'Net Features : comscore

Hey, Where’s My Display Ad?

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Display advertising has seen a resurgence over the past few years thanks to much improved targeting and testing technologies, but some very significant problems remain.

A new report out from Comscore indicates that 3 out of 10 display ads were never rendered "in-view" in 2012. Despite delivering upwards of six trillion impressions, if users can't see the ad they are certainly unlikely to ever click (or take any action).

For advertisers the lack of "viewable" impressions results in significant waste, weaker campaign performance and poor-performing inventory overall that imbalances the supply-and-demand equation and depresses CPMs. Through the continued adoption of a viewable impressions standard however, the market will likely move toward a model that better aligns monetization with the value created by the inventory according to Comscore.

“2013 is poised to be digital’s most exciting year yet as the growing ubiquity of digital platforms presents marketers with nearly endless opportunities to connect and engage with consumers,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “It’s clear that the dynamics of the marketplace have fundamentally evolved through the adoption of smartphones and tablets and the increasingly ‘digital’ nature of all media. Navigating this changing landscape requires a holistic understanding of the key trends, underlying drivers and new opportunities that the digital ecosystem will bring in the year ahead.”

Comscore provided several insights in its 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report, including details on social media market share, Google and Bing search market share, online video, and ecommerce.

5 Video Strategies for Merchants

Allison Howen — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:40:00 GMT

A strong video strategy can provide merchants with many benefits – from an increase in engagement and conversion rates to better placement within the SERPs.

The biggest challenge with video, however, is creating content that will engage consumers and entice them to hit the play button. While many merchants implement video on their sites, often times their video strategies are limited to product videos and demonstrations for specific items. Although these types of videos are definitely helpful, they aren’t very engaging and are rarely available for every product on an e-commerce website.

In order to harness the true power of video, merchants need to create a more robust and innovative strategy that not only showcases their products, but is also interactive and makes consumers want to hit play. Luckily, Website Magazine has compiled a list of five tactics that can help merchants revamp their current video strategy to get better results, check them out below:

Go Live

Brands that want to stay a step ahead of the competition should consider implementing a live video strategy. One way this can be done is with the Your BrandLive platform, which is a video communication software that uses live video and chat to create a unique customer to brand experience. In fact, brands can use the service to broadcast live video from any location and participate in real-time interactions with customers. Moreover, merchants can sell products during video sessions by uploading items into the Brandlive dashboard. By doing this, products are displayed across the bottom of the live video with titles, descriptions, images, prices and a call-to-action button for making a purchase.

That being said, merchants can also go live on Google+ with Google Hangouts. This feature can be used to video conference with up to ten people at a time, as well as live-stream a broadcast publicly onto Google+, YouTube and websites. This could come in handy when revealing a highly-anticipated product for the first time.

Start Advertising

According to comScore, U.S. consumers watched 11.3 billion online videos in December 2012, which proves that video advertising is a big business. Furthermore, video ads tend to be successful because consumers typically either have to choose to hit play in order to view the advertisement or have already decided to watch a video (meaning they are alert) when the advertisement is shown. Merchants can launch video advertisements through Google, as well as on video ad networks like BrightRoll, Live Rail or Adap.TV. Additionally, LinkedIn recently announced video ads on its self-serve platform, which could be a good place for B2B merchants to display their advertisements.

Promote User-Generated Reviews

Most merchants know how influential consumer reviews can be, so why not feature them in a unique way? Yes, we are talking about video reviews. In fact, there are a variety of platforms available that allow merchants to include user-generated video content on their site, including Bravo, Authntk and EXPO TV. These videos could even prove to be more valuable than written reviews, because it is easier to tell someone’s sentiment when you can watch them speak, which makes this type of user-generated content more personable, relatable and believable.

Get Social

It is important to use a multi-channel approach when implementing a video strategy. By maintaining a YouTube channel and cross-promoting that content on other social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest, merchants have the ability to show their products to a wider audience. Moreover, merchants can use their social videos to create a variety of content outside of tutorials and demonstrations, such as entertaining spoofs or a behind the scenes look at a company.

Videos for Every Item

Just because you have updated your current video strategy to include some of the aforementioned tactics, doesn’t mean you should neglect adding or updating product videos/demonstrations on your site. After all, product videos are helpful to consumers who are on the verge of making a purchasing decision, which means having a video on every product page could potentially have a dramatic influence on conversion rates. That being said, creating videos is time consuming, which is why platforms like Treepodia can be very helpful to merchants. This is because Treepodia can be used to turn entire product catalogs into product videos. The platform does this with Image Reviving Technology, which brings still photos to life. Moreover, the videos are always kept up-to-date as the platform automatically generates new video versions to reflect changes in inventory and all videos are based on existing product images, descriptions, prices, user reviews and merchandising rules.

