Promo Retail Email Targeted Last-Minute Shoppers

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The top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 5.7 promotional emails on average during the week ending December 23, 2011, representing fractional week-over-week growth, according to December 2011 analysis from Chad White, research director at Responsys and author of the Retail Email Blog. This means that unlike previous years, when holiday email volume has peaked 2 weeks before Christmas, this year retailers targeted holiday shoppers until the last minute, offering free or discounted express shipping, directing subscribers to their stores, and promoting gift cards and e-gift cards. The weekly volume of emails was up 15% from 4 weeks ago, and 35% year-over-year.
Responsys’ findings come on the heels of a December survey from PriceGrabber, in which 41% of online shopping respondents indicated they planned to shop between December 21 and 24 for holiday gifts. Similarly, an Ipsos survey conducted on behalf of RetailMeNot, found that as of December 12, just 16% of adults claimed to have finished all of their shopping, with a plurality (33%) reporting having done less than one-quarter of their shopping.

Wednesday Biggest Day for Promo Emails

During the week ending December 23, Wednesday, Dec. 21 was the most popular day for promotional retail emails, with 74% of major online retailers sending at least one. Retail Email Blog analysis indicates that Wednesday’s popularity was due to express shipping deadlines.
Sunday, Dec. 18 took second place with a 72% participation rate, followed by Tuesday Dec. 20 (70%) and Friday Dec. 23 (68%). Saturday Dec. 17 (56%) had the lowest promotional retail email participation rate of the week.

Super Bowl Makes Appearance

Retail Email Blog indicates that while Christmas messaging continued unrelentingly, mentioned in roughly 90% of retail emails for the week ending Dec. 23, retailers will now quickly shift gears to promoting other selling seasons. In fact, the first Super Bowl reference made an appearance that week, while New Year’s messaging inched up, although it remained at marginal levels.

B2B Emails Down, But Page Views Up

Meanwhile, contrary to B2C companies, who sent out 28% more emails in November and December than in August and September, B2B marketers deployed fewer emails in November and December, according to December 2011 data pulled from Eloqua. However, surprisingly, the number of page views of those companies’ digital assets actually rose 13% in November and December compared to the rest of the year.

Source: www.marketingcharts.com

Holiday Season Online Spending Up 15% Y-O-Y

Americans have spent $35.3 billion online for the holiday season-to-date (November 1 – December 26), representing a 15% increase from the corresponding days last year, according to December 2011 analysis from comScore. $2.8 billion was spent online in the week ending December 25, marking a 16% year-over-year increase from $2.45 billion in the corresponding week of 2010.
Overall, Cyber Monday ranks as the heaviest online spending day of the year for the second consecutive year, at $1.25 billion, although it was accompanied by 9 other billion-dollar spending days.

Search Spend Up

According to December data from Kenshoo, for the week before Christmas, online retail search advertising spend increased 39% year-over-year, with both clicks and online retail revenue driven by search advertising increasing by 24%. For the holiday season-to-date, online retail search advertising spend has increased 30% year-over-year, while retail revenue driven by search advertising spend has increased 22%.

Christmas Day Sales Jump, Driven By Mobile Growth

Meanwhile, IBM Smarter Commerce reports that online sales grew by 16.4% on Christmas Day compared to 2010, with 18.3% of all online sessions on retailers’ sites initiated from a mobile device, representing a 118% increase from 8.4% the previous year. The iPad led all Christmas Day 2011 device traffic at 7%, followed by the iPhone at 6.4% and Android at 5%.
The share of online sales from mobile devices reached 14.4%, almost triple the 5.3% from last year.

Digital Content Sales Soar

comScore’s data indicates that Christmas Day saw a dramatic increase in purchases of digital content and subscriptions, a retail category that includes digital downloads of music, TV, movies, e-books, and applications. Whereas on an average day during the 2011 holiday season-to-date, digital content and subscriptions accounted for 2.8% of retail e-commerce sales, on Christmas Day the category accounted for more than 20% of sales.
According to December 2011 analysis from Flurry, nearly a quarter of a billion application downloads occurred on Christmas Day 2011, more than double any other day in the history of iOS and Android devices, save for the previous day, which delivered roughly 150 million downloads.

