June 10, 2016

This Week in Digital: What’s the Latest News in Marketing?

As you know, marketing, and digital in particular, is a fast moving and ever-evolving industry. What’s effective one week, could cause penalties the next. So, it’s important to stay up-to-date.

Take a look at this week’s latest digital news below:

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report 2016 is Released

Mary Meeker’s annual internet report has become a legend in the marketing world and many businesses rely heavily on it to influence their strategies and actions. Not only does it reveal insights about internet use over the last 12 months, but it also provides data specific to the digital marketing industry.

The main findings of the 2016 report state:

  • Internet user growth is slowing down
  • Advertising budgets are being spent mostly on Facebook and Google
  • Ad Blocker use is growing vastly in popularity
  • Snapchat is an effective way of getting brands recognition from their desired clientele
  • Millennials are a lucrative customer group
  • eCommerce sales are continuing to increase
  • Unique experiences and personalisation are key
  • Video is set to be big over the next few months

Read the report in full here.

Google Officially Beats Apple as the World’s Most Valuable Brand

According to MGoogle Logoillward Brown Digital’s annual report, Google and Facebook have been fighting it out for the top spot as the world’s most valuable brand. And from 2007 to 2011, Google held rank, then came along Apple and the battle ensued.

This year Google is valued at $229 billion (£159 billion), up 32% on last year, whereas Apple has seen a modest drop of 8%.

Microsoft holds onto third position, worth $121.8 billion (£84.6 billion), with telecom provider AT&T and social media platform Facebook coming in closely at 4th and 5th. Other top ten brands include Visa, Amazon and McDonald’s.

Bing Set to Run Expanded Text Ads

bing-ads-150x150-tealGoogle is currently testing and planning to roll out a longer text ad format over the coming months, with the latest reports claiming that Bing is also thinking of doing the same. In its quarterly API call Google made the announcement, which has caused marketers to rejoice as they will no longer have to create two ads: one for the old system and one for the new.

The 25-71 character format will be expanding to 60-80, with two 30 character headlines and 80 characters for ad text. PPC advertisers will also be able to add two descriptive words to the path in a sub-directory-like format after the domain.

Bing and its API partners are planning to release the new ETAs by the end of the summer, so watch this space.

Facebook is Testing a New Desktop Design

fb-artIt has been reported that Facebook is testing a redesign of its desktop pages that remove right-rail ads so larger cover photos can be used. It is hoped that these changes will make it easier for people to interact with businesses on Facebook, thanks to larger more prominent call to action buttons and a repositioned navigation panel.

As this is currently being tested with a select number of Facebook users, we were unable to screenshot the changes. However these can be found online at Marketing Land.

Retail Study Finds Free Delivery to be the Number One Incentive to Shop Online

The Walker Sands Future of Retail report was released this week claiming that 9 out of 10 consumers regard free delivery as the number one incentive to shop online more often and nearly a third of all shoppers now buy online at least once a week.

Other key incentives include one-day delivery (69%), free returns and exchanges (68%) and same day shipping (49%). However, despite these figures, only 9% said they had used same-day shipping within the last year. Could this be because it wasn’t available? If so, consider your delivery options when creating your ecommerce store.

For the Latest Digital Marketing News

Want to read about all the latest digital marketing news in one handy place? Then follow our blog for our weekly news bulletins. Or for updates as they happen, follow us on Twitter @Figaro_Digital.