How to set up an eCommerce business in 2020? Comparison of best platforms & practices
Latest trends and data about eCommerce in 2020
Introduction
According to Adscholars, E-commerce or Electronic commerce is a digital method to sell goods, and conduct transactions using the Internet. Usually, a customer purchasing goods online and making digital transactions are known as the cyber consumer.
Since the arrival of e-commerce in the digital market, retail outlets have struggled to earn their bread. There are several reasons responsible for the widespread e-commerce business model.
In just a short period of 14-years, e-commerce has expanded its wings and overshadowed every other form of commerce business. The reasons being; the availability of products at customer doorsteps, a wide range of product selection, easy return, and many more.
These days it’s chaos, with so many options to choose from, options available for self-development like Shopify, Squarespace, BigCommerce, etc. They have populated the landscape of e-commerce. The techniques of SEO are changing rapidly, and the need for the custom build website is also changing. Therefore in these times of increasing demands and a continuously evolving world, one must play smart to get what they desire.
Why COVID19 is an excellent time to start eCommerce?
In the time of COVID, the e-commerce market has deepened its roots, attracting more customers every day. According to an estimation, the revenue of the e-commerce model will increase many folds, attaining a revenue benchmark of $638 billion only in the US.
The year 2021 is expecting an increase in the customers on the digital platform. It is estimated to reach up to 2.14 billion. Amongst all products, Footwears, apparels, and accessories will be the major contributors; contributing up to an increase of $123 million in the year 2022.
According to a survey, an average shopper is spending almost 36% of their budget on the online market.
It’s Now or Never
There has never been an easier time in history to build a business PERIOD.
The cost of entry is lower than ever before. The ability to access & qualify experts is much easier. The ability to speak directly to your customers and make adjustments has never been easier.
– Eric Carlson, Co-Founder, 10x Factory
As we proceed further, let us understand- What E-commerce Is?
For the basic understanding of the terminology, let us say that e-commerce, also known as electronic commerce, is the purchase and selling of goods through the Internet.
There are several tools and technologies available on the mobile network which can help you to achieve this goal. It is much easier for mobile users to make the transaction using various transaction techniques.
The well-equipped E-commerce portals are utilized, to perform activities of online marketing, monitoring of sales activities, and even helps in overseeing the logistics and fulfilment.
While targeting the audience there are certain variations to the business, i.e. the business is divided into segments; these segments are mentioned below:
- B2B
- B2C
- B2A
- C2C
- C2A
- C2B
Before starting your own eCommerce business, you must have an understanding of these terms. Below is a brief description of the terms, their operational manner, and behaviour:
Business to Business (B2B): Any transaction made between two business entities comes under the category of Business to Business or B2B. The transaction could be between a retailer and a wholesaler or between the seller and the manufacturer.
It mostly consists of the raw material or bulk purchase of finished products.
Training the New B2B Buyer
Training your customers to use the new B2B tools is important for adoption.
Changing the way some customers do business with you can be a roadblock or a benefit.
Position the change in a way that makes your customers’ lives easier.
– Andy Etemadi, CEO, EYEMAGINE
Business to Consumer (B2C): It is one of the oldest methods in the online trade (E-commerce market). In this market, the customer is approached directly by the businesses. Some of the examples of this model of business are Amazon etc.
Business to Administration (B2A): This method is used for the delivery of goods like legal documents etc. from the businesses to the administration.
Customer to Customer (C2C): This business model is used, for the transactions of goods between the consumers. Examples of such forms of businesses are eBay, Olx, etc.
Customer to Administration (C2A): Here, the customer sells the product to the administration. The products can range from education to the online tax presentation.
Customer to Business (C2B): In this model, the consumer directly interacts or sells its products to the business. Such online business models are Istock, Pinterest, etc.
Essentials to start an eCommerce store
Although there is an ease in doing business online, there are certain crucial things that one should remember before getting yourself into the business. Let me help you by providing a few points that you can consider before getting started:
- Do a quick research on which e-commerce business model you want to follow. We have already explained the business models above. Now, you can understand them all before making your decision.
- Select category: It is crucial to start with initials, instead of jumping into things with all you have. As it is said, “You should never test the depth of the water with both feet.” As there is a risk that you might drown yourself. Similarly, you can not be Amazon in a single day, and you should know that even Amazon started its business by selling books online. So, you must understand and decide on a single category in which you want to opt for your e-commerce.
- Know your customer: It is always better to know the audience before you start selling your product. You should categorize your products according to your customers.
- Register your business: Registering your business after knowing your customer. Once you know your customers, you will have a better understanding of an appropriate business name, and it will help you to further making it a brand with values. Therefore, you must understand and decide on a single category in which you want to opt for your e-commerce.
- Finalizing the plan for your business: After completing the steps mentioned above, it is time to take one step backwards and re-check everything. It includes the finances of your business.
- You are ready to launch: After you finish revisiting all the aspects of your business and start feeling confident about your e-commerce business, finally, you can choose multiple options that are available online. These options will provide a swift launch to your business. Some of the best solutions available in the market for the launching of your e-commerce store are WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and many more.
Here are the 5 best eCommerce tools that Adscholars suggest to its clients, which they can use to launch their eCommerce website:
Shopify
Among all the E-commerce applications available, Shopify is the best. It is simple to launch, and their customer service is wonderful. Therefore, whenever you have any issues with the application, their representatives will be there to help you.
Pricing: There are different plans that you can opt for your business. These are Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify. The price ranges from $29, $79, and $299 for a month.
WooCommerce
A brilliant e-commerce product, available for a quick launch of your website is Woocommerce. It is an all-in-one solution for your business and is easy to use.
You can add the functionality of WooCommerce to your WordPress. It equips its user with functionalities to make payments using Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and many more.
Price: Woocommerce is free for its users. However, if you want to include additional functionalities, plugins in Woocommerce will cost you money. The plugins can cost you up to $300 per installation.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce launched in 2009, and since then it has achieved great success across the market. It has its business across more than 120 + countries across the globe. The merchant sale recorded on the platform is more than $25 billion.
Pricing: The plans start from $29.95 for a month. The plus version will cost you $79.95/month and $299.95/month for Pro.
Magento
Magento, an eCommerce tool owned by Adobe. It is an all-in-one eCommerce solution. Every year its gross merchandise sale reaches up to $100 billion. The website supports models for all kinds of businesses. These include small business, B2B, and mid-market as well.
Pricing: The tool provides a free demo that you can use for a month. You will have to ask for a custom quote with the sales team to launch your business on the platform.
3DCart
3DCart is one of the oldest tools available online. It launched in 1997, and there are more than 25,000 merchants who are using this tool to build their eCommerce store.
Price: Five different plans are ranging from $19/month to $299/per month.
Conducting Research For Online Marketing And Develop A MVP
Online marketing research is the most crucial step. You must perform thorough research before launching your eCommerce portal. It will give you a clear idea of the demand for your product in the market.
How to do online research?
These are the steps that you can follow to conduct efficient marketing research:
-
- Researching for the keywords: To do that you can choose the Google Keyword Planner tool. The tool is both; effective and efficient. Also, there are several other options available online.
- Look out for the ongoing trends in the market: Google Trends is yet another efficient tool that is efficient in tracking the ongoing trends.
- Updating yourself with social media: Social media is a proven way to keep yourself updated and to know the audience and understand their mindset.
- Experimentation: No theory is proven; without performing the practical. Therefore you must experiment before you prepare for the finals.
- Look out for the competition.
How to do product analysis- pricing strategies, packaging, etc.
How to do market research?
Understanding the market is a crucial step to make sure that you achieve success. One of the most important aspects of a successful business is knowing your product well. To do so, you have to understand what your customers desire.
So, it is always better to conduct market research before you get yourself into the business.
There are a few points to remember, if you follow them we can assure you that you can achieve sales and satisfied customers.
Being transparent with the customer is crucial. It helps customers to trust your brand and will result in a long and fruitful relationship.
These are some of the most effective ways to make sure that the customer puts trust in your product and also, feels comfortable while purchasing.
- Instead of searching for pictures on the internet, try clicking them or hire a professional photographer for a product shoot.
- Videos help customers see the working of the product and help to build confidence.
- A description is a must! Write an interesting description, explaining your product.
- Target the audience smartly.
- Try selling related products together. It will increase sales, and your customers will like it too. You can provide discounts on bundled items.
Which products to sell?
Well, to make sure that you are selling the right product that will earn you a profit and the customers will like it, look into the following factors which are indeed helpful.
- You must sell a product for which you feel passionate. Remember, if you will not believe in your product, you can’t expect your customers to believe in it.
- Understanding your trait and realizing your strength is the key; you must look into your experience and understand, how you can utilize it in your business.
