10 interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week

10 interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week:

from Posts from the Econsultancy blog by Ben Davis


Here's some statistics we've seen this week, for your delectation.
For more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.

Six second gold; the number of Vine tweets per second doubles in the last two months.

Unruly now helpfully compiles Vine metrics.

• Vine currently has more than 13 million users.
• Number of tweets containing a Vine link has risen from five every second during April to nine every second during the first three weeks of June.
• Branded Vines are four times more likely to be shared than video ads.

Factors that affect search: ch..ch…changes.

Searchmetrics’ analysis of social signals looked for correlations between social activity and search ranking, with the obvious caveat here that search begets social, and vice versa.

• Google plus ones correlate more strongly (a correlation coefficient of +0.4) with ranking than any other social media signals.
• Facebook shares were the second most closely linked social signal with rankings - a correlation of +0.34.
• Tweets on Twitter and Pins on Pinterest have lower correlations of +0.28 and 0.29 respectively.

The research goes on to look at keywords and their location. Search experts have long believed that sites that have a keyword in the domain name, such as carinsurance.com or paydayloan.com, tend to rank higher for relevant searches, but Searchmetrics’ study indicates this is now declining in importance.

• The study found that having a keyword in the domain name has only a low positive correlation (+0.03) down from 0.11 in 2012.
• Having a keyword in the URL or web page address has declined from a correlation of +0.04 in 2012 to an even lower 0.01 in 2013.

And backlinks are growing in importance. Although the correlation has decreased slightly between backlinks and search ranking, this is due to a marked increase in backlinks for some of the topmost search results.

• Backlinks grow - all the pages ranking in the top 30 positions feature more backlinks on average than last year.

QR code penetration 

Only a quarter (25%) of smartphone owners have scanned a QR code in-store while 9% are still unaware of the technology.
The data comes from a Toluna survey of 1,000 UK consumers, the full results of which are included in our new Mobile Commerce Compendium.

In bitcoins we trust?

Research on the public awareness of Bitcoin was conducted by On Device Research in association with st-art, the organisers of the upcoming Bitcoin London conference.

• A quarter of Americans questioned in a recent poll said they had heard of Bitcoin, 16% of these Americans have more trust in the digital currency than the US dollar.
• In Argentina, 73% of respondents who have heard of Bitcoin trusted it, with 22% having more confidence in Bitcoin over the Peso.
• 32.2% of Brits are aware of Bitcoins. 69% of Bitcoin-aware Brits trusted the digital currency, with 14% having more trust in it than the Pound. 

The website is firmly in the boardroom, but data only has a foot in the door.

Nearly 85% of board meetings cover performance of website, but less than a quarter make changes based on sophisticated data.
This survey by Decibel Insight, showed that:

• 85%t of marketers are solely using a free analytics platform, while only 16 per cent have invested in paid-for platforms. 
• Only 2% use a marketing automation platform.
• 13% of marketers use visitor identification software. 

As we pray for an Indian summer, Greenlight analyses energy-related search terms.

Greenlight’s analysis of organic search and paid media listings established that:

• In April, 235,050 queries were made by consumers searching for Energy-related terms on laptops/desktops and mobile devices (tablets & smartphones).
• uswitch.com was the most visible advertiser for Energy-related searches on mobile devices, achieving a 90% share of voice. 
• moneysupermarket.com was the most visible website for Energy-related searches on laptops/desktops, achieving a 72% share of voice.

 The chart below shows the most visible companies across paid media and search, for energy related queries.

Luxury retailers are more advanced than high street retailers, with a significant proportion investing into new technologies

Research by PlayNetwork sdfs

• 90% of luxury retailers are offering in-store video, compared with less than half (44%) of high street retailers.
• 30% of luxury retailers have trialled transparent screens in stores and no high street retailers have done so.
• 20% of luxury retailers feature RFID microchips in items of clothing for shoppers to interact with, compared with no high street retailers.
• 33% of high street retailers offer in-store Wi-Fi and 20% of luxury retailers provide this.
• 40% of luxury retailers use tablets in stores, while 33% of high street retailers are doing so.
• 44% of luxury retailers don’t have transactional mobile sites. Of those that do have transactional mobile sites, 56% offer product videos across their mobile stores.
• All of the high street retailers allow shoppers to purchase via the mobile channel and just 22% of these offer video.

The best day to email depends on the market,and first movers into creative email programmes could enjoy success. 

A study by Experian looks at email opens, clicks and engagement. Findings show that markets vary in terms of best days to undertake email activity.
It's also the case that some countries, such as Spain are trailing with regards to implementing more creative programmes, such as cart abandonmnet emails.
 During the holidays, India and France experienced lower opens and clicks for weekends than weekdays. In the United States it was the reverse occurred, with higher engagement on weekends.

• Australia, Singapore and New Zealand all have higher engagement during weekends than weekdays, yet Asia Pacific markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong and China are not deploying a large amount of holiday emails on weekends.
• This might be a great test factor for email marketers sending to countries in Asia Pacific in order to optimize open and click rates of campaigns that currently are being deployed during the week.
• Global brands can benefit from a “first mover advantage” in specific markets not yet email mature
• Abandoned cart campaigns typically produce high response rates, especially in Spain where click rates during the holiday season were 13.2 percent.
• However, many retailers in Spain are not using this form of remarketing, but should consider doing so especially during the holiday season.   
• Birthday emails around the holiday season also can be used to catch buyers in a “gift-giving” or “gift-receiving” mood.  They are an easy win for email marketers, yet no Asian brands are employing this tactic.

Understanding the customer experience

Econsultancy's Reducing Customer Struggle report, in association with IBM Tealeaf, contains some great insights into what methods companies are using to test custoemr experience, and which they think are effective.
There's an interesting disconnect, with lots of people using methods they don't necessarily view as effective, and lots not yet undertaking work that could be very insightful. It's likely that a blend of approaches leads to these kind of results but online focus groups and digital replays are certainl underused. Here's the chart:

How do companies integrate online and offline worlds?

The same report contains some interesting findings about which offline/online tech is being employed by companies.