Sector Reports_Online Dating
Transcription
Sector Reports_Online Dating
The greenlight sector REPORT PRODUCT FOCUS Age Culture & Preferences Generic Location Greenlight's SEO predictions for 2014 revealed By Adam Bunn & co. Paid Media in 2014: Putting the Audience at the Centre By Hannah Kimuyu. After the Goldrush: Counting up the cost of social. By Ciaran McManus. An exclusive snapshot of the online Search & Social Media market £££ DEC 2013 GREENLIGHT WELCOME Recent Updates A message from Greenlight’s CMO Over the past few months, our reports have included mobile search data, however due to the introduction of Google’s Enhanced Campaigns, it is no longer possible to monitor the search volume associated with specific devices. Therefore, we have had to remove all mobile data from the reports. At Greenlight, we pride ourselves on being thought leaders within the Search industry. Utilising our unique data aggregation and visualisation platform, Hydra, we are able to track, record and analyse consumer search behaviour in any given market vertical, which in turn leads to the creation of our industry renowned Sector Reports. Each report gives an indication of the size of the potential online audience and examines the most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK. We hope that you enjoy the updated versions of our Sector Reports. If you have any suggestions on ways in which we can improve our reports, please contact us at [email protected] Kind regards, Alicia Levy Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | +44 (0)20 7253 7000 2014 11 Greenlight’s SEO predictions for 2014 revealed. ARTICLE Greenlight’s experts predict this year’s trends and changes for the SEO landscape. Contents feature articles E-COMMERCE PPC 2 Foreword 6 Natural Search 11 Article SEO Predictions for 2014. 15 Paid Media 20 20 Article Putting the Audience at the Centre 22 Integrated Search 24 Article After the Goldrush: Counting up the Cost of Social 26 27 29 Social Media Article 2014 - Evolution, not Revolution. About this report Putting the Audience at the Centre Article by Hannah Kimuyu Greenlight Sector Report 27 2014: Evolution not Revolution £Article by£Kevin Murray £ £ £ £ 24 £ £ £ £ £ £ £ MEDIA SOCIAL £ £ £ £After£the Goldrush Article by Ciarán McManus £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ Report Overview Executive Summary This report profiles search behaviour for the online Online Dating sector. It analyses which websites, advertisers and brands were most visible in the Google UK Natural Search and Paid Media listings, when consumers searched for Online Dating-related terms. This report also assesses which brands interacted well on the Social Media networks. In our analysis we established that: In December, 731,350 searches were made by consumers searching for Online Dating-related terms on Google UK. Queries for generic-related keywords accounted for 70% of all searches made for the sector. The search term 'free dating sites' was queried 74,000 times, accounting for 10% of all searches made for the sector. match.com was the most visible website in the Natural Search listings, achieving a 49% share of voice. top10bestdatingsites.co.uk was the most visible advertiser in the Paid Media space, achieving a 68% share of voice. match.com ranked at the top of our Integrated Search league table, as it achieved a dominant share of voice in the Natural Search and Paid Media listings. Percentage breakdown of searches made for each subsector: Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 4 greenlight December Overview In December 2013, 731,350 searches were made for Online Dating-related terms. The graphs below show a breakdown of the number of searches made for each of the subsectors analysed in this report, as well as an overview of the total number of searches made for the Online Dating market in the past 12 months. Number of searches by subsector At a glance In December, 731,350 searches were made for online dating-related keywords. Searches for generic keywords were most popular, accounting for 70% of all searches made for the sector. Retrospective 12 month view of the online online dating market Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 5 Natural Search Online Dating: Overall 731,350 searches In December 2013, 731,350 searches were made by consumers searching for Online Dating-related keywords. The league table below shows which websites were most visible in the Natural Search listings on Google UK for the 1,178 keywords analysed. Top 10 search terms: Overview: In December, the keyword ‘free dating sites’ was queried 74,000 times, accounting for 10% of all searches made for Online Dating-related keywords. match.com was the most visible website, achieving a 49% share of voice through ranking for 461 keywords, including the search terms ‘dating’ and ‘online dating’. The 20 most visible websites: eharmony.co.uk attained a 46% share of voice through ranking for 527 keywords, including the search terms ‘free online dating sites’ and ‘dating sites UK free’. Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 6 greenlight Online Dating: Generic 512,530 searches In December 2013, 512,530 searches were made by consumers searching for generic-related keywords. The league table below shows which websites were most visible in the Natural Search listings on Google UK for the 524 keywords analysed. Top 10 search terms: Overview: In December, the keyword ‘dating sites’ was queried 74,000 times, accounting for 14% of all searches made for generic-related keywords. match.com was the most visible website, achieving a 62% share of voice through ranking for 290 keywords, including the search terms ‘dating’ and ‘online dating’. freedating.co.uk attained a 59% share The 20 most visible websites: of voice through ranking for 193 keywords, including the search terms ‘free dating sites’ and ‘free dating’. Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 7 Natural Search Online Dating: Age 48,010 searches In December 2013, 48,010 searches were made by consumers searching for age-related keywords. The league table below shows which websites were most visible in the Natural Search listings on Google UK for the 86 keywords analysed. Top 10 search terms: Overview: In December, the keyword ‘mature dating’ was queried 22,200 times, accounting for 46% of all searches made for age-related keywords. maturedatinguk.com was the most visible website, achieving a 53% share of voice through ranking for 17 keywords, including the search terms ‘mature dating’ and ‘mature dating UK’. The 20 most visible websites: plentymorefish.com attained a 52% share of voice through ranking for 25 keywords, including the search terms ‘mature dating’ and ‘over 40 dating’. Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 8 greenlight Online Dating: Culture and Preferences 105,840 searches In December 2013, 105,840 searches were made by consumers searching for culture and preferences-related keywords. The league table below shows which websites were most visible in the Natural Search listings on Google UK for the 281 keywords analysed. Top 10 search terms: Overview: In December, the keyword ‘polish dating’ was queried 27,100 times, accounting for 26% of all searches made for culture and preferences-related keywords. facebook.com was the most visible website, achieving a 32% share of voice through ranking for 117 keywords, including the search terms ‘Chinese dating UK’ and ‘amputee dating’. The 20 most visible websites: match.com attained a 31% share of voice through ranking for 74 keywords, including the search terms ‘Latino dating’ and ‘black online dating’. Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 9 Natural Search Online Dating: Location 64,970 searches In December 2013, 64,970 searches were made by consumers searching for location-related keywords. The league table below shows which websites were most visible in the Natural Search listings on Google UK for the 287 keywords analysed. Top 10 search terms: Overview: In December, the keyword ‘speed dating London’ was queried 8,100 times, accounting for 12% of all searches made for location-related keywords. speeddater.co.uk was the most visible website, achieving a 45% share of voice through ranking for 126 keywords, including the search terms ‘speed dating London’ and ‘speed dating Birmingham’. The 20 most visible websites: onlineandspeeddating.com attained a 37% share of voice through ranking for 107 keywords, including the search terms ‘speed dating Nottingham’ and ‘speed dating Birmingham’. Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 10 Feature Article 2014 SEO PREDICTIONS 1. INVESTING IN THE WRONG TYPE OF SEO Adam Bunn, Director of SEO. My prediction this year is about companies investing effort in the wrong thing when it comes to SEO. Specifically, I predict far too much emphasis on schemas and not enough on authorship. After I’ve talked about that, I’m going to open the floor to some of the other smart folk here at Greenlight to talk about what they think will happen in 2014. SCHEMAS Schemas, at best, are what I’d call a “best practice” – the sort of checkbox exercise you tick off when building or optimising a site. They are easy to grasp and relatively easy to implement and consequently there is a schema bandwagon rolling through town. Google has put a lot of effort into promoting them, founding schema.org and rather effectively establishing them as a part of SEO to the point that I see a lot of “A-List” SEO’s espousing schemas as the next big thing (in fact, it was a 2014 SEO prediction from one of them that it would be essential to optimise your site with schemas that prompted my prediction). The problem is that, except a tiny few that have some proven CTR value, schemas have so far done absolutely nothing positive for ranks or traffic. It is questionable whether they can even be considered anything to do with SEO and if I had to put money on it, I’d say that the biggest impact of schemas is that Google gets to harvest a lot of information for free and reuse it in the knowledge graph (hence why they promote schema use), which sucks traffic away from brands! But, because schemas are something solid to grab hold of in an otherwise quite ephemeral marketing discipline, I predict companies will continue to invest in their implementation. Fruitlessly. AUTHORSHIP Conversely, Authorship will be under-invested in, largely because outside of the technical set up of an 11 CONTENT SPINNING? Fig 1 : Google