- Stepping into the customer’s shoes: To make sure your brand is likeable to your customers, you have to be sure that you understand what a customer might feel while shopping for your products.
- If you are unable to get ideas on, what to offer to a customer? You can always look for the interests and hobbies of others. The Internet is the best way to do so. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram will make it even easier for you.
- Try choosing a product which is small and handy and is used more frequently in everyday life. It will be easier to maintain stock for such items and shipping them at different locations.
Value-Based Pricing, Its Strategy And The Effects On Sales
It is good to have a model for your business which generates revenue. However, you must make sure that the model is also considerate about the views of your customer towards your brand.
If the price tag that you put with your products is not appropriate, there is a greater chance that you will lose the business of your customer and they might never return. That is what happens when you don’t have an adequate pricing strategy for your products.
If you are confused about how to price your product appropriately; a Value-based pricing model will be best for you to apply to your business. When it comes to putting a price tag on your product, you can trust the methods of Value-based pricing.
Following are the strategies that people usually follow while deciding the appropriate pricing for your products:
- Cost-plus pricing
- Competitor based pricing
- Value-first pricing
Here are a few things that you want to know about them before you price your product according to these strategies.
Cost-plus pricing: The Cost-plus pricing, is calculated by the formulae, Cost of production + Margin = Cost-plus pricing. However, there is a drawback while deciding the price of your product by this formulae.
Drawback
While deciding the price of your product using this formula, the customer’s perspective is unseen. As you can see, there is no space for the customer’s point of view, which is indeed a bad way for pricing products.
Competitor based pricing: Another way of deciding the price of your product is comparing it, with the product prices of your competitors. The formula for this is simple: Competitor’s price = Your price. Indeed, it is not a way of pricing your products. However, millions are following this formula to price their products.
Drawback
This formula is not a sure shot success formula as you are relying on your competitors for pricing your product. You may think that their prices are reasonable, and decided in taking the customer perspective into mind but you can’t be sure about it and end up losing your business along with your competitors.
Value-first pricing: After conducting in-depth research, Value-first pricing proved to be the best way(strategy) of deciding the price for your products.
If there is one success-proven strategy that helps you to understand the psyche of your customer, determine the price of your product and earn a profit; it is the Value-based pricing technique.
Strategy for value-based marketing technique
It is crucial to understand the mindset of your audience. You must look into the market research, analyze the prices of your product. At Adscholars we utilize the latest technologies to determine the ongoing trends and provide our customers with well-researched data which can be implemented for the growth of the business.
You can understand your customers better by looking into your customer preferences, their interests in other products, and their mindset towards deals and discounts.
The aim must personify your customer based on lifestyle and create different categories or catalog accordingly.
BigCommerce Analytics
BigCommerce stores can use their BigCommerce Analytics Customer Report to see which customers are buying which items –– and which prices. Then, you can easily create customer groups to personalize a cohort’s site experience based on their behavior.
In other words, do you have a group of people who only buy at a discount? Customize their experience to show discounted prices across the board. Do you have customers who only purchase new items? Send that cohort an email alerting them to new products before anyone else –– and use the customer group to give them a VIP experience.
Collecting feedback for the product will provide you with an insight into the customer mindset. It will also let you know about the reasons they didn’t complete their purchase for a specific item.
Van Westdrop’s Metre for Sensitive pricing
There are four crucial points included in this plan. If these points followed for pricing the product, they will benefit you, in providing the product at the best price.
- Decide a maximum price: Ask yourself, what could be the maximum purchase price of your product? Consider a price too expensive; if paid for the product.
- Think of the lowest possible price for a product: Think of a price which is too low for your product. It should be an amount which will make your customer doubt about the quality of your product.
- On the edge of being rejected: A price for your product, which is neither too low and nor too expensive. It lies is somewhere in between, where customers might have doubts and consider the option of not purchasing the product due to the uncertainty of price.
- The perfect price for the customer: A price range which a customer is comfortable in paying.
The steps will provide accuracy in fixing the price of your product. You will be able to present your product with confidence, and your customers will also feel empowered while making purchasing.
The Concept of MVP
Today, every merchant is looking for customers for their products. Everyone wants to earn their share of profit and sometimes wants the share of others’ profit too. In this stiff competition and the ongoing fight for the survival of the fittest, it is becoming tough to survive.
However, there is good news for the sellers! The market share of the customers expected to rise at a large scale in the upcoming years. Even for this year, the consumer share has increased tremendously.
But, there is a bigger and better demand generating sector, which only a few have recognized. At Adscholars we predict that the e-commerce market is going to be a big hit in the future and there is still an enormous empty space for new businesses to emerge and conquer the crown!
B2B is a fast developing, and high demand generating model of eCommerce. More people who are entering the business of eCommerce are paying interest in the consumer sector instead of concentrating on the business sector.
MVP – Minimum Viable Product
The model helps you to quickly create and launch, fulfilling the minimum or early requirement of the market. Initially, the feature on your platform will be limited, just enough to satisfy the current demand of the market.
Then, as you will gain experience in the market, your team of developers can enhance the functionality of your product. Also, the initial product that you are opting to should be simple and quickly acceptable by the customers. However, it is not a necessity that the product needs to be cheap in pricing, it could even be a luxury product, but portable which can be shipped easily to the location.
The reasons to opt for MVP
- There is minimum risk in the project.
- Initially, the focus remains on a single product. Therefore the chances of growth are high, and failure is minimum.
- With the help of MVP, the development of the product is quick and easy.
- The needs of the customer can be identified in the early stages of development.
- You can quickly respond to the change in demand. It can be in the internal construction of your processor could be an external demand.
Creating the MVP
- You must understand the point of view of your customers, before implementing MVP. Your goal should be to inspire your customers to buy products online and interest them in ways that they return.
- Understanding the customer’s point of view: We know that we have repeated the sentence several times already and you must be bored reading the same one-liner! However, we are emphasizing on the topic because it is crucial. Remember, no customers; no business.
- You must understand the customer purchase lifecycle. Divide it into different stages and build the strategy for each level.
If you follow your customers carefully, the chances of failing are lesser.
How to start marketing online? Platforms to use, best strategies, creatives, etc.
Once the store setup completed, the product decided, and the pricing finalized; finally, you can start promoting your product.
Excited? We know you are!
Well, let’s get an understanding of what are the right marketing strategies that you can follow and how it will help your brand to grow!
Digital marketing is the best platform to market your product. The old conservative days of brochure and pamphlets are history. Now, everything is digital. You must be seeing at least 50 advertisements on your phone daily.
Therefore it is crucial to understand your options.
First let us understand, what is e-commerce Advertising?
Ecommerce Advertising is a crucial part of e-commerce marketing. It is indeed an aspiring aspect of e-commerce marketing trends, followed by the leading brands.
Ecommerce Advertising helps you gather customers effectively with minimum efforts. The technique is highly effective, and you can easily create your own space in the e-commerce world.
As you can see, every day, billions of users are surfing on the internet for their needs. Eerie e-commerce businesses are trying to attract them to their website or online store. However, not everyone is following the right strategy or correctly approaching the customers.
Adscholars feels that the right strategy can help you take a leap into a brighter future, leaving your competitors behind. As T. Boonie Pickens stated, ” A fool with a plan is better off than a genius without a plan.”
Let us first give you a quick walk-through about Ecommerce marketing.
E-commerce marketing is broad in its stature. It has several elements or pillars which make provide effectiveness and strength to the model.
Let us understand these pillars and get a basic understanding of how they work?
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social Media Marketing is a widely used trend for various purposes. However, it is advantageous for E-commerce marketing. As each of us spends a lot of our time scrolling through the social media feeds, it is always interesting to find a product that can be added to the cart while we are scrolling through our feeds.
That is how the SMM works. Therefore, it is very crucial to place your advertisement smartly, and portraying your products to the right audience, as every click counts.
Content Marketing
Content is the zest of any marketing strategy. If you have the satisfying content for the website, nothing can stop you from empowering the world of e-commerce.
We discussed earlier, the description of your product plays a crucial role in branding your products and helping your audience to build trust in your brand. That is just one-simple step in content marketing.
Here are a few more things related to the content marketing that comes handy when you are using this tool.
- Choosing the right keywords and placing them appropriately on your page.
- Write the blog posts which are relevant to your product and brand.
- You can create guest posts on external websites. They can also work as an external link to your website. Therefore, it will help in increasing your audience reach.
- Put pictures of your product on the internet and link them to your website. Similarly, you can create short description videos and put them on YouTube.
- It will be great for your brand if you can create a Keyword-driven section for the frequently asked question.
Search Engine Marketing
Another aspect of E-commerce marketing is Search Engine Marketing. It includes the paid advertisement for your product as well as the part of Search Engine Optimization.
