Brenton Chin's Blog

One of my go-to sites for digital marketing information and news, E-Consultancy has a great article on valuable Google Analytics custom reports. After having some first-hand experience with Google Analytics through my E-Marketing class’s client project, I now have a much better understanding of how Analytics can be used to gather the insights necessary to have a strong digital strategy.

Some of the custom reports that E-Consultantcy seem to be very useful, so I would like to share a few of them with you all.

Time of Day Report

Definitely thought this was an interesting one. This report allows you to see which days of the week are the most popular, which makes it easy to track your posts (ie. blog posts, social media posts) to see which time of the day will receive the most engagement. I think this is particularly handy for social media posts for Facebook and Twitter. By seeing which day of the week or hour of the day that receives the most engagement in terms of website traffic, we can make our posts hit a higher reach level by posting the post at the optimal time.

AdWords Report

You can use this report in tandem with your AdWords campaign reports. This combines Adwords acquisition data with revenue data all in one table, so it actually saves you going back and forth between different reports across the two programs.

Mobile Reports

A cool report that shows you exactly where your traffic is coming from. So if you find that your website has a lot of mobile traffic, and your website is not mobile-friendly… maybe your company should hire a web designer to incorporate those beautiful “responsive design” techniques that we’ve been learning about in class.

There are a lot of great reports, so if this post interested you feel free to read about more of them at THIS Econsultancy article.

To conclude this posting, take a look at this hilarious Google Analytics video. Warning, it contains a healthy amount of satire!

Source: https://econsultancy.com/blog/62271-10-valuable-google-analytics-custom-reports-2

I have found that a strong company website is very influential in my perception of a brand. A company with a great website shows that they are modern, up-to-date and customer-focused. When I have a good experience with a website, it makes me like the brand more.

A website that I really like is the MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) website. Right now as part of my Marketing Applications class, I am working on a client project with MEC. Through browsing their site for information, I found I had a great online experience. The tabs allow you to easily navigate through the website, and are organized in a manner that makes sense. They have a tab for each “category” of product that they offer – for example, “climb”, “bike”, “water”, “snow, etc.  Also, one can order products directly on the website to be shipped right to your doorstep. The process is very easy and user-friendly, and makes you feel like you’re right in the store. Funny enough, during class Julio used the MEC site as an example of a great website that other companies should model theirs after. I couldn’t agree more with him!

In class, we’ve been discussing “Responsive Design” in websites, and how it relates to a company’s marketing strategy. For those of you who don’t know what responsive design is, it’s a relatively new topic in online marketing today. Basically, it’s creating websites that respond to their environment where the layout of the website changes to adapt to different screen sizes. In this day and age, we access websites through the small mobile screens to giant iMac monitors. In order to save time for the web developer, the developer creates the code for a website that will work on ALL screen sizes.

For example, look at Disney.com:

Bigger Size:

Smaller Size:

‘

As you can see, the content is still the same, but it is just laid out differently. That’s the point of responsive design. It ensures the content of the website is the same, but it automatically modifies itself to give the person using the website the best experience. In digital marketing this is so important because people will be viewing  a company’s website through many different channels. To ensure they are taking actions that you want (such as purchasing products or joining your newsletter), it’s important to provide them the best experience possible.

Hey everyone – I came across an interesting TIME.com article that talks about the day of the week that overwhelmingly outperforms the other days in online sales. And that day is none other than Monday.

Very interesting, as I would have thought the weekend was the busiest day as people have free time to browse the internet for things to purchase. However, according to market researchers, it turns out is that the weekends are the quietest time as people spend least time on their computers. If I were to choose from a weekday, I would have thought Friday was the busiest as it is the “classic” day to slack off in the office.

But nope! It is Monday that is the biggest for online spenders. The primary reason is that people spend less time on their computers during the weekend, and so when they get to the office on Monday, they want to shop. Experts are saying that online shopping is an indulgent way to ease back into the workweek and to finish errands that could not be finished over the weekend.

