The rapid spread of misinformation—better known these days as fake news—was named one of the top 10 dangers to society by the World Economic Forum in 2014. Powered by automation and algorithms, fake news is amplified more than ever on social media. In fact, orchestrators of fake news rely heavily on social media to create web traffic, drive engagement, and influence political views.
To understand the threat and impact of fake news, researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) studied 22 million tweets that contained hashtags related to politics leading up to the 2016 US Presidential Election. The research, “Junk News and Bots during the U.S. Election: What Were Michigan Voters Sharing Over Twitter?,” identified 138,686 users from Michigan, a battleground state evenly split between both presidential candidates, Clinton and Trump. The state of Michigan was specifically selected because the two presidential candidates were equally supported, limiting political biasness in the research.
The Twitter data revealed that Trump-related traffic (57%) significantly outpaced Clinton-related traffic (20%) and neutral content (13%). Importantly, the research uncovered that professional news and fake news are close to a one-to-one ratio when it comes to political news tweets. Further, nearly a quarter of political tweets (23%) contain fake news links. and a full 47% of the political news content can be classified as political propaganda. Needless to say, social media’s proliferation of fake news is reason for concern.
Social platforms provide a fertile environment for the fast spread of fake without the necessary vetting and questioning of the information. Significantly, the Oxford Internet Institute defines “professional news” as that produced by major news brands. The information displays “the qualities of professional journalism, with fact-checking and credible standards of production. They provide clear information about real authors, editors, publishers and owners, and the content is clearly produced by an organization with a reputation for professional journalism.” And, while social platforms claim to be addressing the problem, premium publishers consider ensuring the accuracy of the information they report fundamental to their business so that they can deliver value to the reader and maintain consumer trust.
The avalanche of mobile services and apps has led to a sizeable shift in media consumption towards mobile. But the smartphone is not always competing for people’s attention. To the contrary, a new report from Deloitte tells us the smartphone enhances TV viewing experience. But this bright spot can’t disguise the brand imperative to re-think advertising to engage audiences, not annoy them.
Drawing on a survey of 2,131 U.S. consumers Deloitte’s 11th Digital Democracy Survey highlights how key audience segments including Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z (in other words, a broad spectrum of user ages 14 and above) interact with mobile, video, TV and the Internet. While the findings are not surprising, they are an important confirmation of people’s attitudes and behaviors and the trends sure to shape the future of media.
Optimizing Experiences
“The shift to streaming, mobile, on-demand services and personalization are significant opportunities in 2017,” Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader, Deloitte LLP, says in a press release. “Brands can bring new value, services and incredibly entertaining content to the empowered consumers across all age groups in a manner that can be monetized.”
But it won’t be a walk in the park. Yes, there is ample proof that American consumers streamed, “binge-watched” and demanded more media than ever in 2016. However, there is also an increased reliance on social networks (and friends) to make purchase decisions. Social recommendations are proving “more influential” than traditional advertising, the report says. For example, nearly one-third (27%) of Gen Z respondents say an online recommendation from someone within their social media circles can highly influence a buying decision.
Multitasking also makes it tougher for traditional media, such as TV, to grab (and keep) audience attention. The shift to second-screening may enhance the viewing experience. (I’m thinking here of the uptick in mobile app interaction and social media sharing that coincides with the broadcast of cult shows like The Walking Dead). It also detracts from the effectiveness of TV advertising. The verdict from Deloitte: “Enlisting online influencers and creating social buzz” are likely the more effective avenue for getting through to younger consumers.
Remastering Marketing
Another barrier that companies need to overcome is the quality of their advertising – or rather the lack of it. The report reveals the vast majority (more than 80%) of consumers will skip an online video ad if allowed. And 67% of consumers are tuning out mobile ads on their phones because they find them irrelevant. Against this backdrop, a large percentage of respondents are reaching to ad-blocking tech to snuff of unwanted advertising. (Although, to be fair, their motivation is linked with the desire to improve the speed and performance of the content and videos consumed online and on mobile.)
Amid the doom-and-gloom data that leads us to believe consumers hate ads, a few surprise findings (buried on page 12) show the way for brands to improve the experience for consumers and the effectiveness of their advertising. More than half of all consumers say they would be willing to receive advertising on their smartphones based on location. Significantly, 46% said they would pay more attention to an ad if they were able to make the call on whether they view it or skip it.