It includes content optimization according to Google’s algorithm, Pay Per Click (PPC), advertisement campaigns for your product, and the display campaigns.
Email Marketing
Email is another effective way to market your product. It is a crucial tool while dealing in the B2B market for the other models of marketing. If used smartly, Email marketing can prove fruitful and providing results.
Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
The technique work as a miracle! However, to achieve WOM, from your customers, you have to gain their trust. Once the customer’s trust is established, on your products, you can easily create a brand name.
There are some methods by which you can achieve this from the initial stages of your business.
- Reviews for your product: Getting reviews for your products is one way you build trust. The more reviews your products will have, the more trustworthy your brand will seem.
- Referrals for your product: You can create a network of people who refer your products to others. This practice will increase the brand reputation and sales of your products.
- Customers’ testimony for your product. You can use the testimonies, provided by your customers, as a certificate of trust, shown in your products by your customers.
- Live chats are useful as they provide quick answers to your customer’s queries. They are also a healthy way to keep your customers indulged on the website. The Live chat feature is easy to install, and there are several ready to install chats available in the market. One of the options that you opt for is CometChat.
- Adding options for quick delivery, easy returns, and customer support can increase your chances of gaining a reputation in the market.
- Efficient website design with responsive to the customer needs will win the heart of the customer. Therefore, make sure to provide a breathtaking experience to your customers on your website.
How to enhance SEO to get organic traction
The importance of SEO
Making your product famous and your brand visible to the new audiences can be a tough job. You can not just rely on the Word of the mouth of your customers, at least in the initial stage, for the growth of your product in the market.
It is crucial to gain positive reviews and testimonies from your customers. As it is necessary to make your brand visible to people and make them recognize the potential of your eCommerce business. Therefore, it is where you need the SEO for your website and products.
Google owns a large share of the search engine market. It consists of nearly 72% of the total market, of search engines. Every second, Google experiences 63,000 search queries, and every year this sums up to 2 trillion customers searching for their needs.
Hence it always beneficial to put your trust in Google. Advertising with Google is fun, and the tools provided by Google for SEO are highly efficient and technically outstanding. They let you experience the digital world and provides an insight into the Google algorithm.
Therefore, it is never disappointing to put your bets on Google when trying SEO. However, you will need experts who can help you run the tools according to your needs. That is where we step in!
Here are some features that we have already discussed, but we would like to revisit them as they are crucial to enhance the SEO experience.
Keywords are the key! We have said it earlier, and we will say it a hundred times more. The right keywords result in gaining the visitors, which turn in as customers. Not putting the right keywords will result in the total wastage of money and your valuable time.
There are two types of Keywords. The two keywords are head terms and the Long tail keywords. Let us summarize them for you so that you have an understanding of both.
- Head-Terms: Head-terms are the short crisp and product-related keywords that help you gain the visitors. However, they do not assure the conversions. Their length is usually 0-26 words. Example: “Elegant Flower Pot”
- Long-tail Keywords: These are perfect, to obtain conversions. The Long-Tail Keywords are specially related to the head-terms and are used to define a head term. Their length can be from 26-40 words on an average. Example: “Elegant flower pot which will make your living room look lively”
There are numerous tools available to find the right keyword for your product. Some of the most effective tools that you can use are:
- SEMrush
- Amazon Suggest
- Keyword Dominator
- Keywordtool.io
- Ubersuggest
- Google Autosuggest: Suggestion obtained by Google when you type something in the Google search bar.
The architecture of Your Website
The website of your company plays a crucial role in making the customer feel confident about your brand. A great website must be properly stacked and should be easy to navigate by the users. The information on your website should have a clear outline and must make the customer stay and explore.
Here we are discussing some points that will surely win the hearts of your customer if followed correctly.
As your product range grows, it gets difficult to arrange them. Therefore, if you follow a proper website architecture, the problem of the arrangement of products will not affect the quality and effectiveness of your website.
Walmart has nearly 23 million pages for its product on the Google domain. Still, they have them arranged effectively so that the customers can navigate through them.
Therefore, the following architecture is essential. Always remember that no matter how many products you have on your website, the user should be able to navigate back to the homepage of your website in just 3-clicks. Yes! That is the secret recipe for a great website.
- You should understand your product and develop an understanding of what a customer will search for when they visit your website.
- The dropdowns are critical, and they must be organized systematically.
- Use the category names for the main keywords on your website.
- Use Https instead of using Http. Https has better security if payments and transactions related to money take place on your website.
- Avoid infinite scrolling for your web page. It can seriously harm the user experience of your webpage and website.
- Provide a link to scroll back to the top. The user does not want to do manual scrolling on your webpage.
- Optimizing your webpage for mobile users.
- Apply on-site SEO.
- Provide Meta-Title and Meta description for your webpage.
- Internal links are essential to increase the credibility, and in the navigation of the customer on your website.
- Add social media share buttons.
Competing With Ecommerce Giants Like Amazon
There is no doubt in saying that Amazon is the whale of the e-commerce business. Entering in eCommerce world will put you in direct competition with the giant. Therefore, to make sure that you face the giant with bravery, and defeat it bravely, you must make sure that you follow some significant measures.
Knowing your competitor
Nearly 44% of the people purchasing goods online prefer Amazon as their first choice. Half of the retail business, in the USA, is occupied by Amazon. According to Jeff, he is just getting started.
Even some of the great names in the market like Google, Walmart, Costco are finding it tough to beat Amazon in this game.
So you must be wondering; what are your chances to beat the unbeatable?
Well, the practical answer to that would be that; you might not be able to beat Amazon in this game!
However, you are independent to play the game with your own rules. Therefore, there are chances that without even defeating Amazon, you might be able to create a brand name for yourself.
Currently, Amazon is an undefeated champion of the eCommerce world. It has nearly 310 million customers, and every day more are getting added to its database. Also, Amazon is selling more than 353 million products on its website. Hence you can not develop a system with such a humongous user base, and capital investment, at least you can not do it overnight. Therefore, the bottom line is that you can not compete with Amazon in infrastructure, discounts, and even when it comes to shipping.
The only segment that is left is an essential factor of service. Most of the merchants suffer to provide it to their customers. The factor is good customer service.
Even Amazon struggles to address this problem for its customers. So, if you will address every issue of your dissatisfied customer, you will be able to build a great user database for your company.
There is a study which shows that nearly 68% of customers leave the company due to the poor customer service provided to them. Therefore it is crucial that you pay undivided attention to your customers if you do not want to end like others.
Collect data for your customers and know their likes and dislikes
The game is all about how well you know your customers. Even Amazon keeps records for all of its customers. Using this information, it tries to make sure that it provides its customer with everything that they desire.
By keeping a record of your customer’s movement, you will be able to suggest them with similar, desirable, and relatable products. That is the current phenomenon that is trending, technically known as the Internet of things (IoT).
A former Amazon employee once said that Amazon “has the ability to track both what people are buying as well as what they search for and can’t find.”
Convince your customers to subscribe to the products
If your product range consists of items that are perishable or consumable with time, you can always ask your customers to purchase a subscription for your product. You can even offer them discounts on a monthly or yearly basis.
Research shows that not only this helps in increasing the sales of your product; it also helps to build a strong user database, and gain their loyalty for your brand.
Try providing the best shipping service experience to your customers.
If you succeed in providing satisfactory shipping service to your customer, the customers will always order from your website. The best service factors include fast service (taking minimum time to reach the customer) and a free shipping option.
The people don’t want to pay a shipping fee while purchasing a product online. Therefore, providing a free shipping option is a great step towards better customer service.
Conclusion
E-commerce is the most trending Digital marketing sector and as per the experts’ predictions, it will be the most promising field of business. Therefore, if you are planning to start your own eCommerce, the time is most opportune.
You must make to do in-depth research before you start with the business. As there are different models of eCommerce businesses, you must choose wisely.
The important aspect to make your business visible to the audience is the advertisement strategy. You must implant your advertisement in the market with precision. At Adscholars we believe that a well-placed advertisement can do wonders and bring numerous positive customers.
The field of marketing and advertisement is broad and it has a lot of versatility in its offering to the users. However, if you are new in the field of eCommerce and haven’t decided yet about where to advertise, Adscholars suggest the usage of social media as your first advertisement option. We recommend social media platforms for the advertisement as it is easy to use, and provide wonderful results to the advertisers and marketers.
An effective website will provide you with the strength of your online business. Therefore, you must design your website as an effective tool to attract more customers. The website must be easy to use and should provide customers with clear options and guidance throughout their journey on the website.
The product delivery has to be perfect, and you should think of it as an important aspect of your business. Try to provide multiple delivery options to the consumer. Adscholars recommend their clients to provide the free delivery option to their customers.
