Personalized e-mail marketing

The surge for personalized email marketing has been increasingly noticeable. It is now more common to see email with your name at the top and content that shows that the company has researched and tailored the email to you. Today, people are paying more attention to their email inbox, especially with mobile technology, suggesting that this marketing channel has more and more relevance each time.

Every day, e-mails are becoming more interactive, not using only text, but leveraging on images that use links to another website. The idea is to ask clients to follow an easy pathway that will lead to conversion. Not only can they be used as the initial approach to a potential client, but it can also serve to recover customer that have derailed from the marketing funnel. Based on the article, https://www.business.com/articles/recover-abandoned-carts/ , when a client abandons their shopping cart, a good approach would be to take this as an opportunity and follow up with a personalized email. Citing from the article: “Recent surveys show that 45% of all cart abandonment emails are opened. Additionally, the average abandoned cart email click-through rate is 21%, and the abandoned cart email conversion rate is roughly 10% (although rates vary by industry, device and recovery tactics).”

Combining this with data analytics, it can be used to identify what kinds of products and willingness to pay each individual has, and as a response, provide them with a more ‘adequate’ shopping cart. As a result, the personalized response could potentially quote an assortment of products and prices that could attract the customer again. With the correct optimization, it could significantly help restore recovery rates and overall conversion.

Digital Commercialization of Politics and the Ecommerce of Buying Votes

Out 2020 election has become an incredible playground for digital marketing agencies, once positioned to drive ecommerce, now deploying their sophisticated tools to buy votes. This realization was initially vaulted into the lives of citizens in March 2018, when The New York Times and The Guardian/Observer broke an explosive story that Cambridge Analytica, a British data firm, that had harvested more than 50 million Facebook profiles and used them to engage in psychometric targeting during the 2016 US presidential election. The controversy also generated greater scrutiny of some of the most problematic tech industry practices — including the role of algorithms on social media platforms in spreading false, hateful, and divisive content, and the use of digital micro-targeting techniques for “voter suppression” efforts (Green & Issenberg; 2016; Howard, Woolley, & Calo, 2018).

For decades, politicians have explored ways of enhancing their communication and influence among these voters and this is why extreme importance has been given to these digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn as an extension of the candidate. Furthermore, political digital marketing extends beyond the promotion of candidates, parties, and electoral platforms on the internet, include mobile phones, social networks, graphic advertising, search engine marketing, platforms, communities and any other form of digital media, all offering interactive experiences and total real-time information. The digital strategy deployed by these candidates focuses on 3 main pillars: building trust, utilizing their social networks and closing the advertising gap where the concept of  ‘sell them, without selling’ is applied, creating attractive content for users.

Today, we are facing an election where we have seen unprecedented utilization of these tools and tactics and in a matter of weeks, we will see which candidate will prevail. No matter if you are someone who is into politics or not, it seems we can not escape their reach and influence, truly accelerated in magnitude by the same digital marketing agencies that once pushed commodities into your homes and lives.

Apple's new anti-tracking featuer: what does it mean for advertisers?

On September 16th, 2020, Apple officially released its latest mobile operating system iOS 14, and is approaching an impressive adoption rate of nearly 30% within just five days. While people are excited about some highly visible new features such as home screen customization, fun widgets, and picture-in-picture viewing, some noticed Apple has once again leveled up its commitment to protecting user privacy. One interesting move of such is Apple's decision to not allow apps to collect users' IDFA, the unique Identification for Advertisers device code of your iPhone or iPad, by default. Apps will have to ask for the user's explicit permission before collecting IDFA. Although Apple had originally planned to enforce this new rule in the newly released iOS 14, later Apple said the rule will only come into effect "starting early next year", in order to give app developers more time to make their apps compliant. So, what is IDFA and how will Apple's new anti-tracking feature (and more similar moves expected to be seen in other operating systems or devices) affect advertisers?

What is IDFA?

According to Adjust.com (a mobile marketing tool developer), the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) is a random device identifier assigned by Apple to a user’s device. The IDFA can be used by advertisers to track user data so that they can customize their advertising and deliver more targeted ads. 

So, what data are advertisers tracking using IDFA?

While IDFAs do not contain any personal identifying information (PII) as they only provide aggregated data, they are used to measure and identify user interactions with ad campaigns, installs, and in-app activities. An IDFA is like a cookie tied to the device and allows advertisers to track in cases where a user of a device has clicked on an ad in a browser and then downloads, uses, and interacts with the ads in the app. It is widely used in non-browser apps, which do not support cookies. 

The graph below (credit: appsflyer.com) illustrates how IDFA is used when someone downloads an app and sees in-app advertisements. 

For Android devices, Google offers the equivalent of IDFA which is a Google Play Services ID (GPS ADID). Similarly, users can view their GPS ADID in device settings and they can opt-out of tracking and personalization or reset the ID.

What changes to IDFA were made by Apple?

The most significant change to iOS' privacy policy is that, when a user opens an application for the first time, iOS will remind the user to choose whether IDFA tracking can be enabled or disabled, and a message containing the updated privacy policy will pop up. In addition, Apple will also provide users with new tools to help them understand which data points are being tracked or collected by the applications and what permissions are needed to enable the tracks. If the user disables tracking, the app developer will then no longer be able to track any data via IDFA.

Moreover, iOS also allows users to share their "approximate location", which will limit the use of location-based services. For example, users can opt in to share their approximate location information with a weather app and share more precise location information with a fitness app to track running progress. Apple also updated its application monitoring API SKAdNetowrk.

How will this affect mobile advertising?

