Millennials hail cord-cutting, but still indulge in linear TV outside the home

We know by now that younger generations are abandoning traditional TV, opening their wallets instead to over-the-top (OTT) streaming services without a second thought. But a recent report from Nielsen reveals that millennials do indeed partake in their share of entertainment-based linear TV – it just happens to occur outside their living rooms.

And what’s more: linear TV ads served out-of-home are shown to narrow the gap between passive observation and actionable engagement.

Women and millennials driving OOH TV. The average age for OOH entertainment viewership is 37 years old, with females accounting for 55% of the audience, according to the report. Moreover, viewers reported an average income of $55,000, and at least 42% said they have a college or graduate degree.

In addition to viewers leaning toward the millennial demographic, more than one-third of respondents across adults surveyed reported watching OOH entertainment programming several times a week.

If you air it, they will come. From gyms and bars to hotel rooms and friends’ homes, millennial viewers are getting their fix of traditional programming and live broadcasts wherever they can.

An overwhelming majority of viewers surveyed said they prefer the comfort of their friends’ houses, where viewing parties gather for the launch of season premieres, annual award shows, sports games, and even political broadcasts. For sports games in particular, audiences are drawn to – surprise! – bars and restaurants to deliver live broadcasts in a lively social atmosphere.

But even outside what can be considered traditional gathering places for viewing linear TV outside the home, audiences are also consuming TV in gyms, airports, and even in the workplace – an indication that entertainment programming provides advertisers with a unique avenue to reach millennials on-the-go.

A driving force for advertisers. Out-of-home viewing environments create a perfect recipe for social interaction, where even amplified engagement with linear TV advertising becomes a byproduct.

Nearly 60% of survey respondents who watched OOH TV in the last week said they talked about the brands they saw in TV ads viewed outside the home, and around half went so far as to research the brands online. More than 40% took direct action and purchased the product either online or in-store.

Why we should care. As a digital generation, millennials are much less likely to invest in linear programming in their own homes, but are shown to supplement with out-of-home viewing – particularly in the context of a social environment. The community interaction that occurs outside the home drives deeper engagement with brands, as audiences raise advertisements as a topic of dialogue with their co-viewers.

In our fragmented ecosystem of media consumption, marketers and advertisers are driven to identify the devices and habits that shape buying behavior. And in an age where younger generations are thought to have disconnected from linear TV altogether, OOH TV viewing highlights a unique channel for advertisers to reach customers and move them down the purchase funnel.

---

About The Author

Taylor Peterson is Third Door Media’s Deputy Editor, managing industry-leading coverage that informs and inspires marketers. Based in New York, Taylor brings marketing expertise grounded in creative production and agency advertising for global brands. Taylor’s editorial focus blends digital marketing and creative strategy with topics like campaign management, emerging formats, and display advertising.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author:

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Millennials hail cord-cutting, but still indulge in linear TV outside the home appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/millennials-hail-cord-cutting-but-still-indulge-in-linear-tv-outside-the-home/

Smart speakers, smartphone shipments heading in opposite directions

According to analyst firm Canalys, global smart speaker shipments grew 131% year over year. China is now the fastest-growing smart speaker market in the world, overtaking the U.S. in the first quarter of 2019. Smartphone growth by comparison, declined by 18% in the North American market.

Amazon grows its overall lead, China accelerates. Amazon remained the smart speaker leader with 22% of global first-quarter shipments, while Google was second with 17%. What’s significant however is the growth gap between Amazon and Google. The former saw 85% annual shipments growth; Google saw only 7 percent growth. Google Home had lead Amazon in the first quarter of 2018. That trend was more than reversed in the first quarter of 2019, according to Canalys estimates.

Following Amazon and Google were the Chinese device makers, which collectively saw massive growth and helped push smart speaker shipments in that country to 51% of the global total, according to Canalys.

