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Internet Ad Revenues up 14% and Mobile up 95%

Internet Ad Revenues up 14% and Mobile up 95%

ad revenue moneyAccording to the Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Internet Advertising Revenue Report, internet advertising revenues were up by 14% in the first six months of 2012 to $17 billion. It’s hard to believe that when the IAB began tracking internet advertising revenue back in 1996,the first half-year revenue recorded was $82 million.

At the same time, mobile advertising nearly doubled over the prior year to $1.2 billion during the first half of 2012. The online advertising revenue data in the report comes from web sites, commercial online services, free email providers, and all other companies selling online advertising, and it’s considered one of the most accurate measurements of interactive advertising revenues.

Additional highlights from the report include:

  • Digital video commercials (a component of display-related advertising in the IAB report) increased by 18% year-over-year during the first six months of 2012 and brought in $1 billion in revenue.
  • Search ad revenues for the first half of 2012 increased by 19% and brought in $8.1 billion in revenue. That equates to 48% of all 2012 half-year internet ad revenues.
  • Display-related advertising revenues during the first half of 2012 increased by 4% to $55.6 billion. That’s 33% of all 2012 half-year internet ad revenues.
  • Retail made up the largest category of internet ad spending during the first six months of 2012 and claimed 20% of the total revenues at $3.4 billion. The automotive category claimed 13% of total revenues at $2.2 billion.
  • Performance-based ad pricing revenues rose by 19% to $11.5 billion in the first six months of 2012 (67% of all revenues). Impression-based ad pricing revenues increased by 11% to $5.2 billion (31% of all revenues), but hybrid ad pricing revenue dropped by 60% to $368 million (2% of all revenues).

 You can see the specific ad revenue breakdown during the first six months of 2012 for each ad category below:

  1. Search = 48%
  2. Display Related= 33%
    • Banner Ads = 21%
    • Digital Video Commercials = 6%
    • Rich Media = 3%
    • Sponsorship = 2%
  3. Mobile = 7%
  4. Classifieds = 7%
  5. Referrals/Lead Generation = 5%
  6. E-mail = 0%

As you might already know, but it’s always good to see the actual data, search advertising and display advertising still dominate internet advertising but mobile represents a world that’s full of opportunities, which advertisers are just starting to tap into. Furthermore, email has become the forgotten child who deserves more attention, don’t you think?

Image: Leonardini

Capturing the Cognitive Flow of User Engagement

The Internet is technically just an infinite spider web of computer connections, and the laptops, smartphones, and tablets we use to access this massive web are merely a complex weave of mechanical bits, pieces, and wires. While the Internet is a playground for complex machinery, this playground and these machines are orchestrated by live humans. And humans are, and always will be, driven by the principals of psychology.

Because psychological principles drive human behavior, the design of user-centered web applications is the surest route to the success of your corporate website. It all centers upon user engagement.

According to research scientists at Yahoo! and Microsoft, and other academic experts, user engagement can be defined as “…the quality of the user experience that emphasizes  the positive aspects of the interaction, and in particular the phenomena associated with being captivated by technology.”[1]

…being captivated by technology…

How can one captivate another with technology? While there are several elements to user engagement, the classic psychological concept of flow is a primary factor. [2]

Flow is defined as a psychological state in which the Internet user feels motivated, efficient, and happy. When in this state, an Internet user will become completely immersed in their activity, enjoying the absence of irrelevant  thoughts and perceptions. The concept of flow is broken into a cluster of factors:

  • Clear goals: Most likely the user will have clear goals when they are surfing the web. Is your website topic relevant to user expectations?
  • Immediate feedback: While you cannot control the speed of the user’s connection, you can control the efficiency of your navigation.
  • Personal skills well-suited to the challenge: Know your audience and be aware of what will motivate them to delve deeper into your website.
  • Merger of action and awareness & Concentration on the task at hand: Be sure to remove any unnecessary text or aesthetic distractions from each page of your website.
  • A sense of personal control: Once again this goes back to navigation; the user wants to feel in control of their navigation. So be sure to clean up any broken links and streamline your navigation system.
  • A loss of self-consciousness: This can somewhat circuitously be applied to any privacy concerns of the user.  They are more likely to feel relaxed and engaged if concerns of privacy are far from their mind. Be sure to display a privacy/security policy and any associated badges you may have.
  • An altered sense of time: If you meet all elements of a user-centric site, your visitors will be so immersed they will lose track of time – this is a crucial goal of flow.
  • Experience which becomes autotelic: This means internal curiosity – Incorporate interesting elements such as a resource page or share interesting and relevant research to satisfy the intrinsic curiosity of your users.