According to Digiday, the mobile advertising market is now over $300 billion and almost 30% of that goes to Apple. Given the fact that Apple is known for its more affluent user base across the world, this anti-tracking feature can have a massive impact on mobile advertisers, if users choose to disable IDFA or the new OS automatically has IDFA tracking turned off. However, it should be noted that turning off IDFA doesn't mean apps will not collect any user relevant information, but rather that apps would not be able to feed the data back to advertisers, which means the level of customization accuracy of ads will go down.

IDFA is important to mobile advertisers because it accurately measures user interactions with the advertisements and very few users tend to reset their device ID; at the same time, it is seen as a privacy-friendly way to track user data because it emphasizes user choice. If IDFA is disabled, advertisers will not be able to obtain granular information about users' activities in a given ad campaign, which hurts advertisers' ability to monitor the performance of campaigns and optimize campaign strategies or adjust marketing budgets.

Facebook, for instance, is expected to take a serious hit by Apple's move to protect user privacy and it has claimed that "this feature may severely impact its ad network". Facebook said in a recent public announcement: "Ultimately, despite our best efforts, Apple's updates may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it on iOS 14".

It remains to be seen how advertisers will respond to Apple's increasing emphasis on protecting user privacy and such moves will impact mobile advertising in the longer term. As more users become privacy-minded, how to balance personal privacy protection and empowering the value of advanced analytics is a key challenge for every party in the market.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go...

Online retail has flourished during the pandemic, Global revenue from online sales in the second quarter of 2020 skyrocketed 71% year-over-year, according to data from Salesforce’s Shopping Index. Despite the fact that restaurants, concerts and offices are closed, and there are no occasions to where that new sundress, people are still shopping, and now more than ever.

I sat with the founder of Neuro-Insight - an international innovation and thought leader dedicated to bringing a deeper understanding of human motivation to the forefront - to learn more on the psychology behind recent online purchasing trends.

1. Regaining a sense of identity...

    Fashion for many, is a means of communicating one's individuality, unique aesthetic, and personality. In short, it supports a perceived persona. Without fashion choices, and the act of dressing to communicate something about ourselves, we are not only losing a sense of individuality, but a part of our identity. To fill that void, we browse clothing online and imagine ourselves in such outfits, which ultimately helps us keep up our sense of identity.

2. Finding Control in Uncertainty 

This needs little explanation as we are all feeling deep uncertainty about the future. Ultimately, the process of browsing, choosing, ordering and tracking a delivery, allows for a sense of control in a unruly world, albeit a small sense. 

 

3. Targeted Marketing

Social media use has also increased dramatically, which means we are hit with targeted ads several times a day. We are primed for purchase. And this paired with the above identity crisis and uncontrollable climate, we are susceptible to crafty instagram ad campaigns.

4. Dopamine

Purchasing a new item is a direct dopamine hit. Although short-lasting, it does create a momentary high that keeps us coming back to those open browsers.

Final thoughts? Just be aware of your own purchasing patterns. But hey, hopefully you can where that new cute faux fur coat to the company holiday party next winter :)

Brands to spend $59bn on e-commerce ads this year

Sept 24, 2020 (warc.com)

According to the latest report from WARC Data, brands will spend $59bn on e-commerce advertising to drive online shopping this year. Although the overall advertising is expected to fall 8.1% this year, e-commerce advertising is the bright spot set to grow 18.3% worldwide. Platforms such as Amazon, Tmall, Rakuten, Walmart TikTok will benefit and help e-commerce ad spend grow 30 times faster than overall online ad market.

This trend is consistent with consumers spending an additional $183bn online due to COVID-19 and e-commerce sales are expected to rise by 30% to $2.9trn worldwide. According to the report, reason why brands are spending on targeted advertising on e-commerce is to get closer to the consumer at the point of purchase. James McDonald, Head of Data Content at WARC also notes that e-commerce is in a strong position to capture pre-allocated ad budget to other media channels because of COVID-19 by being able to provide sales data to back ad performance.

You can see the dramatic shift in advertising spend from newspapers and TV that dominated 1980's to TV, search, social media, e-commerce, and online video which dominate in 2020 through this video WARC Global Ad Spend 1980-2020.

Visual Search and the Future of Ecommerce

Visual search provides an interesting opportunity for the retail industry and is only at the beginning of its use. The future of search will be about pictures rather than keywords as Gartner predicts that 30% of searches will be without query this year.

Visual search is on the rise, in particular with Millennials, and can help consumers address questions that are hard to get answered through a text search. “What pair of shoes or accessories go best with my outfit?” or “Where can I find a similar dress?

Customers often have an idea of what they want, but don’t know how to look for it or describe it. This is were visual search comes in.

Besides tech giants like Amazon, Pinterest, and Google, large fashion retailers like Alibaba, Neiman Marcus, ASOS, and Nordstrom have already been finding success with visual search tools and are investing in their own technology. Even brands outside of the clothing industry are starting to explore the area of visual search.

Some examples of how brands are using visual search technology:

• ASOS Style Match allows shoppers to purchase using images
• Ted Baker is using shoppable videos
• Levi’s and Disney experiment with visual search on Snapchat
• IKEA launches a Pinterest-embedded catalogue

More players are expected to enter visual search ecommerce, which will continue to drive innovation in this space.

Pinterest started as an image organization / sharing site nearly 10 years ago and developed into an image-driven discovery / commerce platform thanks to new technology allowing visual search.

 

https://www.bondcap.com/report/itr19/#view/80

Instagram went through a similar transformation over the past 10 years.

https://www.bondcap.com/report/itr19/#view/79

Visual search will further change the search marketing landscape as new, intelligent, visual search technology is incorporated into branded apps and websites as well as improved visual search functionality is being built into platforms such as Pinterest, Bing, and Google.

Is Facial Recognition the End of Freedom?