It’s a report that reinforces what has become my mantra: People want what they want – when, how and where they want it. Consumers crave more geographic relevance in their advertising and they want more control over the advertising they have to view as a condition to access and enjoy content. Clearly, brands are well advised to adapt their advertising approach to these consumer requirements. There is no guarantee the changes they make will trigger a conversion, or win customer loyalty. But it’s sure to grab at least some attention. And in a world where consumers are multitasking and massively reliant on their social circles, a little attention can mean major traction.
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
The idea of the “Attention Economy” as a currency on the internet goes back to at least 1997. So, 20 years later, we should have this engaged time metric figured out, right?
From a technological perspective, we do. We can accurately measure the time a reader spends actively reading a page, versus measuring how long a browser tab was left open with a page. Ads can measure engagement or time spent viewing.
However, we need to separate the technical ability to measure engaged time from the adoption of the metric as a valuable evaluation construct. Has the reality on the ground changed when it comes to using time to understand an audience?
Adoption at an Individual Level
We attempted to answer this question by partnering with Digiday’s CUSTOM studio on a research survey. Based on responses of almost 300 members of the Digiday audience, engaged time has gained a great deal of traction with journalists and reporters.
Time-on-page (the broader term we used in the survey questions) ranked the highest for what people use to evaluate their own work. If you interpret this chart another way, it indicates that 50% of people working in publishing see time spent with their audience a personal goal for their work.
However, we also asked about which metrics people were responsible for reporting back to their company. When asked this way, time-on-page dropped to the sixth position – out of nine total choices.
While individuals may understand and value time-on-page as a way to show that an audience cared about the work of a piece, organizations are still prizing pageviews, impressions, and social sharing.
The disconnect between these two sets of responses emphasizes the gap between how writers view their relationship with their audience and that relationship’s value to the business. If the writer’s goal is to engage the reader, but the business still makes money from impression numbers, how can those two align?
Barriers to Organizational Adoption
In addition to the data from the survey, the report revealed specific challenges that companies face in trying to adopt any new metric or goal. Here are three takeaways:
Inconsistent messaging from leadership. Though executives are usually not immersed in analytics every day, leadership still sets the tone for how employees view company success. According to one of participant in the research, inconsistent messages from management can make things more confusing: “It shifts with whoever is in charge. Some new person comes on and says, ‘This is our prime metric. This is what we’re shooting for.’ And then they go off and work somewhere else and someone else comes in.”
The right vs wrong metric mentality. Conversations need to stay away from “the right” metrics and lean more towards what success means. Employees want their work to be successful; focus on that first and then connect the metrics to how to get there.
A lack of expectations and benchmarking. With new metrics, you have to indentify the status quo in order to tell if something is performing better or worse than expected, or to show improvement over time. For metrics that aren’t as intuitively understandable as pageviews or visitors, what kind of benchmarking or expectations can be set?
Over the coming years, which organizations will ensure that the goals for their audience relationships, employees’ work and business models will align? And which will be able to adopt time as a measure of how their audience values the work they do? I suspect we’ll be able to tell soon enough.
Clare Vice President of Marketing at Parse.ly, which partners with digital publishers to provide clear audience insights through an intuitive analytics platform. She writes and speaks about all the ways companies can use digital analytics to improve their operations and reach their audience goals. Prior to joining Parse.ly, Clare spent five years on the publishing side as the Director of Marketing and Online Operations at Greentech Media. Previous to that, she did digital marketing and business development at ThePoint.com, the precursor to Groupon, and Venus Zine. Originally from Ohio, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Sciences.
Streaming online content continues to grow as social media and over-the-top services appeal to more consumers, especially to Millennials and Gen Z audiences. In fact, almost half (49%) of all US consumers now subscribe to a paid streaming video services with almost 60% penetration among Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z.
Interestingly, cable and satellite subscriptions remain steady at 74% of US Households. This can likely be attributed to pay TV subscriptions bundled with Internet services. US consumer media habits are shifting significantly. To better understand these changes, Deloitte’s Digital Democracy Survey offers insight into the multi-generational view of consumer technology, media, and telecom trends.
Key takeaways:
Binge watching becomes the new norm. Close to three quarters (73%) of US consumers report binge watching. Nearly nine in 10 Millennials and Gen Z say they binge watch video content. Deloitte defines binge watching as viewing at least three or more episodes in one session. It’s time for marketers and content produces to think differently about reaching the binge-watching audiences. An advertiser may want to try product placements in a series for added frequency. Content producers may want to think about new distribution strategies such as releasing content as a bingeable mini-series instead of offering a feature-length movie. Of the content streamed, paid streamed content comprises 35% of consumers streaming time and free services take up 40% of stream time.
