ChoiceStream

Advertisers look set to increase the amount of their marketing budget that they allocate to digital mediums, such as the Internet and mobile devices. This is according to a new survey by ExactTarget, which found that 66%of companies will be increasing the amount they spend on web promotions such as SEO marketing services in 2010. Peter McCormick, GM and co-founder of the ExactTarget, claimed that the goal of developing a brand image has been a major “driver” for those firms that are switching funds across to online advertising techniques. It was found that there may be 17% “surge” in spending this year in the digital marketing sector, as many firms move away from the traditional mediums of television, radio and print. McCormick was quoted that, “The shift from offline to online is in full swing as marketers look to measure direct increases in top-line sales, site traffic and improve overall marketing return on investment.“Read the full article

Stymied by consumers’ sluggish spending, retailers from Wal-Mart Stores to Sears Holdings Corp.’s Lands’ End are starting 2010 by significantly rejiggering operations. Other big retailers are also making changes including target, Macy’s and JC Penney as they exit survival mode and look towards the future with cautious optimism. Wal-Mart fired one of the earliest shots, saying it was letting go of 11,200 employees as it switches from using its own staff to a private company to provide in-store product demonstrations at its nationwide Sam’s Club warehouse chain. Meanwhile, Lands’ End is laying off 30 full-time workers at its Dodgeville, Wisconsin., headquarters and another 30 from European operations in what a spokeswoman called a “streamlining” move. “I expect we’ll see the stronger retailers stepping forward with hopefully winning strategies while others that don’t start adapting won’t make it,” said Patrica Edwards of retail investment firm Storehouse Partners. “Retailers can’t remain in a holding pattern, just cutting inventory and other areas to stay in survival mode,” said Michael O’Hara of retail and consumer products investment bank Consensus.Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal

According to ClickZ’s Brian Massey, lost in the great behavioral targeting debate between the ad industry and privacy advocates/legislators is the consumer perspective. Massey notes “all we care about is the ad we’re seeing on a page at any moment. Is it remotely relevant? Is it “creepy relevant“? Is it offensive or distracting?” Massey says that the best way to give consumers control is to let them “vote” what they really want to see so that we get more ads like it. Massey even goes so far as to suggest a “thumbs up/thumbs down” vote on the ads in question and then see a page, similar to those on YouTube, which show the ad along with related ads, other consumer’s reviews of the advertisement in question a cumulative rating of the ad (a la YouTube’s star rating system). Stay tuned.Read the full article at ClickZ

Marketers are undervaluing and under-utilizing the loyalty programs in which they have often invested a great deal of money - $2 billion in the aggregate - according to a new report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council. The bottom line: deeper engagement and personalized contact drives loyalty, not mass blast communications and gimmicks. According to the survey, most marketers (61%) believe that loyalty program participants are the best and most profitable customers with 65% of respondents viewing customer loyalty program investments as an essential, or quite valuable part of the marketing mix. According to the story, “In a definitive call for personalization, 58% say they want more compelling personal benefits and services, as well as more relevant offers or individualized deals.”Read the full article

Online retail sales in Europe are set to jump 20% this year, far outstripping growth in store-based sales as countries like Poland, France and Spain catch the Internet shopping bug, according to new research by the Centre for retail Research in a report commissioned by U.K. comparison website Kelkoo. “2010 is when we will really start to see online sales achieving a significant share of retail trade in most European countries,” said Bruce Fair, managing director of Kelkoo UK. Last year, European online shoppers spent on average 871 euros each, with Britons topping the table with an average spend of 1,240 euros and Poland at the bottom of the countries surveyed on 362 euros.Read the full article

Despite the upbeat outlook from NRF estimating retail sales will increase 2.5% this year, multichannel retailers say they are approaching this year with guarded optimism. Despite the shot in the arm last week’s reports supplied for some marketers, industry watchers stress the importance of continued innovation and experimentation this year. “More retailers will look to social media to streamline marketing opportunities,” explained Scott Krugman, spokesman for NRF. “It’s about streamlining operating costs and passing those savings to the consumer.” Chris Paradysz of PM Digital notes the greater economic struggles still mean the 2.5% predicted increase isn’t a guarantee as high unemployment and tight consumer spending mean retailers have to be experimental and innovative to assure success. “Where we see innovation in product and categories we will see success,” says Paradysz.Read the full article