Other Findings:

• IBM said online sales grew 27.8% on December 26, dubbed “Mega Monday,” from the previous year. For the day, 16.4% of all online sessions on retailers’ sites were initiated from a mobile device, up from 7.8% in 2010. Sales from mobile devices showed even more impressive growth, jumping from 4.3% in 2010 to 11.3% in 2011.
• The iPad (6%) led all mobile device traffic on Mega Monday, followed by the iPhone (5.8%) and Android (4.6%).

About the Data: The dataset examined by Kenshoo represents more than 25 billion total search advertising impressions, nearly 300 million clicks and over 7 million online sales transactions.
Source: www.marketingcharts.com

Community Newspapers Seen Valuable for Shopping, Ad Info

69% of residents in areas served by a local newspaper with circulation of under 15,000 say that their local paper provides valuable local shopping and advertising information, while 81% rely on the paper for local news and information, according to a survey released in December 2011 conducted by the National Newspaper Association (NNA) and the research arm of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism. 86% of respondents say their local newspaper is informative, and 3 in 4 look forward to reading it.

Ads Better in Print

Data from the “2011 Community Newspaper Readership Survey” indicates that given the choice, 8 in 10 respondents say they would rather look through ads in the newspapers rather than view ads on the internet. In fact, two-thirds of respondents agree that they often use newspaper advertising inserts to help make purchasing decisions. Similarly, two-thirds agree that they often seek out newspaper advertising to find information on the latest offerings and sales available in their area, and almost half say that there are days when they read the newspaper as much for the ads as for the content.

3 in 4 Are Frequent Readers

74% of people in communities served by a local newspaper read one each week, while 11% read one every day. On average, readers spend about 39 minutes reading their newspaper, up from 37.5 minutes in 2010, and share it with 2.33 people. Almost all readers (92%) pay for their local newspapers, with the predominant method being through subscription (67%) rather than buying from a news rack or store (33%).
The survey also suggests that older adults, residents who have stayed in their communities longer, and those with higher education read local newspapers significantly more than younger adults, residents who have lived at their current addresses relatively shorter, and those with less education.
These findings align with results of a December Pew survey measuring local business search attitudes, which found that the groups most likely to use print newspaper to research local businesses included those aged over 40 (especially those over age 65) and those who have lived in their community more than 5 years.

Majority Prefer Print to Digital

According to the NNA survey, 48% of community newspaper readers with access to the internet say they never read the local news online, with just 1 in 10 reporting they read local news online very often. Of those going online for local news, the leading source is the local newspaper’s website (52%), ahead of the local TV station website (25%), and sites such as Yahoo, MSN, or Google (20%).
About the Data: The results are based on 500 interviews completed via telephone in August and October 2011 targeted at communities across the United States where the circulation size of the local newspapers was 15,000 or less.

Inefficiencies Cost In-Store Retailers

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One-third of respondents to a Motorola Solutions survey released in December 2011 say that their store visits ended with an average of $125 unspent due to missed opportunities to purchase, driven by factors such as inefficient payment approaches, deal-habituated behavior, out-of-stocks, and limited store associates assistance. Of those lost opportunities, almost three-quarters did not complete their purchases with the original retailer, although 68% said their lost sales could have been prevented if a retail associate was able to order the item and have it delivered to their home.Similarly, almost 55% of shoppers would have made their purchases if an associate could have found another location that had the item in stock and told them how to get there.
According to results from a survey released in December by Oracle, if an item is not in store, 44% of shoppers expect a store associate to find it online or at a store, while one-quarter would leave the store and find it online.