Social recommendations are proving more influential than TV ads. More than a quarter (27%) of Gen Z consumers report that an online recommendation from someone within their social media circles can highly influence a buying decision. This can be more impactful than TV ads (18%).
Advertising struggles for attention. When the TV is turned on, it competes with everything for attention. Nearly all Gen Z and Millennials (99%) report multitasking when they are watching television reporting an average of four other activities occurring simultaneously. Further, eight in 10 (80%) consumers’ report skipping online video ads when allowed, and just over two-thirds (67%) of consumers report mobile ads on theirs phone are irrelevant.
Digital ad avoidance is growing. Almost half (45%) of Millennials use ad blocking software on desktop. Forty percent report using it on their smartphones with 85% doing so to improve the speed and performance of their online experience.
Relevant and optional are key to engaging ads. More than half of all consumers say that they would be willing to receive geographically relevant ads on their smartphones. Further, nearly half (46%) of consumers say they pay more attention to an ad they can skip versus an ad they cannot skip.
Social media usage is ubiquitous. A full 84% of all consumers are active on social networks. Penetration is higher among Millennials (96%) and 93% Gen Z (93%).
Social media helps in connecting consumers to companies. Consumers interact with corporations, with more than 70% of Millennials reporting that they used social media to interact with customer service in the last year. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Millennials find their interaction with customer service on social media more positive than connecting with customer service on the phone (70%).
Consumers are now conditioned to watch content whenever, wherever, and on whatever device they choose. The constant availability of streaming content and social media offer new opportunities in the marketplace. Advertisers and content creators can form new relationships with the consumer, interacting with and personalizing the consumer experience.
The mobile device is the command center for the hyper-connected consumer. Increasingly, it provides the point of access to the Internet of Things (loT). Today’s publishers and brands need to understand cross-device usage and identify the best pathway to attract and engage the hyper-connected consumer. In order to identify the appropriate channels and marketing opportunities, Verto Analytics analyzed cross-device usage in their research report, “Multitasking and Mobile Apps: New Ways to Measure Consumer Behavior.”
It’s no surprise that mobile device usage is on the rise. On average, American adults own five devices, such as PCs, smartphones, tablets, and wearables. In Q4 2016, PC usage totaled an average of 104 minutes per day. That’s slightly less than consumer’s total mobile device usage, which averaged 75 minutes per day on smartphones and 39 minutes per day on tablets (totaling 114 minutes per day).
Mobile apps also drive usage and far exceed mobile web usage. In fact, consumers spent 6.9 billion hours on mobile apps compared to 1.2 billion hours of mobile web usage in December 2016.
Mobile App Usage
Overall, consumers have an average of 89 apps installed on their smartphones and use approximately 25 each week and only eight per day. Fewer than 10% of all apps installed on a smartphone are used daily.
Device sessions:
56% of all device sessions are still single-app sessions.
19% show at least three distinct apps being used in a single session.
9% show at least four distinct apps being used in a single session.
5 to 4% of all smartphone sessions are multitasking sessions.
Multitasking Sessions
Verto Analytics defines a multitasking session as using at least four different apps and at least seven differ shifts (movement from app to app).
Consumers are using multiple apps to engage with the external world. External environment apps allow consumers to interact with their environments. This category of apps includes fitness tracking apps, connected home and personal assistant apps, and streaming media apps combined with hardware.
Personal assistant apps (i.e. Amazon’s Alexa) currently make up only 4% of all usage. Verto Analytics predicts these apps will increasingly be incorporated into consumer’s multitasking behavior.
As one would imagine, social media services and messaging apps (such as Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and WhatsApp) are most likely to be a part of a consumer’s multitasking behavior.
Multitasking Likelihood
Interestingly, the report found that the list of apps with the highest total number of returns does not necessarily correlate with the list of apps with the highest return rates (total number of people returning to the same app). The return rate is an important metric. It’s the ratio of multitasking sessions when a given app experiences a return against the total number of sessions of that app within a given time frame.
