Cyber Monday Goes From Strength To Strength – 7th December 2012 Cyber Monday has become an established ‘event’ in much the same way as Black Friday, since its inception in 2004 and retail stats support this assertion with a 17% YoY growth for this particular day’s spending in 2012. Online sales approached $1.5M this year and seem only set to continue if historical growth trends are anything to go by. It makes sense for most shoppers over this period, as much of this spending is coming from areas where being outside in the cold comes second to sitting in the comfort of your own home and browsing/clicking at one’s pleasure. This offsets the likelihood of longer high street opening hours wresting away this continual upward trend.
There are many retailers benefiting from this behavioural shift, not least Amazon who in the second part of the year, significantly increased their Search activity within their own site in conjunction with offering bespoke deals to customers based on their site behaviour, the latter which Amazon have done for some time now. With flagship products such as the Kindle Fire HD going for as little as £99 (approx. 40% reduction), it’s no wonder spending has remained unabated as clearly this day is not for gimmicky offers but true bargains. In terms of which categories saw the greatest spend share, there were the usual suspects with Computer, Electronics, Video Games and other technology sub-divisions, given the nature of the medium i.e. Digital. It
therefore follows that such content would be consumed in greater volume and indeed Digital Content and Subscriptions were the greatest beneficiaries of Cyber Monday spend at 28% share of overall spend. Based on this information we only expect online spending to continue, with Cyber Monday in particular maintaining its profitability for retailers and advertisers. It would be interesting to see how many more retailers make the transition to online and subsequently their online advertising, this time next year. – Jafar Mahir More Details: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/12/one-more-look-at-cybermonday-before-we-move-along.html
Searches to Predict Smartphone Sales - 5th December 2012 According to Google’s recent study ‘Smartphone Launch Predictor’, search volumes can predict smartphone sales with 90% accuracy. The bigger factor affecting the successful launch of a new smartphone is getting early buzz by marketing early and getting ahead of the release. Users seem to do general product searches during the week of the launch and carry out more in-depth product specification searches after the launch. An interesting behavioural tract is that videos are becoming more and more utilised research tools: people want to see a video that unpacks and shows the product. This leads to a major change in the trial experience, which becomes an online one rather than an in-store one. The research also shows that some days work better than others to launch new products: sales seem to increase on Thursdays and Fridays, which is the sort of information that should affect the marketing communications strategy. – Antonella Mele More details: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2228861/Google-Searches-CanAccurately-Predict-Smartphone-Sales-Study
Mobile Search beyond Google: In App Search Tools – 4th December 2012 There’s more to mobile search than just Google and Bing. The app stores for iOS, Android and Windows offer countless of downloadable apps that offer built-in search engines. Some of these apps are from major players in their respective verticals and may have a more direct impact on your client than the general search engines. Apps offer another path for search marketers looking to get their clients onto mobile screens. For Retailers: eBay, Amazon According to a new IBM study released last week, 25.3% of Thanksgiving Day traffic to retail sites came from smartphones and tablets. Putting a subset of your inventory on one of these sites can be a great shortcut to reaching mobile users. True, there’s a fee structure around transactions in these markets; and, outside of mobile, you might have a hard time justifying that extra cost. But, when it comes to mobile, participating in these markets avoids another, much larger cost: the investment needed to build a mobile-friendly store of your own. For Travel Or Fashion: YouTube If you’ve been on the fence about using video to promote your business, mobile usage could put you over the edge — way over the edge. According to YouTube, mobile devices now account for a quarter of its traffic. Combine that with the fact that YouTube is the second most popular search engine, and the result is a search box that can bring a lot of viewers to your content. This approach is a great way for any business where the visual aspect of its offering is the primary selling point to get on mobile phones. For Restaurants: Yelp, OpenTable, Siri Mobile websites can play a key role in attracting diners. But, native apps can be another path to the same goal. For example, Yelp recently released metrics around mobile usage, which now accounts for 40% of its activity. Other Local Businesses: Apple Maps
Despite all the criticism of Apple’s new mapping function, this app will eventually take over the iOS ecosystem. Since iOS users are the most active shoppers in the mobile space, this will become a major factor for businesses that attract a local clientele. – Blair Liu
Research on Mobile Shoppers’ Behaviour Using Smartphones and Tablets – 4th December 2012 Neilson has published some research results about the different behaviour of mobile shoppers using smartphones owners and tablets. The main research data is shown in the graph below.
Neilson’s research found that mobile shoppers like to use their devices for instore activities. In fact, 78 percent of mobile shoppers say they’ve used their smartphone to find a store, and another 63 percent have checked prices online while shopping. Overall, smartphone owners are three times more likely to use their handset for in-store activities, like claiming mobile coupons (39%) or using shopping lists (40%), compared to tablet owners. Tablet owners, on the other hand, prefer to use their devices for online shopping at home. Nearly half of tablet owners bought products using their devices, of whom nine out of ten say they made these purchases while shopping in their homes. Tablet owners are also more likely to use their devices to research products before making purchases (68%) and for reading online reviews (53%). In summary, more tablet research turns into online sales and more smartphone research contributes to off-line sales. – Blair Liu More Details: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/mobile-devices-empowertodays-shoppers-in-store-and-online/