In summary, when designing your website, be sure that nothing is inhibiting or blocking the potential for user-flow. For those corporations in the fashion industry, flow is especially important, but it is important in other industries as well. [3]  Regardless of your industry, user-engagement is a universal staple of website design so make sure to cover all of your bases.

1 Towards a science of user engagement: Attfield, S., Kazai, G., Lalmas, M., Piwowarski, B. http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/8642/

2 The psychology of optimal experience: Csikszentmihalyi

3 Bringing virtual reality for commercial web sites: Bhatt, G. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581903001344

Popup Into Shareholder Safety & Trust

As a leading UK retailer, Marks and Spencer knows how to protect their customers. Recently they have included a popup that warns shareholders about scams. Ordinarily, many users consider a popup to be a nuisance, but this particular popup is effective in several ways.

  • First, it’s strategically located in the center of the screen where website visitors are compelled to read its contents. Typically, important information such as this is seen in the sidebar or in the main content, where it’s rarely viewed by visitors.
  • Second, it may discourage potential scammers from targeting their shareholders.
  • Most importantly, it improves trust in Marks and Spencer. When visitors read the conveniently brief message, they become aware that Marks and Spencer is attentive to the security of the confidential information of their shareholders.

This popup is an example of a simple way to effectively improve security while also gaining consumer loyalty and trust.

See it in action

Getting People Talking

The term ‘social networking’ is so ingrained in our daily life that it’s easy to forget why it started out that way. Of course, social networks don’t deliver tangible products or services, rather they allow you to socialise with others on a level that wasn’t possible beforehand. These may well be people you know, but they could just as well be people you’ve never met: perhaps they’re just people you’d like to know.

The reason social networks are so successful are that they bring people with common interests together and get them talking which, if you’re trying to interest people in your corporate site, is exactly what you need. Trading information allows people to become better informed about your opportunities and you about theirs. One of the finest ways of doing this is by creating your own social network online: a forum.

Questions and Answers

Whichever side of the table we’ve been on, we have all been through that interview where the applicant isn’t very clued up on the role. This is particularly common for difficult technical positions and, really, it’s understandable: the fine details of a role are what you learn on the job. Forums can be fantastic ways of allowing applicants or even recruits to talk with each other or current employees about the role and to help themselves prepare for that big interview or the big first day.

Letting Networkers Network

Using a homegrown forum allows new or potential recruits to talk to and find other people who could well be useful to your business in the future. Whether interviewees get the job or not is not important – connections are useful inside and outside of your firm. If you think about the number of people you’ve met at interviews alone, you’d be amazed at the expertise available at your fingertips: a forum can do that on a huge scale.

Innovation in Moderation

It’s true that forums need to be closely moderated and that anything inappropriate should be removed, but it can also be interesting to see what potential applicants have to say about a role online. Beware – candidates will talk much more openly on a forum than in an interview, but a forum could even be a useful pre-interview tool for seeing who does and who doesn’t have the right online communication skills.

A good, well moderated and active forum can be an invaluable tool for a recruiter. It can draw in applicants or introduce recruits to one another and can act as a useful SEO tool.  If  you’re still unconvinced, take a look at sites like thestudentroom.co.uk to see just how useful the right forum can be.

Brand Digital and Social Campaigns Are Not Aligned with Consumer Online and Mobile Purchasing

holiday sale shoppingRetail brands are ramping up their marketing efforts as the 2012 holiday shopping season approaches, but new research from Yesmail Interactive reveals that brand digital and social marketing campaigns do not align with consumer online and mobile purchasing preferences and patterns. That could mean brands are missing significant opportunities to connect holiday campaigns to consumers and to meet end-of-year sales goals.