For example, if a consumer uses the Waze app once a day every day for a month (30 days) and on five of the those occasions, there is multitasking session (the consumer leaves and returns to Waze during the same session), the return rate for Waze is 18% (5/30). Waze, in this instance, had an 18% tendency to attract consumers back to the app during a multitasking session. What we learn from this is that the plays a central-role in a consumer’s session because it is actively used with other apps. Learning about how consumers actively use apps with other apps, often referred to as a smart hub, plays a key role in chart the consumer pathways to best target for frequent interaction and engagement.
Understanding multitasking, the best rate of return, and smart hubs offers insight into important mobile touchpoints. Brands and publishers need to identify and understand these points of interaction and their relationships to drive usage grown, engagement and monetization.
Media companies of all stripes – newspapers, video game makers, TV networks, etc. – are working furiously to navigate the choppy digital transformation waters successfully. At their helm are boards of directors tasked with steering these corporations through safely and prosperously. For the first time, executive recruiter Spencer Stuart recently published the U.S. Media Board Index 2016, a study analyzing the latest data and trends in board composition, board practices and director compensation for 50 U.S. media companies.
The report highlights the latest data and trends in board composition, board practices and director compensation for 50 U.S. media companies (Media 50). Companies included in the analysis span household brands (Comcast, CBS, Disney, NYT), digital stalwarts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo!) and old school publishing stalwarts (Gannett, Houghton Mifflin, Meredith, Time). The report also examines how media companies compare to the broader S&P 500 Index and the U.S. Technology Board Index.
Here are the highlights of the study.
The total average per-director compensation for media company directors is $277,788. Half of the total compensation comes in stocks, 30% in cash, and the rest in options and miscellaneous. Eight companies topped the $300,000 total compensation mark last year: Activision Blizzard, Alphabet, CBS, Electronic Arts, Facebook, IAC, LinkedIn, and Yahoo!. Alphabet was the only company that exceeded the $400,000 threshold ($425,000).
Most media boards (44 of 50) pay a cash retainer, and the average amount is $74,386. Time Warner pays the most ($145,000), with Disney in second at $105,000. Nine companies pay $100,000. Five companies pay no cash retainer, and five pay less than $50,000 annually.
46 of the 50 media boards have at least one female director. Tenga (5), Viacom (4), and New York Times (4) lead the pack, with another eight companies at three female board members each. Charter Communications, New Media Investment Group, and Sinclair Broadcast Group have zero female board members.
Media boards are younger than their technology and S&P 500 company counterparts. 44% of media boards have an average age of 59 or younger, compared with only 15% of S&P 500 boards and 27% of tech boards.
Native advertising is a compelling and profitable way for publishers to offer custom ad opportunities in the form of articles, video, programmatic and sound. What’s more, it provides a creative outlet for marketers, resulting in increased demand and desirability for publishers.
With this in mind, we at MediaRadar felt it was important to take a closer look at native trends for a more thorough understanding of best practices, as well as channels. So we recently published a study that observes the native advertising trends that emerged in 2016. The study, “Leaders and Lessons in Native Advertising,” examines thousands of native ads from nearly 13,000 brands.
Here’s what we found:
37% of publishers are not native compliant. In December 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its first-ever native advertising guidelines. At that time, only 29% of publisher sites examined were compliant. That number has increased by 119% year-over-year, however, with 63% of digital publishers having modified their native advertising to adhere to the FTC guidelines. Still, it leaves 37% of digital publishers that aren’t native compliant.
610 new advertisers bought native each month. Adoption and demand for native ad content was extremely high, with an average of 610 new advertisers using native content solutions each month. And many of these advertisers are open to purchasing digital packages – not just native as a standalone. This is good news for publisher ad sales because native continues to drive bigger deals for more revenue.
An average native campaign runs for two months. Renewal rates and campaign duration for native remain low overall. Based on 2016 data, native renewal rates are at only 33% across all media sites. An even smaller portion of those – 20% – renew less than 20% of the time. The average native campaign duration is only two months. However, sites with more established native programs have a 49% renewal rate. This includes sites with native programs where more than 50 brands are placing native buys.
Media & entertainment is most popular category. The top-five categories in native advertising from January to December 2016 include:
Media and entertainment (3,198 brands using native campaigns)
Professional services (2,017 brands)
Finance and real estate (1,246 brands)
Technology (1,231 brands)
Retail (1,153 brands)
Takeaways
Overall, there has become a greater demand for native advertising content. More publishers are familiarizing themselves with the FTC native advertising rules than ever before. However, there is still room for improvement, with more than one-third of publishers remaining non-compliant. And while the number of native ad campaigns continues to grow, renewal rates and campaign durations remain low.
