Chart of the Day: How the importance of mobile search varies by sector
It's often said that we're now well past the mobile tipping point where mobile accounts for more than half of site visits and searches. Yet this average masks a wide variation across sectors. For example, in B2B search is still dominated by desktop rather than mobile. At Smart Insights we see just 15% of our 500,000+ new organic visits are mobile.
This recently published research from Hitwise from the US and UK shows the difference in the percentage of mobile search by B2C industry sectors.
Mobile search share by industry: United States
Mobile search share by industry: United Kingdom
The main sectors where desktop is still relatively important are banking,…
Use our infographic as a visual checklist for planning digital transformation across your entire organisation
Digital transformation is an incredibly complex undertaking, particularly in larger organisations. But given modern consumers' propensity to demand more from brands, it is not optional. Businesses have to become more adaptive and quicker to utilise the latest technology to improve the experience of their customers. If they don't then they'll rapidly find themselves disrupted by more agile competitors since there are so many sophisticated multichannel marketing techniques required today.
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Too often companies recognise these trends but fail to transform successfully. They start a digital transformation process because they feel like they should, but do not integrate it across departments. Worse, they often focus on attempting to use new digital tactics whilst failing to actually develop a cohesive digital strategy.
This leaves a mishmash…
Marketing Automation was one of the top trends of 2016, here is how to use it in 2017
Anyone who has run an online business, even for a short time, knows that digital marketing offers a wide range of possibilities. A survey of marketers by Regalix tells us that website and email are the most effective channel of online communication. For every retailer email is the primary tool for bolstering sales, however sending generic newsletter campaigns tends to be less and less appealing to subscribers. FreshMail’s research shows that highly personalized campaigns achieve better results and that’s our subject here.
It’s important to get to know the real needs of your customers and to send interesting, engaging content based on advanced personalization and optimization of email marketing campaigns. The potential of Email Marketing Automation (EMA) helps marketers send effective messages suited to the needs of subscribers in a defined contact or…
Instagram’s algorithm update and why it’s good news for marketers
Most businesses are on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but now need to be concerned with the new power player, Instagram. Instagram is one of the fastest growing social channels, it was recently reported that it now has 700 million active users per month and sees 95 million photos uploaded every day.
With this ongoing increase in popularity of Instagram, even businesses who haven't traditionally used Instagram like business-to-business companies should consider it for engagement. At Smart Insights we have seen good organic sharing of our infographics and industry trends on Instagram via a smartinsights hashtag, so we've decided to 'take the plunge' and I've recently set up a Smart Insights Instagram account - follow us to learn and be inspired by all things digital marketing.
In 2016 Instagram announced a major algorithm update which is still important to success. The update took many…
Chart of the Day: What are the most popular automated emails?
Marketing automation is a great way to make email marketing more effective and the email marketer more efficient. This week's chart, that is displaying 2016 and 2017 data, is asking, "Do you send out automated emails based on the following triggers or behaviour?"
The most used trigger, "Subscription or sign-up to website" is at 44%, however, it's down by 2% compared to 2016. The trigger with the highest growth is the "Subscription due for renewal" which has grown to 18%. What's interesting is that 7 triggers were more used in 2016 and 3 in 2017.
So it's fair to say that more than half of these email marketers either don't have these triggers at all or they have to do them manually. I have done manual versions of all of these triggers over the years and it's fair to say that they…
Our round-up of this year's best seaside SEO conference
My trip to BrightonSEO this year was my first (and long overdue) time attending the conference and I can say with 100% confidence that it was worth the time and expense. Not only was there an awful lot of great lessons and insight from the conference but I was lucky enough to be in Brighton during the warmest weekend of the year so far!
One of the main motivations for attending BrightonSEO was my determination to stay up to date with the latest trends and developments. Although I am no longer primarily responsible for SEO in my current role at PepsiCo, being aware of how search is evolving and where it’s likely to go is still an important consideration, as I believe it will be for all types of business and brands in the coming years as I’ll highlight in the sections that…
AI isn't going to take your job. It's going to make you better at it.
When Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1996, it was a testament to the incredible number crunching power of a computer. Deep Blue was capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second, and no one since built a more powerful chess computer. That's right - even though it was built in 1996, it's still the most powerful chess computer ever built. Can you think of any other type of computer for which processing power peaked in 1996? No, I didn't think so.
So why has no one ever built a more powerful chess computer? Because advances in AI mean you simply don't need that hardware anymore. Today it's possible to get your old laptop to beat the best chess player in the world by installing some chess software, and even though your rusty old machine is only…
Chart of the day: Research by Advertising Association and Warc finds that digital dominates UK advertising spend
Magazine advertising continued to decrease, whilst digital magazine advertising is expected to grow. Regional newspapers and Direct Mail see the biggest decreases, whilst digital formats are expected to continue their recent growht.
Some key highlights of the research include:
Ad spend in the UK grew to £5.8bn, representing 3.9% rise year-on-year
Overall for 2016 UK ad spend grew 3.7%, reaching a total of £21.4bn, this is also the seventh year of continued growth
Digital ad spend is up 13.4% to £10.3bn for 2016. 45.4% to £3.9bn. The report predicts mobile advertising spend will slow over the coming years (2017: +30.4% and 2018: +20.8%) as the current boom dies down.
Mobile accounted for 45.4% of that digital ad spend, meaning £3.9bn spent, however, the report predicts that mobile advertising…
Google's similar audiences feature is now out of beta and available for Search Ads and Google Shopping Ads
Similar audiences is a nifty idea which lets you target your ads not just at the people you know are interested in your products or services, but also at people who share the same characteristics as those who've shown an interest.
So how does it work? Similar audiences for display works by matching the interests of people who've visited your site to people with the same interests, but who haven't visited your site. In theory, these should be the people most interested in your products. But as of this week, the new matched audiences feature also works to match with people based on their search history. The easiest way to explain this is with an example. If you had an online store selling gardening tools, you could set up ads to target people interested…
Launching a brand 'Snapchat Takeover'
Snapchat now has over 130 million daily active users and is growing rapidly. Snapchat is popular with users of 20s and under, so potentially, it's a great way to reach younger consumers as it's offering grows more mature. Top influencers on Snapchat are able to get 300,000-400,000 views on a post on their story.
What is a Snapchat takeover?
A Snapchat takeover allows a brand to reach a large larger audience than would otherwise be possible. It works by a brand letting a popular 'Snapchatter' or other social media influencer/celebrity take over their branded Snapchat for a day or just a few hours. During this time the
During this time, the influencer directs their followers to watch their takeover on the Brand's Snapchat, thus referring a large volume of traffic. It's a novel tactic and has proven effective for the big name brands that have tried it, like McDonalds, Disney…