Smartphone shipments in ‘freefall.’ In contrast to the still relatively young smart speaker/display market, the North American smartphone market is mature at almost 12 years old — if we date it from the launch of the first iPhone in 2007. It’s several years older if we include earlier Windows Mobile, BlackBerries and Palm devices.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, there are now more active mobile phone subscriptions than humans on planet earth. This is a function of multiple active subscriptions per person, given that more than 1 billion people still don’t have mobile phones. Other mobile phone penetration estimates are lower.

Q1 2019 smartphone shipments (North America)

Previously Canalys characterized the global smartphone market as in “freefall” and said the first quarter of 2019 was the “sixth consecutive quarter of decline” in new devices shipped. Shipments are not identical to sales but directionally consistent with them.

Why we should care. Mobile devices and associated consumer behaviors have driven digital ad-spending growth for Google and Facebook for many quarters. Market saturation and a stabilizing of mobile consumer activity suggest that mobile ad revenues in the U.S. may slow in the coming quarters.

Conversely, a clear marketing/ad model for smart speakers and displays has not yet emerged though Google is starting to monetize its Home/Nest devices with some ads (via Google Music) and transactional revenues. The jury is still out on how valuable a promotional channel smart speakers and displays will become.

---

About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author:

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Smart speakers, smartphone shipments heading in opposite directions appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/smart-speakers-smartphone-shipments-heading-in-opposite-directions/

Reimagining the marketing funnel for the disrupted customer experience

Marketing funnels can help to convert your visitors into customers.

However, this hardly ever happens. I have seen so many projects where the company didn’t take into account an ever-changing marketing funnel and failed to convert more visitors.

Lots of conversion rate “experts” also advise setting up funnels, analyzing the dropouts and working out a solution to reduce them. This is what would bring, in theory, more conversions.

In reality, it’s not that simple.

Most of the time, using off-the-shelf analytics solutions for analyzing funnels can bring you some useful insights. Google Analytics, one of the most popular analytics tools, provides the funnel and it’s showing how visitors move from point A to point Z in your website.

But the real value comes from customizing the tool to meet a new, disrupted customer experience.

What’s the problem with our marketing funnel

If we look at the history of the marketing funnel, we see that it was invented in 1898 and hasn’t changed since then.

You can now start to realize what the issue is with marketing funnels; they are stuck in the industrial age when computers weren’t invented yet.

McKinsey & Co. has already questioned the old concept of the marketing funnel and introduced a new model, that incorporates the new customer experience.

“If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions,” the author wrote. But today, he continues, the marketing funnel fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of products and digital channels.

Visitors don’t follow specific steps

If we look at the ways marketing funnels are built today, we will see this very familiar graph:

Source – Wikipedia Funnel

But visitors don’t’ follow those steps, at least not all of them, not even the majority of them. Research shows that bounce rate from organic traffic is at 46%, of which up to 98% for blogs and up to 90% for landing pages.

The assumption that people will go step by step to the final conversion point is probably the biggest reason for poor conversions and high bounce rate.

Yes, we need funnels to guide us through some kind of optimizations. Yes, we need to see drop out. But how can we get more visitors flooding into funnels and reduce bounce rates?

That’s why we have Reverse Funnel Path in Google Analytics.

The myriads of touch points are shown in this report.

On my company’s website, you can see that for one goal only, visitors can create as many as 1,033 different funnels!

Segments are your best friends

If you don’t know where users come from and you don’t analyze segments, then you are missing out on conversion opportunities. These are very useful segments:

• Devices – with so many devices available to visitors, you can spot differences in conversion rates.
• Referral website – customers that land on your website from a trusted partner is more likely to convert.
• Traffic sources – if you do any promotions or lots of work for SEO, this segment will show you the differences.
• Blog landers – content marketing is very important, right? So, make sure to check this segment and see if your content helps with conversions.
• Paid channels – especially if you run paid ads, make sure they bring conversions.

I’ve found the best converting channels are referrals. My company partnered with highly trusted websites within our niche and found as high as 38% conversion rates.