Also, the media and entertainment industry is the most popular native advertising category, setting itself apart from the rest of the pack in terms of native ad adoption. But this may change in the coming years, as native becomes more popular and more industries begin regularly investing in native ads.
Todd Krizelman (@ToddKrizelman ) is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.
New patters of content consumption are emerging from the way teens and young adults access news. It’s not surprising that both smartphones and social media usage play a large role here. According to the James L. Knight Foundation’s new qualitative research, How Youth Navigates the News Landscape, young consumers don’t follow the news as much as it follows them. In fact, young adults often happen upon news content by accident and then share it on social media and messaging apps.
Findings from the Knight analysis include:
Most teens and young adults express little trust in the news media. They often seek out multiple resources to confirm information that is read.
Young people see today’s news as something that is often created outside of traditional journalism channels. In fact, what is defined as news among young consumers includes social media, aggregators, messaging apps, and user-generated content.
Young news consumers express much doubt about the accuracy of the news and assume that some level of bias is unavoidable in much of the information they encounter.
Social media plays a significant role in how news is disseminated in today’s marketplace. Young consumers are exposes to varying degrees of news quality as well as biasness.
Facebook leads as the primary social media news source.
Young consumers think of user-generated content, especially live video accounting of events, to be more truthful than traditional news outlets.
Young adults see most of the news as depressing and sad.
While the research speaks to young consumers’ lack of confidence in news content in general, it also speaks their high levels of trust in specific news brands. Importantly, news outlets should provide clear branding and identification as it aids in informing the younger audience of the information’s accuracy.
These days, most digital publishers participate in some form of distributed content. Social strategy provides publishers with an opportunity to grow referrals, reach new audiences and engage readers. In the new report, “What we’ve learnt from three years of social data,” NewsWhip used its social analytics to identify what works best on social platforms by specifically looking at the best way toward long-term development.
Facebook
There are a variety of publishers that have high levels of monthly engagement on Facebook. These leaders of engagement are no longer restricted to organizations like Buzzfeed or the Huffington Post. In fact, Facebook engagement rates among publishers are now more evenly matched month to month. In 2014, the two of the Top 10 engagement sites, Buzzfeed and Huffington Post comprised 80% of all engagements compared to this year when the top two two sites, IndiaTimes.com and NBC comprise only 20% of all engagements.
There appear to be two publisher models that increasingly earn high levels of engagement on Facebook and other social platforms:
The first model showcases digital publishers who create volume with high monthly article counts. They have different sites customized for different audiences, be it by geographic areas or by interest groups. These publishers reach large digital audiences both nationally and internationally. They also have their own social media teams responsible for reaching and engaging audiences.
The second model showcases publishers with smaller article outputs but that receive higher average engagement rates. These sites often rely on writers or the specialty of their coverage to engage readers. Examples of this model are the New York Times and CNN.
Social media offers publishers, big and small, a way to directly touch hard to reach audiences.
Instagram
Instagram is a visual medium and a great attention grabber. Interestingly, eight in 10 of its users are from outside the U.S. A growing focus on Instagram is the video marketplace. Last March, the company increased its video length from 15 seconds to 60 seconds. Compelling practices for videos postings include:
Keeping videos short and to the point,
Using on-screen captions for better storytelling,
Utilizing the regular post caption capabilities to offer details about the story, and
Using square format option instead of landscapes to appeal to mobile users.
Linkedin
Linkedin is a particularly good distribution channel for business sites. Recommendations that achieve more shares on Linkedin include those with descriptive headlines, relatable to others’ work life and posting to groups (which can also help grow followers).
Pinterest
Pinterest is a great vehicle for specialty publishers such as beauty and fashion, lifestyle, art, etc. The popular publishers here are often those that provide a blog and offer stories behind their pins. Interestingly, Pinterest is very appealing to publishers and brands because its users are noted having a higher intent-to-purchase, something that is attractive to publishers and brands alike.
Social media platforms offer publishers an opportunity to be seen by users outside the footprint of their site. It’s an opportunity for publishers to identify and supply readers with quality and trusted content. It’s critical for publishers and brands to think about the audience and produce content that is of interest to the platform’s users.
More apps mean more competition for users. This dynamic is driving user acquisition costs into the stratosphere. Companies have a choice: They can pay higher prices to acquire app users, or they can invest more effort in retaining high-value customers. Reams of recent research reveal a seismic shift to the latter as more app marketers sharpen their focus on approaches that emphasize “quality over quantity.”
