Research

Ad budgets shifting to digital video

In its 2015 US State of the Video Industry report, AOL explores key industry trends that are driving digital video’s continued dominance. According to the nearly 300 brands, agencies and publishers surveyed for this sixth-annual report, media consumption habits are calling for more effective engagement, through sight, sound and motion.

Some key findings from the report:

  • Traditional advertising budgets are being reprioritized to fund digital video (see chart below).
    Half of buyers shifting budget to digital video are reallocating from TV.
  • Mobile video is a key area for increased investments.
    Mobile video budgets have increased 18% since 2014.
  • Programmatic has reached a point of ubiquity for buyers and sellers.
    91% of buyers and 88% of publishers are benefiting from programmatic video.
  • Marketers are capitalizing on the best of linear and digital with programmatic TV.
    33% of programmatic video advertisers also use programmatic TV and another 41% plan to.
  • Branded video content is an essential area of focus for marketers.
    Over 30% of brands’ digital video budgets are dedicated to branded video, a number expected to rise in the next year.

TVBudgetShift

Research Image
Industry-Research

Who’s really cutting the cord? The answer in 7 charts

The pay-TV industry contracted in the third quarter at a faster pace than a year earlier, signaling that “cord cutting” may well be on the rise, as more consumers drop cable and satellite-TV connections. According to MoffettNathanson, LLC, the pay-TV industry lost about 179,000 TV customers, a steeper loss from the decline of 83,000 in the year-earlier quarter. Already, more homes and businesses have dropped pay-TV service in the first three quarters of this year than in the whole of last year, according to MoffettNathanson estimates.

1USSubadditionsPayTV

Experian Marketing Services estimates that there are 13.8 million adults—or 5.6 million households—that are prime to be among the next wave of cord-cutters, which means the cord-cutter population has the potential to almost double.

Looking more closely at these individuals, many already have one foot out the door when it comes to losing their cable subscription as they are 74% more likely than average to say they watch less traditional TV. Experian predicts that cable will be even less popular among Millennials than it already is, as half of these potential cord-cutters hail from this generation.

2Likely cord cutters Experian

Parks Associates consumer research finds the majority (58%) of broadband households in the U.S. use at least one OTT video service on a monthly basis, while more than a quarter of households use two or more services.

3Parks-Assoc-Number-of-OTT-Service-Used

Blacks are at the leading edge of new viewing technologies, according to Horowitz Research FOCUS African America report, with 36% of Black viewers saying new technologies are enabling them to watch more TV than previously. The research also finds that Black viewers report spending 23% of their TV viewing time streaming content.  In contrast, White viewers report spending 18% of their TV time streaming. Black multichannel subscribers are twice as likely as Whites to report being likely to cancel their TV service in the next six months (20% vs. 10%).  Findings suggest that a greater reliance on new video technologies, rather than a lack of interest in TV, may be a contributing factor.

4cordcutBlack

Horowitz Research’s FOCUS Latino report finds that Hispanics are very likely to have made streaming an integral part of their video viewing lifestyle. Half (51%) of Hispanic TV viewers in the study report spending 20% or more of their time watching over-the-top (OTT) content, compared to 43% of total urban TV content viewers. Among Hispanics, OTT viewing is being driven by bilingual and English-oriented Hispanics. More than half of bilingual (54%) and English-oriented (56%) Hispanics report spending more than 20% of their viewing time streaming, compared to 35% of Spanish-dominant Hispanics.

5cordcutLatino

Not surprising, video consumption preferences vary by generation. Younger generations “go to services” include streaming video on demand and YouTube, where older generations do rely on YouTube, but favor Linear TV or VOD. according to an Ericsson presentation.

6roleservicesgenerations

Not surprisingly, age is a factor: The more young-adults in the household, the higher percentage of cord cutting, according to Experian research.

7WhoiscuttingcordExperian

Advertising | Industry-Research

Growing the receptivity of digital ads

Multiscreen users spend the same amount of time viewing video on TV as they do on digital platforms, yet they are less receptive to digital ads reports Millward Brown’s research, “AdReaction: Video Creative in a Digital World.” The study surveyed more than 13,500 multiscreen viewers (for example, people who own a TV and either a smartphone or tablet) in 42 countries on video usage and what they think about video advertising. Now that video ads are playing across multi-platforms, new creative approaches in advertising are essential to ensure consumer receptivity is strong across all screens.

The average consumer, across the globe, between the ages of 16 and 45 in today’s media environment watches 204 minutes of video a day, split equally between TV and online. Forty-five minutes of the average online viewing time is done on a smartphone, while desktop accounts for 37 minutes and tablet for 20 minutes. Digital’s share of total video minutes is higher (42%) among 16-24 year olds among 35-45 year olds than (29%).

