10 interesting digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week
Royal Baby news boom
Experian Hitwise looked at the changes in online search patterns caused by the Royal Baby news on Monday.
Their data shows a huge jump in visits to news and media websites following the announcement as people heard about the news and logged on to read more.
- On Monday 22nd July the UK made 94 million visits to the news and media category – the biggest day for online news in 2013. (For context average daily visits is 64 million so far for 2013).
- Visits to the news and media category were up by 22% on Monday compared to the previous Monday.
- Tabloids received twice as much traffic as broadsheet websites. However, broadsheets experienced greater growth in visits 17% growth (broadsheets) vs 14% growth (tabloids).
- Biggest recipients of traffic overall were BBC News, Daily Mail and Sky News in that order.
- Biggest broadsheet recipient of traffic was the Guardian.
- Visits to Baby Product Retailers (Mothercare, Kiddicare etc) increased by 11% in a day (comparing Monday with Sunday).
- when comparing these stats to other events we can see that the Diamond Jubilee drove 57 million visits to news and media sites, and traffic around the Boston bombings was 85 million.
James Murray, Digital Insight Manager for Experian Marketing Services commented: “Tabloid news sites usually outperform the broadsheets in terms of total visits and this proved to be the case yesterday. However, broadsheets punched above their weight on Monday in terms of visit growth”.
Here’s a list of the top 20 news and media websites as ranked by their visits share of UK Internet visits on Monday 22 July. The percentages represent the growth of visits each website has seen since last Monday 15 July.
Global ad market growth and print decline
Nielsen’s latest data on the global ad market looking at the growth and share by media type:
- Display internet up 26.3% globally, up 10.4% in Europe. This accounts for 4.4% of global ad spend.
- Television remained the dominant media type in terms of advertising investment in the first quarter of 2013 with a 59 percent share of media spend share and 3.5 percent growth globally.
- TV advertising was not immune to the economic problems in Europe in Q1, leading to a 2.9 percent decrease in this region.
- Display Internet advertising, though measured in a smaller subset of countries, grew a significant 26.3 percent for the first quarter. Display internet ad growth was particularly impressive in the Asia-Pacific (33.2%) and Latin America (48.2%). Internet even bucked the trend in Europe, boasting growth of 10.4 percent.
- Following Display Internet, Outdoor experienced the largest percent increase in ad spending – up 4.3 percent to a 3.3 percent media spend share.
- Decreases in print advertising continued slowly, as both spending in magazines and newspapers both declined in the first quarter (-2.8% and -4.7%, respectively). Newspaper ad spend decreased in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, while magazine ad spending decreased in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa, showing that print advertising is declining around the globe.
- Cinema experienced a 5.8 percent decrease, holding a 0.3 percent media spend share.
Facebook newsfeed ads for the win
Adobe has released insights examining the performance of various Facebook ad placements and ad types from April to June 2013, based on aggregate customer data from Adobe Media Optimizer. The research represents more than 150 billion ad impressions across more than 50 advertisers worldwide.
Key findings include:
- The click-through rate (CTR) on newsfeed ads shown on desktops was more than 14 times greater than that of standard right-hand-side (RHS) ads, with comparable cost per clicks (CPCs).
- The performance of newsfeed ads on mobile devices was even better, with a CTR 28 times that of RHS ads, and CPCs 42% lower.
- The daily impression frequency for newsfeed ads was considerably lower than RHS ads. For desktop newsfeed ads by 62%, and mobile newsfeed ads by 66%.
- And therefore, the CTR advantage of newsfeeds ads over RHS ads became five times and eight times greater on desktop and mobile, respectively.
Paying for ad free Facebook?
Ahead of Facebook’s positive Q2 results, Twitter’s Biz Stone has suggested Facebook could earn at least $12bn per year by offering users the option of signing up for an ads-free experience at a cost of $10 per month.
This is three times more revenues than that made from advertising last year ($4.3bn). Stone based this on a minimum of 10% of Facebook’s 1.1bn user base ‘buying in’ to the option.