It’s all about keeping users loyal. App marketers are beginning to understand that the customer-centric rules of online, digital and physical marketing also apply in the App Economy. For example, online a single-digit increase in retention can mean a double- or even triple-digit increase in profits. When it comes to marketing and monetizing apps, the advantages of identifying and inspiring quality users can be just as massive.
App Engagement
AppsFlyer is a platform for mobile attribution and marketing analytics whose tracking technology is found on 98% of the world’s mobile devices. The company regularly undertakes research to analyze best practices and trends. The State Of App Engagement, AppsFlyer’s most comprehensive and ambitious report to date, draws on billions of data points across the second half of 2016 to help app marketers identify quality users who will engage with their app over time.
The report offers marketers a breakdown of key engagement benchmarks by platform, category and region:
Retention rates
Average sessions per daily active user
Cross-funnel conversion rates
Lifetime engagement
The report focuses on Shopping, Games and Travel apps. However, the overarching observations and trends offer valuable guidance to all app marketers as they seek to optimize their campaigns and target audiences highly likely to engage with their apps over time.
The research confirms that app retention is an elusive goal to reach (findings show only 10-12% of users remain active 7 days after downloading an app, and only 4-5% are still active after 30 days). Yet it also points to positive results that show marketers using data to drive results. Based on a year-over-year comparison the report shows how overall retention has improved in some regions and across some app categories. “The good news for marketers is that retention has mostly improved – especially among non-organic users on both platforms,” observes report author Shani Rosenfelder.
Organic traffic – that is, people who download your app without you having to invest in paid or social promotion to get their attention – is great to have but not the way to drive serious growth. In a marketplace brimming with apps, and where app store search is fatally flawed, marketers can’t rely on WOM to take their app from good to great. For that they need to target non-organic traffic. To do so, they must harness data that will allow them to target audiences that promise high engagement and low wastage of their ad spend.
Among the findings:
Small gap, big opportunities: Average sessions, the number of times a daily active user will engage with your app, used to be vastly different between organic and non-organic users. However, the gap between these two groups of users across platforms is closing fast. Globally, Android organic users come in at 3.81 sessions compared with 3.56 sessions for non-organic users on the platform. That’s a mere 7% difference. On iOS, the gap is slightly wider with organic users outperforming non-organic users by 9%. The report reads this to mean there is “substantial quality to be found among non-organic users.”
Retention rates rocket: When it comes to retention North America has the best Android score across all regions. For organic users the breakdown is 35.8% for Day 1 Retention and 4.1% for Day 30 Retention. Retention rates among non-organic users on Android is 27.3% for Day 1 and 3.5% for Day 30. On iOS retention rates for organic users comes in at 30.6% for Day 1 (26.3% for non-organic users) and 5.1% for Day 30 (3.1% for non-organic users). The report also lists the cities across the U.S. where marketers are highly likely to find high-quality users for their app.
Significantly, some of the less prominent media markets have the highest mobile app engagement rates in the country, according to AppsFlyer.
Engagement is encouraging: Overall, organic users of Shopping apps on Android engage in 41.94 content views (for the period studied). Non-organic users engaged in 26.14 content views. (In the case of iOS the content views are 29.46 for organics and 12.14 for non-organics.) Draw a completely plausible parallel between Content Views for shoppers and “News Views” for consumers, and the report gives app marketers at content and media companies good reason to be positive about the results they can achieve. One audience looks at products, the other looks at articles. In both cases, more views mean more chances to engage and retain (or monetize) your audience.
User acquisition campaigns that focus on driving installs are passé. The next wave of activity and excitement is all about finding ways to identify audiences that will interact with your app repeatedly. Marketers need to approach this challenge armed with the critical data they need to optimize their investments. It is essential to understand the key characteristics that separate loyal and quality users from everyone else and target non-organic users who measure up to their organic traffic.
Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
The effectiveness of advertising depends, to some degree, on the content that surrounds it. In other words, content context has a direct impact on the way advertising is received. A new research study, “Why premium editorial content” from Teads, a native video advertising marketplace, analyzes why premium editorial content creates more impactful environments.