Offline Satisfaction Lags Online

Data from Motorola Solutions’ “Holiday Shopping Survey” indicates that about 2 in 5 in-store shoppers said they were not satisfied with the ability to receive in-stock status, compared to 20% of online shoppers. Additionally, a higher proportion of in-store than online shoppers were not satisfied with the ease of finding correct prices (27% vs. 14%) or the check-out process (42% vs. 15%).
However, online shoppers cited a higher dissatisfaction rate than in-store shoppers with the return/exchange process (41% vs. 25%).

Self-Help Tech Improves In-Store Experience

The vast majority of shoppers report that self-help technologies have improved their shopping experience, with the highest approvals being for price checkers (83%), self-checkout payment lanes (65%), and information kiosks (59%). Nearly 2 in 5 say they would be likely to use a retailer’s wireless internet access to search for product information and post to the web while shopping, while 43% would likely use a store application on their smartphones that creates a map from a shopping list to guide them through the store on the most efficient route to complete their shopping.

Mobile Tech Customer Service Benefits Seen

3 in 4 retail associates and managers feel they provide a better in-store customer experience when equipped with the latest mobile technologies. Shoppers echoed their sentiment: two-thirds report heightened satisfaction with retailers when in-store associates utilized the latest technologies to assist in the experience. Even so, 61% of shoppers believe that they are better connected to consumer information, including coupons, competitive pricing, and product availability than store associates.
According to an RSR report [download page] released in November, 62% of retail “Winners” (defined as retailers with comparable store/sales growth of more than 3%) believe a great deal of opportunity can be realized by empowering their store managers with mobile capabilities.
About the Data: Motorola Solutions fielded two complimentary surveys from November 26 through December 13, one targeted to shoppers and one targeted to in-store associates, staff and in-store managers. 1,231 respondents completed the shopper survey without knowledge of Motorola Solutions sponsorship. 393 respondents completed the Associates survey without knowledge of Motorola Solutions sponsorship.
RSR conducted its survey online from July - October 2011 and received answers from 61 qualified respondents. 12% held senior management titles, and 35% were from retailers with more than $1 billion in 2010 revenue.

Source: Marketing Charts.com 

Consumers Want Short SocNet Updates, Emails from Brand

 Short updates from Facebook and Twitter (32%) and emails (27%) rank as the leading ways in which consumers most prefer to get updates from their favorite brands, according to a survey released in December 2011 by AYTM Market Research. 22% prefer receiving updates from traditional offline ads such as TV commercials and billboards, and 8% from mailed flyers. However, a greater proportion indicate that mailed flyers are their least preferred update method (15%), trailing only audio/podcasts (25%) and traditional offline ads (23%) among the least-favored methods.

Consumers Want Coupons, Not News

Data from “Branding and How it Works in the Social Media Age” indicates that 80% of consumers say that coupons, promotions, and discounts are their most preferred type of content to receive from brands, ahead of brand news (8%), answers to questions (5%), how-to’s (5%), and interviews (2%). Brand news (34%) ranks as the least preferred type of content to receive from brands, with answers to questions (27%) and how-to’s (25%) not far behind. Just 11% cite coupons, promotions, and discounts as their least preferred type of content.

Facebook Likers More Apt to Mention, Refer Brand

According to the AYTM survey, of users who have liked a brand on Facebook, 59% have mentioned a brand in a status update and 57% have shared a link or a video about a brand. This compares to 19% of Facebook users who have not liked a brand, and 42% of Facebook members overall, who have either mentioned a brand in a status update or shared a link or video about a brand.

Facebook users who have liked a brand are also more likely than those who have not to be active on the social network daily (84% vs. 60%) and have more than 100 friends (66% vs. 46%).

Women Nicer on Twitter

Almost twice as many Twitter users say their brand tweets are only positive, versus only negative or mixed. Breaking the figures down by gender, AYTM finds that 2.3 times more female users say their brand tweets are only positive than only negative or mixed, while the ratio for male users is 1.4.

On Facebook, 50% more users say their brand mentions in status updates on the social network are only positive rather than only negative or mixed.

Social Media Drives Trust, Holiday Purchases

According to December study results from Mr Youth, 36% of social media users trust brands that have a social media presence more than brands that do not, and 52% of users are willing to pay more for brands they trust.

