We are now well into August and staring the busy fall sales season right in the eye, so digital marketers need to catch up on current trends. With that in mind, here are 8 stats from last week that grabbed our attention.
1. AI drives sales
Artificial intelligence represents a chance for startups to make an impact and cash in like never before. It’s especially interesting to see sister duo Caroline Stern Klatt and Dana Stern Gibber, who co-founded Headliner Labs, a two-year-old chatbots company that has landed clients like Women’s Wear Daily, BoxyCharm, La Sun, Jemma Wynne and Donni Charm. Donni Charm just reported that they saw a 63 percent increase in sales from their Headliner-powered chatbot, which helps consumers discover new products, deals and style guides.
“Across the board, Headliner’s clients are seeing a 40 percent engagement rate, with customers spending an average of six minutes per bot session,” Klatt claimed. “Most importantly, the bots are driving sales—we’ve seen an average of 13 percent increase in digital sales (across clients).”
2. Promoted tweets drive smartphone purchases
Twitter teamed up with Nielsen and Foursquare to determine what role the social network plays in what smartphones people buy. The three companies examined wireless carrier in-store foot traffic for T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless, and they found that buyers spent an average of 6.8 percent more with mobile wireless carriers after seeing ads on Twitter. What’s more, Twitter ads generated a 23 percent lift in visits to mobile carrier storefronts.
3. Buzz, accomplished
An Elle.com video featuring an 8-year-old boy becoming his alter ego, the drag queen Lactatia, has now been viewed more than 28 million times since going live on Aug. 4. It’s the most popular clip in the publisher’s online history, and, per FishBowl, it also has a record number of shares (212,175) and minutes watched (40,218,916).
4. Targeting realtors
The online real estate category appears red-hot when it comes to social networks, and digital platform PunchBowl announced an interesting offer last week. Called Modern Stamp, the marketing product lets real estate agents send messages under a pricing model the company says might evolve. But for now, they pay on a volume-based scale, with $12 for 250 sent messages being on the high end (4.8 cents per send) and $99 for 300 messages (3.3 cents per) on the low end.
5. Exercisers dig podcasts
A new study by GlobalWebIndex, which surveyed tens of thousands of consumers, suggests that fitness marketers might need to step up their advertising games. Roughly 40 percent of regular exercisers listen to podcasts. It makes sense—workout warriors typically love to listen to something while busting a sweat. Learn more on the subject here.
6. The sweet, sweet music in Echos
To better understand how people are using their voice-activated smart speakers at home, Pandora commissioned Edison Research to analyze nearly 15,000 queries across 444 Amazon and Google devices. Edison Research asked participants who had owned a device for at least a month to provide a full record of a week’s worth of interactions. Here are three of its key findings for Amazon Echo:
- 58 percent of users used their Echos for music, averaging about 4 hours and 34 minutes per week.
- 69 percent regularly tuned into audio content.
- 46 percent checked the weather.
Check out more about the study here.
7. All about the revenues
During the second quarter of 2017, Snap made $181.7 million from 173 million daily active users, up from $149.6 million during Q1. Second-quarter revenue missed a Thomson Reuters estimate of $186.2 million, but was up 153 percent year over year before Snapchat’s API began rolling out in earnest. The numbers were disclosed last Thursday.
8. Big data, big coin
On Friday, Snap quietly revealed how much it paid to acquire location data company Placed via documents filed with the SEC. The company snapped up Placed for $135.2 million in cash.
Bonus stats: We all scream for ice cream
Here’s an indisputable truth: Summertime and ice cream go hand in hand. So it’s not surprising that SocialBakers found that ice cream brands see an uptick in Facebook fans during May, June and July. But it’s still interesting to observe how much the needle moves during those months. Check out the 2016 chart below, which the company released for the first time today and gives new meaning to “ice cream social.”
