Research

Many B2B marketers are still relying on intuition more than data: survey

The world is awash in more data than ever and one of the reasons there’s so much of it is that companies have embraced the notion that data can increase the efficacy of their marketing efforts and drive sales.

But a new study published by Dun & Bradstreet and Forrester Research indicates that in the B2B realm, many marketers are relying more heavily on their intuition than they are on data when making decisions.

Is the ad fraud problem really getting better? New research suggests not

Ad fraud is a huge problem, but the past year has seen growing optimism that progress was being made in the fight against the industry’s biggest threat.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) suggested that losses from ad fraud were going to drop from $7.2bn in 2016 to $6.5bn in 2017. What’s more, efforts to reduce common forms of ad fraud have gained traction. Perhaps most notably, the IAB Ads.txt standard, which aims to make spoofing much more difficult, is rapidly being adopted.

US online sales to surpass in-store sales this holiday season: report

Every year, online retail smashes new records during the holiday shopping season and this year is expected to be no exception. In fact, 2017 could be the year in which a significant symbolic milestone is achieved.

According to global consultancy Deloitte, for the first time ever this holiday shopping season, American shoppers will buy more online than they purchase offline.

The Google-Facebook duopoly extends to mobile apps: What can marketers do?

According to comScore’s newly-published 2017 U.S. Mobile Apps Report, well over half (57%) of the time consumers spend using digital media now occurs in mobile apps.

But for marketers looking to use mobile apps to reach consumers, there’s some not-so-good news: slightly more than half of smartphone users don’t download any new apps in a given month, and of those who do, the highest percentage download just a single app.

Could established financial services firms lose a quarter of their revenue to fintechs?

Upstart fintech companies are disrupting established financial services players, namely large banks, but just how serious a threat are these upstarts to firms that collectively control trillions of dollars of capital?

According to a new study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which polled more than 1,300 executives, established financial services firms could lose nearly a quarter (24%) of their revenue to fintechs in the next three to five years.

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Storytelling might boost your product page conversion rates: stats

Storytelling is a popular marketing buzzword, and there are numerous examples demonstrating how brands that engage in storytelling derive value from the exercise.

Much of the discussion around the topic focuses on how brands tell stories at a strategic level, but according to a study conducted by Hill Holiday research division Origin, companies can profit from applying storytelling at a much more practical level too. 

Traffic to hotel websites is declining: How should they respond?

There is little doubt that residential rental sites such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway are disrupting the multi-billion dollar hotel business.

There is still significant debate about the long-term impact of that disruption but if a new study conducted by Hitwise, a division of Connexity, is any indication, these sites are complicating hotels’ online efforts.