Posts Tagged ‘reports’
Monday, September 19th, 2011
 Social media users were overwhelmingly positive about deal websites over the last 12 months, but their passion for online deals is rapidly cooling thanks to growing hatred for Groupon, according to a new social media analytics report from Amplicate.
The report found that 86% of comments posted on social media about deal websites were positive over the last 12 months. But social media users were much less positive in the second half of the year than in the first.
According to the report, 93% of comments on deal websites were positive in the first six months, compared with 81% in the last six months.
Swagbucks was the most loved deal website on social media over the 12 months. Fans of Swagbucks had almost nothing negative to say about the online loyalty program, with 99% of comments expressing love for the rewards site.
Groupon most talked about and most hated
Groupon, on the other hand, was far and away the most talked about and most hated deal website. Its popularity on social media declined dramatically in 2011 thanks to negative press for its controversial Superbowl commercials and growing skepticism about its business model.
However, thanks to a flurry of positive press in 2010, Groupon still managed to garner many more positive comments than negative over the 12 months, with 81% of opinions on social media expressing love for the daily deals giant.
Amplicate’s new report ‘Public Opinion on Deal Websites on Social Media‘ reveals that what social media users most liked about deal websites were the great deals and low prices for goods and services. The only common complaint against deal websites was about the food purchased through daily deals.
Amplicate Reports explain what people have been saying about a topic, when and where they’re saying it and why.
Tags: Amplicate, daily deals, Groupon, reports, social media, Swagbucks
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Studies, surveys, reports | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
 Free conference calling services are currently saving consumers at least $656 million annually. According to TeleSpan Publishing Corp, free toll conference calls are growing at five times the rate of fee-based toll conferencing services that companies like Verizon and AT&T provide. Long Beach, CA-based FreeConferenceCall.com, the largest privately held conferencing provider in the United States, released the analysis.
“People from all over the world – from cities to rural areas, small business executives to non-profit organizations and individuals – are using free conferencing services to do everything from conducting their day to day business to planning family reunions – and they are saving over a half a billion dollars a year,” said David Erickson, Founder and CEO of FreeConferenceCall.com.
“The tremendous growth of the industry is directly tied to these savings, as consumers realize that there is no need to pay extra for a conference call when they can get the same quality and reliable service for the cost of a regular call.”
A recent TeleSpan Publishing Corp report found that last year, consumers spent 9.3 billion minutes on free conference calls and 45.3 billion minutes on paid conference calls. The paid calls cost consumers $3.2 billion a year (an average of $.0706 per minute), which explains why free conference calls are growing at five times the rate of paid calls.
Approximately 15-20 million consumers, including businesses, individuals, non-profit organizations, church groups, government agencies, and other organizations in the United States and internationally, use FreeConferenceCall.com to communicate every month.
Many of FreeConferenceCall.com’s customers migrated from the larger providers that charge for the same services (carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and their subsidiaries or partners). Many other customers would never have made a conference call because of the cost – particularly small businesses, non-profits, and individuals – but now do because of the savings.
We’ve used a variety of these services, such as GoToMeeting.com, among others. Generally they seem to work better than similar services from the phone companies. Many of the firms we interview demonstrate their products using GotoMeeting, which has a free trial but otherwise requires buying the app. People who don’t purchase it can still participate in conferences with those who do.
FreeConferenceCall.com offers consumers a variety of services, including domestic audio conferencing, international audio conferencing, event conferencing, flat-rate conferencing, toll-free conferencing, outgoing call messaging, online conferencing, and voicemail messaging services.
Do you have a conference call system you prefer?
Tags: conference call software, conference calling apps, Freeconferencecall.com, GotoMeeting.com, reports, telecom
Posted in Internet/New Media, Studies, surveys, reports, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
 Online advertising saw strong spend growth in the second quarter, according to a report released today by IgnitionOne, a provider of performance marketing technology and services, managing more than $1 billion in online advertising for some of the world’s largest brands and their agencies.
The second quarter saw year-over-year spend growth increases across all three major online media channels (Paid Search, Display and Facebook), despite continuing uncertainties from the economy and higher gasoline prices.