Taking feedback from your customers can help you learn your shortcomings in your business model. You have to be upfront to ask your customers to provide feedback. This will not only help your customers to build trust in your business but will also help them to share their experiences with other users and customers. This is the most effective way to win the trust of your customers. You must not fear the bad reviews, the bad reviews are the best teachers, hence embrace them and grow.
Stay available to your customer’s query, providing effective customer support will make the customers believe in you even more. Resolve their issue and make them understand things that they might not be able to understand. As not all the customers who pay are tech-savvy and know how to shop online. You must step into their shoes and understand their requirements and needs. Make sure that your customers don’t feel disregarded or ignored, as this is one of the major reason several businesses lose their valuable customers.
Therefore, if you will apply the right strategies, understand your strength and shortcomings, apply your experience to the business and work with a plan, no one can stop you from being the next Amazon.
Adscholars wishes you the very best for your business and is always there to assist you in every possible way!
Facebook Debuts Shops In Its Mobile App, Instagram Expands Checkout Feature
Facebook rolled out a shopping section ‘Facebook Shops’ to its main app across the U.S and expanded Instagram’s checkout feature.
The new section Facebook Shops allows users to browse product catalogs from businesses they like, discover new businesses and make purchases, all-in-one place, and without leaving the app. A similar feature ‘ Instagram Shops’ was introduced on its photo-sharing app last month.
The news follows the launch of Facebook Shops in May and on Tuesday it announced a couple of new e-commerce features within its flagship mobile app and Instagram. Businesses were already able to add product catalogs to their Facebook pages but there was no dedicated section inside the app for browsing the selections.
The company explained the rapid shift toward online shopping as a reason to foray into eCommerce.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to online shopping has rapidly accelerated, with an estimated 85% of people worldwide now shopping online.
We want to make shopping easier for people and empower anyone, from an entrepreneur to the largest brand, to use our apps to connect with customers and grow their business.”
Here are the details that will help people to shop on the apps and tools to help businesses sell online.
Shop Till You Drop!
A new ‘Shop’ tab is introduced in the mobile app where businesses can showcase their products and customers can shop them in the app.
“Facebook Shop makes it easy for people to find products from businesses they love, discover new ones and make purchases, all in one place.”
It’s a significant step for Facebook’s eCommerce push, helping users to browse and purchase from shop-enabled Pages directly in the app. Presently, being tested in the US but Facebook said in the coming weeks it will be available to all eligible businesses.
New customization features will also be added to Facebook Shops that includes:
- New design layouts for featuring single products or groups of products in Shops
- Real-time preview of collections as they are designed
- The ability to automatically create Shops for new sellers
- New insights to measure results in Commerce Manager
Expanding Instagram CheckOut
Checkout allows users to pay for items directly inside the app and will soon be available to all businesses in the U.S after keeping the feature exclusive to certain partners for almost 18 months. Though there is a limitation,
To use checkout, businesses must have Shops and use Facebook Commerce Manager or our partners Shopify and BigCommerce. We’ll support more platform partners soon.
It will also provide an incentive by waiving the selling fees for businesses through the end of the year due to the current economic crisis.
Shop Using Messaging
Facebook added a new message option to the shop in order to connect the customers directly to the seller through Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram Direct.
“Messaging through Shops combines the in-store experience of being able to ask a salesperson questions with the convenience of online shopping.”
Customers can view the products in the chat and can easily share with friends and family for feedback before any purchase. This feature is now being tested on Messenger and Instagram Direct and will start testing on WhatsApp soon.
This will definitely boost Facebook’s dominant presence in messaging with its eCommerce capacity, providing compelling business opportunities as people are regular users of these messaging apps.
Live Facebook and Instagram Shopping
Another promotional option is Facebook and Instagram live shopping. This means businesses can sell products during a live stream.
“Facebook Live Shopping includes new features to help businesses easily set up a live experience featuring products from their Shop and sell directly from the video.”
Instagram Live Shopping is available to all businesses and creators using checkout in the US.
Video is the most engaging type of content and during the lockdown during the pandemic, the viewership of Facebook live streams had risen 50% since January as people looked for various ways to stay connected and entertained.
The global lockdown has provided a significant opportunity to Facebook’s eCommerce business as more people shifted to online shopping. The social network will soon become an essential part of our day-to-day lives as it prepares to build a commerce eco-system within its own network.
TikTok Trump Row: CEO Kevin Mayer Calls Quit
- TikTok confirmed CEO Kevin Mayer’s departure in an emailed statement and said the political dynamics of the last few months have “significantly changed” the scope of his role.
- Former Disney executive, Kevin Mayer had joined the TikTok in mid-May and resigned just after 100 days.
Kevin Mayer, TikTok Chief Executive Officer has left the company in less than four months after he joined the world’s largest short video app in mid-May. According to an internal memo viewed by Financial Times, TikTok’s general manager Vanessa Pappas will take over the position on an interim basis.
Mayer said in his letter to employees,
“In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for.”
“Against this backdrop, and as we expect to reach a resolution very soon, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you all know that I have decided to leave the company.”
Over the last few weeks, TikTok faced tremendous pressure from the Trump administration over its links to China. On August 6, Trump also signed an order banning TikTok and WeChat in 45 days if they don’t sell the app’s U.S operations though they have time until mid-November to divest itself. Mayer “did not anticipate the extent to which TikTok would become involved in tensions between China and the U.S.”, sources reported to Financial Times.
Recently, TikTok filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for banning transactions with ByteDance. TikTok is owned by Chinese internet company Byte Dance that is caught amidst growing distrust between Washington and Beijing. Trump administration accuses the app as a national security threat to the U.S.
The impending TikTok sale attracted investors interest starting from Microsoft, the front runner to least expected Oracle.
TikTok spokesperson in a statement to TechCrunch said,
“We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin’s role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision. We thank him for his time at the company and wish him well.”
ByteDance’s founder and CEO Zhang Yiming said Mayer had joined the firm just as it was “entering arguably our most challenging moment.”
“It is never easy to come into a leadership position in a company moving as quickly as we are, and the circumstances following his arrival made it all the more complex.”
TikTok has also been targeted in India as it was one of the 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian government in June following a border clash between India and China.
Before joining TikTok, Kevin Mayer worked at Disney for over 27 years and was head of direct-to-consumer content and international business at Disney who oversaw the launches of Disney+ and ESPN+. Mayer left after Disney named Bob Chapek the company’s new CEO. Mayer was considered a longtime contender for the CEO position.
Influencer Marketing Comes Back Strong Amidst Pandemic Crisis
The pandemic had disrupted every industry forcing marketers to shift their plans and thrust into an uncertain and swiftly changing landscape. Brands are looking for independent creators than productions due to pandemic restrictions such as sheltering in place.
The industry was in troubled waters as pandemic had put a pause on all the plans, took many industries out of the market, and affected many influencers’ content. Some marketers even continued with Facebook boycotts or social media pauses.
It has been quite a challenging period for influencers. However, the influencer industry is recovering and bouncing back, showing incredible resilience and creativity. Consumers are spending more time on social media interacting with content creators after being cooped up at home. With budgeting constraints and large scale, ad production is difficult, brands are turning to independent creators for a quick, less-expensive, and easy-to-produce creative content. This is providing the much-required boost to the influencer marketing industry.
Numbers Says It All
Social Bakers released the State of Influencer Marketing Report and found out that there is a fall in sponsored content from March to May and a pivot towards micro-influencers. Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO, Socialbakers said,
“Nano and micro-influencers are now seen as high-value resources, bringing high impact without the big price tag of macro and mega influencers. As budgets remain tight, savvy brands will likely continue to expand partnerships with these smaller influencers as part of a smarter social media strategy in the wake of the continuing worldwide pandemic.”
Another finding by Shareablee, an audience-based social media measurement company states that branded content from influencers on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter was up 21% in July from March despite a decline in sponsored influencers post- 87% on Instagram and 57% on Facebook in April compared to last year.
Influencer marketing has changed in several ways during the outbreak. There is a shift in consumer behavior more towards digital in this pandemic due to the lockdown. The engagement with branded influencers posts grew 5 times faster to 57.2 million total actions in July compared with March, according to Shareablee.
A rise in sponsored posts is seen since July after the volume fell almost 17 percent in March and another 6 percent in April reveals Data from CreatorIQ.
This proves that the industry is still very strong and influencers are quick to adapt with conversion rates increased across platforms in the pandemic. As quoted in Adage, Melissa Rosenthal, co-founder at Circle said,
“Brands took a few weeks to figure out how to position themselves for a new world. Now I’m seeing probably 5 times the outreach I was seeing pre-pandemic. Small brands, large brands, new brands, everyone.”