 

When Facebook rolled out the ability to tag your friends in your photo album, everyone I knew spent hours identifiying every face in their photo albums.  It seemed fun and innocent.  It become even more convenient when Facebook upgraded to automatically identifying and recommend tags.  The recognition has become so good that Facebook will now update you when photos of you are uploaded to the site even without you being tagged (to hopefuly stop your images from being used by a catfish). 

But somewhere along the line it has all started to feel very invasive. Almost anyone's face is now "known" by the internet.  And with the ever increasing amount of facial recognition software making its way into government hands the ethical ramifications are no longer a thought experiment, but are having real life consiquences.  

Amnisty international is looking at the roll European tech companies may have played in providing survalince technologies to those who would violate human right's around the globe.  The chinese government has used survaliance to enforce its lockdowns during the current pandemic.

Given the success of such technologies to control a population, serious consideration needs to be given by companies about their social responsiblity to the larger social implications that their technology can inflict.   The roll out of Chinese investment around the world in similar government surveillance programs is an uneasy development.  Buyers of such technology have appeared to be those looking to control, rather then enhance the lives of its populations. 

Technology companies, and governments need to act now if they wish to have any hope of installing safegaurds to protect human right's around the world. 

Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/eu-surveillance-sales-china-human-rights-abusers/

Is $25,000 Tesla possible?

 Why are electric car expensive comparing to same level gasoline cars? The answer is all in the batteries. Elon Musk is well aware of this and has big plans to evolute how EV batteries are made, in order to make $25,000 Tesla possible. 

 

The cost of EV battery is measured by dollar per kilowatt hour ($/kWh). With technology enhancement, $/kWh has been going down steady: from $1,183/kWh in 2010 to $156/kWh. However, now we have seen a plateau in batteries technology, and the rate of $/kWh cost decrease has dropped from ~20% year over year to ~10% year over year. While the majority of the people starts to accept that, Elon Mush doesn’t. He even used batteries as an example during one interview where he talked about practicing “first principle” – breaking things down to their most basic layer. The batteries are expensive, but he pointed out that the raw materials of batteries are mostly common metals that cost a tiny fraction (<1%) of the batteries price. All he needs is a better way to put the materials together, and that’s what he and his team at Tesla has shown us on this week – reducing $/kWh by 56%.

 

Here is Tesla’s plan on how to accomplish that goal:

Cell Design

As we all know, batteries have positive and negative tabs on the ends. Tesla’s new batteries cell design is tab-less. It is simpler to manufacture, fewer parts (no tabs) required, reducing the length of the path that electrical travels inside the cell up to 5x. The new design enable the battery cell to have 5x the energy, +16% in range and 6x the power than precious design. 

 

Cell Factory

Tesla will upward integrate and manufacture these new batteries themselves. Instead of relying on hundreds of component suppliers, bring the battery manufacturing in-house will save Tesla’s money and lead time. Without putting tabs on batteries, the production line will streamline the steps and create more cost saving. Tesla is panning on creating 100 GWh batteries in 2022 and 3 TWh by 2030. 

 

Anode Materials and Cathode Materials

Tesla has different plan of batteries content for different product in their portfolio. For example, iron based for basic line of vehicle (model 3 and model $25,000); Nickel and manganese based for long range vehicle (Model S, X, Y); and Nickel based for heavy duty vehicle (cyber truck and semi truck). Tesla will substitute one of the raw material – graphite using silicon, which is 20% cheaper and abundant on earth (28% of the earth’s curst). With new materials and process, Tesla can further eliminate a chemical process and achieve more saving and better environmental impact.

 

Cell Vehicle Integration

Lastly, Tesla team got inspiration from airplane: instead of putting fuel tank in wings, it is more space savings to put fuel directly into the wings. Tesla is planning on getting rid of the constructure that holds the batteries and integrate the batteries as part of the car’s body. It will require less part to build the car and safer in the event of side impact.

 

However, the investors don’t seem to be impressed by the new batteries and Tesla share has dropped that day. Elon Musk has always played the long term game and the new batteries are crucial to whatever he/Tesla will be accomplish in the next few years.

Google search engine vs. Yahoo search engine

 There seems a consumer consensus that Google search engine is way better than Yahoo search. This is so true based on my own online search experience.

If you search some keywords that are well defined for the audience, then both search engines probably give you similar enough information to use and digest on first page, although Google seems always providing you more information.

For example, if you type “Amazon”, the key word that is so common with no ambiguities, both give you all the key information related to Amazon, though Google generates ~ 4,130 million news while Yahoo only generates 263 million news.

However, if you type “fixed income”, a special financial term that may be confused to some people, Google would provide you all the specific financial fixed income related news and information in the first page. Interestingly, in the first page of Yahoo search, the fifth item has a title “Income Investing for 2020 – Earn Steady Extra Income’. If you click this item and read the contents, the topic is not directly related to fixed income but simply income related general investment topic. You even don’t find the key words “fixed income” in the contents which really surprised me. Again, Google provides way more information (762 million) than Yahoo does (1.74 million) for these keywords.

You can find more examples to conduct the comparisons but so far, I did not find any cases that Yahoo can beat Google in search efficiency.

The Simple Social Media Playbook

 

Check out this high-level, simple "social media playbook” that can help you get started on your social journey, whether that be for your company or personal brand

Simple tips to establishing and growing your social media presence: 

1. Branding: Before blasting to the world, it is important to understand your brand. Defining ‘who you are’ and ‘why you are here’ will help focus your message and target your audience. In short, what is your brand and what are your brand values? Undergoing a proper brand audit will align the team on your core message, core audience and ultimately direct your unique aesthetics and voice. 