US paid search spend grew a steady 12 percent year-over-year and Facebook advertising was particularly strong, up 22 percent on a same-client-basis and up 280% across all advertisers. However, paid search declined in June, painting an uncertain picture for the third quarter.
Key findings in the report:
Paid search advertising sees steady growth YOY, but dips in June
US paid search spend grew a steady 12% year-over-year in Q2, and was flat compared with Q1 growth. The quarter began strong, but dipped in June to nearly flat growth on a YOY basis.
Google commands majority of market share in search, display
Google was again the standout performer showing gains in YOY search spend and significant market share traction for its AdEx display platform. Google grew to 81% share of all US search advertising spend and 51% share of US RTB display spend in Q2.
Facebook sees dramatic growth from new advertisers
Facebook advertising spend is up 22 percent year over year on a same-client-basis. However, Facebook has experienced high rates of growth from new marketer adoption in the past year, contributing a 280 percent increase in advertising spend across all clients. Spending patterns within an advertiser’s campaign lifecycle show marked growth declines after the first few months, suggesting advertisers are still in a “test and learn” phase with the new and immature ad platform.
“Overall it was a very good quarter for online advertising, but it wasn’t a slam dunk,” said Roger Barnette, President of IgnitionOne. “The paid search spending slowdown in June did not have a significant impact on the quarter overall, although it could be an indicator of future months’ performance, and we’re cautiously optimistic heading into Q3.”
IgnitionOne’s complete Q2 report can be downloaded here.
This report is the latest in a series of reports from IgnitionOne reviewing trends across the online advertising landscape. Dowload Previous quarterly reports.
Tags: display ads, Facebook advertising up, Ignition One, online advertising Q2 2011, paid search, reports
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
 If you run a travel site or plan on starting one, your brand will need a high “Digital IQ,” according to a new study.
It found that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly important in attracting customers to travel websites. The report by L2 evaluated the “digital IQ” of 89 global airline, hotel and cruise line brands and determined how social media is affecting them.
The L2 Digital IQ Index for Travel report found that there was a direct correlation between the average “digital IQ” of the brand and the percentage of repeat business purchases made through its website – the poorer the digital IQ and subsequent customer service offered by a brand, the lower the number of repeat bookings made through its website were.
While most brands had to slash their prices during the recession, those with stronger social media customer service records have been able to rebound faster and return their rates to near pre-recession levels.
The report revealed that the most successful social media mavens were using their accounts to promote special deals that were allowing customers to book holidays at bargain prices and pick up promotional deals. They were also creating competitions to better engage with their communities while also raising their company profile.
Tags: airline brands, cruise brands, L2, reports, social media, travel brands need high digital IQ
Posted in social media, Studies, surveys, reports | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
 A new report from Forrester Research says that 84 percent of U.S. Interactive marketers have no plans to use games in 2011 marketing strategies.
That, says Forrester, makes social games “a large, untapped opportunity for marketers.” We think it’s also a large opportunity for startups with ideas on how to help marketers take advantage of what social games offer. For one thing, 250 million people play casual games every month.
With Facebook game-maker Zynga likely to launch a much-watched IPO soon, social games are going to be even more of a buzz topic than they already are. Almost everyone seems to like these social games, although privacy and security concerns keep some from playing them via Facebook or other social venues. Still, we get requests to join in some social game or other every day on our Facebook account.
It is rather startling that so few marketers have plans to take advantage of the vast audience and engaged attention social games offer.
Forrester says in the new report that “Marketers should start to take note from the marketers who are investing and reaping rewards as social games offer a diverse audience whose size rivals that of network TV audiences.”
It says that balancing brand interaction with game rewards such as currency, gaming offers marketers a myriad of “value-exchange marketing options” that place brands in front of “engaged consumers.” The report suggests offering currency as a reward for a service or taking a survey as one tactic to use.
The report also says that gaming audiences offer attractive demographics: 59 percent, for instance are women, many of them mothers. Gen X leads in the age group demo, with 30 percent gaming.
Forrester offers the report for $499.
Forrester recommends that marketers focus on games from established players such as Zynga, Playfish, or CrowdStar.
Companies can also create their own social games, but the report notes that such games may or may not catch on.