Hummingbird technology will be used to evaluate and clamp down on inline text links within spun blog posts. author in the Authorship programme it’s actually very difficult, even intimidating, to approach taking advantage of it. You have to develop a reputation for creating good content within a particular field, and have other people who have a history of being interested in and/or also having expertise in that field interact favourably with the content you produce. Like schemas, Google also promotes the Authorship programme quite heavily but unlike schemas that is because they genuinely want to use it as an algorithmic signal (as well as, of course, driving more Google+ members and content). If you have any doubt about that, you need only look at the sheer number of patents Google filed and was granted in 2013 to do with the identification and scoring of authors, topics and experts. 2014 will be the year of Authorship, but it’s going to fly right by most companies. 2. HUMMINGBIRD FOR SPOTTING UNNATURAL LINKS Graham Ridley, Lead SEO Consultant. The Google Penguin algorithm update has caused quite a stir since its release in April 2012, as it’s the first regular update that looks at a website’s backlink profile. This algorithm has struck fear into blackhat SEOs, however, some websites still appear to be immune to this update. What do they have that others don’t? A very diverse anchor text profile, that’s what. Spun contextual links within blog posts (fig.1) appear to still work from reviewing some website backlink profiles and although Google has been clamping down on the networks providing these links, is there anything else Google can do to identify these poor backlinks? My prediction for 2014 is that the Google Hummingbird technology will be used in evaluating inline text links within spun blog posts. Hummingbird looks at the way a sentence is structured and the words used in a Google search query. So why is Google not using this technology in evaluating contextual links, to see if the words prior and after make sense or are as expected? This can then be used in the fight against spam on networks that aren’t as easy to find as ones on Blackhat World or Wicked Fire forums. This is what I hope to see implemented in 2014. 3. MOBILE SEARCH, HUMMINGBIRD & PERFORMANCE METRICS Matt Hayford, Head of SEO We all know that Hummingbird was introduced to help bring back more relevant results for longer phrased search queries, including those conducted on the ever growing number of smartphone and tablet devices. Whilst there probably won’t be any significant change to the way Hummingbird functions, the close affiliation the algorithm has with mobile search will be refined further, to the point where I can see mobile search 12 Feature Article queries operating once again separately to desktop searches. Alongside Hummingbird, response times for websites will become even more crucial for mobile search results. Google has championed responsive design sites for a number of years and Matt Cutts recently said that responsive design is the better way to go for SEO. This means that if you have an all-in-one website using responsive design you better make sure that it’s optimised for its maximum performance, as we all know mobile SEO is significantly influenced by site speed. Performance, coupled with Hummingbird, means that mobile SEO may once again have to be treated separately from desktop SEO and our reliance on similar SERP results on desktop listings and mobile/tablet listings may start to differ. 4. THE YEAR OF CONTENT MEASUREMENT Victoria Galloway, Lead Copywriter Take a literary classic like Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and try to quantify not just how popular it is, but how it has resonated, permeated and filtered through multiple social histories. Tracking how popular it is might be considerably easier than tracking anything else; statistics surrounding sales and ebook downloads are relatively simple to get hold of, but how would you go about explaining the influence of Pip and Miss Havisham in the novel’s wider context – numerically? of content marketing is easy, but justifying our efforts and quantifying them isn’t. Whether subjectivity, taste and perception can ever truly be measured is yet to be proved. Your target audience might click through onto your content piece but if they don’t share it, like it or retweet it then how do we know how they processed it? Even if they did share it, did they genuinely find the content useful? It’s a bit like measuring the success of an advertising campaign where you can only really measure profit. “ 2014 WILL BE ABOUT FINDING WAYS OF EFFECTIVELY MEASURING CONTENT’S SUCCESS. KNOWING THIS IS CRUCIAL WHEN DESIGNING PENGUIN-FRIENDLY CONTENT PLANS AND JUSTIFYING MORE CREATIVE CONTENT. “ 2014 will be about finding ways of effectively measuring content’s success. Knowing this is crucial when designing Penguin-friendly content plans and justifying more creative content. We’ll need to think smart with all the metrics we can gather – from likes, shares, EAV (Equivalent Advertising Value), tweets and sales – and the true content champions will weave these into useful and penetrative narratives that will be able to predict what content should