The best digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week
On we go.
Faster web pages already rank higher in mobile searches
Ahead of Google’s mobile ‘Speed Update’, set to rollout this July, a new study by Searchmetrics suggests that page speed is already deciding winners over losers in mobile searches. It found that the search results appearing in Google positions one to five load significantly faster than those lower down, with almost a third loading within one second.
To test how speed varies across search results, Searchmetrics analysed the load speed of pages appearing in thousands of organic mobile search results ranking in positions one to 15. The biggest correlation between page speed and how pages rank was found in the top five results – the higher the ranking, the faster the average page speed.
Overall, the study indicates that the average load time for pages ranked one to 15 is less than three seconds, while across all industries, pages ranking in the top five positions are faster on average than those from positions six to 15.
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Three-quarters of customers are more loyal if they can speak to a human instead of a machine
A new report by Calabrio, based on opinion from 3,000 consumers, has revealed that organisations could be relying too heavily on technology to create brand loyalty - without understanding how it’s truly impacting the customer experience.
In a survey, 74% of consumers admitted that they are more loyal to a company if they can talk to an actual person rather than a machine when they need assistance. Meanwhile, despite consumers seeing the potential of bots, 58% of customers said they still believe talking to a representative is the way to get the best and most efficient service.
This largely looks to be due to clarity (and potential problems with bots understanding human language). 60% of customers said they feel like their voices are heard when they speak to a person.
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- Machines: "I think what the marketers meant to say..."
Brands set to benefit from hot weather
With temperatures soaring in the UK, data from the The Trade Desk suggests that brands are set to benefit this summer.
It has revealed that overnight internet traffic shot up by 19% during last year’s biggest heatwave, compared to the average traffic for the same period four weeks before. This indicates that shoppers are failing to switch off due to the heat, giving brands a great opportunity to engage them during this time.
The study also suggests that brands related to education and careers stand to have the biggest impact. In July 2017, the audience for these verticals increased by 88% and 95% respectively. Likewise, 90% more users were online and presented with ads from family and parenting brands.
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71% of consumers see repeated ads
Kantar Media’s ‘Dimension’ study has delved into consumer attitudes about advertising.
From a survey of 5,000 ‘connected consumers’ across Brazil, China, France, UK and the US, Kantar found that 73% of adults feel that advertising is changing for the better or not changing at all - a very similar figure to last year.
However, consumers still feel that they see the same ads too often, and that they are exposed to ads for products they’ve already bought. 71% say they see the same ads over and over, while 40% only see an increasing number of relevant ads.
Meanwhile, 33% of people claim they enjoy ads viewed on a TV set more than they do online, and the same is true for printed magazines versus online ads, with 32% preferring the former.
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- Why native video will transform advertising & reduce adblocker usage
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One in four marketers rely on instinct to make decisions
According to Qualtrics’ latest report, which is based on a survey of 250 in-house marketing professionals, one in four marketers regularly rely on their ‘gut instincts’ when making decisions and planning their campaigns.
Despite this fact, 85% of those surveyed also said they collect data from 15 or more sources in order to inform their marketing approaches.
75% of marketers said they analyse these varied data sources at least once a month, however, 63% still agreed that they need more than traditional operational data to build an effective customer experience.
Lastly, when it comes to the factors holding marketers back, 64% said it was due to not having the time to perform complex analysis, and 51% said not having the available tools.
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Screwfix ranked as the number one World Cup ad so far
According to 4C Insights, gambling brands are among the most popular advertising campaigns of the World Cup so far.
From 14th June to 25th June, brands including Betfair, Coral and Paddy Power achieved an average sentiment score of 71% from nearly 250,000 social media engagements - measured by the number of engagements that were positive and not negative.
Paddy Power has generated the highest TV social lift of any brand associated with the World Cup, generating a social lift score of 696% in the five minutes immediately after its TV ad aired.
Lastly, 4C Insights has also revealed that Screwfix’s ad on ITV received 79% positive sentiment, making it the most well-received ad overall.
Related reading:
How the World Cup can surprisingly help us understand attribution
Usage of Facebook ‘reactions’ has increased by 433%
Back in 2016, Facebook introduced a range of new ‘reactions’ as alternatives to the ‘like’ button, including emoji’s indicating to ‘love’, feel ‘angry’ or ‘sad’.
Soon after, Quintly reported that usage was fairly low, with reactions making up just 2.4% of all interactions on Facebook. However, fresh research suggests that this has since changed.
Now, reactions make up 12.8% of all interactions, which is an impressive 433% increase in just over two years.
Initially, ‘love’ was the most commonly used version, accounting for 50% of the total new reactions used. This has also changed, with ‘haha’ now making up 36.9% of reactions used on Facebook, with ‘love’ down to just 35.9%.
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