E-Commerce Retail Breaks Records Again

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:15:00 GMT

For the final three months of 2012, comScore is reporting that sales increased 14 percent to $56.8 billion, marking the ninth straight quarter of double-digit growth.

U.S. retail e-commerce sales grew 15 percent to $186 billion for the full year, the strongest annual growth rate since before the recession.

"With e-commerce growth rates consistently in the mid-teens throughout the year, it is clear that the online channel has won over the American consumer and will increasingly be relied upon to deliver on the dimensions of lower price, convenience and selection," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

Also worthy of note from the Comscore report is that the number of buyers rose 6 percent and spending per buyer increased 8 percent for the fourth quarter.

Best Online Holiday Ever for Merchants

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:47:00 GMT

Comscore has released its analysis of online holiday spending in the U.S., and as every digital media maven in the virtual world predicted, it was a very merry season indeed.

Online shoppers purchased a whopping $42.3 billion worth of goods in November and December – up 14 percent from what Comscore reported just last year.

There were several standout days according to Comscore including Thanksgiving Day (which was up 32 percent year-over-year), Black Friday (up 28 percent) and Free Shipping Day which fell on December 17th (up 76 percent year over year to over $1 billion).

OpenTable Serves Up Free Mobile Sites

Allison Howen — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:00:00 GMT

A recent comScore study revealed that mobile phones and tablets now account for 1 in 8 U.S. Internet page views, further indicating that mobile is becoming an increasingly popular way for consumers to connect with businesses when they are away from their desktops.

This is especially true for consumers who are trying to find local businesses, such as places to eat, while on the go. Popular online reservation platform OpenTable has taken note of this trend, and is now offering a new service that optimizes its clients websites for mobile devices – for free.

The new service, powered by DudaMobile, is said to be easy to implement, while making a client’s website more user-friendly - without sacrificing the branding of the restaurant’s desktop website.

"More than ever diners are seeking information about restaurants and booking reservations on the go, yet the vast majority of restaurant websites are not designed for mobile use," said Matt Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of OpenTable. "Our goal is to make it easier for restaurants to reap the benefits from the shift toward mobile by removing the friction associated with creating and hosting mobile-friendly sites."

To further prove that mobile has made a huge impact in the restaurant industry, OpenTable claims that 28 percent of the 28 million diners that the company seated in North America booked their reservations on mobile devices in the second quarter of 2012. Additionally, OpenTable has seated more than 30 million diners through reservations booked on mobile devices since November 2008, which represents more than $1 billion in revenue for OpenTable’s restaurant clients.

OpenTable’s restaurant clients in the U.S., Canada and the UK can leverage this free service by claiming their mobile site through the OpenTable Restaurant Center before February 1, 2013.

Ad Viewability Metric Gaining Ground

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:00:00 GMT

In an effort to add another layer to its analytics, VivaKi has partnered with comScore to offer its VivaKi Nerve Center Audience on Demand users ad viewability metrics that measure how often a digital ad is actually viewed (as opposed to just served).

A “viewable” advertisement displays at least 50 percent of its pixels on a user’s screen and remains there for at least one second.

This new metric will allow VivaKi Nerve Venter customers to pre-optimize their campaigns using insights about which of their ads are most viewable to end users, and thus performing better. However, advertisers will need to opt-in to use the new measurement.

In January, comScore reported that nearly 31 percent of online ads that were purchased by the 12 major brands it studied were not viewable. Just last week, the Media Rating Council accredited comScore’s Campaign Essentials metrics, which include exciting new metrics like brand safety, engagement, in-country geographic delivery and removal of non-human traffic, in addition to viewability.

Measuring viewability over simply impressions is a testament to the progress that has been made in ad analytics. In fact, last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said that it wanted the ad marketplace to begin moving towards viewability as the standard metric for studying ad impressions. Another industry coalition wants to get it recognized as the standard by the beginning of 2013.

Most Tablet Users Also Video Consumers

Linc Wonham — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:30:00 GMT

A new report from comScore has found that tablets have quickly reached a “critical mass” in the U.S., with 1 in every 4 smartphone owners using tablets during the three-month average period ending April 2012.

The study also found that tablet users were nearly three times more likely to watch video on their devices compared to smartphone users, with 1 in every 10 tablet users viewing video content almost daily.

“Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history and are poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world both on-the-go and, perhaps most notably, in the home,” says Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile. “It’s not surprising to see that once consumers get their hands on their first tablet, they are using them for any number of media habits including TV viewing.”

Adoption Jumps Nearly 12 Percent
In just two years since the launch of the iPad, the first tablet to reach a meaningful market penetration, tablet adoption has exploded, fueled by the introduction of new devices that appeal to various price and feature preferences. In April 2012, 16.5 percent of mobile phone subscribers used a tablet, representing an increase of 11.8 percentage points in the past year.

Growth in market penetration was even more apparent among the smartphone population with nearly 1 in 4 using a tablet device in April, an increase of 13.9 percentage points in the past year. A lower 10.4 percent of feature phone owners use a tablet, suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market.

Older Users on the Whole
A demographic analysis of mobile device audiences indicated that tablet and smartphone audiences closely resemble one another in terms of gender composition, with tablet users just slightly more likely to be female than smartphone users. However, the age composition of audiences showed that tablet users skewed noticeably older than smartphone users.

For both devices, the heaviest overall audience concentration was between the ages of 25-44. Compared to smartphone owners, tablet users were 28 percent more likely to be in the 65 and older age segment, and 27 percent less likely to be age 18-24.

Tablet users also skewed towards upper-income households, likely a function of the high price point of these devices still considered a luxury good to many consumers. Nearly 3 in 5 tablet users resided in households with income of $75,000 or greater, compared to 1 in every 2 smartphone users.

Video Content Consumers
A closer look at content consumption on tablets found that more than half of tablet users watched video and/or TV content on their device in April 2012, compared to just 20 percent of the smartphone audience, with larger screen sizes making tablets more conducive to video consumption than their smaller-screen cousins. Not only were tablet users more likely to watch video, but they were more likely to view video habitually, with 18.9 percent of tablet users watching video content at least once a week, and 9.5 percent watching video nearly every day on their devices.

Of those viewing video at least once during the month, 1 in 4 (26.7 percent) paid to watch content, highlighting the tremendous monetization potential this platform represents for content providers.

The Usual Suspects Lead Online Video Rankings

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Comscore released data from its Video Metrix service showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion videos in January 2012. As you might imagine, the usual suspects round out the top few spots.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video consumption on YouTube, was the top Web video property in January with 152 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.5 million, Yahoo! Sites with 49.2 million, Viacom Digital with 48.1 million and Facebook.com with 45.1 million. While this is useful information overall (particularly for media buyers), it might also prove beneficial to see the destinations that are emerging as well – but I digress.

Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites again generating the highest number at 18.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 877 million and VEVO with 717 million. The average viewer watched 22.6 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. On the whole, if this says anything to you – it should be, “Create more video!”

Comscore also revealed the top video ad properties, and no surprise here, Google again topped the list of video advertising opportunities. One of the many reasons, of course, is its levels of innovation and TrueView Ads is a great example. Google recently surveyed its customers and found some interesting data about the TrueView program offering as it relates to user experience. Eighty percent of viewers preferred TrueView to standard in-stream ads, and 90 percent thought the ads created a better viewing environment.

The Digital Future in Focus

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:00:00 GMT

Comscore released its annual report examining trends in the digital world including social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce. The 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus provides several key insights and highlights what these trends mean for the coming year.

“2012 promises to be an exciting year for the digital media industry as the explosion of available content and proliferation of web-enabled devices drive the evolution of the digital consumer, creating new opportunities and challenges for the entire digital ecosystem,” says Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “In order to be successful in this new paradigm, digital marketers must understand the key trends shaping the current marketplace and what that means for the future of their businesses.”

Some of the report’s most interesting highlights, which can be accessed here, include:

- Social Networking accounted for 16.6 percent of all online minutes at the end of 2011 and is on track to surpass Portals as the most engaging online activity in 2012.

- Bing had a positive growth trajectory in 2011, closing out the year by surpassing Yahoo! for the #2 position among core search engines for the first time in its history

- More than 100 million Americans watched online video content on an average day to close out 2011, representing a 43-percent increase versus year ago.

- A staggering 4.8 trillion display ad impressions were delivered across the U.S. Web in 2011 as brand advertisers continued to shift dollars to the digital medium.

- Ecommerce growth rates versus the prior year remained in double-digits to significantly outpace growth at brick-and-mortar retail.

