I found myself lamenting with a friend yesterday about how quickly life moves the older you get. Or at least how much more you notice how quickly time flies when you’re older. And holy moly, how is it even possible that we’re a few weeks away from a new year? Time for me to quit lamenting and get a grip. Here’s the news you think you might want to know, from the efficacy of mobile email, to the ever-growing topic of digital video, to Twitter’s continual race to keep users interested and happy, in the latest edition of “Things You Need To Know This Week.”
Are Mobile Emails Paying Off for Marketers?
According to a recent report from Yesmail, revenue generated by mobile emails increased almost 10 percent in the third quarter of this year compared to the same time last year. Much of that increase can be attributed to increased purchases via smartphones, with almost 57 percent of revenue attributed to mobile coming from phones in the third quarter rather than tablets. Makes sense doesn’t it? I know I’m using my phone more and more to purchase as brands continue to create mobile experiences that focused on ease of use, don’t you?
Below are some additional key findings from the report:
Click To Open (CTO): The gap between the average CTO on mobile and desktop continues to narrow. The average mobile CTO was up over 13 percent year over year in the third quarter compared to desktop CTO, which was down just over 17 percent.
Email Opens
Fifty percent of all email opens in the third quarter occurred on mobile devices and 42 percent occurred on desktop computers. Eight percent of opens occurred on both mobile and desktop.
Digital Video
According to eMarketer, an increasing percentage of American households are cutting the cord when it comes to cable TV each year. In 2015, for example, almost five million U.S. households will unsubscribe from traditional pay TV services, an increase of almost 11 percent over last year. That growth is expected to accelerate in future years, with another 12.5 percent of households cutting the cord in 2016. By the end of next year, total U.S. cable subscribers is predicted drop below 100 million.
“This year, the number of digital video services expanded at a faster pace than ever before,” according to eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna. “In addition to standalone offerings from the likes of HBO, there are new digital bundles that include many of the channels consumers could only have received with cable and satellite subscriptions in the past. This widespread availability of digital content makes cord-cutting a viable option for a growing segment of the viewing population.”
Also noteworthy, the share of viewers who have never subscribed to cable or satellite is growing as well, and is expected to reach almost 13 percent this year, and increase to almost 14 percent next year.
via Tech Crunch
Yahoo Introduces New Video Guide App Aimed at Cord Cutters
In a continuing bid to stay relevant, this week Yahoo launched a new app called Yahoo Video Guide. Available on iOS and Android, the guide is designed to help users find new movies and TV shows to watch on HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other services and then lets you to launch titles directly in the associated video apps you already have installed on your device. Interesting.
The challenge Video Guide is trying to overcome (and the value it’s hoping to convince consumers that they need) is discovery. And if you’re a streaming video fan, you likely know that discovering the things you’d most like to watch on various streaming media channels isn’t always an easy process.
Not only does the app have a “mood setting” which lets you tell it what you’re in the mood for, on each title’s page you can see where it’s available to stream for free, as well as where you can rent or buy, and how much it costs. It also includes Rotten Tomatoes ratings and provides all the information about the title that you’d be interested in, as well as other titles that are similar to the one you’re looking at.
Where the Yahoo app actually offers an advantage over some of the other streaming “TV guides” is that it analyzes which streaming video apps you already have installed on your phone before customizing its guide during the app’s setup process. That means you won’t run into content suggestions that you can’t actually watch. That’s interesting, because I would actually run across something that I wanted to see on an app I don’t have, and pay to download that app. Maybe something for them to ultimately integrate.
This is an interesting move on Yahoo’s part. The brand is struggling and if this app becomes a service that consumers can’t live without, that’s a good thing. Marketing that becomes the challenge. I’m pretty adept at navigating my Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and SlingTV apps and don’t feel as though I’m missing out on much. That, combined with a friend base on Facebook with great taste in media means I’m never without something to watch. The Yahoo app doesn’t integrate all the streaming video services, only the big guys. But that leaves things like go90, Noggin, Feeln, Tubi TV, Vimeo, SeeSo, Watchable, Stream, SlingTV and others out of the equation. That seems like another thing to fix.
What do you think? Would you use this?
Mobile
How Many Apps Do Smartphone Owners Actually Use?
According to a November 2015 Pew Research Center report, 30 percent of U.S. smartphone app users had one to 10 apps installed on their phone and another 32% had 11 to 20.
According to AppsFlyer, most apps are not even retained for a full day. Data from July found that just over 29 percent of apps downloaded by Android users were retained it for at least a day, while just under 26 percent of apps downloaded to iOS devices were retained for at least a day. At the end of a month, only 3.3 percent of Android apps and 3.2 percent of iOS apps still had active users. Thinking about developing an app? Better make sure it’s something people want – and need, then you’d best be prepared to market the hell out of it.
YouTube
via MarketingLand
YouTube’s Launches New “Trending” Video Tab
Included in its #YouTubeRewind 2015 announcement, the site introduced a new “trending tab” that displays the latest viral videos.
“This new tab in your YouTube app delivers the top trending videos directly to your Android, iOS, and desktop device,” says YouTube on its blog, “See ’em as they take off and before they appear in YouTube Rewind 2016.”
According to a Google spokesman, the videos are not curated based on a viewer’s watch habits, but rather using an algorithm that tracks comments, views, novelty and external references. I think that YouTube is working to remain top-of-mind as Facebook video continues its upward climb, and also as live-streaming becomes more and more popular.
New Twitter Ad Targeting Tested to Reach Logged Out Visitors
A new Twitter ad targeting test was released this week designed to give marketers the ability to advertise to users not signed into the service, aimed at helping monetize traffic regardless increased account growth.
The new targeting option will allow advertisers to reach the over 500 million people who visit Twitter each month and do not sign into an account. In the past, this traffic couldn’t be monetized by Twitter or reached by advertisers.
The announcement states that advertisers can “with a single click — expand their campaigns from Twitter to a much larger audience” so expanding existing campaigns to the total Twitter audience could be completed with a mouse click. This will be initially be rolled out in the U.S., the UK, Japan, and Australia, with more countries added in the future.
via Re/Code
Twitter Is Testing a New Look Timeline
Following in the footsteps of Facebook on this front, Twitter has begun testing a new timeline order for some users that ignores the standard chronological order and inserts some tweets higher up in the queue. This is in an effort to surface the “best” content and is relying on an algorithm of some sort to determine which tweets should display higher on a timeline. This seems like a move designed to court more advertisers as well.
It’s clear with this proposed move away from reverse chronological order that has been the foundation upon which Twitter was built that CEO Jack Dorsey is pulling out all stops on experimenting so as to keep the company relevant (and the platform being used). This is also the case with regard to the news that Twitter is working on a product to let users tweet more than 140 characters (and be just like Facebook). Time will tell if any of these experiments make a material difference in attracting more active users to the platform. What about you? Does Twitter remain one of your favorite, most-used platforms, or do you do the bulk of your communicating elsewhere? I’d love to hear.
Miscellaneous
2015 Johnson Family Dubstep Christmas Light Show
Baby laughing while her dad tries to make her say ‘daddy’
photo credit: Twitter bird logo icon illustration via photopin (license)