In fact, during the 3-week period leading up to and during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping event, 86% of social media users made or received a holiday gift recommendation, while 65% of users’ recommendations led to a purchase. By comparison, only 49% of non-users made or received a holiday gift recommendation, while just one-third of those recommendations led to a purchase.

Overall, 66% of social media users who made a Black Friday / Cyber Monday purchase reported doing so as a direct result of social media interactions with brands and family.

Engagement Leads to Sales

Although Mr Youth’s survey results show that brands only respond to half of brand posts, 80% of users who received a response to their post made a purchase as a result of the interaction. Additionally, 28% of users who reported a brand reaching out to them proactively made a purchase as a result of the interaction.

About the Data: The AYTM data is based on a survey of 2000 internet users from the company’s built-in consumer platform. The Mr Youth data is part of a broader study on social media usage during the 2011 holiday shopping season. The full study is being fielded through a nationwide survey of 500 households, once a week, over the 6-week period leading up to the Christmas holiday (November 17 – December 19). The survey was conducted in conjunction with Survey Sampling International (SSI) and Kanter Analytics.

CTR Top Video Ad Success Metric

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Click-through rate is the top method of measuring video ad success, cited by 39% of video advertisers in the US and Canada, ahead of actual product sales (38%) and visits to the brand website (35%), according to [pdf] a December 2011 study from Break Media. Data from “Digital Video Advertising Trends: 2012″ indicates that other popular metrics include brand awareness or recall (30%) and video completion rate (29%).
Roughly 1 in 5 video advertisers use reached target audience (22%), social engagement (20%), time spent watching video (19%), number of times video was viewed (19%), and intent to purchase (19%) as methods of measuring the success of their video ads.

ROI Measurement Presents Problems

Advertisers appear to be frustrated by metrics, though: 42% say that difficulty measuring ROI is a hindrance to the use of video ads, ahead of other barriers to adoption including a lack of transparency on ad placement (40%), lack of standardized metrics (38%), and not enough ROI (35%).

Spend to Grow, Take from Traditional Media

29% of advertisers say they spent more on video ads than they planned to in the past year, more than double the proportion who spent less (14%). According to the report, in the coming year, two-thirds of advertisers will increase their share of online display advertising devoted to video ads, with the home furnishings, IT/B2B, alcohol, and women’s apparel sectors showing higher growth compared to other sectors. Advertisers may be paying attention to recent figures from FreeWheel, which indicate a growing consumer acceptance of video ads: according to FreeWheel, video ad views have grown at a faster rate than video views (128% vs. 97%) from Q3 2010 to Q3 2011. And even more encouragingly for video advertisers, although ad loads have increased, video ad completion rates have remained stable.
Meanwhile, according to Break Media, advertisers increasing their video ad spend in the next year say the dollars will come not just from non-video display budgets (45%) and overall advertising budget growth (38%), but also from TV (32%) and print/outdoor (25%) budgets.
Overall, video is forecast to account for 35% share of advertisers’ online display budgets in 2012, up from 27% this year.

VANs Gain in Popularity

73% of respondents indicate that they used video ad networks (VANs) in 2011, representing 12% growth from 65% in 2010. Additionally, in 2012, 92% of advertisers plan to use VANs and increase the share of spend placed with those entities from an average of 20% to 41% of total video dollars.

Actual Pricing Models Differ from Desired

Pricing models for video ads offered to advertisers appear to not match their preferences, though. A leading 69% of advertisers said they used cost per thousand views, although just 18% reported CPM to be their preferred pricing model. Similarly, 53% used cost per click, although it is the preferred model to only 16%. Other discrepancies between pricing used and preferred include cost per view (40% and 17%, respectively), cost per day/roadblock (37% and 8%, respectively), and cost per engagement (34% and 19%, respectively). The only pricing model to come close to parity between use and preference was cost per acquisition, with 25% reporting use and 21% citing it as their preferred pricing model.
The report notes that although use of cost per view (CPV) increased two-fold in the past year to 40%, many respondents said they did not use CPV because it was not offered by the publisher or VAN.
About the Data: Break Media’s study findings are derived from an online survey completed by 320 persons working for advertising agencies and the companies that hire them (i.e. marketers) in the United States and Canada. Respondents were solicited from the Advertiser Perceptions Inc. proprietary database of media decision makers and offered a cash incentive for survey completion.