be produced, when and who for. Explaining and rationalising online content faces exactly the same challenge. We can’t just generate content anymore in the hope that it will simply do well. We need to ensure that what we’re creating connects and prompts discourse because in 2014 the emphasis will be on generating quality conversations and tracking engagement. Measurement lies at the heart of content marketing but ironically it’s the hardest part of the process. Discussing the benefits 13 Feature Article 5. FULL USE OF PERSONAL DATA RETURNING CUSTOMERS BECOME RANKING FACTOR Britt Soeder, SEO Campaign Director Google says in its Policies & Principles overview, that it improves services to all users by using data shared with Google, e.g. by using a Google Account. This goes from name and photo to hardware and operating systems as well as how you use their services. The latter is the interesting part. Amongst others, Google knows: What brands or people you like and interact with What online shops you use What you like to read and what you dislike Google officially says, that it uses this data to “provide, maintain, protect and improve […] and develop” their products and services. This of course includes a better search experience. So since Google can officially use our data, what are the main criteria they are looking at to determine how high a page should rank? Bounce rate – already used Time on site – already used G+ signals – already used What do you do if you really like a site? You come back, don’t you? You might not like sharing things on social networks but you will come back to a site you appreciate. Google Chrome bookmarks are certainly noted but not used to a great extent when it comes to rankings yet – and not all users want bookmarks because they think they share important data with Google (yes they do!) or they are not a sharing generation. So in addition, could Google look at all returning traffic to a site, not only when bookmarks are used? Why would Google make the effort? It would be logic because a website with lots of shares and links – both of which you can kind of influence despite the site’s quality – shouldn’t be worth ranking if visitors never return. Surely, if it was any good and worth the ranking position, visitors would come back. And it would be a fantastic strategy for retargeting and thus increasing Paid Media spend – a nice side effect to say the least. 14 greenlight Online Dating: Overall 731,350 searches In December 2013, 731,350 searches were made for Online Dating-related keywords. The league table below displays the most visible advertisers and ad creatives on Google UK for the 1,178 keywords analysed. The 30 most visible advertisers: At a glance: In December, top10bestdatingsites.co.uk was the most visible advertiser, achieving a 68% share of voice through bidding on 706 keywords, at an average ad position of 3. match.com achieved a 51% share of voice through bidding on 574 keywords, at an average ad position of 4. Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 15 Paid Media Online Dating: Generic 512,530 searches In December 2013, 512,530 searches were made for generic-related keywords. The league tables below display the most visible advertisers and ad creatives on Google UK for the 524 keywords analysed. The 20 most visible advertisers: At a glance: In December, top10bestdatingsites.co.uk was the most visible advertiser, achieving an 82% share of voice through bidding on 312 keywords, at an average ad position of 2. match.com achieved a 63% share of voice through bidding on 292 keywords, at an average ad position of 4. plentymorefish.com displayed the most visible individual ad creative, achieving a 26% share of voice. The 5 most visible ad creatives: Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 16 greenlight Online Dating: Age 48,010 searches In December 2013, 48,010 searches were made for age-related keywords. The league tables below display the most visible advertisers and ad creatives on Google UK for the 86 keywords analysed. The 20 most visible advertisers: At a glance: In December, maturefreeandsingle.com was the most visible advertiser, achieving a 56% share of voice through bidding on 55 keywords, at an average ad position of 3. seniorsizzle.com achieved a 46% share of voice through bidding on 3 keywords, at an average ad position of 3. seniorsizzle.com displayed the most visible individual ad creative, achieving a 46% share of voice. The 5 most visible ad creatives: Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 17 Paid Media Online Dating: Culture and Preferences 105,840 searches In December 2013, 105,840 searches were made for culture and preferences-related keywords. The league tables below display the most visible advertisers and ad creatives on Google UK for the 281 keywords analysed. The 20 most visible advertisers: At a glance: In December, top10bestdatingsites.co.uk was the most visible advertiser, achieving a 27% share of voice through bidding on 161 keywords, at an average ad position of 5. anastasiadate.co.uk achieved a 27% share of voice through bidding on 25 keywords, at an average ad position of 5. polishhearts.co.uk displayed the most visible individual ad creative, achieving a 26% share of