2. Audience: Who cares and why? When it comes to your target customer, you should know things like:

• Age

• Location

• average income

• Typical job title or industry

• Interests

Check out this Hootsuite guide to creating audience/buyer personas.

3. Competitive audit: check out the competition and get to know the landscape! Conduct a competitive analysis

Here is a great template, again from Hootsuite: competitive analysis 

4. Ask Why? Determine your mission statements for each platform:

1. Example: “We will use Twitter for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”

2. Example: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.

5. Establish goals! What are your key marketing and brand needs? Use the below framework or SMART goals to help you effectively plan for success. 

6. Content Calendar: organization is everything! Create a content calendar with themes, dates, and copy. Here are some tips and templates: https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-content-calendar/

6. Social Listening! Stay on top of your social. Read and respond to comments. Listen to your audience, and iterate. Brands like Glossier have built entire new product lines from having listened to their followers and commenters.

Is TikTok intervention warranted?

TikTok is at risk of being discussed to death on forums like this one, but I want to raise the question: Is it fair to give them such a hard time?

As TikTok's ByteDance and Oracle jump through countless hoops to keep the platform alive in the US, diluting ByteDance's competitive advantage and surely incurring high costs on both sides, should we be asking if this is right? I get it. There are arguments to be made against sharing your data with big business. There are arguments to be made against sharing your data with companies that may be required to share their information with the government. But is that what this is about? call me a skeptic, but I don't think so.

ByteDance has made some serious moolah thanks to TikTok's high usage. The problem? America is not making any money off this unicorn! TikTok is growing, they have made a TikTok Creator Fund to support creative voices, which is really just an investment in itself, anticipating ROI through increased usership and advertising revenue. Their advertising opportunities come through sponsored content very similar to SnapChat's highlighted stories and ads between videos. Instagram may have the power of Facebook behind it, but they too share ads the in the same way as TikTok. This is a multi-billion dollar company that pulls $s out of the US and into one of our major rival nations. Politics and macro-economic theories aside, I believe the US just wants to get its hand in that pot!

Given the dollars already committed to make this deal happen, I expect TikTok is here to stay. Get your best Fortnite dance ready and keep on posting.

Alexa, Friend or Foe?

 The majority of consumers (69%) in the US now own at least one smart home device according to a recent study by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) MediaPost.  Specifically for smart speakers such as Alexa or Google Home, 2 in 5 Americans  now own one in their homes (Insider Radio).

I happen to be one such customer, although I've been a reluctant adopter. I received the Echo Dot as a gift and have slowly integrated it into my daily life for basic queries like 'what's the temperature", 'set a timer' or 'what's 250 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit?'.  My boyfriend's daughter talks to Alexa more adeptly and gets a kick out of asking Alexa for jokes, animal noises or even the occasional fart noise.  In general though, anything more complex and she gets tripped up, and we get the 'Sorry, I don't know that' response.

Recently however, Alexa has taken to oversharing or making unprompted suggestions, and frankly unwelcome, suggestions relating to my Amazon shopping habits.   She has spoiled a couple surprise gifts with her announcements of deliveries.  She has also recently been piping up about products that have been delivered through Amazon to see if I'd like to share a review.  Emphatic no thank you!

Apparently Amazon is now taking steps to integrate Alexa even further into our daily lives (Wired).  When Alexa encounters an unfamiliar request, she will now ask for clarification.  At first, this feature will only be applicable to requests relating to smart home devices. Alexa will use algorithms and machine learning to then improve on her ability to execute as expected.   This could be a great benefit to improve Alexa functionality but it also could get super annoying if it's happening too often.  For 2021, the Alexa team are even looking to introduce a 'join my conversation' feature based on tonal cues.  I'm glad to hear it's opt in, as that sounds like the last thing I want is a corporate robot giving me their input randomly to try to influence purchase decisions!

Also included in the list of recent updates was the expansion of Amazon's security network. According to Mashable, Amazon is working to expand Sidewalk, its connected neighborhood program, a low bandwidth, long distance wireless protocol.  According to Mashable 'Many existing Amazon devices will automatically provide bandwidth for Amazon's private network unless owners actively prevent them from doing so.'

To me, despite some of the added convenience of these home devices, the use of existing devices' capabilities on a silent opt out basis is a step too far. This raises even more questions on privacy and on the updates companies can make or information they can gather without you realizing, an issue highlighted last year in relation to the practice smart devices take with recording your conversations (Consumer Watchdog).  I guess I need to be more careful about the fine print in the registration processes!

‘Doubling down’: Inside the 49ers social and digital rush to replace lost in-stadium marketing dollars

Sports teams, including the 49ers, are looking for ways to replace their marketing reach to 70,000 fans in the stadium through digital channels.  In many ways, the coronavirus has simply accelerated trends that were already in motion, and this is no exception.

The pandemic creates an interesting void of more conventional advertising at sporting events which is valued by corporate sponsors, and generated millions of revenue.  With no line of site on when sports will resume in person, CMOs will be focused on brand partnerships through digital channels.  Depending on the relative success, this could become more of a permanent fixture in sports advertising even when we return to normal.  

https://digiday.com/marketing/doubling-down-inside-the-49ers-social-and-digital-rush-to-replace-lost-in-stadium-marketing-dollars/

 What a TikTok ban would mean for advertisers

Last Friday, the US administration announced the ban of TikTok on the grounds of national security. The ban was supposed to go into effect on Sunday but was narrowly averted through a “blessing” by President Trump for a potential deal with Oracle and Walmart. Tiktok’s U.S. operations are not quite out of the crossfire though. For marketers, this means a lot of uncertainty, begging the question: what will a ban of the app mean for the video sharing platform’s advertisement revenue? 

