This week’s roundup includes news about smart speaker ownership, streaming services, social commerce, and more. Check out the Internet Statistics Database for further stats and insight.

84% of marketers see GDPR as a positive development

A year on from GDPR (read our briefing – GDPR: A year on), SaleCycle has released the results of a survey on marketers’ attitudes to compliance. Despite early worries relating to consent (potentially making jobs more difficult), it seems that marketers largely have a positive outlook in 2019.

SaleCycle found that 84% of survey respondents see GDPR as a positive development, and just 16% see it as a negative. Out of those negative respondents, 67% see GDPR as an annoyance that may deter subscribers. Twenty nine percent of positive respondents cited a more engaged database.

Meanwhile, 76% of marketers said they had changed the way they ask for consent from site visitors as a result of GDPR. This figure rises to 82.4% for marketers in the UK and Europe, and is 62.5% for those outside of Europe.

In terms of practical steps, 21% of marketers say they have implemented checkboxes for consent, 26% have introduced stricter opt-in processes, and 32% have focused on gaining explicit consent for marketing. In addition, 29% have implemented tools to help them manage marketing permissions.

salecycle GDPR stat

55% of companies describe approach to CLTV as ‘basic’ or ‘non-existent’

According to Econsultany’s Customer Lifetime Value report, published in partnership with Red Eye, a growing number of companies are prioritising CLTV.

From the survey of 610 respondents (both in-house and client-side), 76% of client-side respondents reported that driving customer lifetime value is a high or medium priority for their organisation.

Despite this, however, the majority are still at the beginning of the journey, with only 1% saying their approach to CLTV is mature, and 44% saying it is developing.

The research also highlights a widespread recognition that customer retention strategies are a good investment, with 91% of companies reporting that investment in growing CLTV is more profitable than investment in customer acquisition.

CLTV

Customer Lifetime Value Report

Ads are ‘unacceptable’ to 72% of subscription video service users

In a new survey of more that 2,000 consumers, Differentology has revealed that 72% of UK subscription video service (SVOD) subscribers do not find any form of advertising on these platforms acceptable.

If Netflix were to begin showing ads, 23% of Netflix subscribers said they would upgrade to an ad-free premium model to avoid it.

According to the research, there is still “plenty of room for growth” in the SVOD market, with 37% of current subscribers stating that they are likely to take up another service in the next six months. Sixty five percent of this group said this would be in addition to their existing service.

That being said, the survey also highlighted low levels of churn for subscription services, with 66% of subscribers saying they have never cancelled their subscriptions before, and 32% saying they wait less than three months to re-subscribe to the same platform.

Will streaming platforms usher in a golden age of branded film?

Netflix and Amazon generated over £1bn in revenue from UK streaming customers in 2018

According to Ofcom, Netflix and Amazon made £1.1bn in revenue from UK streamers in 2018 – twice the amount of streaming services from broadcasters like BBC and ITV.

With 10 million UK subscribers, Netflix is estimated to have made £693m in revenues last year. Meanwhile, Amazon made £400m from its 7.7 million subscribers to Prime Video. In contrast to this, the streaming services from the UK’s main broadcasters – which includes ITV Hub, Channel 4’s All 4, Channel 5’s My5 and Sky’s Now TV – generated roughly £530m.

As the Guardian reports, one of the main draws for customers is scope, with Netflix offering a staggering 32,600 hours of film and TV shows to UK viewers, while BBC iPlayer currently offers just 5,100 hours (and a 30-day time limit for new shows).

Netflix

35% of the total time spent online in the UK is on sites owned by Google or Facebook

There’s been more news from Ofcom this week, with the release of the Online Nation 2019 report, which collates the attitudes to and experiences of internet usage in the UK.

The main findings include the fact that adults who use the internet spent an average of three hours and 15 minutes a day online in September 2018 – a figure up by 11 minutes since 2017. Children and young adults also spent much more time online than they did watching television.

Further to this, the report states that 35% of the total time spent online in the UK is on sites owned by Google or Facebook. This reflects the high level of video and social media consumption; around nine in ten internet users visit YouTube every month, spending an average of 27 minutes a day on the site. A similar number visit Facebook, spending an average of 23 minutes a day there.

Interestingly, 74% of consumers say they feel confident about managing their personal data online and the majority of people are happy for companies to collect their information under certain conditions. However, only 17% of adult internet users say they don’t mind if organisations use information about them to decide the content they are shown, and only 18% don’t mind information being used to determine the adverts they are shown.

internet usage stat

85% of Brits sceptical about social commerce

Finally, OnBuy.com has conducted a survey asking 1,424 British consumers how they feel about social commerce.

The results show that the majority remain wary of it, with only 17% of survey respondents saying they have used a social buy button before.

What’s more, a third of Brits say they would not be open to purchasing items through social media, with the main reason stemming from doubts about safety. 85% of respondents are sceptical of brands who offer social commerce, believing they could be fake, while 10% of respondents say they have had a bad experience with social commerce, causing them to doubt the service overall.

What does Instagram Checkout mean for ecommerce?