The pandemic is benefitting the influencers with the increase in viewership as alternate media or sports events have declined drastically. Presently, influencers are the only production houses that are open and can make new, creative, and custom content for brands amidst pandemic restrictions. According to the eMarketer report, followers are looking for more DIY activities and short videos.
Clorox Followed The Influencer Way!
Clorox.Co is getting back to sponsored influencer work after a pandemic pause. Through the Reach Agency, Clorox recently teamed up with YouTube comedians The Try Guys to market its latest scent of Fresh Step cat litter. In the video, the creators open the world’s smelliest foods to demonstrate the ability of new Fresh Step cat litter with Febreze Freshness and Gain Scent covers the odors. The video garnered nearly a million organic views on its first day on August 15. The partnership with Try Guys who have 7.3 million subscribers is Clorox’s third venture into influencer-led demo-tainment.
Clorox shifted the plan of conventional ads to influencer content while planning the campaign in March as the pandemic situation would make it hard to produce ads. Another major decision taken by the brand was to boycott Facebook and Instagram advertising for the remaining year while the project was ongoing.
As reported in Adage, Deb Crandall, director of marketing and studio lead said,
“We have had to ask our partners not to post this on their Facebook or Instagram channels, and we’re not putting any paid support behind it. It definitely takes a channel out of the mix to reach our audience, but that’s why we’re excited about the results we’re seeing. To reach almost a million views without Facebook or Instagram makes us think we’re onto something.”
Finally, brands and creators are learning to operate in the ‘ new normal ’. In the time of crisis, savvy social media influencers are engaging with their followers in a fairly two-way communication that even brands could never have on their own.
Top 10 Emerging Indian Ad Tech Startups You Should Know About
The market for advertising technology is expected to record exponential growth between now and 2023.
-CMO Adobe
Just as advertising is the business of making advertisements, ad tech is the business of using technology to make advertisements faster, quicker, and efficient. The business is driven by powerful algorithms and data points.
The Adtech ecosystem consists of two major entities – the advertiser (Demand-side) and the publisher(Supply-side). Adtech helps advertisers and publishers achieve their goals in harmony by providing solutions that meet the demands of both parties.
Learn more: A One-stop Guide On All You Ever Need To Know About AdTech In 2020
The Growing Ad Tech Trends
The year 2020 is full of technological advancements – Artificial Intelligence, data-driven marketing, and much more. Digital commerce is going strong and growing, leading to new paths such as mobile, programmatic, analytics, data management, and more. With new tools and technologies emerging every year, marketers can choose from a plethora of options across digital marketing to connect to a new audience and promote their products.
According to Emarketer’s survey, by 2020, digital ad spending will be 50% of total advertising. The statistics prove that there is a shift from the traditional medium of marketing to digital platforms.
Here are six significant ad tech trends in 2020 that will change the advertising world
1. Programmatic Advertising:
Programmatic advertising is becoming a star strategy, and businesses spend almost $60 billion every year. It is projected that programmatic transactions two-thirds of digital display ad spend around the globe in 2020.
Programmatic needs to resolve many challenges before realizing its true potential, such as in the absence of the cookie, the industry needs to search new ways for retargeting and personalization, keeping customers’ privacy in mind. Meanwhile, first-party data is essential in the success of programmatic advertising. Lack of transparency, ad fraud, and efficiency are vital concerns that need to be addressed adequately.
The largest programmatic markets are the U.S, China, and the U.K with a double-digit Y-o-Y growth rate. Indonesia, Brazil, and India will be the fastest-growing programmatic digital ad market in 2020.
There are top three auction type segments for the global programmatic advertising display market which has gained momentum are :
- Global programmatic advertising display market by open auction: Buyers are allowed by publishers to participate in the public sale. It is likely to be the leading segment in the programmatic market with more number of buyers entering the digital market that allows publishers to get the best price for their inventory.
- Global programmatic advertising display market by automation guaranteed: Publishers are allowed to reserve inventory while keeping the price fixed. The inventory in this segment is premium advertisement such as the Super Bowl, or pre-launch page of a website and the growth prospects for automated guaranteed are big. It is forecasted by 2021, 88% of all digital display ad spending will flow via automation.
- Global programmatic advertising display market by invitation only: It is a private marketplace limited to buyers with an invitation only. The growth driver for this segment is more control over ads that are being run, and the relativity of ads is high due to which advertisers are ready to bid high to get the ads placed.
2. Mobile Advertising:
Mobile advertising continues to take share with substantial gains over the last five years. A report by a research firm Berg Insight forecasted that the global mobile advertising market is expected to grow at the compound annual growth rate of 43%. Another eMarketer report projects that mobile ad spending will reach $400bn by the year 2023, up from $286bn this year. The numbers say it all! It is evident that the industry is growing and projects to represent 80% of global digital ad spend.
A lot of in-app is driven by gaming. A spike in gaming is witnessed during COVID with 1.2 billion weekly mobile game downloads. Buyers are eyeing a vast opportunity to reach a diversified audience within the data-rich environment. There is an exponential growth of in-app advertising. Comscore research says that 75% of digital users consume all their social media, lifestyle, travel, news, and utility content using mobile apps. 5G will also be a considerable contributor to boost mobile-in app advertising, opening doors of opportunity and creativity for advertisers. With technologies such as OM SDK and app-ads.txt rolling out, the industry is moving towards a cleaner and more measurable environment.
Consumer time spent on media is shifting towards mobile, and eMarketer reports India and Thailand will witness the fastest mobile advertising growth in 2020.
3. Video Advertising:
The video will remain the key driver and cannot underscore its role in 2020. With large-scale events postponed and ad budgets cut down, marketers rely on video advertising as effective means across platforms. It is projected to account for 31% of the overall display ad spending next year.
Verizon research shows, almost all (96%) advertisers will be investing in at least one video ad format this year, and more than three-quarters say they plan to invest more in premium video content in 2020. The reason is ROI.
Advertisers and marketers plan to invest in shoppable and interactive emerging video ads formats. With shelter in place and people continue to work from home, there is a rise in digital and mobile usage with CTV and OTT becoming increasingly dominant. Verizon research states.36 percent plan to invest more in Connected TV ads, while 30 percent intend to increase their spend on mobile video. USD 70 billion ad spend from linear is shifting towards OTT channels. Major companies are keen to take advantage of the changing scenario with the right technology.
4. Digital 360 services:
Marketers are focusing on areas like the personalization of media and content marketing. Voice and visual searches are playing a huge role in the ecosystem, and marketers are developing new techniques to enhance it. Many companies are offering 360 digital services that include social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, analytics, automation and transparency, and many more.
TheDrum indicates that by 2022, the global digital software industry will grow by $74.96 billion. CMO predicts that around 87% of marketing budgets will be spent on digital marketing by 2022.
Another fastest growing digital marketing trend is interactive content – click on, swipe, or interact with online. Outgrow states 93% of marketers rate interactive content as highly effective at educating the buyer. The cutting edge technology like augmented reality and 360-degree videos offer a dynamic, engaging, and immersive experience.
5. Influencer Marketing:
The influencer marketing industry is set to hit USD 15 billion by 2022. With a high ROI, the industry will witness tremendous growth in the coming years.
Influencer marketing is in the early stage, but its usage growth is impressive. Less than one third (27.9%) marketers have been using influencer marketing for over three years, 20.9 %have been using for less than a year, and 7% have never used it. Reach and engagement is critical factors in an influencer mix and there is a negative correlation between engagement rate and followers. Most marketers prefer micro-influencers, typically followers between 10,000 and 100,000.
In the series of Global View For AdTech Start-Ups, we bring you ‘Top 10 India-Based Ad Tech Start-Ups’ -a curated list of promising start-ups from industry-main anchors to up-and-comers leading the advertisement industry in India.
Company: ADZ Junction
Founder: Ashok Nain
Category: Digital Services, Ad- Affiliate Network, Mobile Advertising
Geo-Markets: India, Dubai, U.S.A
What they do: ADZ is the brainchild of Ashok Nain started with Mobile advertising and expanded the business to video and web gradually. Their services also include Digital Strategy, Content, Development and Marketing, and Search Marketing. Since its inception, the company is focused on delivering high-quality traffic to clients who have scalability issues and help them to identify their targeting audience, especially in Mobile advertising.
How it’s changing adtech:
- With its innovative advertising solutions and strategies, the company has built a robust affiliate marketing platform that can assist clients in real-time tracking and analytics.
- The 360-degree digital provider has 100+ clients from various sectors with a business of over USD 15 million and is developing technology – a real-time traffic buying SMS platform.
“We introduced real-time bidding, Mobile in-app advertising, rich media, and many other innovations to overcome clients’ problems of quality traffic generation. We have now a separate mobile division by name of AJ Mobile, where we encourage clients to work exclusively on mobile campaigns.”