US Ad Spend Up 1.5% Year-to-Date

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Total US advertising expenditures in the first 9 months of 2011 increased 1.5% from a year ago, finishing the period at $104.7 billion, according to December 2011 data from Kantar Media. Spending growth slowed during Q3, up 0.4% compared to last year, after rising 4.1% in Q1 and 2.8% in Q2. Spending among the 10 largest advertisers in the first 9 months of 2011 was $11.8 billion, representing a 1.4% decline compared to a year ago. Procter & Gamble maintained its top-ranked position with spending of $2.1 billion through September, down 5.6% compared to last year, although its Q3 spending was flat compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, expenditures for the 10 largest categories grew 3.1% in the first 9 months of 2011, to $59.5 billion. For Q3, the aggregate increase was 1.8%, although quarterly growth rates for 7 of the 10 categories trailed their year-to-date average. Automotive was the top category with $9.9 billion of spending during the 9-month period, up 7% from 2010. However, the bulk of the gain came early in the year, and from April through September automotive budgets have grown just 1%.

TV Ad Spending Rises

Most forms of TV displayed spending gains in Q3: expenditures on cable networks rose 6.5% during Q3, while year-to-date outlays grew 9.9%. Network TV registered its first quarterly gain of the year, as Q3 expenditures inched up 0.2%, although year-to-date expenditures remain down 5.7%. Kantar insight suggests higher budgets from movie studios and consumer package goods marketers accounted for the Q3 increase for network TV, while the year-to-date decline can be attributed to the loss of marquee college football and basketball programming to cable networks in Q1.
Meanwhile, ad spending in Spanish Language Television jumped 18% during Q3 2011 compared to Q3 2010, while syndication TV was also up 14.8% for the period. The only TV segment to lose ground was spot TV, where spending fell 5.7% year-over-year in Q3, and was also down 2.7% for the year-to-date.
Overall, compared to the corresponding periods in 2010, TV ad spending grew 2.3% for the year-to-date, and 3.2% for Q3.
The top 10 TV advertisers, led by Procter & Gamble, spent $7.3 billion in the medium during the first 9 months of 2011, up 0.1% from a year ago. The group accounted for 15% of total TV expenditures by all advertisers.

Most Other Media Also Post Gains

Outdoor spending slowed during the third quarter, but still registered gains of 3.2% for Q3 and 8.6% for the first 9 months. The pace of spending in radio media was more muted, but remained steady, up a modest 1.1% in Q3 and 1.2% for the year-to-date, driven by over 2% growth in local radio and network radio advertising.
Magazine media spending declined 1.2% for Q3, but rose 1.5% for the year-to-date. The top 10 magazine advertisers invested $2.7 billion in the medium for the year-to-date, a decrease of 2.8%. As a proportion of total magazine ad spending by all advertisers, the top 10 accounted for 17.1%.
Although the internet sector posted a Q3 drop of 2.9% compared to last year, overall expenditures for the year-to-date are up 2.8% compared to a year earlier. Display ad expenditures soared 15.8% in Q3 and 10.1% for the year-to-date, offsetting paid search drops of 14.4% and 2.1%, respectively. The 10 largest internet advertisers, led by General Motors, invested a total of $1.8 billion in paid search and display campaigns, up 11.1% versus a year ago, and accounting for 10.8% share of all internet ad dollars.

Newspapers Fare Poorly

The newspaper sector posted the worst figures of all media, experiencing a 3.7% decline in spending in Q3 2011 compared to Q3 2010, and 3.8% decrease for the year-to-date. Local newspapers, despite robust budgets from local auto dealers and an uptick in financial advertising, saw a 4.4% spending decline in Q3, and were down 3.9% year-to-date.