On a related note, I found a cool infographic on online shopping and why people prefer it over shopping offline. As I’ve mentioned throughout my blog, I’m not the biggest online shopper, but I can definitely see why the biggest factor for people is the fact it saves time – with 73% consumers reporting time saving as a primary reason to shop online. I prefer using the internet and online stores in conjunction with shopping in-store. You get the best of both worlds this way!

A big issue for social networking sites is how to monetize websites. Sites who have huge followings that consume so much content must find a way to present advertising content that will be engaging with viewers and not distract them too much from the functions of the site.

Since July of this year, Facebook has been testing a “buy” button in their News Feed to allow Facebook users to purchase goods featured in ads or posts directly from Facebook. The company that will be processing the payments is a small startup called “Stripe”, who offers a similar service to Paypal.

It will be very interesting to see if Facebook users, firstly, react positively to this change. And if they do, will they actually use the “buy  button” to make purchases? This is a relatively new idea, although it is important to note that Twitter is using the same company to experiment with a buy button of their own.

Personally, I do not see myself purchasing products from Facebook as I am not that big of an online shopper, nor do I yet trust making a purchase from within Facebook. I do think this idea does have potential. A lot of my friends shop online, and click on advertisements on Facebook.

A company that I see frequently on Facebook ads s “Jacks Threads” who sells men’s apparel. I think companies that would benefit from this feature, are ones that rely on customers making impulse decisions. Clothing especially, is something that you see online, and may make an impulse decision to purchase. A company that I see frequently on Facebook ads is “Jacks Threads” who sells men’s apparel. By having the buy button, it reduces the steps required to make a purchase, which makes an impulse decision easier to make.

When the feature is launched it’ll be interesting to see how well-recieved it is. Hopefully this will have positive implications on the way that digital marketers reach their audience base.

See below, the “buy button”.

I wanted to do a posting on Google AdWords just because I know it’s a tricky topic that can get quite confusing for digital marketers. My understanding of it was pretty limited, so I did some research on it, and it turns out it’s not as daunting as I originally thought.

So, the key to how Google AdWords works is the “Quality Score”. Depending on the keywords in your advertisement, Google generates the Quality Score to indicate how well an ad relates to what a person is searching for, and how likely they are to click on the ad.

When some one does a search on Google, an AdWords auction is created where every advertiser whose keyword matches the search query will “compete in the auction. The advertiser that wins this auction will be the one who is granted the spot.

It actually all comes down to a very simple formula. The Ad Rank is determined by two metrics: the “quality score” (as discussed above), and the advertiser’s “bid” amount (the maximum amount they are willing to pay)

Ad Rank = Quality Score * Bid

Th ads are placed in order based on Ad Rank. The highest Ad Rank gets the top spot and so on down to either the last ad qualifying for the auction or the last position on the page.

$$ = Ad Rank to beat / Quality Score + $0.01.

Using the above formula, the amount that the winning bidder has to pay for their click is calculated. The winning bid will always pay 0.01 cent more than the ad that they have beaten.

Make sense? It’s may be slightly difficult to learn through words, but if you head on over to https://www.google.com/adwords/ or watch the simple video above, you can try it for yourself! My group member who was in charge of Google AdWords for our client project told me it’s all about practice, practice, practice… 

Facebook is nearing the finish line of its $19 billion dollar acquisition of the Internet messaging service WhatsApp.

A crazy amount of money in my opinion for such a simple app. To contrast this, Facebook purchased Instagram for a mere one billion, and offered Snapchat 3 billion for ownership rights. So, I thought it would be helpful to try to break down why Facebook is willing to pay this much for Whatsapp.

Reason 1: The next billion users

Facebook may have a whopping 1.2 billion active users, but their growth has been slowing and shrinking over the past few years. With most of Facebook’s user base from North America and Europe, Facebook does not have the user base that Whatsapp has in Asia and Latin America. I’m guessing that once Facebook gets their service to 2-3 billion people, there will be even more profound ways that they can monetize the site.