In June, it was expected that the company will hit $500 million ad revenue in the U.S. this year after generating $300 million last year across the entire world. However, when the first executive order was announced this summer, advertisers have already started to pull back from the platform for Q4. 

A lot of marketing experts hypothesize that the impact of the ban will be limited in the short-term, since TikTok already enjoys a large base in the U.S. In the medium to long term, however, users might reduce their time spent on the platform and seek out alternatives. Advertisers for one, have already made contingency plans and are considering other apps to allocate their marketing budgets to. Snapchat, Thriller and Byte for example could be good platforms for brands to reach younger audiences. In any case, the future of Tiktok is uncertain and many questions surrounding its future are left unanswered. 

 The role of VR in the Future of Marketing

There is no such thing as the "normal" anymore. If there is one thing that's clear in these times of a pandemic is that the virus has accelerated the digital transformation on a global scale -- and every sort of brand-consumer interaction that used to happen in the real world now suddenly shifted to the digital realm.

In such a context, the companies who embrace the digitalization process and start establishing a strong presence in the digital world will be the winners in the race for consumer attention. With people spending more time at home and online, companies and brands can't always rely on the in-person touchpoints such as stores, pop-up experiences, or even billboards to capture attention.

The conclusion is, brands need to find new ways to provide unique, experiential touchpoints and strategies that will continue fortifying old connections and establishing new relationships with current and potential consumers. A few companies have already begun tapping into the VR/AR world for such initiatives, but this is only the beginning.

Toms Shoes: Virtual Giving Trip

Toms is known for donating a pair of shoes every time you purchase one. And they turned to the VR headsets to inspire customers to purchase more -- and donate more while shopping as well. During this experience, the audience goes on a virtual trip to Peru under the guidance of the company's founder, and witnesses the joy of the children at a local Peruvian school just at the moment as they are about the receive the shoe donations.

This initiative touches Toms customers on a deeply emotional level, giving them a sneak peek into where their money is really going. This helps the brand create this authentic and caring persona.

The New York Times

The major publication understands how to engage their readers in new ways and tap into new media to keep people excited and focused. The publishing company partnered with Google to send a few sets VR glasses (the Cardboard Set) to a select number of their subscribers to take advantage of the new NYT VR app and watch a number of films, such as Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart for space lovers and The Displaced for those curious about the toll that wars have taken on children's lives.

The campaign was targeted at the most loyal followers of NYT -- just like a reward or insentive for the users' loyalty.

Location-Based Marketing – How companies are looking at new ways to target customers

Location-based marketing (or geotargeted mobile marketing) has been one of the fastest growing areas of advertising as it allows companies to categorize users and tailor content in new ways. It is also one of the most controversial ones in terms of data privacy and data collection. Location-based marketing uses software that infers user activity based on data from a smartphone’s sensors. Most smartphones have internal components such as the accelerometer (tells which direction a user is facing) and magnetometer (drawn to the poles) that record data based on users’ movements. The feedback from the sensors provides valuable “context” on the user’s physical behavior.

This allows marketers to target ads based on users’ location and habits, for example an ad can be targeted to early risers or after-work commuters, instead of building a profile to target a population of a certain age group, gender, etc. Location-based marketing is effective as advertiser just need to know whether a product or service is going to get to the right audience. Each point on the map of a user’s day (visit to the gym, work in a tall office tower, stores visited during lunch break, etc.) helps create a profile, or “audience segment,” that can be used to serve tailored ads. 

However issues about data privacy and sharing of location through apps on the phone has brought some negative publicity and many users are not interested in sharing location data. In fact, only 35% of smartphone users worldwide are willing to share location data to get more personalized advertising. (https://www.emarketer.com/content/location-based-advertising-is-becoming-more-costly). Additionally, new restrictions on collecting location data are driving up costs for advertisers using location-based marketing. 

Overall, location-based marketing sounds like a very effective way to target ads but comes at a cost of consumer privacy, which has been coming more and more of a focus recently and will even more going forward.

Amazon brings its grocery shopping offline

After months of seeing enormous surges in online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Amazon’s net profit even doubling in 2020 compared with the same period last year, from $2.6B to $5.2B (https://www.geekwire.com/2020/amazon-doubles-quarterly-profits-5-2b-crushes-wall-streets-expectations-highly-unusual-quarter/), the e-commerce giant has just opened its first Amazon Fresh grocery store to the public. 

 

In Woodland Hills, California, customers can now buy their Amazon Fresh groceries in person, using a physical shopping cart. It goes without saying though that this is no ordinary shopping cart, and we should expect no less from the company that revolutionized the shopping experience – this is the Amazon Dash Cart, integrating new Alexa features that can help customers to more easily navigate the aisles of the new store, as well as help with their shopping lists (https://blog.aboutamazon.com/shopping/amazon-fresh-now-open-to-everyone-in-woodland-hills-california). On top of the Alexa features, the Dash Cart includes a scale, as well as cameras and sensors, meaning that it is able to calculate the total of your cart as you shop (https://www.engadget.com/amazon-fresh-woodland-hills-la-open-to-public-200248518.html).  

 

Another new addition to Amazon’s physical shopping experience that they are testing out in the new Amazon Go Grocery store in Redmond, WA, is their very first hot food bar, which includes items such as oatmeal and breakfast wraps in the mornings, and sandwiches, pizza, chicken wings, and soups for lunchtime (https://www.geekwire.com/2020/testing-amazon-kitchen-heres-hot-take-tech-giants-first-hot-food-bar-amazon-go-grocery/). For now, this doesn’t seem like anything too revolutionary, but it’s a great addition for customers looking to grab a quick bite while doing their shopping.