Validating Digital Ad Delivery with Comscore’s vCE

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:30:00 GMT

Comscore recently announced the release of Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE), a product designed to validate digital ad delivery. The measurement solution provides a view into campaign delivery and a “verified” assessment of ad-exposed audiences.

Unlike other solutions, vCE provides an account of impressions delivered across a variety of dimensions – for example, are ads delivered in-view, in the right geography, in a brand safe environment and absent of fraudulent delivery. A U.S.-based vCE Charter Study involving 12 brands found that while ads are being delivered they are not always “in-view” or worse “on target” resulting in never having a chance to make an impact on the user.

“The display advertising market today is characterized by an overabundance of inventory, often residing on parts of a web page that are never viewed by the user. This dilutes the impact of campaigns for advertisers and represents a drag on prices to publishers,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore.

“Conversely, some ads below the fold are quite visible and deserve more credit. comScore’s introduction of vCE signals an evolution in digital advertising that will bring greater transparency and accountability to the market. Ultimately, this type of third-party validation will help identify and appropriately price the proportion of online ad inventory that delivers value, improve buying and selling decisions, and instill more confidence and trust in the industry.”

It’s a Social World After All

Allison Howen — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

What is the most popular content category on the Web? Social networking of course.

Social networking sites now reach 82 percent of the world’s online population, which represents 1.2 billion users according to a recent study from ComScore.

In fact, social networking accounted for 19 percent of all time spent online in October – which is almost 1 out of every 5 minutes. This is a steady incline from 2007, when social networking only accounted for 6 percent of time spent online.

The most popular social site, Facebook, now reaches more than half of the world's population, and accounts for about 3 in every 4 minutes spent on social networking sites and 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world.

However microblogging has also gained momentum in the social space. Twitter grew 59 percent over the past year, and now reaches 1 in 10 Internet users across the world. But other microblogging services are also gaining traction, such as Tumblr and Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo is the leading Chinese microblogging site, and is ranked as the tenth social network globally, while Tumblr ranks twelfth globally and has recently seen a growth rate of 172 percent.

So aside from being everyone’s favorite past time, what is driving the popularity of social media? The answer could be mobile devices, which allow users to update statuses on the go, check-in with location-based services, redeem coupons or deals and more. According to the ComScore report, 32 percent of the total U.S. mobile population reported accessing social networking sites on their phone in the month of October, while 24 percent of the mobile population from the five leading European markets also claimed to have engaged with a social network via their mobile devices.

And although people use social networking for many different reasons, it continues to be an affordable and effective marketing avenue for businesses, especially since it reaches such a large audience.

A noteworthy statistic from the study reveals that social networking leads all content categories in the number of display ads delivered. In October, 28 percent of U.S. display ad impressions came from social media, and 5 percent of all ad impressions viewed in the U.S were socially enabled. Facebook is currently the largest publisher of U.S. display ad impressions, delivering 28 percent of display ad impressions in the third quarter of 2011 – which is more than the other four major portals combined.

Are Tablets Taking Over E-Commerce?

Michael Garrity — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:05:00 GMT

When the iPad was originally announced, the critics were harsh, and most people didn't seem to see the purpose of yet another handheld device that didn't have the same computing power as a laptop, nor the portability (or ability to make calls) like a smartphone.

Now, studies show that for iPad owners (or owners of another comparable tablet device, which is less likely at the moment), the device is the standby for most of the users' computing needs, especially on the Web.

For reading, browsing and multimedia consumption, owners are becoming more and more accustomed to picking up their tablets instead of phones or laptops. And, as recent trends have begun to show, these devices are also beginning to be the first choice of owners for online shopping, as well.

Mobile advertising company Jumptap, in conjunction with comScore, recently released Wave Two of its ongoing research project titled Understanding Mobile Audience, which "shows that tablet owners are almost as likely as PC and laptop owners to use their tablet device to make purchases." According to the study, a whole 63 percent of tablet owners make purchases on their devices; this is compared to 83 percent of PC owners who shop on their computers.

The news of the tablet influence on e-commerce isn't new. In fact, it's been covered at Website Magazine before (a couple of times). However, there are still some important statistics the report brings to light concerning the tablet revolution.

It's clearly a younger set of users (those hip Millennials) that are shopping on tablet devices. Of "young" tablet owners, between the ages of 18-34, almost 80 percent made purchases on their tablets; the middle-aged set (35-54) saw about 50 percent buying things on the devices, and just 43 percent of the 55+ crowd made tablet-based purchases. These are very similar to trends that we see with smartphone usage, as well. So far, the top three most popular purchases on tablets have been event tickets, daily deals (specifically from sites like Groupon) and clothing/apparel.