Reason 2: Alternatives to SMS

Whatsapp is becoming the SMS of the future. Myself, along with many of friends use Whatsapp much more than we do SMS. Being a sales rep at a cell phone retailer, I can attest to the fact that consumers at large are purchasing high-usage data plans. With Whatsapp having features such as group-chat and the ability to send messages through wifi/cellular networks, it is making SMS become obsolete.

Reason 3: Engagement

WhatsApp appears to be the only app that has a higher engagement levels than Facebook itself. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook has admitted this and believe it is a crucial acquisition because it is an app that users are extremely passionate about. When users are passionate and engaged with the content of an app, integrating advertisements and finding sources of monetization becomes a lot easier.

Watch the video below to see a panel discuss the impact the acquisition of Whatsapp will have on Facebook

In September 2011, 20.1 million Canadians ages 13 and older used mobile devices according to research firm comScore. Notably, in the past couple of years, more and more people have been incorporating smartphones into their lives…. and downloaded applications were used by 40.9% of regular phone users, compared to a whopping 84.2% of smartphone subscribers!

Clearly, mobile phones are a very lucrative avenue for marketers to promote their products/services. However, how exactly will they do that? Since smartphones are relatively new to the world – and much like when the internet first became mainstream, advertisers and online stores had to initially experiment on what worked the best – which took a couple of years, and is still ongoing! This has been mentioned in class – company websites used to be primarily for information, but now have become online stores that are user-friendly, interactive and try the best they can to make online shoppers feel like they are physically in the stores!

But what is the appropriate way to advertise on mobile phones but still generate profits? Advertisers are still searching for the winning formula, but I believe that since mobile screens are much smaller, ads need to be kept at a minimum, and should not be intrusive to the point that they distract from the app itself. For example, I used to use an app called “OMG Facts” which would post interesting facts a couple times everyday – and I would read them every day. Every so often an ad would pop up, which I didn’t mind, but one day the app was updated and it now included a “floating ad”, which is basically an ad that moves up and down the screen as you scroll. It became so distracting, that within 5 days I had already deleted the app. And for the record, not even once did I even think of clicking the ad.

I constantly read articles about how companies with apps, such as Facebook and Twitter are struggling to generate revenue… so what are some innovative ideas to make mobile advertising more profitable? Well, Sauder superstar Brian Wong who, became the world’s youngest entrepreneur to get venture capital funding for his latest project, “Kiip” at the young age of 19!

“Kiip” involves advertising in which players of mobile app games receive free gift certificates or samples of a company’s product, which are sent to a person’s house as a prize when the individual reaches a certain stage in a game. Personally I think this is a great idea because the individual will feel like they have earned the product as a prize… and perhaps feel more of a connection to the product – at least more so than your typical mobile advertisement would.

That’s him!

I think what Brian Wong’s idea is a good one, because it integrates itself into the app – which is what I feel mobile advertising as a whole needs to do, be more INTEGRATIVE and less BOMBARDING. However… time can only tell whether this will result in a success… can’t wait to find out!

Sources: http://www.digitalhome.ca/2011/12/report-smartphone-adoption-reaches-40-in-canada/, http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/News/News_Listing/News_Item_-_Kiip_4_mill

Are the days of searching for your wallet finally past us? With Apple’s introduction of “Apple Pay”, they claim it will change how the world pays with its new payment technology that is built right into the new iPhone 6.

This new technology is called “Near Field Communication”, where one has the ability to  make in-store payments with their iPhone 6 by holding it next to a store’s “contactless reader” which will then process the payment.

As it stands, the three major credit card companies have all signed up for this service – Mastercard, VISA and AMEX. Furthermore, in the states, big retailers like McDoanlds, Duane Reade, Whole Foods & Macy’s have all shown their support by adopting this service.

The fact that Apple has been able to garner this level of support from these major retailers speaks miles as to how influential Apple is. Their innovation has the power to alter the way people make payments, and essentially, it changes how society goes about their day to day to life.

I think that this technology will make plastic cards such as credit cards & membership cards obsolete in the next 50 years. It will be very strange to live in a world where the only thing you need to bring when you go out being a smartphone.