Don’t worry if this is not your case. My advice is to dig into what’s bringing more conversions and replicate the process for other products and services you offer so that you can optimize accordingly.

Landing pages matter

Landing pages are a key element of your funnel as they influence your conversion rates.

If you think you have a great product and you write amazing content, but you don’t need landing pages, you are playing a dangerous game.

On our website, the best converting landing pages are those built with a vendor because we feel they are important.

But we also optimize them. I have analyzed over 1,000 landing pages and can confirm some elements are more important than others.

In my research, I found:

• If you have a form, three fields convert 12% better than pages with more fields
• 16% of landing pages converting at >10% show no menu items
• Top converting landing pages show a clear headline.

Conclusion

If you want to optimize for conversions and understand your funnel better, create reports based on segments, optimize your landing pages and don’t expect visitors will follow a predetermined route. Until you have gathered data, don’t make any assumptions.

---

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

---

About The Author

Luca Tagliaferro is the senior digital specialist at Future Fit Training, a global digital marketing speaker and SME advisor.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author:

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Reimagining the marketing funnel for the disrupted customer experience appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/reimagining-the-marketing-funnel-for-the-disrupted-customer-experience/

Freshly CMO Mayur Gupta’s unexpected path from technologist to marketer

SAN JOSE, CA — Growing up in India, Freshly CMO Mayur Gupta said it was his mother who persuaded him to begin his career as an engineer.

“My mom inspired — or told me — to become an engineer,” said Gupta during his keynote session at this year’s MarTech Conference, “I listened to her and went down that path.” In the early days Gupta said he was like a hammer looking for a nail, just trying to write code as a technologist. Fast forward five years, his whole world change when he became a product lead at Sapient, moving from technology to marketing.

Engineering as a mindset. Gupta says it was an incredible experience for him, moving from technology into product management and eventually into strategy while at Sapien. The fundamental shift in Gupta’s career happened when he left Sapien after twelve years and was named chief marketing technologist for Kimberly Clark.

It was during his time at Kimberly Clark that he began to understand the work wasn’t just about the technology — it was about the outcomes. He began to see engineering as a mindset that could be applied to marketing.

“I wanted to apply that mindset to everything,” said Gupta, explaining that, as a technologist, his job was to simplify every single thing the company did. Once he gained a deeper understanding of how engineering and technology could be applied to every aspect of the business he began looking at data differently.

“How do you apply the data so you make the experience more relevant. More humanistic?” said Gupta.

CTO or CMO? A few years into his role as a chief marketing technologist, he knew he had to decide which career path he was going to take. He had to ask himself if he wanted to continue down the technology path with hopes of becoming a CTO one day, or did he want to go deeper into marketing?

“We’re all victims of marketing every single day,” joked Gupta. He took the marketing path, with the belief that marketers had to stop marketing. He coined the “engineering of marketing” ideology because, for him, traditional marketing didn’t make sense — what did make sense was applying what he knew about engineering to his marketing role.

“What I did know as an engineer was how to stitch it all together,” said Gupta. He says marketers must understand that your customers are your brand. That marketers need to sync the customer experience to deliver what consumers need before they know they need it.

“A mom waiting to buy her next package of diapers isn’t waiting for the next marketing campaign,” said Gupta. Marketers have to let go of thinking in terms of campaigns and channels because at the end of the day it is about outcomes and applying agile principles to the work.

Shaking up the marketing rules. For Gupta, marketing needs to focus on speed over perfection. He said that a growing a brand is directly connected to the brand’s user value and user base. He doesn’t believe everything in marketing has to be measurable.

“While there is so much emphasis on data, we don’t have to to be data-driven.”

Gupta sees a distinct difference between data and insight: “While data can give you the facts, insight can give you the truth.”

What’s clear listening to Gupta talk about technology, marketing and his career, is how much he attaches what he does for brands with his own value system. His focus during the last three years has been on science as it relates to our culture.

