Commerce media: Retail’s next big opportunity

Early successes include revenue increases, global partnerships and fundraising NEW YORK, March 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad's entrepreneurial mentorship initiative, the Propeller Program, has seen extremely positive results since it began in September 2016. The five early-stage startups selected from Norway have gained momentum in establishing a U.S. presence. Tapad, now a part of Experian, is the leader in unified cross-device marketing technology. The company was acquired by the Telenor Group in 2016. Among the successes within Propeller: Xeneta, the leading ocean freight price comparison platform and contracted rate database, has raised an additional $12M in funding since beginning the Propeller Program. Before the end of 2016, the company had exceeded its revenue expectations by nearly 30 percent, proving the European-focused business could succeed in the American market. "Aside from directly impacting our revenue, the Propeller Program has provided us with incredible access to a countless number of external resources, including subject matter experts from the fields of fundraising, public speaking, corporate structuring and immigration law," said William Di Ieso, GM of North America for Xeneta. "We remain extremely grateful for the opportunity and exposure the program has provided for Xeneta." Bubbly, an in-store real-time engagement tool for non-buyers, now has clients on four continents. After only a few months in the U.S. market, Bubbly has signed deals with one major retail brand, one major toy manufacturer and a major global consulting firm. The Propeller Program has also opened doors for greater opportunities in Scandinavia and EMEA. After an introduction to Telenor Group's President and CEO Sigve Brekke, Bubbly is currently piloting its IoT kiosk with the company. "The mentoring sessions have been very valuable and have given us guidance as to how to best enter the U.S. market," said Marianne Haugland Hindsgaul, Bubbly CEO and co-founder. "Learning to do business in the U.S. is not something you can necessarily learn from a book. The most impactful lessons are based on real-world experience, and that is what the Propeller Program has given us." BylineMe, a marketplace for freelancers, publishers and brands to connect for content creation and distribution services, has built an extensive network of potential clients and investors. The company has tested its product in the U.S. market and gained valuable feedback for further development. Eventum, a property-sharing group that digitally assists in securing venues for meetings and corporate events, has closed a seed round of funding for nearly $1M. Eventum has also made key hires in the areas of business development and engineering. Socius, under the influence of Tapad, pivoted into the ad tech space, positioning itself as "a social native ad platform" for digital publishers. The company has attracted top talent to begin building out its U.S. business development and sales divisions. As a result, Socius has signed a host of premium publisher partners to validate its exciting new direction. "It is so rewarding to be able to support these Norwegian startups in a meaningful way," said Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder at Tapad. "Mentor relationships are critical for strategic growth, and I am proud to be able to pay forward the experiences I have gained as an entrepreneur. To me, the Propeller Program is a shining example of the magic that can happen when Norwegian innovation meets American opportunity." Contact us today!