Tags: advertising, casual games, Crowdstar, engaging consumers, Forrester Research, marketers missing social gaming opportunity, Playfish, reports, social games, survey, tactics for maretking with social games, Zynga
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Zynga | Comments Off
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
Although many marketers are rushing to establish a social network presence, a study by Forrester and GSI Commerce found that social media had little impact on online purchases during the 2010 holiday shopping season, resulting in less than 2 percent of orders.
Actual holiday purchase data from 15 retailers that were GSI Commerce clients showed that:
Most consumers purchased online following some web marketing influence.
Shoppers in the study touched some retail marketing vehicle before completing a transaction. Usually, they explicitly searched for a product or they received a retailer email. In fact, 77 percent of transactions in hard goods and 82 percent in soft goods engaged in some interactive marketing tactic.
Nearly half of purchases followed mulitple exposures to web marketing efforts.
About half of online shoppers touched at least two marketing points, which the report suggests highlights opportunities for retailers to “think beyond the tradtional last-click measurement.”
Search and email were the most effective tactics driving sales.
Traditional tactics were most effective in driving online sales. The report says 60 percent of soft goods buyers and 40 percent of hard goods purchasers came to retail websites from email and search specifically.
Display and affiliate marketing showed a strong influence.
The report suggests that display and affiliate marketing may not be getting their due because they typically play a role early in the research funnel and are followed by visits to search or email. Display ads, though, were the first marketing touch for 13 percent of soft goods buyers. Last-click analysis of marketing campaigns thus underestimate the effect of first-click tactics.
Social tactics “came alive” during key dates for soft goods. The truth is that social tactics
Social tactics were largely ineffective in driving sales. The data from this study indicated that less than 2% of orders were a result of shoppers coming from a social network. That said, to the degree that social networks did have an influence on holiday purchases, it was greatest during the Thanksgiving weekend and the Cyber Monday that followed.
Social media plays other brand roles
While this study should give marketers pause if they view social networks primarily as sales tools, we have heard many digital media experts, consultants and advisors at our various events (the next is the Digital Summit in Atlanta May 16-17) point out that social media can play many other important roles in marketing.
Those include brand awareness, a sense of engagement with a brand, early warnings of potential product trouble, and more.
Also, we suspect that marketers are really only just getting started with their social media campaigns, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Out and out commercials on Facebook or Twitter have seldom proved effective, for instance, while campaigns that are entertaining and engaging have much more success. These findings could be as much about how social media was used during the 2010 holiday season than about whether they can be used effectively to boost sales. — Allan Maurer
Tags: Atlanta, Digital Summit, email marketing, Forrester, GSI Commerce, reports, search marketing, social media not effective for online sales, traditional marketing vs. social media marketing
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, social media | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 15th, 2011
 Google and other search engines still send online publishers the bulk of their readers, but social media is gaining, according to research by Outbrain.
While search engines still dominate in sending the largest number of visitors to content sites (41 percent), social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and StumbleUpon, delivered 11 percent of the traffic in the Outbrain study.
“It’s no secret that people are spending an ever-increasing amount of time on social sites like Facebook and Twitter. One of the by-products of this shift is that these same people are now relying on their networks of friends and peers to alert them to interesting news and content,” Outbrain writes.
We see similar patterns here at TechJournal South. While search engines, led by Google, deliver the most daily traffic (usually half or more), we see an increasing number of visitors coming from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
News stories are the most shared, followed by entertainment and lifestyle stories. Sports ranked lowest among the verticals Outbrain examined.
One downside from the traffic coming from social networks is that visitors were much more likely to “bounce,” or leave the site after hitting the single link that brought them there. Chances are that someone hitting a link from Twitter or Facebook goes back to those sites rather than further exploring the site a link sends them to.
Online Media Daily offers some analysi.
Tags: Digg, facebook, Outbrain, reports, Social networks sending more traffic to online publishers, StumbleUpon, twitter
Posted in Facebook, Internet/New Media, social media, Studies, surveys, reports, Twitter | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
 RESTON, VA – People are watching more online video than ever and AOL has climbed into the number two spot for video content, up from seventh in February, possibly due to the way comScore now measures viewers.