As a long-time Apple fan, I was browsing through my iPhone’s music section, where I discovered a strange album that I did not recall loading onto my phone. It turned out that this “strange album” was in fact U2’s latest album called “Songs of Innocence”. After doing a few Google searches, I learned that the U2 album and Apple had made a deal for the album to be automatically pushed for free onto every single Apple device – whether or not the Apple user liked it or not.

Firstly, I think this is a very innovative way to market an album, as I don’t recall anything of this nature having been done before. I believe that consumers expect more from marketers nowadays, and that the more innovative a marketing strategy is, the more engaged viewers will be. U2 making this deal with Apple is totally unique, and I think as a result the general public will view U2 as more relevant, cool and more modern – which are great traits for a band like U2 to have.

I think that the fact that U2 was able to pull this off speaks miles to how marketing in this digital age has transformed over the past decade. The days of traditional marketing using traditional forms of media like TV, print & radio are now becoming less important and less impactful. Instead, marketing is gravitating more towards a new frontier – digital spaces, which offer the ability for marketers to target more niche demographics.

A good example of this phenomenon the marketing behind music albums, such as Justin Bieber’s. Upon the release of his album “Journals”, he uploaded a new song from the album onto YouTube every week leading up to the album’s official release date. This definitely was a great way to spread awareness and increase hype for the album, as many of his social media followers tweeted and posted about their excitement and anticipation during the coming days before the album launch.

Another great example is Jay-Z, who promoted the release of his book “Decoded” by placing all 320 pages of his book “Decoded” in various blown-up sizes on very unexpected surfaces throughout the United States. These locations included rooftops in New Orleans, a pool bottom in Miami, and on cheeseburger wrappers in New York City. All of which were captured in photographs and spread throughout the web.

Take a look at how Jay Z’s marketing campaign unfolded 

Traditional forms of media are becoming a thing of a past. Marketers seem to be generating hype around launches by creating online & offline campaigns that offer an element of shock value and uniqueness. These innovative campaigns seems to be working well and appear to be capturing the attention of people in this digital age.

After reading Malte Otremba’s blog about a high-end company that is personalizing chocolates, it got me thinking – if a company can derive consumer value and profits by personalizing something as unsubstantiated such as chocolate, then what factors do other companies and industries consider when they contemplate about personalizing their products.

Malte Otremba’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/malteotremba/

I came across a graph that shows companies in relation to how high and low their level of personalization is

Judging by the graph, there is a big range of companies that have high levels of personalization. These include, apparel companies such as H&M, Nike and Converse; car companies such as BMW and internet-related companies such as Firefox.

It looks like there are 3 different dimensions that determine whether or not the company employs personalization:  1) design, 2) usage 3) services.

1) Design
This is the most common feature – it gives consumers the opportunity to design the product based on selected criteria (shape, color, accessories). For example, the level of customization could be limited (different Apple iPod colors)  or sophisticated (BMW – consumers get to choose if they want leather seating, a GPS system.. etc.)

2) Usage
The consumer is able to influence some core characteristics/functionalities of the product.  For example, when you use Firefox you are able to define their service based on the functionalites you want.

3) Services
The objective here is to provide consumers with personal recommendations in order to propose the most appropriate product. For example, the retail chain H&M gives customers the opportunity to design their own character according whichever body shape, allowing people to try different combinations of clothes.

From my point of view, I like it when companies allow you to personalize your products because it makes you feel like you had a part in creating the final product. For example, when I go to a frozen yoghurt shop, I like that they allow you to choose the toppings that you put onto the yoghurt. Because I get to choose the toppings that go on my yoghurt, I place more value on the yoghurt and I would be wiling to spend more because of it! From a company standpoint however, if they want to employ personalization, they need to consider the three factors that I described above, and furthermore, it should only be done if it is strong enough to create a significant gap vs the competition, while increasing consumer value in proportion to the profit that they will reap as a result.

Links:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_5_web_trends_of_2009_personalization.php
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/981004.html
http://www.futurelab.net/blogs/marketing-strategy-innovation/2009/01/is_it_enough_to_personalize_pr.html