Mobile is driving major changes in how consumers research and buy across a wide range of industries.
So for online marketers it is no longer enough to rely on responsive site design and a mobile app. You need to think mobile-first.
Marketers live in a world that is creating 2.5 exabytes of data each and every day.
This provides both a challenge and an opportunity to marketers. How can they process and harness big data in faster and more innovative ways to deliver deeper insights and improved business performance?
Audience targeting is not new. However, the increasing complexity of the buying cycle now makes it much more challenging to execute.
How can marketers join the dots to find and engage desirable audiences?
Tablet devices accounted for more than a third of conversions, revenue and spend from UK retail paid search on Boxing Day.
The data should come as no real surprise to anyone involved in ecommerce, however it is useful as further evidence of the continued consumer shift towards mobile devices.
It should also be noted that the festive period does present something of an anomaly in terms of site traffic, as data is skewed due to people being away from their work computers and also because tablets and smartphones are a popular Christmas gift.
Facebook and other social networks are re-organising how consumers experience the web, centring it on their personal connections and activities.
This is blurring the lines between branded content, paid advertising, and consumer conversations.
Marketers therefore need to integrate owned, paid and earned social media strategies.
Analysis of Facebook advertising performance in Q3 has found that the platform has improved across numerous key performance indicators (KPIs).
It comes off the back of a strong performance in Q2, when there were also improvements across the board compared to Q1.
The data from Kenshoo shows that CPC has dropped 9% in Q3 compared to Q2, while revenue per click (RPC) has increased 1.73x.
Similarly, the average conversion rate has increased 2.36x while revenue is up 2.16x.
With Christmas make or break for retailers how can they make the most of their paid search budget in the run up to the big day?
In these ultra-competitive times the peak Christmas period can be make or break for retailers. With up to 40% of sales happening around this time, under performance doesn’t just harm your company, it could be fatal to your business.
Paid search is a proven way of delivering buyers to your website, but how do you maximise its impact, while minimising costs?
Based on Kour experience there are six steps to optimising your search engine marketing for Christmas success:
Despite the marketing potential that exists in social networks there has always been an element of doubt over the efficacy of buying social ads.
Some of the most convincing arguments against social ads are that people don’t want to be sold to while they’re socialising and that you can’t always trust the validity of personal data on networks like Facebook.
In fact our own head of social Matt Owen recently blogged about the problems he encountered with gauging the success of Promoted Posts due to poor targeting tools and fake profiles.
But a new report from Kenshoo shows that although organic posts (such as maintaining a branded Facebook page) are the most popular social tactic, paid ads actually proved to be the most successful approach.
UK internet users made 2.7bn visits to search engines in December 2012, an increase of 400m visits compared to December 2011.
This represents a 17% increase year-on-year, and confirms that it was a particularly strong Christmas period for search.
Interestingly, the data from Experian Hitwise also shows that Google’s market share dropped below 90% for the second month in a row to 88%; its lowest point for five years.
Christmas proved to be expensive for UK retail paid search marketers, as average CPCs increased by a third (30%) peaking at around £0.35.
According to a new report from Kenshoo, the rise was partly fuelled by a 27% increase in ad budgets compared to 2011.
There were predictable spikes in search spend at the beginning of December as retailers tried to cash in on the consumer rush to buy gifts in time for Christmas.
Tablets accounted for almost one fifth (18%) of UK paid search clicks for retailers in 2012 compared to 13% on smartphone, according to a new report from Kenshoo.
Tablets also delivered 18.3% of conversions and 21.3% of revenue, while smartphones achieved just 3.6% of overall retail conversions from PPC and 3.4% of revenue.
Similarly, the conversion rate from smartphone visits is just 1.59% compared to 5.85% on tablet and 6.53% on desktop.
The report indicates that marketers aren’t yet making the most of the opportunity presented by tablets, as the devices account for 14.1% of ad spend at a CPC of £0.25, while desktop hoovers up 78.7% with a CPC of £0.36.