Print Media Get Spending, Lack Consumption

Meanwhile, according to December figures from eMarketer, although newspapers account for 15% of all US ad spending in 2011, they hold just a 4% share of adults’ daily media time. Magazines also hold a much larger share of ad spending than daily media time, at 9.7% and 2.8%, respectively.
By contrast, eMarketer estimates that mobile accounts for 10.1% share of adults’ media time each day, but less than 1% of ad dollars. TV (42.5% vs. 42.2%), internet (25.9% vs. 21.9%), and radio (14.6% vs. 10.9%) all also display a higher share of adults’ daily time than share of US ad spending.
eMarketer notes that time spent with the internet excludes internet access via mobile, but online ad spending includes mobile internet ad spending. As such, the total of the ad spending share for all the media adds up to more than 100%.

Cyber Monday E-Commerce Makes History

November 30, 2011

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Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending this year, rising 22% from 2010 and representing the heaviest online spending day in history, and just the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold, according to November 2011 research from comScore. Data from comScore’s analysis indicates that for the holiday season-to-date (November 1-28), $15 billion has been spent online, marking a 15% hike from the corresponding days last year. Shopping momentum on Cyber Monday hit its peak at 11:05am PST/2:05pm EST, according to IBM Coremetrics data. IBM’s data also indicates that consumer shopping maintained strong momentum after commuting hours on both the east and west coast.

Buyers and Average Spending Both Increase

Cyber Monday’s sales growth this year was driven by an increase in both the number of buyers, which increased 11% from 9 to 10 million, and the average spending per buyer, which rose 9% from $114 to $125. According to comScore, the 10 million online spenders also represents the first time on record that threshold has been reached in a single day.
Data from the NPD Group disputes this finding, however: according to the “Anatomy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2011″ study, the growth in Cyber Monday results comes from the greater numbers of people shopping online this year rather than spending more this year. Results from the study indicate that almost 28% of consumers reported shopping online Cyber Monday compared to 21% last year, while of those shoppers, 16% reported making a purchase this year compared to 12% last year. This year, though, NPD data indicates that consumers spent only $187.83 on average, compared to last year’s $276.71.

Shopping at Work Drives Half of Spending

Half of dollars spent online at US web sites originated from work computers, up 2% from 49.2% last year, according to comScore. Buying from home comprised the majority (43.2%) of the remaining share, while buying at US web sites from international locations accounted for 6.6% of sales. More information on international Cyber Monday shopping is available at MarketingVox.

Mobile Sales and Traffic Soar

Meanwhile, according to IBM, 10.8% of consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site on Cyber Monday, more than double the 3.9% who did so in 2010. Furthermore, mobile sales also showed dramatic growth, reaching 6.6% of the population, almost triple the proportion in 2010 (2.3%).

Other Findings

• Coremetrics data indicates that shoppers using the iPad drove more retail purchases on Cyber Monday than any other device.
• Shoppers referred from social networks generated 0.56% of all online sales on Cyber Monday. Facebook led the pack, accounting for 86% of all social media traffic.
• Discussions on social media sites leading up to Cyber Monday increased in volume by 115% compared to 2010. According to Nielsen, in 2011 buzz about Black Friday/Cyber Monday peaked the day after Thanksgiving and made up 2.9% of all buzz that day, representing a 15% relative increase in the share of buzz compared to 2010. Furthermore, Nielsen reports that Cyber Monday buzz has also increased year-over-year, and is likely to climb further as discussion of Cyber Week sales continues throughout the week.

About the Data: The IBM Coremetrics Benchmark captures online marketing results and commerce data from more than 500 contributing US retailers. The NPD study is an online survey of a nationally representative sample of more than 3,300 U.S. consumers ages 18+ assessing what they did on Black Friday & Cyber Monday and why.

