Web- and mobile-ready retailers can expect an upbeat holiday shopping season, new research suggests. In line with other estimates, Forrester predicts the coming holidays will generate $68.4 billion in domestic online sales -- a 15% increase year-over-year, and three percentage points higher than the expected overall annual online retail growth rate. “This optimism is largely due to ever-increasing numbers of consumers choosing the Web over physical stores and the rise in mobile commerce,” according to Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester analyst and lead author of the ecommerce report. Given a less-than-robust economy, consumers continue to be price-conscious and will use the Web to search for money-saving offers, like exclusive deals and free shipping -- especially on key holiday dates, Mulpuru predicts. As such, to succeed this season, retailers need to compete on more than just price. “While price is critical, retail eBusiness executives must look to add value elsewhere in the customer purchase funnel to retain customers,” Mulpuru explains. “Ensuring that critical content is available (and tested) on mobile devices will be imperative this holiday season, as consumers will continue to use mobile devices for product research and even for buying.” By Forrester’s estimate, the average U.S. shopper will spend $419 online, this holiday season -- a 12% boost over last year. When it comes to mobile device owners, 18% now make purchases via smartphone, while 24% report having purchased a product in the past month on their tablets. Those numbers will only increase as more than 135 million U.S. adults are expected to own a smartphone -- and more than 60 million will own a tablet -- by the end of the year. According to Mulpuru, the value of mobile extends far beyond the transaction, as consumers more frequently use those devices to research products. “The mobile and tablet shopping trend tends to be amplified during the holidays as consumers spend more time shopping online with remote devices at home, in stores and on the go,” Mulpuru said. Across platforms, 56% of U.S. online adults tell Forrester they are more price-conscious than they were a year ago, while 57% agree they find better deals and value online -- up nine percentage points from last year.
Brian Lipman could not take the podium at Ad:Tech in New York on Thursday without having his iPhone with him. The digital media manager at MillerCoors did try, he admitted, but had to go back to his bag and get it. That, in short, evinces the power of the phone. "Mobile is no longer just consumption,” he said, “it's woven into the fabric of people's daily lives.” Lipman ran some slides giving a good picture of that: 84% of tablet owners browse the Internet. A quarter of tablet and smartphone users check out mobile ads and then purchase on a PC. Sixty-five percent of people shopping online start that journey on a smartphone. Over 45% start planning trips online then book trips digitally. He pointed out that the prevalent things people are doing on smartphones is accessing local information, participating in social media and networking, and getting news and entertainment. He cited Google data that 46% of consumers research on smartphones then purchase in stores. And he noted that prognosticators think mobile commerce will increase 417% by 2016. "Mobile's true power is the ability to capitalize on location and in-the-moment. But you have to protect your turf; you know when they are in your store, and you can offer consumers loyalty programs. You should be able to dynamically serve them ads when they are cross-shopping. Because if you don't, someone else may take advantage of it." He said among 18 to 34 year olds, 84% use phones to compare prices. Lipman served up some mobile programs MillerCoors has been doing in the location and real-time arenas. "We did a test in which we looked at when people were tweeting about beer. We would retarget them almost in real time to serve them contextually relevant info." He said the team would know when consumers checked in from a bar, or when they tweeted about meeting friends or wanting beer, for example. Kim Kyaw, digital marketing and social media at Jaguar and Land Rover, cited a recent study by J.D. Power on the importance of mobile to premium consumers, showing premium-product consumers are more likely to use smartphones and apps for new-vehicle shopping. For example, 85% of Land Rover shoppers use smartphones to access the internet, she said. "We want to support perception, consideration, favorability. We want to drive to retailer, increase owner satisfaction and amplify advocacy [via mobile]." Kyaw said mobile is also now a good platform for top-of-funnel activity, with hands-on experiences through rich-media mobile ads. "It allows for a rich brand experience." For the launch of the Evoque vehicle, the company did a mobile app allowing consumers to do things like choose and view vehicle colors, see product attributes, and get a 360-degree view of the vehicle. "So we are increasing consideration through mobile video. It's what shoppers are looking for." She added that mobile geo-fencing is also a focus at Land Rover in terms of driving traffic to retailers or directing leads there. "We do geo-fencing around Range Rover and Evoque in the New York area, and it's showing great results." She said the company saw a 20% increase in retail interaction.