voice. The 5 most visible ad creatives: Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 18 greenlight Online Dating: Location 64,970 searches In December 2013, 64,970 searches were made for location-related keywords. The league tables below display the most visible advertisers and ad creatives on Google UK for the 287 keywords analysed. The 20 most visible advertisers: At a glance: In December, elitesingles.co.uk was the most visible advertiser, achieving a 58% share of voice through bidding on 164 keywords, at an average ad position of 4. top10bestdatingsites.co.uk achieved a 58% share of voice through bidding on 186 keywords, at an average ad position of 5. plentymorefish.com displayed the most visible individual ad creative, achieving a 25% share of voice. The 5 most visible ad creatives: Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 19 Feature Article 2014 Will Be About Audience Targeting… Putting the Audience at the Centre By Hannah Kimuyu, Paid Media Director of our target audience, beyond the search query (keyword), and allows us to adapt and target our digital strategies accordingly. A ccording to the IAB, the biggest trend in Advertising in the next seven years will be audience targeting and furthermore, it will be bigger than Search. In fact the IAB has gone as far to predict that ‘In 2020, audience targeting investment is projected to exceed Search spend”. [Source: IAB, 2013] Google believes this is a massive opportunity for performance agencies and their clients ‘because the skills needed to do audience well, like auction based real-time bidding expertise, have already been honed in Search. Complex, data driven strategies that have been developed for Search will translate to audience. Where you have been experts in keywords, you now need to be experts in cookies. Keywords and cookies together is a powerful combination to power all your digital investment including, of course, Search’. [Source: Fintan Gillespie Google, 2013] And at Greenlight, we believe audience targeting is set to be one of the biggest trends for 2014. Audience targeting reduces the speculative costs of advertising and allows you to invest directly into the right customer segments, advocates, engagers and friends of fans. What is audience targeting exactly? When we refer to audience targeting, we’re effectively relating to using audience signals to target the most relevant customer segments. In other words: 1. Who they are, i.e. gender, age, demographic. 2. Where they’ve been, i.e. site visit, location. 3. What they like, i.e. interests, preferences. Collectively, these signals allow us to have a better understanding As well as putting mobile first, audience targeting was also one of the main drivers behind Google’s biggest change in ten years, Enhanced Campaigns. Although an initial sceptic of Enhanced Campaigns, ten months on I personally love the way Enhanced Campaigns has turned the Search world on its head, making us think beyond the keyword and about the person behind it. Google is using this new focus on AdWords to push out betas such as Remarketing for Search Ads (RSLA) and Demographic Targeting; two very exciting initiatives that bring a whole new layer of efficiency and testing options to our campaigns. RLSA as a standalone beta has removed the fear factor when bidding on generics because we already know if the customer is engaged and willing to purchase, thus improving our return on advertising spend and overall efficiency in campaign 20 management. The proof is in the pudding as according to Google ‘RLSA shows 48% lower CPAs than the rest of Search spend’. [Source: Google, 2013) Audience targeting isn’t new in Search, though... Think about it, audience targeting is also social media advertising: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and so on. As users, we tell these platforms everything about us, making it far easier to target us even at an individual level, if we really wanted to. Social media advertising and audience targeting is playing a vital role in the wider digital strategy pushing brand, growth and acquisition and we’ve definitely seen the benefits for clients at Greenlight. Thinking about the wider digital landscape, audience targeting is ironically what Display has been doing all along, yet we’ve criticised the lack of results Display delivers. However since Real-time Bidding (RTB) was introduced into the mix, Display has taken some massive leaps in growth and performance. Now Search is doing the same, putting the audience first and targeting multiple customer segments. The keyword ironically is now secondary to the process. Google pushing audience targeting reaffirms its dominance in Search, but also helps push other channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram who haven’t see the same growth from their own advertising programme. Audience targeting is fitting for retail, finance and travel and particularly for luxury brands where the inclusion of audience targeting via Social Advertising is delivering an uplift in Search (and in some cases is actually seeing a greater return on investment (ROI) than Search). 