 

For now, having the option to do your Amazon grocery shopping without the help of a mouse and a keyboard is quite novel and exciting, but we still have yet to see whether regular Amazon Fresh customers will be inspired to do their weekly grocery shopping in person again. Either way, this will certainly be an interesting area to keep our eyes on. Maybe we will even see some of the traditional grocery retailers adopting some of these automated shopping technologies in the future.

The Devil Wear, Amazon?

In an already stressed retail environment, where the pandemic has made it kept consumers away from entering luxury retailers and 5^th Ave store fronts, has Amazon found its entry point into the luxury market via e-commerce with the launch of their “Amazon Luxury Store”? Can shopping on your phone be a luxury experience? It seems unlikely, but that’s not stopping Amazon’s latest attempt to get high-end brands onboard its platform.

Years ago when Amazon first entered the market, most luxury brands would not have been caught dead on the Amazon platform. For luxury retailers, brand association is the cornerstone for how their target market perceives their brand, however we've seen over the last few years Amazon has increasingly gained respect across a number of different audience segments. The Luxury Store is launching with just Oscar de la Renta, but other brands will likely be joining in the months to come. Actually, browsing the new Luxury Stores won’t be an option for just anyone, though. In line with the luxury ethos, Amazon is introducing some artificial scarcity. Only selected Amazon Prime members in the US will be invited to browse the digital racks, with Amazon presumably targeting affluent customers.

Luxury brands have had to get very creative with marketing tactics in the last few years, particularly luxury popups that have leverage various digital marketing platforms and social media to attract new audiences. By enlisting influencers, hyper targeted social media ads, and a variety of other tactics has allowed these brands to tap new audiences and grow their market share. Amazon and Google both know consumer behavior better than any platform out there and their stickiness with customers has only reached new highs during the pandemic (currently the largest seller of apparel in the US), so I believe it was just a matter of time when luxury brands were going to be faced with accepting Amazon’s offer to join forces.

Ultimately, what trade-offs will brands be are willing to make? Some, certainly, will be interested in courting Amazon’s 100 million Prime customers, especially at a time when the pandemic has stifled the foot traffic necessary to sustain many luxury shops. Additionally, brands will be able to maximize their return on digital marketing efforts by allowing unsold inventory to reach these Prime customers. Oscar de la Renta CEO Alex Bolen told Vogue it just made sense to reach customers where they were. With all of us stuck at home, it will be ultimately up us if we are willing to forego the white glove experience, and the thrill of running around New York City to track down that single piece of luxury item you’ve always wanted and allow ourselves to accept the fact that we are shopping at the same store we plan to purchase duct tape.

Reaching Gen Z: Marketing on TikTok

Despite what Trump's administration may decide to do with TikTok, with over 800 million monthly active users spending an average of 52 minutes per day on the video-sharing platform, TikTok has become the hottest channel for marketers who want to reach the youth population across the world. Celebrities, influencers, publishers as well as big brands from all sectors are now on TikTok. It is truly amazing to see a brand new channel break the boundaries set by the giants such as Google and Facebook in digital advertising, and creates engaging interactions with commercialization potentials.

TikTok in numbers

To see how powerful the TikTok platform has become, here are some recent statistics:

• For several times, the TikTok app was ranked no.1 in both Apple and Google's app stores. The app has been downloaded more than 2 billion times so far.
• 41% of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24, the highest among all major social networks. 
• On average, more than 1 million videos are viewed on a daily basis. 90% of users use the app on a daily basis. Users open TikTop on average 8 times a day and spend 52 minutes on the app per day. The level of stickiness and user engagement is beyond impressive.
•  37% of TikTok users in the US report a household income of more than $100,000 according to MarketingCharts, indicating a lot of room for monetizing the traffic and user base.

Undoubtedly, TikTok has been experiencing a period of exponential growth. While the platform is dragged into the political tensions between the US and China and the Oracle deal hasn't been settled yet, TikTok will continue to grow and reach beyond the youth populations.

What does it mean for marketers?

With a large group of audience and millions of content creators, brands now find TikTok a critical component of their marketing strategies. As most users are in the discover mode when using TikTok, it makes TikTok a great way to drive brand awareness and reach specific user groups. As the platform involves, it will soon include e-commerce and live-streaming features, directly driving transactions. 

In reality, there are mainly three ways brands market on TikTok, and many brands use a combination of the following:

• Brands set up their own accounts and post videos, using it as a channel to directly engage with their followers
• Brands work with TikTok influencers and leverage their follower base
• Brands place advertisements on TikTok, using analytics and targeting techniques provided by the platform

No matter which way marketers choose from the above, one critical aspect to really capture the eyes of Gen Z audience, who tend to have very narrow span of attention, is quality content. Authentic, immersive and cretieve content is seen everywhere on TikTok, and as people spend longer on TikTok it becomes challenging to attract their attention and promote the product or the brand. 

A closer look at content for Gen Z - Chipotle

TikTok has become an important part of Chipotle's marketing campaigns this since 2019. Last Halloween, they started its #boorito challenge on TikTok and advertised it via influencers such as Zach King and Brittany Broski, who are extremely popular among TikTok users. Zach King, for example, has the 2nd highest number of followers no the TikTok platform. 

The #boorito campaign, in which customers wearing spooky costumes get discounts at Chipotle stores, was quite a success. Users posted videos of them showcasing their before and after Halloween costume transformations, edited using TikTok's unique visual effects and filters. Chipotle also created a special soundtrack as the background music for those videos. The prize of the campaign, which was given to the top five posts with the most likes, was free burritos for a year. 

Thanks to the reach of the patterning influencers, the #boorito campaign had more than 3 billion views and millions of likes. The key success factors obviously overlap with why people like TikTok: authentic and creative short-term content, cool and novel visual/sound effects, immersive experience, and easy sharing with friends as well as like-minded strangers. 

