Four in 10 brands deliver ads on unsafe sites

According to new research from Sizmek, Brand Safety remains a big concern among marketers, as 38% admit to having delivered an advert on a harmful or unsafe web page.

In a survey of over 500 brand decision-makers across Europe and the US, it was found that only 61% of marketers currently have a third-party Brand Safety Solution or partner in place on their digital campaign.

64% said they find it challenging to implement an effective brand safety solution, while 57% stated their current solution is too expensive. 64% of respondents also said that achieving brand safety on campaigns negatively impacts the performance of that content.

Meanwhile, the GDPR also looks to be making matters more complicated, as 77% of marketers predicted that the new data regulations will make targeting audiences using third-party data increasingly difficult.

Average global cart abandonment rate for Q2 2018 is 75.4%

The latest remarketing report from Salecycle has revealed that the average global Cart Abandonment Rate for Q2 2018 is 75.4% – just minutely lower than 75.6% in Q1.

In terms of sectors, travel saw the highest level of abandonment with a rate of 81.8%. This was followed by finance and non-profit, with rates of 77.8% and 77.3% respectively.

However, the report also revealed that finance brands tend to win when it comes to cart abandonment emails, with an open rate of 56% for this sector as well as a conversion rate of 6.6%. By contrast, the retail sector saw an open rate of 39.9% and a conversion rate of 3%.

Online retail sales fell dramatically after England’s World Cup exit

New data from Capgemini and IMRG has revealed that UK online retail sales slipped to their lowest year-on-year growth in 2018 so far this July, specifically in the weeks following England’s FIFA World Cup exit.

Online retail enjoyed record growth in the first half of 2018, with sales up by 14.4% YoY in the first week of July. However, after England’s semi-final exit on 11 July, growth shrank to 3.7%, then 8.6% and 5.1% in the remaining weeks of the month.

The clothing sector was the hardest hit, experiencing its lowest YoY growth of 7.5% this year, and coming far below the five-year average of 11.8%. The heatwave did bring some relief to Garden sales, however, which built on their staggering 49.9% YoY growth in June to record a 22.4% YoY sales increase in July.

Insight suggests that a combination of good weather and sporting fever accounted for early summer spending, combined with Amazon failing to repeat last year’s level of Prime Day spend.

74% of consumers want to be treated as an individual – not part of a segment

A Selligent Marketing Cloud survey has highlighted how changing consumer behaviour is creating new challenges for marketers. The survey of 7,000 global consumers found that 70% of respondents agreed it’s important that brands understand a consumer’s individual situation (e.g. marital status or age.) before marketing to them.

What’s more, 74% noted that they expect companies to “treat me as an individual, not as a member of some segment like ‘millennials’ or ‘suburban mothers’”.

Despite this, there still seems to be a gulf between expectation and what it takes to make this type of personalisation a reality. 75% of consumers said they are concerned by a brand’s ability to track their behaviour, even while on their website and using their apps. If a brand’s request for data is deemed ‘too much,’ 30% of consumers said they would be willing to abandon the brand altogether.

Just 3% of UK consumers research in-store before buying online

Last week, we reported that 87% of shoppers start their hunt for new products on digital channels. Another study from UM has since backed this up, confirming that three-quarters of UK consumers research products online (or practice ‘webrooming’), with half of those then opting to buy in-store.

However, the study (which involved a survey of 4,800 UK adults) also highlights that the reverse practice, known as ‘showrooming’, is practically non-existent. It found that just 3% of UK shoppers research in-store before buying products online.

It has also been revealed that webroomers are likely to spend far more than purely online shoppers. When asked how much their last purchase cost, webroomers spent an average of 53% more than those who solely browse and shop online.

Online video ad spend to rise 27.5% in 2018

A new Warc report has revealed that expenditure on online video is expected to rise 27.5% to reach $29.8bn this year. As a result of this, and linear TV advertising increasing at just 1.1%, online video is set to take 17.5% of the total video advertising market in 2018.

In the UK, online video is expected to account for 38.2% of all video adspend this year, while in China the figure is 24.7%, and in the US, it rises to 19.3%.

Across all markets, most money is going towards mobile-optimised video ads on social platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

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