2014 is here and it’s only a matter of time before we’ll all be talking about audience targeting…putting the audience at the centre of our digital strategies. By Hannah Kimuyu, Paid Media Director. “In 2020, audience targeting investment is projected to exceed Search spend....” [Source: IAB, 2013] Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | +44 (0)20 33261929 21 Integrated Search Which websites/advertisers were most visible overall on Google UK? The graph below analyses the Integrated Search performance of 20 different websites. By taking into account each websites Natural Search and Paid Media visibility, the graph below shows which websites obtained the greatest overall share of voice on Google UK. Strong Natural Search visibility Strong Integrated Search visibility Poor Integrated Search visibility Strong Paid Media visibility No website achieved strong No website achieved strong match.com and Integrated Search Visibility. visibility in the Natural Search top10bestdatingsites.co.uk listings. achieved strong visibility in the Paid Media Space. Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 22 greenlight The visibility obtained by each of the websites and advertisers featured in this report have been added together and ranked according to their total visibility in the Search space. The league tables below, therefore, show which websites achieved the greatest share of Integrated Search visibility on Google UK. The 40 most visible websites overall: At a glance match.com featured at the top of our integrated search league table, as its combined share of voice was most dominant. top10bestdatingsites.co.uk ranked second in our league table, as it achieved a sizable share of visibility in both the Natural Search and Paid Media listings. Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 23 Feature Article AFTER THE GOLDRUSH COUNTING UP THE COST OF SOCIAL By Ciarán McManus, Social Media Strategist. £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ Social media predictions tend towards superficial chatter about the rise and fall of channels - with every self-proclaimed social media ‘ninja’ or ‘guru’ claiming the inside line. The tides will surely come and wash away the underperformers with predictable regularity, but the next social tsunami will appear with little warning. Social media is a field with creative disruption built into its DNA, nigh on impossible to predict, and trying to do so is an exercise of little actionable value. Besides, that misplaced focus is really sidestepping the more important questions about social media’s development. Agencies and their clients aren’t really interested in whether Google+ is going to grow or shrink; this is populist social media reportage for the Mashable generation. It has little effect on strategy – fluid 24 Feature Article strategies allow for focusing and refocusing on channels as their relevancy fluctuates. Instead, it’s a much safer and sensible bet to think about what applies across all these channels, as the big names of Facebook, Twitter et al represent an established industry that, sure as any other industry, now has discernable trends and patterns developing across it. For Greenlight and our social media team, the biggest shift has been towards social advertising. Nothing too extraordinary, you might say, but it’s starting to get interesting. It was once considered a fact of inconvenience that social media return on investment (ROI) was some foggy, obfuscated, unachievable holy grail of marketing. It was often sold to clients as such – don’t expect any sales gains; social is just about branding. But any other above-the-line branding exercise would still expect to generate an accountable sales lift, or at least a marked increase in enquiries or footfall, so it’s no surprise to see social is no longer exempt. Measuring ROI has come on a great deal since the costs of social have risen. Facebook has slowly depleted the natural reach of fan page posts which has increased brand reliance on paid activity, and Twitter’s sponsored tweets model is starting to bed in (the jury’s still out on whether this is good for brands, though. See http://www. theguardian.com/money/2013/ sep/03/businessman-promotedtweet-british-airways). Complacency, reluctance, ignorance – whatever it might have been that initially delayed the better justification of social media spending has since been shaken up as the viral gold rush, the social free market has slowly dried up. The challenge presented by paid social advertising will only make us even more economical with copy, even more creative with our messages and even more focused on producing the best content strategy for the highest possible ROI. Whilst we at Greenlight would hardly complain if offered greater natural reach for free, our role as digital marketers is to communicate the optimum message through whichever method is dictated to us by the market. The challenge presented by paid social advertising will only make us even more economical with copy, even more creative with our messages and even more focussed on producing the best content strategy for the highest possible ROI. It’s sometimes a disappointment to see wonderful content fall short of expectations because natural reach limitations impinged on its progress too soon, but even this is a fresh challenge to be savoured. The goalposts have moved for