Affiliates & mobile
Consumer buying behaviour and shopping habits are continually evolving, with the increase in smartphone penetration, more and more consumers are accessing the internet on a mobile device.
Looking at Affiliate Window’s mobile stats back in December 2010, mobile traffic accounted for 2.4% of total network activity. Fast forward to March 2012 and these figures have grown considerably with mobile accounting for 10% of total traffic and 6.6% of sales.
Source: Awin 2012
What is more Affiliate Window forecast that by the end of the year approximately 14.5% of transactions will come from mobile devices.
With this huge growth in mobile traffic it is imperative that advertisers make the consumer buying journey as smooth as possible. I am still amazed by the number of advertisers that do not have a dedicated mobile site. This makes viewing products, adding them to basket and the final check-out stage difficult. This has led to conversion rate through mobile dropping as the amount of mobile traffic has increased.
As well as a poor user journey being to blame for the drop in conversion rate, many advertisers that have a mobile site do not implement affiliate tracking. This means that a high proportion of affiliate sales are missed.
The lack of mobile preparedness from affiliate advertisers is an issue. If advertisers really want to take advantage of the affiliate mobile opportunities available they must develop a dedicated mobile site with robust affiliate tracking in place.
Thank you Benito’s Hat & Facebook
The highlight of my week so far has to be the Benito’s Hat Facebook offer I redeemed – sad but true. I have a love for burritos and at least every other week I take the short walk to Benito’s Hat to get my regular fix so you can imagine my joy at when they promoted their ‘free
amigios’ deal as a Facebook offer this week.
It was the first time I had come across a Facebook Offer which appear to be an evolved and simplified version of the old ‘deals’ which Facebook used to run. However unlike the deals there is no prerequisite to check in or take an action in order to redeem – the offer simply came up in my newsfeed, (as I already ‘like’ Benito’s Hat) I clicked redeem and an e-mail was sent to me with the offer. Even in the offer e-mail itself I was able to share it with friends which brings in the social sharing aspect further.
I feel these offers on Facebook open the opportunity for a wide range of business to use and I’m sure I’ll come across loads of examples over the next few months. However the reason why I loved this one so much is that is stays true to the fun persona of Benito’s Hat which is what every brand should do across any social platform. The offer doesn’t need to be huge but needs to be simple and stay true to the brand whilst rewarding existing and loyal customers.
So thank you Benito’s Hat & Facebook!
Useful article:- http://allfacebook.com/facebook-offers-tagtile_b85766
(Google +) = (- Interest)
My self-imposed break from Facebook and Twitter is over.
As part of a one man (not so social) experiment, for the last week I haven’t logged in to either social platform as I endeavoured to become a Google+ convert. To be honest, this little experiment was long overdue having ‘upgraded’ (current Google users don’t ‘join, but upgrade to G+) when it first launched, but never done anything with my ‘account’.
So, spurred on by reading about Google+ undergoing a revamp and boasting of its 170m users, I decided it was time to see what it was all about.
Whilst I understand (and Google later reiterated to me in person) that G+ isn’t supposed to be a like for like replacement for Facebook or Twitter, I felt the best way to truly appreciate what the platform could offer would be to give it my exclusive “social attention”. 
I chose to treat using G+ as any other punter would (as opposed to scrutinising it as a Digital Planner might) and to be honest the first few days passed without incident – literally. Given that only a handful of my friends outside of work are on G+, my ‘stream’ remained unchanged. Ok, so Mashable and Richard Branson had plenty to say – but to be honest that isn’t what I want in my personal social space.
I asked people in my ‘circles’ if anyone else was using Google+ “No – I don’t get it” and “Yes, but only because you sent me a message” came 2 responses. I was starting to feel a little isolated and was wondering what has happening on Facebook.
As the experiment went into days 3 and 4, what did become apparent was how engrained the other social platforms had become into the social ecosystem. I felt like I was cheating on Google when I checked my LinkedIn account to be confronted with Twitter updates from my contacts and everywhere I went I was being asked to ‘share this on Facebook’, or ‘login in using Facebook’ – but I couldn’t.
