Ornaith Killen

About Ornaith Killen

An insight into the Chinese ecommerce market for Singles Day

China is set to become the world’s largest online retail market, having enjoyed explosive growth in the last few years. The market is mainly powered by China’s 302m online shoppers, incidentally the world’s most active online purchasers.

Much of the Chinese ecommerce industry’s explosive growth is attributed to the unique landscape in itself. The market value of ecommerce is largely derived from the weak offline retail sector, and online retail has provided consumers with a much needed alternative way of shopping.

Econsultancy’s new State of Ecommerce in China report, published in partnership with hybris, an SAP company, looks in more detail at this market.

To focus on the potential the Chinese ecommerce industry has, I’ve decided to share a few snippets from the report. Not to forget it’s Singles Day, the largest online shopping day in the world. Enough said.

Three Facebook trends that you may not be aware of

This week at Econsultancy Towers we hosted a few roundtables, one of which was ‘Facebook: Optimising and Measuring the world’s largest social media platform‘.

For those of you that have attended a roundtable before, you’ll be aware that we hand out a trends briefing, which is an up-to-date document on trends, pulled together by the research team before the event.

For those of you that haven’t attended a roundtable before, you’ll know what to receive when you do go.

I wanted to share the trends with you, as Facebook changes so frequently that it’s always good to keep ourselves informed. Some of this information has been written about before on the blog, but I’ve found some new reports and statistics to reiterate the importance of knowing these changes, if you’re using Facebook for your brand. 

So, onwards and upwards with the three most important trends that I found. 

Key takeaways from the content marketing and native advertising roundtable

According to the Econsultancy / Responsys Marketing Budgets 2014 report, content marketing is the area in which companies are most likely to be increasing investment in the coming year, with 74% of companies indicating that they will spend more on this in the future.

These stats were reiterated during the Content Marketing and Native Advertising roundtable hosted at the Econsultancy office this week.

The attendees came from a wide range of companies and roles within the industry, and I wanted to share the key takeaways with you, along with some interesting statistics I found during my prior research.

What the ‘new mobile display ecosystem’ means for publishers

The New Mobile Display Ecosystem report, published by Econsultancy in association with OpenX, explores the latest trends in mobile advertising and looks at what the future might hold.

The report, which includes insights from more than 20 industry leaders, explores the impact of increasingly mobile-centric consumer behaviour on different stakeholders within the marketplace.

This article is focused on how publishers need to adapt to the rise of mobile.

For many traditional publishers, moving from print to desktop was a challenge. Migrating to an ever more complex landscape is equally challenging, but can be as richly rewarding for the companies that do it right.

Three important trends impacting the ecommerce technology market

According to the new Ecommerce Platform Buyer’s Guide 2014, online retailers are thriving.

Retail is transforming itself from a local industry into one which is fundamentally about competing globally in international markets.

The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index saw the 2013 UK online retail market grow 16% to £91bn, with ecommerce accounting for 21% of the country’s entire retail market.

Simple steps for measuring email campaign effectiveness

As a follow on from a post I wrote in March, eight best practice tips for writing effective email copy, I’m tackling the wonderful topic of campaign effectiveness. 

This is quite an interesting topic, and not just for email marketers.

Taking a very safe wild guess, I would estimate that most people who have access to an email address have received an email as part of a campaign.

So basically anyone who has signed up to Groupon, Asos, Econsultancy …

I could go on. But I won’t. Anyway…

Joining up online and offline data: seven predictions for the next six months

A few weeks ago I attended my first Digital Cream London event, sitting in on a rountable about joining up data across online and offline channels.

The three sessions with over 30 digital marketing professionals unveiled some interesting insights that I think are worth sharing.

This roundtable was, in my opinion, one of the more relevant ones as the customer journey becomes increasingly complex. 

Detailed findings are included in our free-to-access trends briefing, sponsored by BlueKai, but in this post I’m going to focus on predictions for the next six months that were provided by the delegates.

Eight best practice tips for writing effective email copy

Over the past week, I have received a couple of pieces of email marketing that just didn’t read very well and it got me thinking about copywriting, and how vital it is to be done correctly. 

Now please don’t take this the wrong way. There was nothing exactly wrong with this particular email’s copy per-se, nothing that I could put my finger on exactly.

But they just didn’t read very well and to be honest, that made me doubt the credibility of the business, let alone the marketing campaign. 

I do realize that I may be quite unique in these instances, as many people who are not interested in the industry, or indeed writing, may not notice.

To be honest, I blame my hatred of terrible spelling and grammar on Facebook and other social media platforms, where I am forced to look at it every day. It’s a shame.

However, I thought I would share my thoughts on the blog just in case anyone else agrees. And by ‘my’ thoughts, I mean some great tips taken from our Email Marketing Best Practice Guidewhich has just been released today. 

Seven best practice tips for online video in 2014

With the release of the 2014 Econsultancy Online Video Best Practice Guide, we thought some condensed tips from the report might prove to be useful to any of you that are interested in online video.

Each of these tips has been very carefully selected from both the report author and industry experts.

To begin as I very much like to start my blogs, I will give you some relevant statistics so that you will realise how prevalent online video is in today’s market.

Seven of the best festive mobile apps

Since it is nearly Christmas, I do hope that everyone is getting into the festive spririt. For those that are there already, welcome!

For those that are not, I hope that by reading this blog and possibly downloading some of the suggested apps you will be nudged slowly into the spirit. 

A wise man once said that “Creating a successful app is an incredibly difficult task, whichever platform you are using“.  

So with that in mind, I have diligently researched, trialled and tested Christmas apps suitable not only for children, but for people of all ages. 

The social media landscape of the Emerald Isle: stats

As I’m making my way in the big bad digital marketing industry in the UK, I’m going to give a big shout-out to my home country in the form of this blog post.

The Irish nation is typically a very chatty and social culture in its own right, so I would like to investigate how social the Irish are online.

Having recently moved to the UK, my greater knowledge base of digital marketing lies within the Emerald Isle. I do believe though, that small as Ireland is, it doesn’t mean that socially savvy countries cannot learn from others, especially the digital hub of Europe.

So I’ll write this post with facts and figures and in true Irish fashion, sure we will see how we get on. 

Digitally showcasing your business on Small Business Saturday

The UK is celebrating its first Small Business Saturday on 7th December 2013, following in the footsteps of the United States who began the initiative in 2010, generating $5.5bn in its first year.  

Supported by the UK government, it is hoped that success will follow into the UK and generate support for the 4.9m SMEs currently located here.

As well as some well-meaning tips on digitally showcasing and preparing for the big day, the blog begins with some lovely stats that should hit home on how important it is to participate.

I mean, if the idea of competing with 4.7m business of the same size doesn’t daunt you, then perhaps you should participate for the fun part, or indeed to support other local businesses.