More people than ever are using their cell phones to get health information. The share of mobile users doing so has gone up to nearly a third (31%) from 17% two years ago, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Smartphones are driving most of that activity. More than half (52%) of smartphone owners are looking up health information on their devices, compared to just 6% of regular cell phone users. Younger, better-educated adults, minorities and caregivers are also more likely to use their phones to get health information. M-health has long been seen as an area of opportunity for health providers, pharmaceutical companies and other industry marketers. A GSMA forecast estimated the mobile health market would grow to $23 billion by 2017 across mobile operators, device vendors, health providers and publishers. The Pew report identified certain demographic groups as heavier mobile health users: African-Americans, college graduates, women, those with an annual household income between $50,000 and $74,999, and those between 30-49. Pew estimates that 84% of smartphone owners have downloaded an app of any kind. But only 19% have downloaded an app specifically to track or manage health. Women, those under age 50, the better-educated, and those with an annual household income over $75,000 are more likely to have downloaded a health app. Given increased public awareness about tracking of app use by developers and third parties, it’s possible privacy concerns play a role in holding back downloading of health-related apps. A separate Pew report released in September found privacy considerations are leading most app users (57%) either to remove particular apps, or to decide against installing them. Exercise, diet and weight apps are the most popular types of health apps. Some 38% use an app to help track their exercise regimen, 31% monitor their diet, and 12% use an app to manage their weight. Other health apps track blood pressure, pregnancy, blood sugar or diabetes, and medication. The WebMD app was cited by 4% of survey participants. The latest study also showed few mobile users are texting for health-related reasons. While an estimated 80% of cell owners send and receive text messages, only 9% get any text updates about health or medical issues. Women, and those between the ages of 30-64, are more likely than other cell phone owners to have signed up for health text alerts. People potentially dealing with more serious health situations — caregivers, those living with chronic conditions, and people with recent significant health changes — are more likely to get text alerts. The Pew findings are based on a national survey of 3,014 U.S. adults fielded between August and September. The survey involved a mixed landline/cell phone sample and interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.
Don’t count on the emergence of “native” advertising, larger ad formats or publisher alliances to do much to reverse the gains made by programmatic buying at the expense of traditional content-based advertising. In a keynote talk at the OMMA Premium Display conference Thursday, Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research, offered a dim outlook for the future of premium Web advertising. In addition to the rise of audience-based buying, he pointed to factors including flat ad spending overall, a slowing shift of ad dollars to digital, and the stronger negotiating position of advertisers in digital media. “The reality is, I just don’t see a lot of growth,” said Wieser. “There are real practical reasons I see what we have historically seen as premium display is challenged for structural reasons.” His address follows a recent research report he issued titled “The Eventual Death of Premium Web Advertising.” One of the underlying hurdles is the overall weak forecast for ad spending into next year. Because of factors like the looming fiscal cliff and Hurricane Sandy, Pivotal has reduced its projection of U.S. advertising, predicting it will fall slightly in the second half of 2012 and be flat for the full year. It projects growth of just 1.2% for 2013. Wieser also pointed out that annual ad budgets for large companies in recent years has been flat — averaging about $60 million from 2001 to 2008. That lack of growth in budgets is compounded by a lack of new ad categories and advertisers entering the market. “Growth only occurs when you get new categories of marketers showing up," he said. He suggested the shift of spending from traditional media to digital has slowed, with big brands still heavily reliant on TV advertising for major campaigns. Brands have, in effect, used the Internet to substitute for magazines, limiting how large the digital portion of a media budget can grow. At the same time, the growth of audience-based buying through real-time bidding exchanges, agency trading desks and the like has made the economics of display advertising more efficient. But instead of reduced costs leading to increased spending, Wieser argues that marketers just do more with less -- reallocating spending to social platforms like Facebook or Twitter. In the digital realm, the advantage in negotiating for inventory also swings to the buy side because advertisers have better information than publishers to determine pricing. When it comes to negotiating with premium display owners, ad buyers have the upper hand. “All these factors put together do not create favorable circumstances for premium display,’ said Wieser, noting there will be a big winner from the same trends undermining premium advertising: Google. With the largest ad exchange (AdX), the Google Display Network, and a huge amount of aggregated content through YouTube, the search giant is poised to become the dominant player in display. What can conventional Web publishers do in the face of premium ad erosion? In his research report, Wieser advised them to find ways to become a one-stop-shop by making it possible to reach virtually everyone as often as a marketer wants. Plus, he suggested the combination of Yahoo, AOL and MSN into a single entity would “dramatically change conditions” in the industry by providing a counterweight to Google and Facebook.