everyone, after all. Sure, the big spenders out there will dominate when they can afford more social ad space than you, but there’s nothing to stop a great campaign matching them step for step in terms of ROI. Social media marketers can never be scared of change. We say, bring it on. By Ciarán McManus, Social Media Strategist £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ “We say, bring it on.” 25 Social Media Social Media Marketing The league table below analyses the 15 most visible website in Integrated Search (laptops/desktops) and lists the number of followers each brand had on several of the main Social Media channels in December 2013. Brands in this league table are ranked according to a Klout score, which bases its calculation on brands' influence and ability to drive actions on social networks. No Twitter Followers Brand Google+ Followers Facebook Fans YouTube Views YouTube Subscribers Klout Score 1 Telegraph.co.uk 383,616 599,299 116,090 209,188,912 71,902 93 2 Match.com 25,149 42,964 7,688 915,199 246 84 3 Zoosk.com 129,877 13,445,538 29,519 4,259,122 8,439 66 4 Eharmony.co.uk 2,864 23,612 1,544 1,220,797 1,023 64 5 Pof.com 3,544 26,914 177 2,500,476 1,768 54 6 Mysinglefriend.com 3,491 2,227 171 1,104,459 251 51 7 Elitesingles.co.uk 83 1,225 0 0 0 47 8 Oasis.com 12,761 10,000 2,950 0 0 40 9 Plentymorefish.com 1,069 1,197 3 12,961 6 34 10 Freedating.co.uk 62 128 0 0 0 16 11 Top10bestdatingsites.co.uk 33 25,226 1,194 35 n/a 13 12 Naughtydating.com 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 Maturefreeandsingle.com 1 28 0 0 0 0 14 Smooch.com 22 315 637 10,707 1 0 15 Love2meet.com 0 65 0 0 0 0 Telegraph.co.uk ranked at the Zoosk.com had the highest Telegraph.co.uk had the highest top of our Social Media analysis number of fans on its Facebook number of subscribers to its as it attained a Klout score of page (13,445,538). YouTube channel (71,902). 93. Online Dating Sector Report | December 2013 | The most visible websites and advertisers on Google UK 26 Feature Article 2014: Evolution, Not Revolution. Looking to the year ahead, I believe that 2014 will be a year of evolution rather than revolution, as I do not think we will see anything radical per se, rather a maturity of ideas that have been talked about over the last few years that are only now becoming realistic for retailers today. BIG DATA The term “big data” has been talked about a lot, yet nobody has really illustrated what it means for the eCommerce world or how to use it in a realistic and nonabstract way. So, the term became another irrelevant technical phrase that was mostly ignored, as it was never positioned in a way that meant anything real. My view on “big data” is that the “big” element will be taken away and made more relevant to those who want to use the behavioural data they have available to them to help grow their business. The main concept of “big data” is that enterprises are capturing and storing so much information now in every interaction, that it can be harnessed for other uses (although most evangelists championing the term don’t really show how exactly to do that). However, as there is so much data available, how do we know what is useful and what is not? tough. While we saw some brands disappear from the high street, we also heard a lot of our customers talk about very competitive trading conditions online. Recently, the headlines spoke about the best “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” recorded, but usually these figures talk about turnover rather than profit. Furthermore, it seems there were more retailers with an online presence than ever before, making it difficult for those looking to capitalise on digital trading with so much competition around. There were some of the usual big names claiming they were capitalising on more people going online to shop, but I believe these retailers were the ones who had already decided what information of their “big data” was useful to them and so began to leverage the data they had about their customers’ shopping behaviour to target them. PERSONALISED CAMPAIGNS These aforementioned retailers are mining the “big data” they have on each customer and grouping them to build relevant campaigns to target those customers with. They are able to look at their data and decide, for example, which customers do a lot of shopping, or those who have an increased ‘average order value’ (AOV) in October or November and so they begin to target them with promotions and vouchers before the main Christmas rush. These retailers are able to look at the specific product categories that customers have bought from in the past and decide if there are particular products they will then recommend to them, with a combined promotion or voucher. This proactive approach to relevant merchandising can have a significant impact on AOV and revenue in general. “ we will see (...) a maturity of ideas that have been talked about over the last few years” During 2013, many retailers found the market in general to be quite Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | +44 (0)20 33261929 27 Feature Article However, recognising trends in data is only one part of the issue. The other, using it in an easy and effective way, is also very important. Many eCommerce