Yesmail Interactive surveyed more than 500 consumers and analyzed their shopping preferences against marketing campaigns from the following companies: Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, Dell, Game Stp, HH Gregg, JC Penney, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Rue LaLa, Sears, Sprint, T-Mobile, Toys ‘r Us, Verizon, Walmart, and Williams Sonoma.

While 7 out of 10 survey respondents indicated that they’ll spend the same amount or more during the 2012 holiday shopping season as they did during the same time in 2011, the marketing campaigns of leading brands are missing opportunities to capitalize on how and why consumers use email and social channels for shopping activities.

The following findings show that marketers are not meeting consumer shopping trends in mobile and online environments, and are missing opportunities as a result of this misalignment:

Mobile, Social, and Email Promotions

  • 80% of online shoppers and 71% of in-store (offline) shoppers claim that email promotions (discounts, free shipping, etc.) influence their purchase decisions.
  • 62% of survey respondents have used a mobile device to compare web prices to in-store prices while shopping in a brick-and-mortar store.
  • More than 41% of mobile device owners have made an online or offline purchase as a direct result of a promotional email message that they viewed on their device. However, only two-thirds of those email messages linked to brand web pages that were mobile-optimized.
  • Social media promotions drove 34% of shoppers to make a purchase, but only 8% of Facebook and 4% of Twitter campaigns focused on discounts, free shipping, and other money-saving promotions.

Timing

  • Nearly 80% of in-store shoppers prefer to make purchases on the weekend. Only 31% of online shoppers prefer to make purchases on the weekends, but nearly 50% of online shoppers prefer to make purchases on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
  • Nearly 40% of survey respondents preferred to make purchases between 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., but only 5% of email campaigns sent by brands were sent during that time period.
  • Nearly 60% of survey respondents preferred to interact with brands on social media sites between 6:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m., but more than 60% of social media campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are launched between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Central Time.

The survey also found that 20% of consumers plan to begin holiday shopping at least three months before the holidays begin. That means retailers should already be running 2012 holiday marketing campaigns. Is your brand leveraging the opportunities identified in this survey? Simple modifications to your campaigns could have a significant effect on their success based on the findings from this survey.

Image: Jay Lopez

Nearly 1 in 5 U.K. Mobile Shoppers Have Made Mobile Purchases

iphone branded appsIt is predicted that by the end of 2015, more than half of the population in the United Kingdom will access the mobile internet. That’s according to a study by eMarketer, which also reports that 18% of the U.K. smartphone user population have purchased goods or services using their mobile devices. In other words, brands need to have a plan in place to connect with mobile shoppers in the U.K., and brands need to make it easy for them to make purchases from their smartphones and tablets.

According to comScore, purchasing goods and services using a smartphone ranked as the second most mentioned activity performed by U.K. smartphone users in a July 2012 study (18%). Coming in first was finding store locations (24%). 16% of survey respondents had compared product prices, researched product features, and made shopping lists using their smartphones. Finding coupons or deals was mentioned by 15% of U.K. smartphone users, and 14% had checked product availability using their smartphones. Interestingly, eMarketer reports that in August 2011, making purchases using smartphones didn’t make it into the top 10 mobile activities for U.K. smartphone owners.

As you develop your brand’s mobile presence, keep the following in mind:

  • The U.K. mobile shopper audience still skews male (55%).
  • The  U.K. mobile shopper audience skews middle income (more than half of mobile shoppers reported incomes between $24,193 and $72,850).
  • Over half of mobile shoppers in the U.K. are between the ages of 25-44 (29% between 25-34 and 23% between 35-44) with another 19% falling in the 18-24 age bracket.
  • Nearly 50% of mobile purchases cost between $33 and $161.

Now is the time to start researching your brand’s mobile audience to gain a better understanding of how you can offer mobile brand experiences that turn into mobile brand purchases. The move toward m-commerce from e-commerce isn’t going to slow down, and your brand needs to be mobile sooner rather than later.

Image: Sean MacEntee