In recent years, two important trends in digital have occurred simultaneously: real-time bidding (RTB) has taken off and revolutionized digital advertising, and the rise of mobile has forever changed the way we interact with digital content. And yet, surprisingly, when it comes to RTB on mobile, we've haven't made a great deal of progress. Even some of the most fundamental questions remain unanswered. What does mobile even mean? Is a tablet a mobile device? How about a laptop with an LTE or 3G connection? If we assume a mobile device is a tablet or mobile phone, then there is a further problem. RTB-based ads can appear inside an app, but they can also appear on a website being viewed on a mobile browser. Each experience is vastly different and has different limitations. Let's take a look at three distinct types of RTB on mobile — and see why one should be banished from the definition of mobile advertising. 1) Mobile App RTB In-app advertising are ads that get rendered inside an actual app. RTB exchanges like Google and mobclix allow buyers to bid via RTB on these ad units. But there's a big problem with in-app RTB: there is effectively no such thing as a cookie. Without a cookie or means of identifying a user, RTB-based ads can't use historical data, which is a bit like trying to fly a kite on a day where there's no wind. Historical data is at the heart of RTB. Today, most RTB-based in-app advertising limits advertisers to targeting the app — much as you might target an entire website as a proxy for the audience you're aiming to reach. The future of data-driven mobile advertising will depend on mobile operating systems and ad exchanges solving the user identity issue while still protecting privacy. Without an identifier, data-driven advertising inside apps is simply too limited. 2) Mobile Browser RTB (formatted content) As you use a mobile browser and navigate to your favorite website, there's a good chance that website recognizes that you're on a mobile browser and nicely formats the content to the size of your screen. Because the ads are inside a browser, data-driven advertisers can use cookies and build up a historical profile on a user. Unfortunately, major ad exchanges like Google, Pubmatic, and Rubicon still lack an RTB ad unit specifically for mobile formatted content. In other words, if a user is on TheGap.com on a mobile browser and then hops over to nytimes.com. The Gap would have enough data to deliver a data-driven ad, but no way to deliver it. This is a huge opportunity, and one that data-driven advertisers should watch closely. 3) Mobile Browser RTB (non-formatted content) Many websites you browse with your mobile browser are not properly formatted to your screen size. This means the overall website looks small and the ad units even smaller. Moreover, on iOS devices, flash-based ads will not even render. I can speak from experience when I say this type of ad unit performs poorly. It's essentially a desktop experience squished onto a very tiny screen. The experience is so bad that it shouldn't even be considered mobile advertising. In addition, there's another challenge to mobile-based, data-driven advertising: data on a specific user is isolated across multiple devices. For example, advertisers may have robust data on users when they're on their desktops, but when users pick up their mobile phones, they're effectively "new" users. There are ways to connect desktop profiles with mobile profiles using dual-login systems and inference, but we still lack perfect solutions. In short, mobile RTB has a long way to go. But fear not. The incredible rise of RTB over the last years shows what's possible when publishers and advertisers realize how new technology can help both of their businesses. Stay tuned.
Boston-based mobile ad exchange Nexage this week announced the launch of Nexage Connect. Nexage Connect will “simplify the adoption and growth of mobile advertising for buyers and sellers," according to a release. “At the very beginning, we designed our technology platform to be extensible, intelligent, and scalable,” said Ernie Cormier, CEO and president of Nexage in a release. “Nexage Connect leverages that design,” he stated. “We believe Nexage Connect is a major step forward for our customers, our partners, and this industry.”
AT&T will allow more customers to use the FaceTime videochat app on its network, the company said today. Specifically, AT&T will now allow anyone on a tiered data plan, who also uses an iOS 6 device with LTE -- including the iPhone 5 and some newer iPads -- to access FaceTime over the data network. The company will roll out that shift over the next 8-10 weeks. People who are on unlimited plans still won't be able to use FaceTime on a data network. While still problematic, the new scheme marks an improvement from AT&T's prior plan for the app. Originally, AT&T said it would only allow subscribers with new shared data plans to use FaceTime on its network. (All users can access FaceTime on WiFi, but WiFi isn't as widely available as the data network.) In September, the groups Free Press, Public Knowledge and The New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute criticized those restrictions. The groups argued that AT&T's scheme would violate net neutrality rules -- which ban wireless providers from blocking competing apps. The watchdogs put AT&T on notice that they would file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission if the telecom didn't retreat. Today, the advocates praised AT&T's change of heart, but said the company still must make the app available to all subscribers as soon as possible. "AT&T's course correction is a move in the right direction, but until the company makes FaceTime available to all of its customers it is still in violation of the FCC's rules and the broader principles of net neutrality," Free Press policy director Matt Wood said in a statement.