It is important to note that consumers reported 50% negativity toward smartphone video ads with computers and tablets trailing at 46% and 45% negativity, respectively. In contrast, live TV had just 30% negativity toward ads. Interestingly, ad viewing using mobile app rewards, where users watch videos to advance to a new level or get tools, rated 54% in favorability, making it the most preferred digital advertising format and skippable pre-rolls (44% positive) and skippable mobile pop-ups (41%) were next allowing consumers to push past their negativity toward mobile ads.

Advertising | Industry-Research

US ad sales will grow by +2.2% this year, with digital surpassing TV ad spending faster than expected

Digital media ad revenue will surpass TV ad spending faster than expected, according to Interpublic-owned media buying and research firm Magna Global. According to its US Media Owner Revenues Forecast, advertising revenues grew by +1.6% in the first half across all media categories. While digital media remained dynamic, growth is increasingly contrasted between social and video formats (from +30% to +50%), search (+10%) and banner display (+4%). Magna Global predicts that digital media ad revenues will reach $66 billion and that digital will surpass television in 2016 to become the #1 media category, one year earlier than previously expected.

According to Magna Global, Media Owners Advertising revenues showed little growth in the first half of 2015. Ad sales grew by +1.0% in 1Q15 and +0.8% in 2Q15 (all media including direct marketing, excl. P&O). However, they predict that 2016 will show stronger ad revenue growth than 2015, but has reduced its growth forecast to +3.3% from +3.8%. Traditional media will decrease by 2.9%, while digital sales will grow by +15.1%.

The 2015-2016 National TV upfronts were down in terms of volume, for the second year in a row, with CPM increases in the low single-digit range (compared to mid-single digit a year before). Interestingly, the decline of the impression supply seems to have reached the point where inflationary tension might soon come back into play.

Key figures from Magna Global’s forecasts by media segment:

  • TV ad sales will decrease by -2.6% (vs. -1.2% in 2014) excluding P&O.
  • Print ad sales (newspapers and magazines) will decline by 12% to 14% this year and next.
  • Social and online video ad sales continue to show explosive grow in the short term with full-year ad revenue expected to reach +48.2% and +38.4%, respectively.
  • Mobile video will also grow by +69% as smartphone and tablet usage continue to grow as more and more content is made available across all screens through apps.
  • Search remains robust (+11.8% this year) with mobile search up 46% and desktop search up only 1%.
Industry-Research

What’s right for your mobile user experience: app or site?

Often, organizations are faced with a decision to focus development resources on the mobile web or app experiences. Unfortunately, the answer is both—or at least that the answer isn’t as much an either or as a question of user experiences and expectations. Millward Brown explored the question of when people use apps and when they opt for the mobile web and has published the results in The New Mobile Mantra. The study takes a nuanced approach in an effort to get at the consumer psychology and rationale behind the varying use cases. The study, conducted over the course of the first three quarters of 2015, is based on both an examination of click-stream data and consumer survey data (n=2,011 US smartphone owners over 18).

Millward Brown found that while apps command the most user time, “61 percent of smartphone users access their browsers at least once a day, spending an average of 31 minutes in total.”

Other key findings include:

  • Over half of smartphone users have 40-70 apps installed; though many use 4 to 6 apps per day.
  • The main reason consumers delete apps is because they rarely use it &72%) however the sthis is followed by a need to free up memory (51%) and the perception that the app was da battery drain (44%).
  • When it comes to consuming media, smartphone users don’t tend to have a strong preference between apps and browsers except for Sports and Business.
  • Half of those surveyed say that mobile news apps are easier to navigate than mobile websites.
  • An almost equal number prefer the mobile web (48%) because they can browse news on different sites without downloading apps for each.
  • Consumers cite superior search functionality as an upside of the mobile web (36%).
  • Consumers cite notifications (44%) and customization (35%) as app strengths.

Milward Brown concludes that apps should be the focus when seeking to deliver convenience, specialized content, and customization based on saved user information. Browser experiences should be emphasized for research experiences.

MBmobile1

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Intimate brands are strong financial performers

Brand loyalty is the Holy Grail in the quest for profitability. In fact, marketers, content creators, social media strategists, sales teams, designers and creatives depend on this essential consumer relationship for a strong business performance. In MBLM’s Brand Intimacy 2015 Report, which examines brand relationship, it found that top ranked intimate brands outperform major financial indices in profit growth and revenue growth over the past 10 years. This year’s report includes 54,000 brands and responses from 6,000 consumers in the U.S., Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.