By chance on the 5th day of the experiment I was at an industry conference where a guy called Kerem Atasoy (+kerem atasoy) spoke about how Google+ can be used by retailers and to be honest he did very little to convince me that Google’s dabble in the social world is going to be the soaring a success. I collared Kerem at the end of the conference and outlined how I had been solely using Google+ for the past few days and asked if he could tell me how many other people in the UK only were using it – “Only Larry (The Lamb? Grayson?) knows that” was the response. (Out of interest Kerem himself has only posted on Google+ 3 times in the last 3 months).
My interest was waning and I found myself digesting more than my average amount of daily digital news as I found that this (outside of a handful of brand pages) was the only real content I could find of interest. Yes, a lot of big (and some smaller) brands (H&M, Burberry, Intel, Manchester United) have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, have lots of people in their circles and appear to be making a fair fist of things – but it felt very much as if I was an outsider looking in, rather than it being the social/interactive platform I was hoping for.
Many of these brands have gone to great lengths to make some really attractive looking pages and update regularly, giving those people that are interested much to digest – but at the moment it just isn’t mainstream enough to be of interest to the mainstream – clearly seen by the lack of responses to most posts.
In summary, Google will be the first to admit they are behind the curve when it comes to social. Facebook and Twitter stole a march on them some time ago and they are now trying to play catch up.
Whilst Google+ has some nice features (Circles and Hangouts especially), I think they are going to struggle to compete with Facebook and become a social media tool that is used by the masses. The current awareness campaign they are running may help turn a few heads and increase uptake amongst a few (hundred?) thousand of the more curious and tech savvy amongst us but I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to being as widely used as Facebook.
Admittedly for fans (and employees) of Google, G+ does help close the loop on their many product extensions but in my view it just feels a bit too complicated for the average online user – there is too much for people to get their heads around and I think this counts against it. If you look at how simple other social platforms are to set up, understand and use, it just feels that Google have overcooked it a bit.
For brands that have the know-how and budgets, it is bound offer rewards if it is managed properly – as no doubt Google+ brand pages will rank better in natural search and see other social platforms slide down into oblivion and it may well be this fact that many brands will consider when looking at their brand pages. But on the flipside, this is yet another social platform that requires upkeep and moderation – putting extra pressure on all but the most socially active and well-resourced brands.
I’d like to say that I will continue to use Google+, but until less of the digital pluralists and more of my friends and the brands I am interested in are signed up – I won’t be.
Feel free to see what I don’t get up to :- +john kimbell
Useful links :-
http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/
http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/hm-google-plus-brand-pages/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/google_is_fiddling_with_the_google_plus_stats/
What is next for Apple?
Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world however their success hasn’t been down to new inventions. The company has simply taken existing ideas and improved on them. The digital music player, smartphone, online music store, laptop, tablet and the mobile app store all existed in various forms before Apple became involved.
One of the most successful and innovative launches from Apple has been the App Store, last month the store hit its 10th billion app download. Considering the store is less than 4 years old this is an incredible feat.
Now that Apple has dominated the app market and their great leaders (dictators) existence with the company has ended what is next?
Here are some of my predictions of the markets that Apple will enter and most probably dominate.
iMaps
The Google map app is a powerful piece of technology with the latest update being intuitive and can I say dependable? This app has saved me on countless occasions whether it’s finding the next client meeting or sourcing my next double cheeseburger fix. However, this app is provided by Google who happen to be one of Apple’s major competitors, I expect to see the launch of an Apple navigation app by the end of the year.
Mobile payment
Mobile has been the big buzz word for years within the marketing industry. It is only now that network speeds, software capability and user acceptability is up to speed that mobile payments will start to become common place. The launch of the next iPhone should include a NFC chip which will make jumping on the tube or paying for an early morning latte super convenient. A simple touch of the phone on a payment pad will see funds automatically deducted from a user’s account – could this mean the death of the traditional wallet?
Apple TV
TV’s have improved dramatically and the majority of people have accepted and therefore purchased flat screen TV’s which look good, are compact and deliver excellent image quality. TV hardware is great however the device software is still light years behind what we expect as the norm from computers.
I believe Apple will provide a TV solution that not only looks great and has excellent image quality but also packs a software punch. This will include gaming, entertainment, music and of course TV functionality. Furthermore integration of gesture controls will make turning up the volume as easy as a swipe of the hand or foot.
I am certain that we will see Apple technology cropping up in all types of products over the next year. This will include home entertainment systems, home appliances and maybe even a range of products specifically for children. Apple will continue to innovate and develop existing markets wherever they see scope for improvement.