“Learning the art of science and culture, learning to respect your belief system — because that’s what drives your culture.”

More insights from the MarTech Conference

This story first appeared on MarTech Today. For more on marketing technology, click here.

---

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author: Amy Gesenhues

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Freshly CMO Mayur Gupta’s unexpected path from technologist to marketer appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/freshly-cmo-mayur-guptas-unexpected-path-from-technologist-to-marketer/

Labor Day – 2019 Logos From Google, Yahoo & Bing

Today is Labor Day in the United States and now for the fourth year in a row, Google has a Labor Day logo. Google use to not do Labor Day logos but now has consistently done them for the past four years. Yahoo and Bing also have special logos or designs up for the day.

Here are the logos from the search industry on Labor Day 2019:

Google:

Yahoo:

Bing:

Search Engine Roundtable:

I won’t be posting here today but back to rescheduled broadcasting tomorrow. Also, I won’t be posting a search vlog today, I think I am going back to a single vlog post per week on Wednesdays. Posting two interviews per week requires a lot of travel and it is super hard unless I go to a conference every month. 🙂 In any event, I will have more news about the vlog soon – so stay tune and make sure to subscribe on YouTube if you haven’t yet – you won’t miss the weekly recaps and any vlog interviews.

Everyone – have a wonderful Labor Day!

Forum discussion at Twitter.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author: barry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Labor Day – 2019 Logos From Google, Yahoo & Bing appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/labor-day-2019-logos-from-google-yahoo-bing/

How improved Google ratings impact conversions

When performing a search on Google these days you will often find it contains a local result. In most cases that means results in a map powered by Google My Business results.

See below for an example about coffee. In fact, during quarterly earnings call Google’s CEO said,

“I wouldn’t underestimate the focus we have on local. Just to give you a sense, local mobile searches are growing faster than just mobile searches overall, and have increased by almost 50% in the last year.”

When a statement like this is made it indicates two things to me:

Whitepaper

1. Consumers are expecting more and more local results

2. Google My Business is really important to capture traffic.

With this trend clearly in sight, I wanted to dig into some data to look into a key factor in consumers decision making, ratings, and reviews. I was curious as to how much having a strong rating impacts consumes selecting a business. We already know ratings and reviews are important from numerous studies in the industry.

For example, Brightlocal found that 57% of consumers will only buy from businesses with a four-plus star rating. So I took a look at some data that included over 10 million Google My Business data points to try to understand the impact of increasing a business rating had on their conversion rates. I think what I found will seem very obvious, but certainly, validate the importance of good reviews.

Ratings really matter for non-branded searches

I thought I might start with something that is the most logical. When a consumer isn’t familiar with your brand and performs a generic, aka non-branded, search they are influenced greatly by a business’s rating. In the data set that I used businesses were found via non-branded searches 70% of the time vs. 30% of the time via a branded search. Meaning >2X the traffic is coming from consumers who aren’t yet sure what business they are going to choose.

Once they see the results, consumers took action on business that had a higher rating regardless of the type of search as ratings improved (duh), but they were more impacted by businesses with higher ratings when they performed a non-branded search. Conversion rates for consumers who took action (phone call, click, or got directions) on a Google My Business result were 68% higher vs. 63% higher for non-branded searches for companies with a <=2 rating vs. a 5 rating. Each star rating improvement directly leads to an increased conversion rate.

Source: Google My Business Insights

In our data set we had 70% of businesses with a rating between 2 & 4, with just 17% of businesses >4. For that 17 % of businesses who have received the highest reviews, they are receiving almost 30 more actions per 1,000 impressions than business with a <=2 rating. Think about how much this adds up over time? It’s massive.