Mobile Advertisers Take Up Location-Based Targeting

Location-based targeting nearly doubled month-over-month as the preferred ad targeting method used to reach consumers on the Jumptap mobile ad network, employed by 61% of advertisers compared to 33% in September, according to[download page] a Jumptap report released in November 2011. Results from the “Simple Target & Audience Trends (STAT)” report indicate that 22% of campaigns used device capability, up from 19% in September, while only 5% used handset, down significantly from 25%.

Overall, the proportion of marketers using multiple targeting methods drastically rose in October: 80% of advertisers used more than one targeting method, up from just 10% in September.

Samsung Battles Apple

The report highlights some interesting differences between Samsung and Apple device users: for example, Samsung smartphone users accessed applications 27% more than iPhone users, although iPhone users were almost twice as active on the mobile web as Samsung smartphone users. And while gaming was the top content channel on Samsung smartphones, which Jumptap insight suggests is likely tied to Samsung users’ higher app usage, and which may suggest a younger audience, news and entertainment was the top channel for iPhones, which could explain the prevalence of web browsing and suggest an older audience.

On the Millennial Media mobile network, music and entertainment was the top applications category for Apple in October, growing 19% month-over-month, while gaming applications moved to the #2 app category.

CTRs Best in the Evening

According to the Jumptap report, there is a gradual increase in CTRs from morning through lunch and beyond, peaking in the evening hours at roughly 0.7%, before dropping off to about 0.5% as the night progresses. In October, mobile users aged 55-64 and 65-74 both had CTRs of over 0.7%, although this month those aged 55-64 took the lead, whereas 65-74-year-olds had the highest CTRs in September. CTRs are still highest for families with household income above $50,000 (1.38%), far above those below that income threshold (.26%). Men (.57%) also continue to demonstrate higher CTRs than women (0.33%).

Other Findings

• iOS (.63%) and Symbian (0.63%) maintain their CTR dominance among operating systems, while Android (0.49%) and Blackberry (0.55%) lag in direct response performance.
• For direct response performance, entertainment, government, and automotive again experienced the best CTRs in of the various verticals on the network.
• Android’s market share dipped to 44.7% in October 2011, down from 47% in September. However, Android still commanded a share almost equal to that of iOS (24.6%) and Blackberry (22.9%) combined.
• In October, 53% of requests were from the mobile web (compared to 52% in September) and 47% were from mobile apps. Feature phones saw a major decline in mobile web traffic in October, with only a 34% share, compared to 50% in September.
• Click-to-web (76%) and click-to-download (23%) continued to predominate as preferred actions for advertisers.

About the Data: October 2011 data is gleaned from the Jumptap network of over 95 million US users.

4 in 5 Will Buy a Gift Card These Holidays

4 in 5 Americans will purchase at least one gift card this holiday season, according to an NRF survey conducted by BIGresearch and released in November 2011. Data from the “Consumer Intentions & Actions Survey” indicates this to be the largest proportion of consumers since NRF began tracking gift card purchasing intentions in 2006. Additionally, holiday shoppers are expected to spend an average of $155.43 on gift cards, the highest amount since 2007 and a 6.7% rise from $145.61 last year. Total spending on gift cards this winter holiday season is forecast to reach $27.8 billion, representing 12% growth from $24.78 billion in 2010.

According to a November BDO USA study, among the retailers surveyed that sell gift cards,57% expect their gift card sales to increase compared to 2010, representing a 21% rise in respondents from 2010, when less than half expected to see growth in their gift card sales. Meanwhile, according to an earlier NRF survey also released in November, most shoppers (57.7%) would like to receive a gift card this holiday season, ahead of clothing or clothing accessories (50%), consumer electronics or computer-related accessories (35.4%), and jewelry (22.8%).

Shoppers To Spend More On Each Card, Led by Men, Elderly

Gift card purchasers will spend an average of $43.23 per card this year, up 4.2% from $41.48 last year and 8.6% from $39.80 in 2009, according to the latest NRF survey. Men will spend significantly more on gift cards this year than women, shelling out an average of $46.19 per card compared to $40.47 for women. Older demographics are also likely to spend more than their younger counterparts, led by those aged 55-64, who intend to spend $45.47 on each card, compared to the $38.37 planned by 18-24-year-olds.