Perhaps the most curious finding in the study dealt with security. While most users seem to agree that they find PCs safer than mobile devices, many of them also feel that tablets are, for some reason, more secure than smartphones.

Also, though they are making these purchases on mobile devices, many of them prefer to shop on them at home.

It looks like these trends will be absolutely essential for e-commerce companies to pay attention to, because tablet commerce will probably be the future of online shopping now that Barnes & Noble and Amazon are both coming out with their own (more affordable) iPad competitors. Amazon, particularly, seems poised to jump directly into marketing for the tablet, altering much of their website in anticipation for the release of the Kindle Fire.

Tablet Commerce Continues to Grow

Michael Garrity — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:00 GMT

A recent comScore study shows that in September, 48 percent of tablet owners made at least one purchase on their device.

The study, published as a whitepaper report called "Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits," backs up claims that shopping is among the fastest growing trends in tablet usage.

What is really important to take away from the report, however, is that there seems to be a pretty distinct divide between tablet users who use the devices to do almost everything and more casual users who are less-attached to their tablets.

Those users who did report making a purchase on the device said that they used their tablets throughout the process, from product and store research and price comparisons all the way to the actual transaction.

Devoted tablet users clearly seem set on utilizing the devices in all areas of their daily lives, or at least all of the areas where it is applicable. Some predict that the upcoming release of the Amazon Kindle Fire should see the number of dedicated tabletaholics rise considerably.

Here are some charts that outline the numbers of "dedicated" tablet users compared to their casual counterparts:

Half of U.S. Views Online Video Ads

Michael Garrity — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:30:00 GMT

Digital analytics firm comScore unveiled its August Web video rankings recently which show that, among other things, Americans watch a lot of videos on the Internet.

Without question, most videos that are viewed online are watched on YouTube; in fact, the Google-owned video streaming site racked up a total of 162 million unique visitors in the month of August. VEVO came in second with 62 million viewers and Facebook, believe it or not, was the third most popular video site on the Internet with 51.6 million people watching videos. Following the social network were Viacom Digital (fourth), Microsoft (fifth), Yahoo (sixth) and AOL (seventh), though on the whole, unique video watchers were on the rise across the board.

In fact, the total number of viewing sessions in August reached an all-time high as there were 6.9 billion sessions recorded during the month. YouTube and Google Sites hosted just over half of them.

What's more, approximately 85.8 percent of the U.S. "Internet audience" watched videos online in August, and the average Web video watcher took in approximately 18 hours of content. YouTube led the race, with an average of 5.7 hours of engagement per user, while Hulu came in second with an average of 3.2 hours.

And while that data is all well and good, it's not exactly useful to Web businesses or Internet marketers, at least until one considers the role that advertising plays in all of that video watching.

comScore calculates that there were over 5.6 billion video ads watched by Americans in just one month (to put it in perspective, the world's total population is just under 7 billion people). Statistically, this means that half of the population of the U.S. were exposed to video advertising an average of 37.6 times, and the total time spent watching video advertisements adds up to over 2.5 billion minutes. Remember, this is all in a single month.

Video ads made up about 13.4 percent of all videos viewed in August and account for about 1.3 percent of the minutes spent watching online videos.

Of course, what this ultimately means is that online video advertisers can reach a whole lot of people.

TouchStorm Reaches Into Target Demographic

Michael Garrity — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:30:00 GMT

This morning, TouchStorm released figures based on research by comScore showing that their potential reach of their editorial distribution network among 18- to 34-year-old viewers in July 2011 was nearly 12 million people.

TouchStorm, for those unfamiliar, is an online video distribution and content development provider. The company says that their goal is to distribute content "as earned media not paid advertising," and they also make content for publishers, themselves and their clients. They promise to give television-like reach to their clients that will result in three minute engagements and measurable conversion.

These new numbers bring the network's total U.S. viewership potential to over 30 million consumers, but their ability to reach the coveted 18-34 demographic could mean big things for TouchStorm in the future. As most advertisers will tell you, conquering the 18-34 demographic is key because, on average, they are traditionally the most active consumers.

comScore, as you're more likely to know, is a digital business analytics firm. Their comScore Video Metrix Entertainment-Mulitmedia category report studied TouchStorm's reach into various demographics and found that the growing company continues to expand and score high markes with both males and females in the 18-34 age range.

The study also found that TouchStorm videos draw an average of 3.4 minutes of view time per video with the 18-34 target audience, which helps them to engage a very active and mobile young crowd.