The company successfully launched a digital campaign for Dr. Lalpathlabs, an established company in the healthcare sector. Here is a short case study:
Challenge:
- Expand its online market reach and user base
- Identify digital channels to generate revenue.
- Being completely behind in digital marketing and competing with emerging players in the healthcare sector.
Solution:
- Provided brand awareness strategies for different online channels.
- Established a full-fledged and cost-effective affiliate marketing channel.
- Established a brand development strategy and marketing campaign to rise above the competition.
- Successful digital campaigns resulted in 3X monthly transaction growth.
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Gurugram (With offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Dubai)
Company: Aristoma
Founder: Kumar Nishanth
Category: Online Digital Services
What they do: Aristoma, a 360-degree marketing incubator, offers services to increase customer reach using online mediums with some brilliantly creative and engaging ideas. Its portfolio includes top clients such as Diesel, Sportmate, CII, CREDAI Chattisgarh, Goldbricks, to name a few. All its endeavors have resulted in 100 percent growth.
How it’s changing adtech:
- Aristoma is all about helping brands grow with a mantra “Commits, Creates & Connects” with expert result-oriented ideas and making advertising a better experience for advertisers and consumers.
- The company advises in Brand Management, Email Direct Marketing, SEO, and Social Media Planning to help businesses to get the most out of their marketing campaigns.
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Raipur
Company: DigiVigyan Marketing
Founder: Amit Verma
Category: Digital Services, Digital Display Advertising
What they do: A dynamic full-service digital marketing agency that provides clients with multiple solutions through different marketing verticals- Website Management, Search Engine Optimization, Search and Display Advertising (Pay Per Click – PPC), Native Advertising, Online Reputation Management, Amazon Marketing Services, and Social Media Marketing.
How it’s changing adtech:
- DigiVigyan offers world-class digital advertising solutions to businesses to achieve their digital marketing goals.
- The company offers services such as creating landing pages with attractive ad copies, banners, and other optimizations to meet the marketing needs of businesses on various social media platforms. It has worked with renowned ad agencies like Dentsu, M&C Saatchi, to name a few.
- The bootstrapped adtech company is now working towards being the go-to digital marketing agency worldwide after capturing the market across the country.
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: Delhi
Company: Do Your Thng
Founder: Ankit Agarwal
Category: Social/ Influencer, Influencer marketing platform
What they do: DYT is a leading Influencer Marketing Agency and a shared economy for digital assets. It acts as a platform to create space for brands to connect with the largest team of nano, micro, and mega influencers.
How it’s changing adtech:
- DYT is an online community that offers content creators an entry in the market and connects brands to the influencers depending on the campaigns. The active users through the app can promote the brand and earn for each post made, whereas the brand can find a safe and secure marketplace to discover the right influencers for their product.
- DYT operates on a broker based model where a percentage of the total spending is charged to maintain the platform. In a short period.
- The phenomenal fundraising and affable work culture have made DYT one of the fastest-growing startups.
Funding:
The tech platform raised $150K from angel investors and plans to use it for further expansion and growth. Previously, the company has also raised an undisclosed amount from angel investors and intends to raise more funds in the future.
“DYT within months of its operation has successfully worked wonders for brands such as Mastercard India, Havells, etc., thus bringing engagement for the brands. With increased investor interest, we plan to expand the team, improve the technology, and go further with the associations.”
-Ankit Agarwal
An exciting campaign with Havells:
For the new digital-only campaign #BeardKyunHoWeird with Havells, the company selected 60 creators from the male grooming niche by using the technology to find people uploading their selfies with the beard and spelling about male grooming.
Challenge:
- To increase user engagement for the launch of the new range of BT 9000 beard trimmers with digital platform-only campaign #BeardKyunHoWeird.
Solution:
- Selected 60 creators. Each Instagram creator had a follower range of 1,000 to 85,000.
- Creators created unique and compelling content on how the new Havells trimmer helps in male grooming.
- The 20 days campaign got more than 100,000 engagements, reaching 500,000 users.
- The campaign attracted traction and engagement rate of 10% with authentic creators.
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Gurugram
Company: EMIAC Technologies
Founder: Divya Gandotra
Category: Digital Services, Social Media Marketing
Geo Markets: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Singapore, and UAE, among others.
What they do: EMIAC is a perfect blend of innovation and technology determined to serve businesses in front of their target markets. Their principal services include Content Development, Paid Marketing, and Web Design and Development. The leading digital firm has 1200+ clients, 2900 projects across 30+ countries.
How it’s changing adtech:
- EMIAC offers an array of services from content development and full-service digital agency to paid social media marketing and blog outreach. It is a top-rated digital marketing and content development agency on the world’s popular freelancing site Upwork that adds to their credibility and goodwill.
- What differentiates them from the crowd is an excellent record of delivering projects on time, offering personalized products and services, premium quality services, and providing it at competent prices.
“We are the game-changers, trendsetters, pioneers, and revolutionaries with a passion for creating an ideal digital future where everyone is connected.”
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Jaipur (With offices in U.K and U.S)
Company: Globale Media
Founder: Bhavesh Talreja
Category: Mobile Advertising, brand safety/ verification, programmatic advertising
What they do: Globale media offers an integrated marketing platform that maximizes revenues by bringing in direct advertisers and showing relevant ads that best fit the user audience using banners, interstitial, videos, social, and native ads. The company specializes in digital marketing for all major kinds of app verticals including gaming, e-commerce, lifestyle, utilities, social, education, entertainment, and others on CPM, CPI, and CPA cost models. Publishers can access to the full feed of available campaigns as well as real real-time tracking and automation to multiple devices with programmatic GLOBALE API. It excels with a reach of over 500+ direct publishers, 1000+ live campaigns over 120 countries.
How it’s changing adtech:
- Globale media has developed a marketing program primarily for the mobile age.
- Globale media has been sincerely providing “ transparency on inflation level and not just on the click level.” The company is aggressively pitching for its recently launched product keyword search traffic where revenues have increased 3x from quarter-on-quarter and are expecting to multiply the revenues by 10x in 2020.
- In the next five years, it aims to be among the top ad tech marketing companies in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
“We provide app marketers with 100 direct in-app traffic sources with transparency so they get device ids on each and every click and have a clear knowledge about where the app is running. In terms of impact, the advertisers can use these device ids to run their re-engagement campaigns and make sure the users are coming back to the app and ultimately spending more within the app.”
-Bhavesh Talreja
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Singapore (With offices in India and UAE)
Company: mCanvas
Founder: Vishal Rupani
Category: Mobile Advertising, Video Interactive ads, Programmatic Advertising
What they do: mCanvas is a subsidiary of Affinity and is the brainchild of Vishal Rupani, from vision and inception to revenue generation and scalability. mCanvas is a storytelling mobile ad platform that uses phone sensors to create compelling and interactive brand narratives.
How it’s changing adtech: mCanvas is the first and leading Indian company that has addressed critical issues of mobile marketing: Banner Blindness, Poor Viewability, Accidental Clicks, and Lack of Storytelling. The mobile advertising platform uses four kinds of advertisement formats: Scrollers, Stickers, Spotlight, and Streambox.
- The company recently integrated with Adobe advertising cloud that will enable advertisers to buy experiential rich media content and interactive video ads.
“In light of the steady increase in the demand to make ads programmatically available, we are happy to integrate with Adobe Advertising Cloud DSP. We have spearheaded programmatic advertising in the rich-media mobile ad industry, and we will continue leveraging its power to offer our innovative solutions.”
-Vishal Rupani
- The company has a reach to at least 60million Indian smartphone users and follows the cost per video (CPV) model for videos and cost per engagement(CPE) for rich media. Sensory Rich media content is produced for VR and AR as well.
“Augmented reality (AR) has become a buzzword in the online tech space. It has shown great promise even in the mobile ad space, and brands have been quick to incorporate AR into mobile-led ad campaigns that have proven to enhance user engagement.”
One of the best examples is of Frooti – #TheFrootiLife
Challenge: To build a brand recall with its primary target audience -Millennials around the drink during summertime.
Solution: Using face detection technology, the rich media campaign encouraged users to start the front camera and catch the falling mangoes in the augmented environment. This campaign created a massive impact on the users with this ‘WoW’ ad experience.
- Another segment that has been strongly transformed by brand experiences in the mobile ad industry is voice-enabled interactive mobile ads that have created a lasting impression.
“Personalization of marketing & advertising messages is not a luxury but a necessity.,”
-Vishal Rupani
Here is another case study of Mercedes-Benz GLC that has used speech and sound recognition technology in mobile ads. To promote their latest feature, Mercedes -Benz User Experience (MBUX) used a smart multimedia system and in-car voice-activated assistant.