As the effective mixing and mining of audience data becomes increasingly important to online advertisers, the role of behavioral targeting has grown more central, finds eMarketer. Its estimated that online advertisers in the US will spend more than $1.1 billion on behaviorally targeted advertising this year and – by 2014 - will spend $2.6 billion, representing steady growth rates of about 20% from 2009 through 2014. The figures include spending on online ads displayed to a select audience whose intentions are revealed by Website or ISP tracking data, audience segmentation or predictive analysis. Behaviorally targeted ad dollars will rise as a proportion of online display spending from 14.2% in 2010 to nearly 20% by 2014, when ads targeted based on interests or intentions will account for 7.6% of total US online ad spending.Read the full article

With so much attention on consumer data from mainstream media, it’s become almost impossible to talk about real-time bidding and audience targeting without finding yourself in a privacy debate. After all, the exploding availability of data is key to the adoption and success of real-time audience optimization. On the other hand, the commoditization of data also has privacy advocates on edge. Today, industry partners and marketers walk a fine line between leveraging data for more effective audience targeting and ensuring consumer privacy protection. As an industry, we should understand the lessons learned in dealing with privacy issues. Among the examples of online businesses who have successfully leveraged consumer data to reach those same consumers with more relevant information are Netflix and Amazon. No one seems to complain about their use of personal information as these companies provide a data-driven customer experience that users find delightful rather than intrusive. Using collaborative filtering technology in their recommendation engines, which work primarily by extrapolating large numbers of data about people sharing similar product interests, they present recommendations to consumers in a social influence metaphor. Psychologically, this can be comforting to consumers because they associate this culturally with belonging to a group. Maybe online advertisers and marketers can use the same approach proposes this article. Click the link above for more information.Read the full article

Ecommerce is now almost unrecognizable from even a few short years ago when the priority for retailers was on usability, content and structure, and creating a scalable, high performance online presence. Forward thinkers, such as Amazon, have more recently demonstrated the powerful commercial advantages of personalized online shopping and changed the rules when it comes to customer engagement. The online marketplace is very crowded so the key to getting noticed is in differentiating your brand. By using personalization, e-retailers can measure and reward the online behavior of consumers which drives loyalty and builds trust, and underlines the unique elements of a brand. In addition research shows that eCommerce personalization and recommendation tools positively drive key metrics like revenue, conversion rates, average transaction value and time-on-site. According to this bylined article by a leading exec with UK company hybris, consumers “want recognition, recommendations, and value guidance, based on their individual interests and preferences. They are looking for a transparent, optimal experience that enables them to find what they’re looking for and, in the process, helps them discover products and solutions they may not necessarily have considered.” The exec notes that “today’s personalization technologies enable online retailers to extract commonalities, associations and cause-and-effect relationships to seamlessly and automatically deliver recommendations appropriate to any environment. And the world of online personalization looks set to become even more sophisticated in the near future – employing dynamic pricing and re-targeting to boost margins and convert visitors to loyal long-standing customers.”Read the full article at Internet Retailing

When buyers make a purchase online directly, companies can learn a lot about an individual's profile and preferences. You can make a deeper and meaningful relationship online with your consumers -- and now, with the general availability of content management, email, e-commerce and social commerce technologies, you can easily maintain and control the brand experience. During the slow economic recovery, it has become business-critical to conduct more business using digital channels: websites, social media and email. The online channels are not exclusive to commerce, as more customer service transactions are flowing through these channels. If channel management is piecemeal -- that is, if the customer experience is not delivered in a coherent manner -- then the brand can become diluted and suffer. Technology advancements have made it possible to build an online presence that ties your website together with commerce, enables social dimensions to help you better engage customers, and gives you the opportunity to better upsell and cross-sell your products -- while servicing customers with the knowledge that you are delivering a compelling and complete customer experience. This article from eCommerce Times spells out seven tips to make your digital communications the cornerstone of your online sales strategy.Read the full article