You may think, given TikTok's nature and its user demographics, only cool and sexy content can gain popularity, but that's not necessarily true. In China, where TikTok is branded as Douyin, young people are interested in almost everything (not just cool visual tricks). Douyin is being used to pick up a new language, to share life hacks, and even to learn how to negotiate a better salary as a fresh graduate. College students even use live streaming on Douyin to virtually study together online. Douyin also increasingly becomes a hub for e-commerce traffic and more and more people start selling on the platform. 

 

TikTok is changing, so is Gen Z's taste for content. So, the challenge for brands to reach and keep in touch with Gen Z on Tiktok, will always remain a key question for marketers. 

“Desperate for Dollars, Travel Brands Ramp Up Fall Campaigns”

September 18, 2020 (AdAge.com)

Marketers are looking to take advantage of pent-up demand and flexibility of work and school schedules and launch new marketing campaigns aimed for the fall travel season.

According to Kantar – during the week of July 24^th, 74% of consumers were likely to avoid non-essential travel while during the week of April 3^rd it was 87%. Additionally, consumers clicking on paid search ads for travel increased 800% from April to July as they shopped online.

Expedia released their "Stop Motion. Start Traveling" which is a commercial with creative travel scenes carefully choreographed inside of their apartment. Hotels.com in "BC before-COVID" shows Captain Obvious traveling back into time to visit himself before COVID to deliver a message about 2020 such as “there’s no toilet, paper, no hand sanitizer or sports.. oh and trips were canceled” and urges viewers to use free cancellations.

These travel brands are targeting at travelers to be on top of mind when they do decide to book and travel down the road and take the worry away from cancellation fees.

According to Kristin Moody, associate VP at Analytic Partners, there has been a shift in consumers shopping habits of booking direct versus through online travel agencies who have stricter cancellation policies during COVID. Therefore travel brands like Expedia promotes “free cancellation and no change fees” and Hotels.com says free cancellation with “most hotels” on their websites.

This comes after the U.S. Travel Association along with 75 travel brands launched their own travel campaign “Let’s Go There” in early September which encourages consumers to plan a future trip.

 

Recommendation Algorithms: The Case of Netflix

One of the topics that interests me the most is the application of data analytics, particularly machine learning, to marketing. Without a doubt, one of the best applications I have seen and I am sure has a direct impact to increasing sales and benefit the long tail is the use of recommendation algorithms. As per research from McKinsey and Company (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-retailers-can-keep-up-with-consumers#) 35% of Amazon’s sales is driven by recommendation algorithms and 75% of what Netflix users watch is driven from them.

Drawing from past consumption data in addition to similar consumption patterns from other users, companies such as Amazon, Netflix or Instagram have seen a huge spike in sales largely due to significant investments in recommendation algorithms. One particular case that comes to mind is the Netflix Prize, a competition conducted in 2009 by Netflix seeking to find the best collaborative filtering algorithm. The participating team that more accurately predicts user ratings for a film won a prize of $1 million.

Netflix not only uses their algorithms to recommend movie titles that you may like, but even helps them select the preview image that can be seen for every film on your feed, tailoring it to one that you may like. For instance, if you rate and watch food documentaries, in unrelated movies you might see in the preview image contents of food or actors having a meal. Netflix is a leading company in personalized marketing, and has used its recommendation algorithms to also decrease churn rates and increase viewership.

There is a growing demand and investment in data analytics for business and marketing. I believe that in the coming years these algorithms will become even more sophisticated and will have direct effects in increasing click rates and conversions without users even realizing it. I believe that as consumers, we must be aware of such capabilities that companies have and not fall into the trap of overconsumption, binge watching or impulse buying.

The Marketplace Dilema

 In the current climate of Covid, it is clear that the shift of consumer purchasing through e-commerce is accelerating. Many companies are eager to capitalize on the change in consumer buying habits, but the choice between direct-to-consumer and marketplace is not as clear as the choice to increase investment in online channels.  Numerous 'internet native' brands that got their start with a direct-to-consumer model have made the strategic choice to expand to marketplaces like Amazon.    The recent HBS assessment of the evolution of the direct-to consumer marketplace  (https://hbr.org/2020/03/reinventing-the-direct-to-consumer-business-model) demonstrates that companies often require omni-channel strategy to help scale, especially as the online marketplace becomes more crowded.  Also, the lure of the large reach of a marketplace such as Amazon can be tempting. In fact according to a recent survey, more than half of all search starts at Amazon https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-27/more-than-50-of-shoppers-turn-first-to-amazon-in-product-search) But the move to a marketplace is not without its risks.

Medium highlights the case of popular shoe manufacturer Allbirds, who continues to choose the direct-to-consumer approach (https://medium.com/community-commerce/why-direct-to-consumer-brands-are-ditching-marketplaces-b610d573977f).  Many brands worry about the risks of brand degradation through counterfeiting, 3rd party resales, or even Amazon own brand knock-offs. Many larger blue chip brands such as Nike have also struggled with the decision, balancing the attraction of the potential reach given Amazon's community size versus the risks of loosing control of aspects of their branding and potential damage to their brand equity (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-13/nike-will-end-its-pilot-project-selling-products-on-amazon-site).  

However with the rapidly evolving Covid retail environment, despite the brand risks, many companies, particularly in fashion retail are choosing the marketplace channel route (https://www.fashionatingworld.com/new1-2/e-commerce-shift-to-a-marketplace-model-even-as-experts-advise-caution).  This does allow improved flexibility with inventory, that would otherwise be stagnating given sudden slowdown in orders from traditional retail avenues. It also gives flexibility to multiply the audience for a given product, especially if selling through multiple marketplaces. With the growth in marketplace sales, even the number of marketplace options is multiplying.  Only time will tell if this is a Covid fad or if it's here to stay.

 https://www.convinceandconvert.com/convince-and-convert-podcast/the-shocking-roi-of-influencer-marketing/

In my current role we are invested in a company launching a direct to consumer business.  A number of the conversations revolve around the value of digital spend, particularly as it relates to Facebook, Instagram, and Influencers.  With a number of experienced people at the table, I've hear statements such as "the arb in social media is gone" or "facebook is done you won't get a return".  As a less experienced participant, how do you actually know?  