The mCanvas interactive mobile ad uses real-time speech recognition technology, and the voice bot in the ad would respond to the questions, recreating the actual experience a user would have in the car.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Mumbai
Company: Streamlyn
Founder: Naveen Kumar & Raja Chakraborty
Category: Programmatic Advertising, Brand Safety/ Verification
Geo-markets: Asia, Europe, MiddleEast, North America, MENA, APAC, and other 25+ countries.
What they do: Streamlyn works for both publishers and ad buyers to sell and buy ad space respectively. It works as an agency as well as a supply-side platform.
How it’s changing adtech: The one-stop advertising solution provider, a publisher focused media agency connects advertisers with the target audience via the right publisher.
“The aim was to help online publishers, particularly small and medium-sized ones, grow their revenue and the audience.”
-Naveen Kumar
- Streamlyn has an in-house ad server and algorithm to help analyze and optimize the monetization depending on the solution provided by the team to assist the client with high ROI and eCPM and uses cutting edge technology –POE (Programmatic Optimization Engine) and Anti-Fraud algorithms.
- Streamlyn offers its proprietary product ‘ BidsXchange,’ a smart advertising portal deploying machine learning for small and medium-sized advertisers that allows them to upload ads and select their desired publishers based on the target audience interest.
- Another additional revenue source for publishers is In-image advertising, a novel concept that helps achieve an edge over competitors with Streamlyn’s Header bidding wrapper tags.
- It generates content in regional languages and is known as the best optimization partner for vernacular publishers. It has partnered with Google to support vernacular publishers and increase their revenue.
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Singapore (With offices in India and U.S)
Company: Tarsan
Founder: Tarun Nayyar
Category: Mobile Advertising, Affiliate Marketing
What they do: Tarsan is a leading performance-based Mobile media agency that caters to top-level clientele globally like Airtel, Paytm, M&C Saatchi, CyberAgent, to name a few and delivers performance & branding campaigns and SMS/email/voice/solutions. It is known for the execution of marketing plans on mobile.
How it’s changing adtech:
- Tarsan has an in-house platform, AdMenu, that gives clear and quantifiable value to each advertising avenue, enhancing the ROI on ad spends as well as boost transactional value. It provides transparent information regarding the placement of ads on various platforms via GAID or IDFA.
- Many transactional campaigns are carried out on E-commerce platforms, but the company charges only for lined traffic by experienced customers, whereas the payment depends on CPR, CPT, and CPI.
- Transparency and accountability are their top priority, and with the unique capability to gather information about mobile devices, it has been successful in creating a database of publishers and marketers.
- It maintains a five-layered security policy for data protection. The company aims to become a 360-degree performance-based mobile marketing agency and enhance the AdMenu platform and convert it into a revenue generation opportunity.
“We never store data; we just identify people according to their device id. The information given to us is all in concurrence from the publisher and advertisers.”
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Delhi
Company: UrPopular
Founder: Siddharth Sinha & Kumaresh Bhatt
Category: Micro-Influencer Marketing, Measurement and analytics
Geo-markets: India, Southeast Asian countries, MENA countries, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
What they do: UrPopular is India’s largest network of micro-influencers who are paid to post on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter with 240 million+ organic reach across these platforms. They have a pan India reach of 240 million+ and creators in 11 languages.
How it’s changing adtech:
- The tech firm is democratizing organic marketing in India and helping brands to create ROI based campaigns.
- It adds new ways to drive ROI for brands with its cost per view and cost per reach micro-influencer campaigns. The tech company has developed algorithms to understand the outcome of the campaigns and brands can acquire efficiency and measurability in their campaigns.
- Their mantra is “Create, Amplify, and Measure.” This case study of McDonald’s ‘A ful-filling campaign’ is a perfect example to understand it.
Challenge: McDonald’s wanted to destress students from exam fever, and their McSaver Meal + Free French fries exactly intend to do.
Solution: UrPopular got their 11 young and enthusiastic influencers to cheer up and whip off the post-exam chronicles within the outlet by creating Insta stories, videos, fun boomerangs, and before/after stills.
These custom creatives pushed organically delivered,
- 1 million + reach with a 17% engagement rate.
- Rs.1.9 cost per engagement.
- 1.4 million impressions.
“UrPopular brings measurability and scale to the campaigns by working with India’s largest pool of microinfluencers and nano influencers.”
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Mumbai
Closing Words
“In this industry, tomorrow is never the same as today. To gain long-term success in AdTech, you have to play fair, don’t be afraid of experiments, and never stop trying”
-Anton Ruin, Epom
Ad Tech is no rocket science, but it is of significant advantage to brands as it allows integrating various tools in a single system. It is an amalgamation of advertising, creativity, technology, and innovation. The automated process and joint workflows enable more precise target marketing resulting in relevant and compelling ads. The new norms, tried and tested solutions along with reliable platforms helps to keep information safe and avoid any ad fraud. With significant changes and improvements over what advertisers and publishers used to have earlier, adtech is growing as an industry. However, it still requires more work and expertise to handle the challenges and resolve for good.
Read more: Evolution of Digital Advertising: Happy 25th Digital Advertising And Many More To Come
IAS Partners With Pinterest Over Fraud And Viewability Measurement Reporting
Digital ad verification provider Integral Ad Service( IAS) has partnered with Pinterest to able to deliver marketers access to viewability and fraud measurement reporting that covers its mobile in-app campaign.
IAS mentioned that its reporting includes standard Pinterest ads and video ads for in-app inventory, all updated on a daily basis.
This new integration will help advertisers to have access to viewability and invalid traffic monitoring and reporting across promoted pins and videos as well as Independent, third-party reporting by IAS and a global measurement that allows a holistic view across any brand’s entire Pinterest campaign.
With this announcement, Pinterest is observing an all-time high level of user engagement as well as people are searching for creative solutions to ‘life-at-home’ in this pandemic. The searches on the platform for “work from home” are up 1,411% and searches for “children’s activities” are up 4,055%, globally.
IAS also noted that 82% of users access the platform via mobile devices, and it is even more significant for advertisers to measure mobile campaigns on Pinterest accurately.
With measurement being critical to evaluating and optimizing ad quality and related media spend, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS said,
“IAS is excited to partner with Pinterest to offer marketers a mobile viewability and fraud measurement solution that works in-app, where people are engaging.”
“This partnership helps provide the transparency that marketers need to optimize their campaigns on the popular network.”
Read more: IAS Issues Threat Alert Regarding The Latest Digital Ad fraud Scheme
Google Is All Prepared To Compete with Amazon In E-commerce Market.
Google is all set to reveal its new initiative to fight the dominant Amazon in the e-commerce business.
After a series of serious attempts made by Google, to end the monopoly of Amazon in prior consecutive years, that is in 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2019. 2020 seems to be severely crucial as more customers are turning towards the online market every day, due to the COVID virus spread across the world.
Google announcement was a clear indication in the direction of its plans to spread its roots in the online market. Google has declared to charge lesser sales commission from the sellers on its platform and will also let third-party sellers like Shopify to use its platform.
Currently, the commission rates of Google’s online sales platform range from 5 percent to 15 percent depending on the category of the product.
Google might dominate the field of knowledge and information when trying to search for information. But, when it comes to searching and buying goods online, Amazon is the first choice of consumers. Due to consumers’ first choice as e-commerce, Amazon is spreading its wings in the advertisement market, which is a clear threat to Google’s core source of earning.
Google has taken several hits during these years while competing with Amazon. In a seven-year-long battle with Amazon, Google introduced several products to compete with Amazon. However, none of them succeeded. One such attempt at Google was Google Shopping Express! The service launched in 2013, offered one-day delivery for groceries. The users can take an annual membership for $95 and can avail of faster service. However, Google ended up shutting down the project.
After its failed attempts with Google Shopping Express, Google decided to convert it into Google online Mall. The Google online Mall included retailers like Best Buy and Target. In 2017, Google partnered with Walmart. This deal was supposed to bring many fortunes to the Google online market, but unfortunately, the partnership ended too soon.
However, never giving up Google, added a buy button to its search engine. The online-button allowed the users to directly purchase the search engine, with the help of their credit and debit cards.
For an effective competition strategy with Amazon, Google brought in Bill Ready. Bill Ready was a former executive at PayPal.
The announcement in April came as a piece of happy news for the retailers. Now, retailers can list their products for free on Google online market listing. However, early the sellers had to buy the ads to get their products listed with Google. By this step, Google is expecting to attract huge audiences!
Mr. Ready, in an interview, described the position of E-commerce across the world. According to him, there is a wide range of audiences who are shopping online for their needs. Although, there is just a handful of platforms entertaining all of them.