solutions have now made it easier to offer personalised journeys within their systems using business configured rules, content and data. Personalisation is not new, but what has been problematic is for retailers to understand how they can use the tools available to them to create relevant personalised offerings. The combination of having the data and easily using it has been a breakthrough for some, but I believe it will be realised for many more retailers in 2014. Those retailers doing it already are being quite targeted about which data in their enterprise they want to mine and so calling it “big” I think makes it scarier than the reality. Just focusing on a small set of data that will have a real impact will be realised by more retailers for eCommerce in 2014 when trying to grow their businesses. Looking at the little sets of “big data” across the customer touch points will allow for much better targeted data and growth. We will start to see a convergence of more relevant data across different channels becoming more important and being tied together, where the behaviour of one channel is allowed to affect the others. For example, what a customer browses for and buys in store will have an effect on how they are engaged in the digital world. consider secure), the influence of the data on these social channels will play a big part in 2014. For those who “Like” a brand or who “hashtag” a phrase will be letting retailers and brand merchandisers know a lot more about what they actually want, so they can be targeted with more relevant ads to tempt them to buy, rather than providing very generalised offerings about what other people may be buying. “Social networks will begin to have a much bigger influence on what and how the customer buys in 2014.....” In the past year, a lot of these ideas have been executed by those very few retailers who have the budgets to make significant investments in these areas. While very large investments may not be necessary, those who do make some investment in the infrastructure to capture the data, the analysts that can interpret it and the ecommerce frameworks that can surface the merchandising, will capitalise on the retail opportunities of “Grey Thursday”, “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” in 2014. Furthermore, social networks will begin to have a much bigger influence on what and how the customer buys in 2014. While I think these networks are not quite at the stage where a shopping transaction will occur (or at least in a way that a customer would By Kevin Murray, Director of Ecommerce & Technology 28 greenlight About this report How this report was created Disclaimer: Greenlight’s Research & Insights team collected 1,178 Online Dating-related terms queried by online consumers. The keyword set was then uploaded to Greenlight’s Hydra platform, which collected volumes for the associated keywords. Hydra then analysed which websites and advertisers appeared for the keywords analysed and from there, ranked websites and advertisers based on their share of visibility in the Natural Search listings and Paid Media space on Google UK. The information provided in this report is for information only and should not be relied upon to enter into any business transaction or to make any commercial decision. Whilst Greenlight has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this report, Greenlight cannot accept any liability for any error or inaccuracy found within this document and no warranty is provided regarding its completeness or its suitability for any purpose. The content of the report is the copyright of Greenlight Marketing Limited. The reader may use and circulate the report within its own business organisation. However, it is not permitted to exploit, distribute, sell or otherwise make use of the report for commercial gain. It is permitted to reproduce extracts of the report for public interest, provided that the publisher credits Greenlight as the source of the work. All data displayed in this report is based on a wide range of keywords, and therefore aims to provide readers with a generic overview of the online Online Dating sector in December 2013. Bespoke Sector Reports Get in touch If you can’t find a report which analyses the online industry you are interested in or if you want to analyse a specific keyword set, get in touch and find out more about Greenlight’s bespoke reports. Greenlight currently creates bespoke reports for a wide range of online brands, providing Marketing teams with the insights they need to make informed decisions about their online strategies in the UK and abroad. Contact Ian Hucklesby Business Development Director T: +44 (0) 20 3326 6237 Email: [email protected] Download free reports Greenlight’s Research & Insights team produce Sector Reports analysing more than 20 different online industries. To view and download all FREE reports, visit www.gossip.greenlightdigital.com Get in touch to discuss your site’s specific performance | www.greenlightdigital.com | T: +44 (0)20 7253 7000 29 www.greenlightdigital.com Level 14, The Broadgate Tower, Primrose Street, London, EC2A 2EW. NATURAL SEARCH PAID MEDIA SOCIAL MEDIA WEB DEV TRAINING TECHNOLOGY
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