The article above claims that influencer marketing produces a considerable ROI.  It is not clear to me whether or not the 'golden' days or social media advertising are over with more business bidding up the costs relative to the impact on revenue.  

Material Bank: The Plan to Digitize Physical Material

Material Bank is a platform that acts as a vast resource library for the physical materials used by the Architect and Design community.  Traditionally, each firm has maintained a physical library of samples from hundreds of suppliers with thousands of SKUs for items ranging from carpet to ceiling lamps and everything in between. It’s an industry of physical material, and as such has been slow to build a digital user experience that coincides with the expectations of the modern designer popularized in large part to Amazon.

It’s in this environment that Adam Sandow, the founder and CEO of Material Bank, has found a way to transform the industry.

 “We all used to book airline travel through an agent, and then the airlines offered websites,” said Sandow. “We thought ‘this is great! I can just go to AA.com or Delta.com to book my flights.’ Until we wanted to price shop. Then you had to search four or five different websites and write down all the prices and by the time you found the price you wanted, it may be gone.” -source TechCrunch

Beyond the convince of being able to coordinate the arrival of a designers selection in the same shipment, the site offers a power database for the industry to search.  In no other way has the ability to search for a “Red+Geometric+Upholstery+Meets California Flame Requirements” been possible across so many vendors.  

The shakeup in the industry with designers being able to search so easily across such a wide array of suppliers will mean that suppliers will have to think not only of the designs of their product, but how customers will search for them on this new platform.  Categories which were dominated by only 2 or 3 main players that were able to secure shelf space in a designers library, will find they are competing against hundreds of brands.  Being able to account for the way designers are searching on the platform, and standing out amongst the crowd will be key to finding success in the digital space for these physical material suppliers.

Start using Zillow for your next house hunting

I have moved from state to state and city to city to sell my house and look for another one due to job changes and relocation several times.

For the house hunting, traditionally, we relied on realtors in certain areas to send us the new house listings via email so that we can review and decide which house to visit. There are also some nice houses that sale by owner that we would like to buy but usually realtors do not hold such type of information as they don’t have incentive to do so. we can go to certain website such as www.forsalebyowner.com but usually the listings in those type of websites are not very comprehensive.

Such traditional way for house hunting is not efficient as realtors usually only focus on his/her area, limiting your search scope.   

With growing of digital market, Zillow (www.zillow.com) becomes more and more popular for house hunting.

Several improvements from Zillow website that I observed during the recent years:

-          More and more people and real estate firms use Zillow. The house listings that my realtor sent to me almost all appeared in Zillow at the same time.

-          Sale by Owner houses are more popular now in Zillow.

-          For the house listed, you can see how many times the house were reviewed, how many people has saved the house for future reference, and how many days the house are on Zillow.

-          Open house information is provided.

-          House selling history is also nicely populated.

Some potential improvement that I can think about:

-          House value estimation. In some areas, the listing house prices are way above the Zillow estimated prices. This is either due to house trend change in the local market or due to the inaccurate estimation of the local market.

-          Tax information. Sometimes the tax information is not accurate.

-          Location map. Sometimes the map locator is not accurate or may appear double times on the map.

-          I recently found that the Zillow App in my iPhone shows the open house time in West Coast time in front page, but the time appeared in inside contents has an eastern time zone.

Despite such shortcomings, Zillow becomes a very popular, powerful, and market leading tool for house hunting.

The trend seems becoming, instead of one-way communication that realtor inform you for the potential houses, you are also doing your homework to find the potential house in Zillow and inform your realtors. Such two-way communication significantly improved the housing hunting experience and efficiency and thanks for the digital market innovation.

The Algorithm and You

 I have been thinking about how big an impact Google’s algorithm changes can have on small businesses since reading Ch. 7 The Search Economy in The Search by John Battelle. I wondered, how frequently the algorithm is updated? How big an impact is this typically to small businesses? Big businesses?

The first source of information I found was The Moz’s Google Algorithm Update tracker (a little tongue in cheek, Moz also puts out a Weather Report which visualizes the current turbulence in Google’s algorithm). In 2020 there have been 4 confirmed algorithm changes, and 4 additional unconfirmed changes. Already I’m surprised! Unconfirmed changes? Turns out that there are changes Google makes with the intent of updating the algorithm, and changes Google makes that have an affect on the algorithm, without their explicit intent or acknowledgement. These changes reportedly range from small bug fixes to major updates to the core of the algorithm.

Turns out Google’s algorithm is subject to such frequent volatility that whole businesses have popped up just to track it! Now imagine you are Neil Moncrief, without any experience in SEO, SEM, or the like – just trying to sell your big shoes online. Daunting and defeated are the first words that come to my mind.

Not all of the Google algorithm trackers always agree. For instance, SEJ only cites 3 algorithm changes in 2020. Interestingly, Google provided feedback to the world on what they touched in their most recent confirmed change. Features that will send you to the top of the list (or bottom of the pile) these days include asset load time, input delays, and layout shifts.

Small businesses and savvy digital marketers alike rely on some level of SEO to drive organic growth. Finding a trustworthy set of tools and trackers to react quickly to Google’s updates is critically important (if you figure out how to be proactive, call me, let’s start a business).