Oh, how the time flies.  We’re already into March of this young 2017, and as much as it pains me to say, it’s probably about time we begin thinking about Holiday 2017.  But such is life, and if we have to do it, we might as well do it right. So how do we start to think about “doing it right” in Holiday 2017?  Well, as an analytics guy, I might be biased, but I believe the data contains the answers.  While there are obviously many more factors, which you can see in our 2016 Holiday Insights webinar, data points and concepts to consider, let’s dive into a few interesting 2016 holiday marketing insights that can help you begin prepping for this upcoming holiday. First, a quick note on the data in this post – all data is collected from a holistic study that examines a single inbox designed to mimic the “average” consumer…and since, on average, most email subscribers aren’t doing more than opening, we make sure that no content is clicked through and no transactions are recorded.  We then coded each email on a variety of different metrics, some of which you’ll see below.  Finally, in order to increase the robustness of our evaluations, we examine each brand within the study individually, first by calculating the overall average KPIs for the time period within the study.  Then, we compare each mailing for each brand against that brand’s baseline, creating a +/- metric on a per campaign basis.  Then, we average those metrics across each brand, creating a model for expected performance compared to the “typical” mailing. To illustrate, let’s examine the following (simplified) sample table.  Suppose we want to know what the “expected” impact of X for a brand’s marketing program.  In the table below, we’ve gathered the open rates for campaigns that exhibit X for brands A & B. The table also shows the long-term average open rates for each brand, and the percent change of the campaigns compared to that baseline.  By averaging those results, we get a holistic “expectation model” for campaigns exhibiting X.  In this sample, we can generalize to say, any campaign including X for any brand should, on average,  expect an open rate that’s about 9% lower than their long-term baseline. Peak week’s heavy influence I don’t think it’s an earth shattering revelation that the data shows peak week’s performance as being significantly above average, but it often surprises me to see just how much better it does than the surrounding time periods.  This is easily seen in the chart below, where I’ve plotted every single mailing’s +/- revenue per email over time.  I’ve categorized the mailings as “holiday” vs “standard” to see if there were any significant patterns.  As you can see, most mailings performed worse than the baseline, due to the baseline being so heavily influenced by peak week, with mailings performing 2-5x better than average. What does it mean?  Peak week’s impact is large enough that brands might want to consider viewing it in a vacuum, away from the days surrounding it, in order to get a better read on the overall health of their email program.  Your brand should expect much better than average results throughout peak week, of course, and if the data doesn’t show that, you might be in trouble! Holiday messages get a boost with subject line mentions Throughout holiday, creative treatments and copy call out or hint towards specific holidays.  Overall, those holiday messages generally perform better than average across all KPIs, as shown below.  These results improve even further when those specific holidays are mentioned within the subject line, with Black Friday mailings seeing the largest increase when combined with a subject line mention. What’s most interesting to me, however, is how negatively Christmas themed mailings were affected when the holiday was called out in the subject line (a net 25% decline in revenue per email). All of these results may arise from a case of self-selection bias, whereas we should expect a specific holiday message to do better than average simply because it’s a specific holiday theme.  This concept works in a few ways: a)  If a company is giving a great offer, they might want to make it feel more “special” by creating a unique theme and selling concept around it (the holiday) . b)  If a company has decided to devote resources to creating a mailing designed around a specific holiday, likely requiring a change in the creative process / design or additional strategizing around copy and positioning, then they will likely want to attach stronger offers to make the increased effort worth it. c)  Due to the date of deployment, companies are more likely to both add strong offers and devote creative resources to a mailing because they implicitly understand that customers are more likely to engage on those days due to larger economic or societal trends and to differentiate themselves from the noise. d)  If companies are devoting good offers or creative treatments to a specific holiday (or both), then the best companies realize that they should signal this with a mention in the subject line, leading any message with a holiday mention to of course do better What does it mean?  The data highlights a particularly interesting in holiday email analytics – understanding causal effects.  Sure, theming a mailing around a specific holiday might be the cause for the improved metrics, but it’s more likely that we assign holiday themes to a mailing that would have done well already.  This is a much larger concept to think about in marketing, and the main takeaway is to be highly critical of any causal inference you make regarding performance. There are bigger factors at play with subject lines than length I have a deep-seated skepticism of any broad subject line analysis – subject lines are a quagmire of entanglements, where no single feature can ever be considered in a vacuum against any other feature.  And yet, a tiny bit of Googling reveals hundreds of posts about subject lines, ranging from improving open rates with personalization and emojis to the grand-daddy of them all – shorter subject lines improve open rates. The argument for shorter subject lines in and of itself is an entanglement nightmare, since shortening a subject line can mean creating more clarity and precision to what you’re saying or cutting off back end details that might not be important or making sure relevant data always shows up on mobile.  All of these are good ideas, but they are lumped into “shortening subject lines,” despite being fixes for potentially different problems.  Oh, and never mind the fact that I’ve never seen any real analysis backing up the broad idea that shorter subject lines create higher “expected” open rates (most don’t normalize the data to try to control for subject line length, and therefore likely read other confounding factors). Our holiday study demonstrates the lack of empirical evidence behind the maxim of “shorter equals better,” showing a wide spread of outcomes at each subject line length and little discernible correlation.   Even controlling for longer or shorter subject lines versus the brand’s average shows no real pattern, suggesting that brands that radically increase or reduce their subject lines aren’t expected to see much of a change in open rate performance. What does it mean?  Engagement in your mailings is predicated on a much broader combination of relationship building, consistency, and brand value than the subject line – especially its length.  Sure, shorter subject lines might force brand’s to be more precise and clear in detailing the mailings contents, but just lopping off words isn’t the most sophisticated path to brand positioning out there, is it? As with any sort of data-driven recap, it can sometimes be difficult to understand what our major takeaways are – after all, shouldn’t we just do what the data says?  Not necessarily.  The great thing about any “global” recap is that it allows for greater context around your own strategies, ideas, and performance.  While the data may suggest particular things (add a specific subject line call out for holiday mailings!), more nuanced thinking might suggest deeper reasons (confounding factors!).  That doesn’t mean a recap isn’t important or useful:  it just means you – as a brand or strategist or tactician – have to be well informed of what the data says and what it implies.  Then you can adapt your strategies accordingly.  Of course, if you need some assistance, you can also reach out for help with campaign analysis or marketing strategy.  And, as always, happy planning! Interested in more strategic and tactical planning tips?  Watch our webinar “Trends are dead ends: Create a clear road to success with our 2017 planning tips” for free!

The volume of email being sent is growing at a rapid pace, that means consumers are wading through hundreds of emails on a daily basis. Combine that with the fact that most consumers spend just a few seconds looking at an email, and you see that marketers need to find better ways to capture and hold audiences’ attention. One answer? Kinetic email. Consumers access their email on a number of devices, including desktop, tablets and smartphones. While marketers have already designed emails to fit the screen of any device their audience uses, kinetic email enables them to develop content that is more interactive and dynamic. Rather than an immediate gateway to the website, consumers can explore the brand’s offerings without leaving their inbox. For example, retail marketers can use carousel navigation to showcase color and size choices within the email. This is not only more convenient for the consumer, but cuts down on the steps to purchase. But how effective is it? In Cross-Channel Marketing’s Q4 2016 Email Benchmark Report, we analyzed seven brands that sent out kinetic emails in 2016, and compared the results to similar non-kinetic mailings sent by the same brands. Based on findings from our report, kinetic emails increased unique click rates by as much as 18.3 percent, and click-to-open rates by more than 10 percent. Other findings included: Email volume increased 14% percent year-over-year, while open, click and transaction rates, revenue per email and average order volumes all remained relatively stable during the same time period. Fifty-six percent of total email opens occurred on mobile phones or tablets in Q4 2016. Revenue per email increased to $0.08 in Q4 2016 compared with $0.06 the previous quarter. But don’t just take the data at face value. Test email campaigns with your own audience to see if kinetic email works for you. Roll out new designs in a staged fashion, from simple to more complex, and measure the performance of campaigns with and without kinetic designs. You can also take it a step further and test based on the type of designs, choice of products, and audience segmentation. Maybe one type of messages works better for a particular audience. At the end of the day, each consumer is unique. There isn’t a one size fits all approach. Marketers can leverage our data and insights to better understand how consumers in specific verticals respond to email, and adjust their marketing campaigns accordingly. Consumer preferences change constantly. It’s the marketers who can adapt and deliver messages that resonate that will stay ahead of the competition. Download a complimentary copy of the email benchmark report and learn more about kinetic emails.