Interestingly, among intimate brands there are six patterns present to some degree that identify the character and nature of ultimate brand relationships: Fulfillment (service quality exceeds expectation), Identify (aspirational or admired values), Enhancement (becoming better through use), Ritual (habitual behavior), Nostalgia (memory focused) and Indulgence (pampering). Consumers build relationships with brands Using and identifying with these patterns.

MBLM’s defines brand intimacy as an essential relationship between a person and a brand. It provides brands with the propensity to share experiences and when intimacy is achieved it results in lasting value. Measuring and understanding brand intimacy can also inform what time, what message, what media and how often a brand can connect effectively with its customers.

Overall, in the U.S. one-quarter of people surveyed (15%) have intimate brand relationships. Further, consumers under age 35 tend to have emotional relationships with technology, entertainment and retail brands, while those over 35 have stronger connections with consumer packaged goods. In terms of brand intimacy across categories, automotive industry ranked highest, retail ranked second and health and beauty ranked third; travel and leisure was the poorest performing category.

Brands are also ranked based on a Brand Intimacy Quotient. The quotient is based on prevalence and intensity (sharing, bonding, fusing). In other words, the quotient demonstrates how a brand performs relative to its ability to create brand relationships. The quotient score enables comparisons to other brands in the same category.

In the U.S. within all categories, the top three intimate brands were Apple #1, BMW #2 and Toyota #3. Within the entertainment category, Disney ranked #1, Nintendo #2 and Xbox #3 and in technology, Apple ranked first, Samsung ranked second and Google ranked third. Importantly, building emotional bonds and measuring brands can lead to new and untapped business opportunities.

Intimacy Ranking

 

Industry-Research | Innovation | Perspectives

Exploring the Internet of Things in 5 charts

According to Forbes, a new rule for the future is going to be, “anything that can be connected, will be connected.”  Given the widespread availability of broadband internet, ever more devices are being created with built in Wi-Fi and sensors. Today, just about anything with a power switch can be connected to the internet—with all of the context, content and data that comes along with it.

Here’s a look at this “Internet of Things” (IoT) in 5 charts:

1BIGlobalIoTForecast_BI

According to analysis from Business Insider Intelligence, more than 18 billion devices will be connected to the Web by 2018.

 

2EconImpactIoTMcKinsey

The IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025 according to McKinsey&Company.

 

3IoTecosystemStrategy

The IoT opens a range of new business opportunities for a variety of players according to strategy&, the consulting team at PwC. These opportunities tend to fall into three broad strategic categories, each reflecting a different type of enterprise: Enablers, Engages, and Enhancers.

 

IoTAdoptionInhibitorsGartner

According to Gartner, security and identity issues represent major IoT roadblocks. Managing identities and access is critical to the success of the IoT. However, traditional techniques cannot provide the scale or manage the complexity that the IoT requires from the enterprise.

 

marketingpriorities

The IoT is among the top marketer priority areas, according to Millward Brown Research conducted on behalf of Kentico Software.

Industry-Research

Instant messaging use rises as more people opt for closed platforms

The popularity of instant messaging (IM) has soared over the past year, with a 12% uplift in daily usage as more people opt for closed messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber. Over half of internet users worldwide (55%) are now using instant messaging every day, while 76% are using it on a weekly basis, according to Connected Life, a study of over 60,000 internet users worldwide from global research consultancy TNS. Despite this, social platforms are still rising in popularity with a 6% uplift in daily usage. As people’s online habits become ever more fragmented, TNS asserts that brands need to tap into the growing popularity of IM and other emerging platforms. The research shows an increased need for a content-driven approach across IM, social and traditional channels.

Among TNS’ key findings:

  • The US still lags the ‘mobile-first’ markets with 35% of US internet users using IM every day, but is catching up quickly (up 10% compared with 2014).
  • Instant Messaging (IM) is particularly dominant in emerging “mobile-first” markets, with daily usage rising even higher in markets like China (69%), Brazil (73%), and South Africa (64%).
  • Facebook has maintained its position as the world’s favorite social platform; almost one third of global internet users (30%) say they use it every day.
  • Facebook’s dominant position among US internet users is even stronger at 53%, followed by YouTube (26%), Instagram and Twitter.
  • TNS found that although IM users are wary of brands interrupting them, they are more concerned with how content they share impacts their own image.

TNS data reveals that consumers are even more connected to each other, and across multiple platforms. While IM popularity is rising, traditional social media platforms are still holding strong, allowing content to go viral more quickly. The challenge, says TNS, is for brands to create content that consumers actually want to share.

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