Has context pushed historical insights into marketing data obscurity?

©iStock.com/Nikada

Historical data has always been one of the most important ingredients for any digital marketing campaign, but in the age of the customer does it still hold the same importance it once did?

Marketing Tech spoke to several firms at the recent TFM&A event in London and it appears that 2015 might not only be the year of the customer, but also the year where company’s move away from the data land-grab strategy of old.

One advocate for this...

4 March 2015 | Big Data

Have phablets ushered in a new era of mobile CRM?

©iStock.com/cookelma

Phablets recorded their highest volume of sales in the last quarter of 2014 according to a GFK study and it has caused the CRM software industry to sit up and take notice.

These smartphones with a screen more than 5.5” in size now account for 12.8% of total device sales. It is a percentage that has been fuelled by drops in cost as average prices fall. For instance, in Europe prices decreased from $820 in Q4 2012 to $761 in Q4 2014.

All...

2 March 2015 | Commerce

Brand apps are falling short on consumer engagement

©iStock.com/krystiannawrocki

Marketers may have to consider an alternative approach when engaging with consumers through mobile as brand apps are not having the desired effect.

Consumers are showing their dissatisfaction with branded apps in a number of ways, according to TNS research collated from 1,612 UK smartphone users on behalf of digital marketing consultancy Ampersand Mobile.

Significantly, 71% admitted that branded apps do not engage and are only created...

24 February 2015 | Commerce

Did Facebook just overtake YouTube as the de facto site for video advertisers?

©iStock.com/FLDphotos

Videos were only introduced to Facebook in the third quarter of last year, but according to socialbakers there has been some serious movement towards this medium as ad objectives evolve.

While page likes become less important to advertisers, video is grasping a higher proportion of budgetary spend. Data from socialbakers puts embedded news-feed video at 5% despite it being available for such a small period of time on Facebook.

It is easy to...

24 February 2015 | Social Media Marketing

Do B2B marketers have a trust issue when seeking external help?

©iStock.com/abluecup

Outsourcing provides a company with experienced assistance that might not normally be available from its own internal staff, but could this solution be on its way out in B2B marketing circles?

Hinge, a professional services marketing, gathered responses from 530 professional services firms for its 2015 Professional Services Marketing Priorities report to find that only 13.2% exclusively use external resources.

The overwhelming trend is for...

18 February 2015 | CRM

Software should do more to infiltrate the sales and marketing divide

©iStock.com/vkyryl

Sales and marketing departments are not collaborating enough and the onus should be on software companies to bring these silos together for the good of their business.

New research from CallidusCloud states that only 15.7% of respondents have aligned the two departments in their organisation, 63% do not fully share data and 62.5% have all or part of their lead data in systems that are only visible to marketing.

An abysmal 41% of sales and...

17 February 2015 | Advertising

Digital marketing acquisitions at five-year high amid plummeting valuations

©iStock.com/funky-data 

Not since 2010 have there been as many mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the digital marketing sector as there are today, although the number of companies going to market is having an adverse effect on valuations.

For the final six months of 2014 there was M&A activity totalling $9.8 billion in digital marketing, which was seven times that of the first half of the same year thanks to two multi-billion dollar deals and a rise in...

17 February 2015 | Advertising

Context is everything in video advertising, states Oxford paper

©iStock.com/wgmbh 

Even the most enthralling video advert on the planet would be worthless if it was emotionally at odds with the media it showed up in, according to a new report from the University of Oxford.

Six studies were performed on 900 people, who were asked to watch a number of video advertisements while having their responses monitored. If an ad that oozed high energy appeared during moment of tension in a movie, it would be a big turn-off for...

12 February 2015 | Data Science

Facebook unveils relevance scores to highlight poor targeting

©iStock.com/wellesenterprises 

Social network Facebook has rolled out a new relevance score feature that will give advertisers an idea of how well their ad will be received by its intended consumer demographic.

Facebook is using relevance score coupled with the cost of delivering an ad to force advertisers to pay more attention to their targeting. For example an ad with a high relevance score will cost less to be delivered as it is seen by the system as a positive...

12 February 2015 | Advertising

Marketers at loggerheads with consumers over personalisation effectiveness

©iStock.com/AndreyPopov 

Most marketers may believe that they are delivering effective personalised experiences to their online customers, but this is at odds with the views of the very consumers they are targeting.

Predictive data service Lytics has released a report detailing how 53% of marketers are convinced by the competency of their personalisation strategy, however 80% of consumers insist brands show little evidence that they are familiar with their online...

11 February 2015 | Advertising