Digital Marketing Blog

How BMW uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Over the past few months I've been looking at how different global brands make use of the main social networks, but so far I've neglected the auto industry.

I've rectified that this week by turning the spotlight on BMW, which as it turns out has a surprisingly strong Facebook presence.

This post follows on from similar articles focusing on brands such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Red Bull, Microsoft and Ikea.

And without further ado, here's a quick look at how BMW uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+...

by David Moth 16 May 2013 11:15am 2 comments

How should publishers respond to link removal requests?

Thanks again to Panda, Penguin etc, it seems many webmasters are panicking about links they have obtained in the past, or have been pulled up by Google as a result of over-zealous link building.

As a result, we are receiving many more link removal requests than we ever used to, ten or so in the past couple of months.

To be frank, these requests are annoying, and I'm also a little put out that they see this blog as a risk to them. Chris Lake touched upon this recently and, as he says, 'a lot of folks seem to have a bad case of The Fear'.

I thought it was worth exploring this issue in more detail, so I've asked a few SEO experts for their views...

by Graham Charlton 16 May 2013 10:34am 9 comments

Ecommerce stats: online shopping in the Middle East

The Middle East and North Africa edition of our Internet Statistics Compendium has seen some interesting updates over the past few months, with some fascinating insights into ecommerce across the region.

This post gives a general overview of the online retail numbers and brands which are proving significant in the Middle East. For further details of the many specific trends and developments within respective MENA markets, check out the latest edition of our ISC.

by Luke Richards 16 May 2013 09:48am 4 comments

A case for UX testing and Agile

A recent report, published here on the Econsultancy blog, revealed a staggering 45% of companies aren't performing any UX testing when developing a creative project.

Whether it's a website or an app, user experience (UX) is an important factor in both the success, and the scalability of a product.

Together with the flexibility of the Agile approach to development, it can help you to build a better, more satisfying product.

by Rita Auta 16 May 2013 09:36am 4 comments

Six ways you can fail at data driven marketing

Data driven marketing is not as much easy as we think.

You’ve heard the buzzword, and you probably think you’re doing data driven marketing as we speak. But the reality of the situation is that most marketers aren’t actually data driven.

Taking Peter Drucker’s “What gets measured, gets managed” at face value is dangerous. Mere measurement isn’t actually enough. Data driven marketers measure for the right reasons.

And so, with that in mind, here are six reasons you (might) fail at data driven marketing.

by Pratik Dholakiya 15 May 2013 16:44pm 4 comments

Why events are the last bastion of integrated marketing

We can tell the last ten items a consumer bought on our site and we can tell the open rate of our email marketing campaigns, but few of us can say how long any one visitor at our event booth spent there and what they picked up.

The swag, a brochure, your business card, your hot intern’s telephone number, which was it?

This not-knowing is weird, says Liz Miller, overseer of daily operations at the CMO Council (CMOC), a global affinity network of top brand marketers. “Since when did a marketer get shy?” she asked recently.

by Cielo Lutino 15 May 2013 13:51pm 2 comments

Six basic tips for improving homepage product banners

Providing tailored product recommendations is a proven way of boosting online sales, with two-thirds of companies (66%) stating that personalisation improves both customer experience and business performance.

Speaking at a Screen Pages ecommerce event recently, Emailvision personalisation director Neil Hamilton ran through some best practice tips for how to create effective homepage product recommendation banners.

The effectiveness of these blocks can be improved using personalisation, whereby the products shown are specifically tailored to the customer based on their past on-site behaviour.

Our new Realities of Personalisation Report, published in association with Monetate, found that just 30% of businesses currently personalise their websites based on a visitor’s previous behaviour, so a majority of businesses are yet to implement the technology.

by David Moth 15 May 2013 13:09pm 0 comments

Apps, HTML5 and m-commerce among key mobile challenges facing businesses: report

The consumer shift to using mobile devices has been one of the most important trends for businesses to get to grips with in recent years and it proved to be a popular topic at Econsultancy’s Digital Cream London event.

The key themes and findings from the roundtable discussions have been published today in our free-to-access Mobile Experience Trends Briefing, sponsored by IBM Tealeaf.

Alongside details of the trends that emerged from the event, the briefing includes best practice tips, case studies and market data.

A separate report highlighted the scale of the challenge facing businesses, as despite the massive growth in mobile traffic almost half (45%) of companies still don’t have a mobile-optimised site or app.

by David Moth 15 May 2013 12:10pm 1 comment

A day in the life of a... Head of Performance

Peter Wallace is Head of Performance at Total Media, a London-based media buying agency. I asked him a few questions to explain more about his role, focusing on a typical working day.

If you're looking to break into the world of media buying then be sure to check out the range of digital planner / buyer jobs on our digital jobs site.

by Chris Lake 15 May 2013 11:52am 0 comments

Why does mobile out-perform desktop on this ecommerce site?

I had an interesting email from an ecommerce site owner in Texas over the weekend, wondering why mobile outperforms desktop on his site for conversion rates.

The site in question is discgolfstation.com, and owner Clint Henderson tells me that mobile conversion rates are twice that of desktop, which is obviously unusual.

While the mobile site isn't bad at all, it seems the problem is down to poor desktop performance.

Here, I'll suggest some possible reasons, but it would be great to see what suggestions you have for improvements as well...

by Graham Charlton 15 May 2013 11:26am 5 comments