Would users really be willing to pay for this and if so, how much would they consider to be reasonable? Greenlight conducted a modest survey of 500 people globally to gauge just how much they would be prepared to pay not to see ads when using Facebook.
The data from Greenlight’s Search & Social Survey, showed:
- 15% of users would be prepared to pay Facebook to see no ads
- 8%, indicating they would be willing to spend $5 right up to $10 and even over, per month.
Andreas Pouros, CEO of Greenlight says:
Facebook may need to pace itself a little less aggressively when it comes to cashing in on its advertising sweet spot.
..the challenge faced by Facebook is ‘reinventing’ advertising so people don’t feel they are being bombarded by ads. With the very recent addition of a video service to its photo-sharing app Instagram, video ads could perhaps be the next step, and some are in fact already betting on it.
Facebook hashtags have a slow start
A study by Simply Measured found that only 20% of Facebook posts from the Interbrand 100 use hashtags.
Brands have not embraced Facebook hashtags, launched June 2013 to the same extent as Twitter and Instagram hashtags, but this may be due to the busier and larger interface of Facebook making them less important for discovery.
Social logging in – G+ making some ground, but Facebook out in front
Gigya analysed which networks users log in with when they use social login, across Gigya’s client base. The data showed that, while Facebook is still largely the dominant identity provider, Google/Google+ has made consider gains.
You can see how this differs between sectors. With ecommerce sites much more likely to use Facebook graph than any other log in.
Sharing data reveals that Facebook again is the largest force but Twitter and Pinterest have become quite prevalent sharing destinations as well. In fact, in ecommerce, Pinterest actually receives more shares than Facebook.
It could be argued that a Facebook share is worth more than a pin, but obviously a lot of the value of a share depends on influence of the user.
Retail search increasing, with DIY and Gardening growing fastest
The BRC Google Online Retail Monitor Q2 2013 report reveals that:
- Retail searches on tablets are up 132%.
- Growth of retail searches on smartphone devices is up 66%.
- Total search volumes from UK consumers searching overseas retailers increased by 51% in Q2 compared with the previous year.
- Total search volumes grew fastest for DIY & Gardening, up 32% year-on-year.
- DIY & Gardening also had the highest growth in search volumes on tablets and smartphones, up by 170% and 81% year-on-year, respectively.
- Growth in search volumes on tablets and smartphones were at their highest on the weekend before the Wimbledon Championships.
Adam Stewart, Marketing Director at Rakuten’s Play.com, commented:
More people than ever are using tablets to discover and buy new items, and social networks to gain and share recommendations. In the past year, we have seen a 100% increase in shoppers using tablet and mobile devices to visit Rakuten’s Play.com and this now accounts for around 30% of all traffic. As the discovery shopping trend grows, social is playing an increasingly important role in retailers’ multi-channel strategies.
Mobile Ticketing Users to Approach 1bn by 2018
According to a new report from Juniper Research.
51% of agencies say Google+ has no impact on search campaigns
The use of G+ was explored in the new Econsultancy/NetBooster UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2013.
Almost two-thirds (63%) of client-side respondents stated that they don’t know if Google+ is having an impact on their search campaigns, compared to just 28% of agency respondents.
What impact is Google+ having on your/your clients’ search campaigns?
Half of Brits take their tablet on holiday – pool-side thieves a concern
A note of levity to end on.
Lekiosk surveyed 2,000 British tablet owner and found the following.
Half of British tablet-owners now take their devices on holiday with thembut fears that tablets are irresistible targets for sea- and pool-side thieves
- Over a third (36%) admitted that they protected their valuables while on holiday by watching them ‘constantly’.
- One in three (29%) also admitted to taking the precaution of hiding their valuables under clothes or in shoes.
- Fewer than 1 in 10 Brits take out gadget insurance with a view to claiming compensation in the event that hardware gets lost or damaged in the course of a holiday.
