This is issue no. 84 of 180. Last letter saw a 41.53% open rate with 5.61% going to this article by Pando Daily's Sarah Lacy on Amazon's success in eComm fashion.
MCOMMERCE: I have a confession to make. I don’t think Pokemon GO is all that awesome. Now, I’m not into games to begin with, so my reaction is hardly surprising. The bigger point is that the game reminds me of the broader problems with augmented reality. Our mobile phones are really crummy for layering digital information onto the real world. Not only do I feel like an idiot walking down the street holding my phone up to find Pokemon, but it isn’t a great experience. My screen is small and it is hard to split my attention between my phone and the rest of the world.
MEDIA: comScore recently conducted research examining the branding effectiveness of digital display ads appearing on Digital Content Next (DCN) member sites compared to non-member sites. DCN is a consortium of digital publishers whose brands have a direct relationship with the consumer and therefore are more likely to be household names and are generally considered to be “premium publishers.” One of the key findings from the research demonstrated that ads appearing on DCN premium publishers were significantly more effective in driving brand lift.
ECOMMERCE: With Prime, Echo and its ever-broadening Web Service’s business, Amazon is slowly but surely becoming the world leader in delivering on its brand promise: being the “Earth’s biggest selection and being the Earth’s most customer-centric company.” In his annual letter to shareholders, Bezos humbly stated why Amazon continues to be so successful: “Our focus is on customer obsession rather than competitor obsession..."
ECOMMERCE: Should be noted: KPIs should be set according to your company’s goals and objectives and then carefully monitored on a regular (better — daily) basis. But the most important thing to remember here is that without context and interpretation, KPIs don’t mean anything at all. It’s not the information that has value, but what we do with this information. In case you'd want the link to the original article, ping me a message!
RETAIL: Sinopoli’s advice for retailers is to pay even closer attention to who is winning in e-commerce. “Unless the physical stores drive a refresh, it’s bound to erode as e-commerce really picks up steam, and erode not to the .com brand, but to an e-commerce leader such as Amazon, as well as various fashion sites,” she says. “All brick-and-mortar retailers actually have a tremendous advantage if they can get back to the fundamentals of picking something to be famous for."
RETAIL: Retailers are embracing new ways of selling, aided by advances in technology. From points of sale in hotel room mirrors to shoppable red carpet events, it is becoming easier for consumers to purchase luxury goods when they want, where they want. Other retailers showed their personalities through cheeky or controversial efforts, getting consumers’ attention for causes and commerce. Here are the top 10 retail efforts from the first half of 2016, in alphabetical order:
DATA: Let’s say, you run an online fashion store. You allocate 50%, 30% and 20% of your marketing budget to facebook (1000 fans), twitter (700 tweeples) and instagram (500 followers) respectively to run an online campaign. The percentage of allocation is based on the assumption that more the number of followers, the higher the possibility of conversion rate on that social media platform. Post campaign analytics revealed that facebook, twitter and instagram yielded a conversation rate of 35%, 15% and 50% respectively.
BRAND: In an interview with Adweek, MasterCard CMO Raja Rajamannar said the impetus for redesigning the logo—and creating an entirely new design system for the company based on circles and arches—came from a desire to modernize the brand and optimize it for the web. The brand also just wanted a simpler design that would be flexible at all touch points. At the same time, the company was keenly aware of the equity built up in the existing logo and brand identity, and didn't want to veer from it drastically.
ECOMMERCE: Right now, Pokémon Go is rapidly finding its way onto new devices at a rate of 4 to 5 million installs per day, but this pace can’t continue forever, of course. That’s why looking at the app’s ability to retain its users is also important. So far, Pokémon Go is succeeding on this front as well, though it’s still early days. It seems that even the mildly curious are finding themselves immediately addicted. Around 7 out of 10 people who download the app return to it the next day, the report says. That’s extremely high for the industry – typically, games see 3 out of 10 people returning after the first day.
DATA: Government data indicates that retail ecommerce has outpaced total retail sales growth in recent times even in bad quarters for the sector. Some of this is on account of the continued shift from offline to online retail, as customers (baby boomers) move to online channels. But it's also because new consumers (millenials) often start out on online channels. These consumers spend more time in a connected, social environment and take for granted many of the online tools previous generations struggled to understand, appreciate and then adopt.
Last Word: The 2PML Goal
As you may know, I placed a hard stop on the number of issues that I'd send for Two PM Links. Maybe that will change, perhaps it won't. I set a goal to highlight and discuss the many intersections between ad tech, content, commerce, branding, and data. It is a collective study that, if you are in any form of business, would benefit you. This community has grown quite a bit, well beyond my personal expectation. I try to answer every email, provide value on every consulting call, and take every office hour. I don't exactly know what the outcome would be but I do know that the people who receive this email (and read it at 40+% rates) are great. I repeat, this community is amazing.
To answer a general inquiry: 2PML is a human-curated letter, it takes a bit of time just to avoid wasting yours. There's a lot of junk out there, you know? The summaries are chosen carefully; the "last word" is written carefully. The intersection of eCommerce, brand, and media is a passion that many of us share and I'm thankful for those of you who find value in the content that is featured each business day.