According to comScore’s Video Matrix, 174 million Internet users, up 4 million from February, in the U.S. watched online video in March, averaging 14.8 hours per viewer.
Google sites (YouTube) continued to lead with 143.2 million viewers, followed by AOL with 57 million. Yahoo sites were third with 56.4 million, and Microsoft sites fourth with 53.1 million.
Vevo was fifth (52.6 million) and Facebook sixth (48.8 million).
AOL, which has boosted video content on all its properties, also may have benefited from comScore’s switch to unified digital measurement.
AOL has also integrated HuffPost video following its purchase of the news aggregation site.
So, are you watching more online video? We’re impressed with Facebook’s rise as a video source. It’s what steers us to most of the videos we watch these days, although most are on YouTube.
What concerns us, though, is that all this online video viewing makes Internet service providers look for ways to charge based on bandwidth consumed. It’s already happening in Canada and we’re likely to see repeated attempts to do the same by providers in the United States.
Tags: AOL, comScore, facebook, Google, Huffington Post, online video views March 2011, reports, Vevo, Yahoo, YouTube
Posted in Internet/New Media, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Monday, April 4th, 2011
 RESTON, VA -Samsung is currently the leading mobile device maker and Google’s Android smartphone operating system strengthened its number one spot, in the most recent data released by comScore’s Mobil.ens service for February, 2011.
For the three month average period ending in February, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.3 percentage points from the three month period ending in November. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.1 percent) and RIM (8.6 percent). Apple saw the strongest gain, up 0.9 percentage points to account for 7.5 percent of subscribers, on momentum from the release of the Verizon iPhone, the most acquired handset in the month of February.
Smartphone Platform Market Share
69.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in February 2011, up 13 percent from the preceding three-month period. Google Android grew 7.0 percentage points since November, strengthening its #1 position with 33.0 percent market share. RIM ranked second with 28.9 percent market share, followed by Apple with 25.2 percent. Microsoft (7.7 percent) and Palm (2.8 percent) rounded out the top five.
Mobile Content Usage
In February, 68.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device. Browsers were used by 38.4 percent of subscribers (up 3.1 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 36.6 percent of the mobile audience (up 3.2 percentage points). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 3.3 percentage points, representing 26.8 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing games represented 24.6 percent of the mobile audience, while listening to music represented 17.5 percent.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
SoutheastVentureConference: www.seventure.org
Internet Summit: www.internetsummit.com
Digital East: www.digitaleast.com
Digital Summit: www.digitalsummit.com
Tags: comScore, Feb. 2011, mobile phones, reports, telecom
Posted in Mobile, smartphones, Studies, surveys, reports, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
 While more than 90 percent of companies that provide mobile services say they want to incorporate mobile analytics into their business analysis, less than 20 percent currently do so, suggesting a potentially huge uptick in business for companies that offer mobile analytics tools, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Mobile Networks Insider .
“In a recent survey, 92 percent of organizations that use, sell or provide mobile services indicated they wanted to incorporate mobile analytics to improve process efficiencies and eliminate costs,” notes Denise Culver, research analyst with Heavy Reading Mobile Networks Insider and author of the report.
“Increasingly, service providers consider mobile analytics as vital to achieving cost savings and productivity enhancements. Mobile analytics answers various questions, including how many people use particular operating systems, the types of devices they use, how long they spend on sites, and more.”
Key findings of Mobile Analytics: Strong Growth Potential Ahead include:
- More than 80 percent of brands do not use mobile analytic tools, leading to inaccurate data on campaign performance.
- One benefit of mobile analytics is enabling operators to intelligently personalize tiered pricing plans to better meet subscribers’ needs, while increasing ARPU.
- Mobile analytics is being used in several ways, including prioritizing spending across the marketing mix.
- Over the next 18 to 24 months, mobile analytics will grow the most in North America, with Asia/Pacific and Latin American markets picking up speed.
- A major challenge for the industry is the lack of standardization between mobile browsers and operating systems.
To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact Jeff Claudino at claudino@lightreading.com.
A list of companies included in this report.
Tags: Heavy Reading, IT, Mobile analytics poised for growth, reports, telecom
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Mobile, Studies, surveys, reports, Telecommunications | Comments Off
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