Teads partnered with Neuro-Insight, a neurological research firm, to better understand how premium content neurologically changes the way people recall advertising messaging. Four premium publishers, Conde Nast, Forbes, Time Inc. and The Atlantic participated in the research to expose video ads within their premium editorials on mobile. Consumers were also exposed to the same video ads within their personal Facebook feed in order to compare the two experiences.
The research revealed that premium editorial content is 16% more personally relevant and engaging than social news feeds. Interestingly, regardless of the personalization capabilities in a user’s Facebook feed, consumers still felt more personal relevance to the premium content. Users invest more of themselves in the premium editorial consumption experience.
Total Recall
What makes this finding so important? Premium editorial delivers a more powerful memory impact and a more memorable advertising experience. For the detailed-oriented left-side of the brain, premium editorial had a 19% greater impact on memory and for the emotional right-side of the brain, it had an 8% greater impact on memory. Memory encoding drives higher ad effectiveness and is an influencer of consumer purchase behavior.
Interestingly, both premium editorial content and Facebook social feeds create high impacts on long-term memory, however, premium content generates a greater and more even activation in both the left and the right sides of the brain. The triggering of both sides of the brain offers the best opportunity for broad video advertising creative approaches to influence a consumer’s long-term memory. Premium content is unique because of its impact to both the left- and right-side of the brain, meaning, it has an equal and considerable opportunity to influence consumers.
It’s not just that premium publishers offer advertisers a quality audience, their content also creates a higher impact on advertising. Teads’ research concludes that content with a high level of engagement is more likely to impact the memorability of online video advertising. Importantly, premium content raises the level of impact that social platforms cannot duplicate.
Podcasts are earning a strong foothold in digital media. The popularity of podcasts such as “Serial” and “This American Life” aided the medium in reaching new audiences. In fact, Edison Research reports an estimated 57 million Americans over the age of 12 listened to a podcast in January and February of 2016.
The Knight Foundation recently made several investments to support podcasting programming and on-demand audio formats. In the report “From Airwaves to Earbuds,” the Knight Foundation partnered with Lutman & Associates and Dot Connector Studio to identify and assess the impact of these investments. To date, the Knight grantees are successful in growing their audiences and finding new ways to attract younger listeners as well as revenue.
The grantees in the digital transformation of audio content include:
Project Carbon supports the development of a seamless digital listening platform across all NPR affiliates and available through all digital devices.
Radiotopia helps independent media makers develop audiences and revenue for their work.
Gimlet Media develops and release podcasts for its network.
New York Public Radio develops and share the Discover app, WNYC’s mobile app for on-demand listening.
RadioPublic PBC helps listeners discover, engage with, and reward creators of stories, podcasts, and other audio.
The research identified 10 key themes:
Podcast audiences are growing. At least one-fifth of U.S. consumers (21%) have listened to a podcast compared to 12% in 2015 according to Edison Research. As you can see from the chart, the podcast audience listens to less radio and more podcasts than the average.
Digital-first companies are building podcast audiences without a need for legacy broadcast systems or audiences to maintain and are more agile to develop strategies to capture useful audience data.
On-demand listening offers new and creative ways to offer local news stories.
Racial and gender diversity is needed in podcast hosts, only 22% of podcasts are hosted by women, although that’s up from 12% in 2015.
Public Radio is a key talent pool for the podcasting medium.
Podcasting is a great space for experimenting new skills, styles and techniques.
Data standards and methods of shared metrics are needed in on-demand audio and podcasts.
Identifying new revenue paths is important. Podcasting recently used CPMs to enlist advertisers.
Podcasting and on-demand audio formats are partners in the radio space. Leveraging this synergy could prove a positive move
Podcasting can offer a powerful discussion. It presents a unique experience because the content evolves in the mind of the listener.
The report raises several questions about the future growth of the medium: Is there enough scale in podcasting today to be a profitable medium? Can it serve as a medium for interesting and original brand integrations? At this stage, there’s no one-answer-fits-all for how podcasting should generate revenue. However it is clear that podcasting offers a level of engagement with audiences that offers an opportunity to experiment with new forms of revenue generation.
Archive
The Twitter data revealed that Trump-related traffic (57%) significantly outpaced Clinton-related traffic (20%) and neutral content (13%). Importantly, the research uncovered that professional news and fake news are close to a one-to-one ratio when it comes to political news tweets. Further, nearly a quarter of political tweets (23%) contain fake news links. and a full 47% of the political news content can be classified as political propaganda. Needless to say, social media’s proliferation of fake news is reason for concern.
Clare Vice President of Marketing at 
