What’s the ads viewability situation across Europe and what can marketers do to improve it – to make their ads the ‘stickiest’? How can they optimise their online ad campaigns? Anant Joshi examines in detail what the latest Meetrics statistics reveal.
The millennial generation will forever be remembered as the champion of the mobile phone – the one that became glued to the device, all day every day (and often all night). For this young adult, life without a mobile cannot be contemplated. So, for marketers, the mobile is a good place to reach this audience, then. Hmm, it’s not quite that simple and you need to adopt a clear m-commerce strategy to achieve success . . . here are some tips to ensure you reach these young consumers before your competitors do.
Despite the significant increase in the amount of data and signals at their disposal, the majority of marketers feel they haven’t got to grips with how to adequately tap into the way people use mobiles today and remain insecure about mobile in the customer journey.
Parents of young children are woken early and are active online, and particularly on mobile apps, at the crack of dawn. Research into parents online behaviour shows how and when to reach them.
Despite all the buzz around beacon technology as the new and exciting frontier of customer engagement, are marketing messages and promotions sent as part of a pre-existing transactional conversation still more effective and less intrusive?
Take three marketing channels: email; mobile apps; social media. The greatest of these is email, with 96 per cent usage, says The Digital Customer Engagement Index from Mapp Digital.
One of the largest independent digital marketing technology companies in the world, Mapp Digital analysed the digital marketing methods of the top 50 ecommerce brands in the UK in 2016. And despite the large uptake of email communication, the study found that relatively few companies are truly harnessing user preferences, personalisation and optimisation across devices.
The analysis revealed that only 26% personalise emails, 60% personalise the web experience, and a mere two per cent use a personal approach in their mobile apps – despite most brands asking for customer names and other identifiable information.
Rolf Anweiler (pictured), senior vice-president marketing, Mapp, said: “All data no action summarises the broad approach we’re seeing from the UK’s top ecommerce brands.”
He continued: “But broad is no good when it comes to marketing in a digital revolution, when customers’ relationships with brands are changing to an ‘always on’ culture and you explicitly ask for information about them.
“Many brands are still more 9 to 5 than 24/7 when it comes to marketing. With the proliferation of channels, devices and technologies comes a great opportunity for marketers. At the moment, though, most are being bland, formulaic and not quite delivering.”
In mobile app marketing, where 92% of brands have a mobile app, most seek permission to send notifications. Despite this, only 17% actually delivered a message across the duration of Mapp’s study – which ran for a month in spring 2016.
The study also looks at how brands are orchestrating cross-channel engagement, noting that only 25% of the top brands with bricks-and-mortar stores are using technology to drive engagement when potential customers might be passing by. This indicates that most are wasting a huge opportunity to grow the mobile channel and engage with customers, especially mobile-savvy millennials.
Key findings:
Anweiler added: “In an era when brands are pushing for more personalised, individualised marketing, some of the largest ecommerce brands in the UK are still failing to create meaningful engagements due to inconsistent use of digital channels.
“Never has having a consistent strategy been more important, nor has combining the data from the multitude of digital channels to create a holistic view of the customer. It is – or should be – simple to deliver highly bespoke messages. Marketers today have all the tools to achieve this.”
With research showing that 86 per cent of smartphone owners are accessing mobile apps every day, companies that can identify valuable users and their behaviours will give themselves better opportunities to monetise and grow.
Chelsea FC has signed a global licensing deal with Stayfilm, a film-making app and networking platform launching in the UK that will enable brands to interact with the hundreds of millions of the team’s supporters worldwide.
The Stayfilm app, which is available as a free download, allows users to create high-quality, shareable movies in around two minutes. Fans can use their own images and videos, combined with the club’s unique styling to automatically create a short movie that appears on a designated channel online and can be shared on social media. The style features exclusive images of the main players and the stadium, as well as the iconic lion logo and the team’s blue banners.
The channel, which is hosted at www.Stayfilm.com/ChelseaFC, brings fans together providing them with a way to interact with one another in a friendly environment. With this captive audience, brands can share more about their products and services, knowing that visitors to this site are highly engaged and relevant.
Douglas Almeida, Stayfilm‘s CEO, said: “Being exclusive licensees of Chelsea FC is the first step in our expansion through Europe. We are providing a platform for global fans to share and connect, and we hope we can provide a new avenue for brands to connect with the team’s supporters outside of traditional sponsorship deals.”
For the fans, this is a fun, slick app that provides more permanence than a quick Snap or a Vine. Tomas Monteiro, a Chelsea FC fan from Brazil, said: “Although me and my friends are not based in the UK, we love the fact that we can share our passion for Chelsea FC with British fans through this app! Come on the blues!”
Here’s the video from Chelsea FC – download the app here.
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Mobile apps are no longer reserved for big name brands; these days, more and more SMBs are following the mobile trend. Even though creating an app from scratch is certainly not easy, there are some steps you can take in order to simplify the process and bring your app idea to life.
Loyalty cards linked to mobile apps experience rise in activity rates.
The new research, Mobile & Online Coupons: Redemption, Loyalty & Consumer Engagement 2015-2020, found that brands and retailers are increasingly responding to consumer demand for mobile integration, with many now offering customers the opportunity to store their loyalty cards within a dedicated digital wallet.
Crucially, the research argued that the improved targeting and personalisation made possible by digital coupons was leading to greater activity rates, thereby resolving a key failing of traditional schemes where the lack of relevant offers had resulted in a downturn in usage.
However, the new research found wide variations among retailers and other reward card providers with regard to the extent of digital loyalty integration. In the UK, it observed that around 40% of Nectar card holders had acquired the loyalty app by late-2015, but less than 4% of Tesco Clubcard holders. It found a similar disparity between US retailers Walgreens, where 61% of card holders had linked their card to an app, and Target which had only 27% of cardholders linked.
Research author Dr Windsor Holden said: “These disparities are likely to result from a number of factors. While in part they may reflect the level of satisfaction with the app and/or the features it offers, they may also be attributable to a greater degree – or greater success – of retailer marketing of their digital loyalty options.”
The research warned that retailers that did not offer mobile integration were likely to have far lower levels of visibility on consumer activity. As a result, it cautioned that they would be at a disadvantage when seeking to tailor offers and thereby increase the lifetime value of the consumer.
The complimentary whitepaper, ‘Coupons ~ Personalisation Goes Hyper’, is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research and the attendant Interactive Forecast Excel (IFxl).