“We want to make sure selling online is easy and inexpensive,” said Mr Ready. Follow
According to Google spokesperson, the changes will be visible to the people in the USA. Those who are already listing products on Amazon can use the same listing on Google, that is, without making any changes to the format.
The aim of Google is to take over Amazon, or at least, for the time being, be the biggest competitor. However is a 20 minutes long conference, Mr. Reddy shy out to take the name of their competitor, even for once.
Even when asked the question to name the largest rain forest in South America, Mr. Ready decided to dodge the question.
Although, he stated:
“Consumers benefit from a diverse and thriving ecosystem of sellers.” Adding that, “There is no one player that can serve all the needs of consumers.”
YouTube Tests New Shoppable Video Ads Tools
Amid a pandemic that created havoc around the world that resulted in prolonged store closures. This has led brands to advertise their products online to drive sales as more people are online now. To make things easier for them, YouTube has introduced new direct response solutions that make video ads more shoppable, drive conversion, and automate content delivery across the platform.
The idea is to make video ads the new ‘storefront’ for the brands as an increasing number of brands are using video ads that connect them directly to customers. YouTube Ads director and product manager Nicky Rettke wrote in the blog post, “Last year, the number of active advertisers using TrueView for action grew over 260 percent.”
Increase in sales with Shoppable TrueView for action
In the new test, the eCommerce advertisers can show their products in their TrueView for action ads. When the user clicks on the expansion arrow, browsable product imagery appears below the video.
The advertisers are required to sync their Google Merchant Center feed to the video ads, expand their call-to-action button, and drive traffic to a specific product page. However, Facebook recently released “Shops” creates on platform storefronts but keep the users and transactions within Facebook.
Retailer Aerie used Shoppable TrueView for action to increase awareness and sales for its 2020 Spring campaign and saw a 25% higher return on ad spend than the previous year and nine times more conversions compared to their traditional media mix. Rettke said in the post that 70% of people bought a brand after seeing it on YouTube.
Video Campaigns drive conversions
The next tool announced is ‘Video campaigns’, a cost-effective way to drive conversions, boost web traffic, or generate leads across the platform. It automatically brings video ads to the YouTube home feed, watch pages, and Google video partners in one campaign as well as include any future inventory that becomes available like the What to Watch Next feed.
YouTube tested the video ad campaign with a start-up Mos to help students raise funds for college to avoid debts. Rettke said in the blog post that it saw 30% more purchases at one-third of the cost of its previous ad spend.
Lead Generation to a Video campaign
The third tool is adding lead forms to a brand’s video ad campaign. Lead forms help advertisers reduce costs and obtain potential costumers. It appears below the video ad and asks the viewers to fill the form while the ad is running.
Automobile giant Jeep tested this approach with its Korea branch and saw a 13-times increase in completed leads at an 84% lower cost per lead as well as generated more leads.
Finally, Google has included YouTube in the Google Ads attribution report that will help advertisers identify the maximum impact across YouTube, Search, and Shopping campaigns.
Shoppable Ads, a new focus for social media platforms
Shoppable ads also considered as direct-response ads have become a major focus of all social media platforms in the pandemic when ad sales went down. Facebook introduced shoppable ads on its platform and Instagram. Snapchat has in-app shopping whereas buy groceries without leaving Pinterest. Shoppable ads are also seen on Tik Tok.
DR ads have helped Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat to maintain profits, and CPM’s. As per Adexchanger reports, YouTube sales VP Adam Stewart said,
“YouTube storefront isn’t a traditional DR advertising product.YouTube has a bustling DR business, because it’s popular for app-install campaigns, especially with mobile gaming companies.”
Direct response advertising features will be the focus of YouTube’s NewFronts presentation to advertisers. As a part of YouTube’s pitch, Stewart said the storefront isn’t meant to rival Facebook-Instagram or Snapchat commerce offerings but its natural counterpart is television.
Amazon.sa is about to Replace Souq in Saudi Arabia
Highlights:
- Amazon.sa has been launched in Saudi Arabia replacing Souq.
- The eCommerce giant is operating three fulfillment centers and 11 delivery stations with a workforce of more than 1400 across Saudi Arabia.
- All existing Souq customer credentials, wish lists, delivery addresses, payment methods, and customer support queries have been converted to new Amazon.sa accounts.
- In the wake of the pandemic, eCommerce is booming in the Middle East and this online store brings Souk’s local know-how and Amazon’s global experience.
Amazon and Souq announced the launch of Amazon.sa in Saudi Arabia to replace Souq.com. This move came after a year after Amazon rebranded Souq to Amazon.ae in the UAE and 3 years after the e-commerce platform was acquired by Amazon in a deal worth $580 million (Dh 2.13billion).
Ronaldo Mouchawar, founder of Souq and now the Vice President of Amazon in the Middle East and North Africa commented on the launch, said,
“Today marks a key milestone … with Amazon.sa, we want to provide what customers have been asking us for the ability to shop a broader selection of both local products and international goods from Amazon.”
He further added,
“Partnering closely with our local and global sellers, we will continue to delight customers in Saudi Arabia by growing our product range while ensuring great prices, fast delivery, and a convenient and trusted shopping experience.”
Shoppers in Saudi can enjoy free next day deliveries on orders above Saudi Riyals 200(Dh196) or can opt for paid same-day delivery to the selected areas of the kingdom. However, Amazon Prime is not yet available on amazon.sa yet. Customers will be able to shop in Arabic or English on both the Amazon shopping app and website.
Shoppers can search for products and pay in local currency or credit/debit cards or opt for cash-on-delivery options and make installment payments from select Saudi banks.
Rafid bin Amin Fatani, Amazon’s head of public policy in Africa and the Middle East said,
“As we launch today, thousands of Saudi businesses use Amazon.sa to reach their customers and we look forward to growing this number further in the coming years.”
Expansion on cards
The Saudi eCommerce market is growing rapidly and is anticipated to surpass US$ 25 Billion by the end of the year 2026. Amazon is building a local logistics and operations network spreading across the kingdom. The company announced a new 226,00 square-foot Jeddah facility and Saudi women will make up approximately 40% of the workforce.
This partnership will encourage Saudi consumers to move further towards digital payments. Ziyad bin Bandar Al-Yousef, managing director of Saudi Payments said,
“This new partnership with Amazon will only serve to strengthen the kingdom’s digital transformation in the payments sector.”
Learn more: Adimo Joins Forces With FutureTech, To Create A True Commerce
Adimo Joins Forces With FutureTech, To Create A True Commerce
Recently, FutureTech and the shopper technology marketing company, Adimo, joined resources. They aim to provide better solutions to their clients. FutureTech is an ad technology and media company operating in diverse verticals.
The deal opens up a wide market for Adimo. The agreement appends a valuable asset, to the FutureTech list of partnerships.
After the reports, Adimo stated: “We’re excited to announce that we are now bringing shoppe ability to MENA & South Africa via our new partnership with FutureTech.”
This is a huge step towards opening new paths and corridors for trade, and media campaigns in the MENA and South Africa.
FutureTech can surely benefit from Adimo technological advancement.
For instance, providing its clients with a much superior marketing platform, in the MENA and South Africa market. Hence, this also leads to an increase in sales.
“With eCommerce in the region growing by 300% during the pandemic, now is the perfect time to embrace shoppable media.
“Buy Now solutions have already been used across several brand campaigns, (including Rainbow, Nestle & J&J, see example) with fantastic initial results.”
This deal has not only helped Adimo to increase its client base but also, its reach to markets, have achieved a number of 30.
The integrated reach of retailers include some very famous markets like Lulu Carrefour, Noon in Middle, East & Takealot, Checkers and Pick N pay (South Africa).
Adimo is a trusted name among FMCG brands like Arla, Bacardi, Coca Cola, Diageo, Fever-Tree, GSK, Nestle and many more. It has a reach to over 900 million shoppers, which spread across 3 continents. Customer advertisement is one of the major factors for this widespread.
Adimo uses every aspect of the advertisement. These include Display(Banner and video), Social, Search, Out of home, Content and ambient marketing.
There are four purchase paths that the Adimo offers:
-
Buy Now:
It makes marketing actionable and the retailer
a cynic, by permitting shoppers to select their
preferred retailer.
-
Add To Cart:
It helps shoppers to add their preferrable items to the cart. They may purchase the product now, or maybe later.
-
Recipes/Bundles:
It helps shoppers to add multiple products to the cart.
-
Where To Buy:
Helping the shopper to choose from a numerous number of options.
The shop ability has 3 major benefits:
- Maximum customer conversion.
- The loyalty of customers.
- With smart data-driven marketing, the budget can be maximized.
Since the finalization of the deal in April, FutureTech has already launched shoppable campaigns for five brands. FutureTech is all set to launch more.