While the fact that having a higher rating directly relates to having a higher conversion rate might seem obvious, I thought I’d add a data point that wasn’t as obvious, but potentially just as valuable. Our data shows that as your rating goes up consumers are more likely to click “get directions” vs. calling. While this doesn’t necessarily directly equal higher conversions, to me it indicates that consumers are more comfortable to trust the listing and head directly there vs. calling to get a sense of comfort prior to making any decisions. Also, they might call to validate the listing since the rating is so low. This introduces a potential barrier to conversion, maybe that call isn’t answered, or is requiring a customer service call since the rating is so low.

Source: Google My Business Insights

The simple takeaway from this data is that ratings drive action and business. The action to be taken is twofold;

• Google My Business is important. Ensuring that your name, address, phone number, website, hours, etc… are accurate and well aligned across the web. Often using a location data management platform can help improve quality and results.
• Soliciting and responding to ratings and reviews will help your business improve your ability to convert consumers. There are also software packages available to help improve ratings and reviews for your business. You don’t necessarily need one of these platforms, but similar to location data management they can help scale your marketing prowess.

We know from Google’s data and CEO that location is important. Hopefully, these data points can provide some additional firepower for your business to take these listing seriously. Improving your listings in Google My Business and other location data providers will have a positive impact on your business.

Jason Tabeling is EVP, Product at Brandmuscle. He can be found on Twitter @jtabeling.

Whitepapers

Related reading

Zero-click searches on Google result in users remaining on Google.com, Google Images, Google Maps, and YouTube. Data observations from Jumpshot explained.

Can publishers sustain their paywall content? Interestingly, some major publishers reported improved ad revenues once they added a subscription service.

Is Magento SEO friendly? Dive into SEO best practices to follow with a quick look at technical considerations and content strategy.

Analyzing PPC results to improve SEO is an unconventional yet effective method. Witness higher conversions and get more data to outrank competitors.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author: Jason Tabeling

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post How improved Google ratings impact conversions appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/how-improved-google-ratings-impact-conversions/

Glass Enterprise Edition 2 – Google Glass 2 Again?

Yesterday Google announced version 2.0 of Google Glass again. I say again because 2.0 I thought came out in 2013 when they came out with an upgrade of the version 1 model. But this is Glass Enterprise Edition 2, which is an upgrade of the version used in enterprises, mostly in manufacturing areas.

This version is built on Android, lasts a lot longer, has a better camera, is faster and is even cheaper. Oh and it is no longer a Google X project, it is now legit. 🙂

Here are the specs of the new model:

• SoC: Qualcomm Quad Core, 1.7GHz, 10nm
• OS: Android Oreo
• Memory & Storage: 3GB LPDDR4 / 32GB eMMC Flash
• Wi-Fi: 802.11ac, dual-band, single antenna
• Bluetooh: Bluetooth 5.x AoA
• Camera: 8Mp, 80 DFOV
• Display: 640×360 Optical Display Module
• Audio out: Mono Speaker, USB audio, BT audio
• Microphones: 3 beam-forming microphones
• Touch: Multi-touch gesture touchpad
• Charging & Data: USB Type-C, USB 2.0 480Mbps
• LED:Privacy (camera), power (rear)
• Battery: 820mAh with fast charge
• IMU: Single 6-axis Accel/Gyro, single 3-axis Mag
• Power-saving features: On head detection sensor, and Eye-on screen sensor
• Ruggedization: Water and dust resistant
• Weight: ~46g (pod)

No – I will not get this version – I had version 1 – I am good.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

This marketing news is not the copyright of Scott.Services – please click here to see the original source of this article. Author: barry@rustybrick.com (Barry Schwartz)

For more SEO, PPC, internet marketing news please check out https://news.scott.services

Why not check out our SEO, PPC marketing services at https://www.scott.services

We’re also on:
https://www.facebook.com/scottdotservices/
https://twitter.com/scottdsmith
https://plus.google.com/112865305341039147737

The post Glass Enterprise Edition 2 – Google Glass 2 Again? appeared first on Scott.Services Online Marketing News.

source https://news.scott.services/glass-enterprise-edition-2-google-glass-2-again/