Among gift card purchasers, one-quarter plan to buy 5 or more, while only 13.7% will buy a single card. Adults over age 45 are again more likely to purchase a greater amount of gift cards: about 1 in 5 plan to buy more than 6, almost triple the proportion of 18-24-year-olds (7.6%) who intend to do so.

Department Stores Win Out

When it comes to which gift cards people will buy, most shoppers say they will give their friends or family members a gift card to a department store (38.7%), restaurant (33.8%), electronic store (19.8%), or an entertainment venue such as a night at the movies or music event (18.2%), although adults aged 55-64 prefer restaurants (36.6%) to department stores (33.4%) for their gifts.

Book stores (19.8%), coffee shops (15.9%), and discount stores (13%) also prove popular among gift card shoppers.

Practicality Reigns Supreme

Practicality is the most likely reason shoppers will buy gift cards this year, as 46.4% report they will buy gift cards because it allows the recipient to select their own gift. Convenience is also cited as a major factor, with 19.4% of gift card shoppers saying that gift cards are easier and faster to buy than traditional gifts. A further 6% say that it is easier to mail or ship a gift card than a traditional gift to out-of-town gift recipients. However, some concerns remain: 26.1% say that the impersonal nature of gift cards could cause them to buy less of them these holidays, while others are worried about fees and expiration dates (17.4%) and not knowing which company a recipient would want a card from (9.7%).

Information regarding e-gift cards becoming more personal, social, and mobile is available at MarketingVox.

About the Data: The NRF survey polled 8,502 consumers and was conducted for by BIGresearch from November 1-8, 2011.

Wifi hotspots set to more than triple by 2015

Global public wifi hotspot numbers are set to grow from 1.3 million in 2011, to 5.8 million by 2015, marking a 350 per cent increase, according to research published by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), and compiled by Informa.

The findings from the WBA, the industry association focused on driving next generation wifi, also revealed that more than half – 58 per cent – of operators believe wifi hotspots are either “very important” or “crucial” to their customers’ experience, in order to offload busy mobile broadband networks and to provide a value-added services.

China Mobile alone is planning to deploy a million hotspots and Japan’s KDDI is planning to grow its 10,000 wifi hotspots to 100,000 within six months.

The growth in wifi hotspots will primarily be in three types of location: wide-area outdoor hotzones, such as parks; local-area outdoor hotzones, such as popular tourist attractions, and transport hubs, such as airports.

The findings also revealed that mobile data growth is a key factor in the build-out of wifi hotspots, as global mobile data traffic is expected to reach 16.84 million terabytes by 2014. The operators surveyed said that they intend to manage the impact of this growth primarily through new pricing strategies and wifi-based offload.

The survey, which took into account the views of 259 public wifi experts from across the world, found that smartphone connections to wifi hotspots will soon overtake laptop wifi connections globally. According to the research, laptops now represent just 48 per cent of the connections to hotspots, whereas smartphones account for 36 per cent and tablets 10 per cent.

However, there are several barriers to adoption of public wifi hotspots, such as cumbersome authentication procedures, costs of access, user discovery of available networks and security. One UK operator recently reported that only 20 per cent of its users access the free public hotspots available to them.

On the upside, several challenges will be overcome by next generation hotspots (NGH), according to the WBA. NGHs are currently being trialled internationally, and they allow users to seamlessly roam between cellular and wifi networks using their handset’s SIM card as authentication. This reduces concerns about authentication, network discovery and security.

“Fixed operators are extending broadband services beyond the home and office, and wifi is supporting busy mobile broadband networks,” commented Chris Bruce, chair of the WBA and CEO at BT Openzone. “Next Generation Hotspot trials are making inroads in the remaining barriers and by cracking the code of a simple, secure user experience hotspot use will continue to soar.”

Source: http://www.telecoms.com/