Total marketing budgets were revised higher during the third quarter of 2018, extending the current period of growth to six years, but to the weakest extent in almost three years. This is according to the Q3 IPA Bellwether Report, published last week (17 October). Report highlights – Cost pressures and growing uncertainty weigh on budget – Internet marketing spending plans continue to provide key support to growth – Most downbeat assessment on industry-wide financial prospects since Q4 2011 – Muted ad-spend growth forecasts for 2018 [...]

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Thanks to the advances in location technologies, it is possible to know which visitors to a retailer’s store have seen the brand’s ad. However, simply measuring total in-store visits of consumers exposed to a digital campaign is not enough to know the effectiveness of a retailer’s advertising. In fact, this can lead to wasted ad spend or the application of inaccurate insights to future drive-to-store campaigns. In this piece for RetailTechNews, Andy McNab, UK managing director, S4M, explains the significance of measuring [...]

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Fresh off the back of announcing the soft launch of their self-serve advertising product, RetailTechNews spoke to Bert Basset (pictured below), EU director of revenue labs, eBay Advertising, to understand more about the product and how it can help small businesses.  RetailTechNews: How does the new ‘eBay Local Services Ads’ product work? Bert Basset: At eBay Advertising, we’re really excited to have soft-launched ‘eBay Local Services Ads’, a brand new product designed to help local service businesses reach new customers and grow their revenue. It’s our first [...]

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Picking the right retail partners is a challenge faced by every brand. Invest too much in the wrong channel, and risk heavy losses, while the right channel can be a long-term, sustainable source of sales. Here, John Maltman, CEO, E Fundamentals, tells RetailTechNews why brands need to be doing more to analyse how their products are performing across different retailers, and how they can optimise their online selling strategy.  RetailTechNews: How does E Fundamentals’ technology work? John Maltman: E Fundamentals is an [...]

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The race for technological integration in retail is well and truly on. Whether its IoT, AR, or virtual assistants, retailers are always on the lookout for exciting ways to drive consumer engagement and improve the bottom line. In this Q&A with RetailTechNews, Isaac Korn, director of innovation, Perry Ellis International (PEI), describes how his team, and others within PEI, are working with retail technologies.  RetailTechNews: Is the role of technology in retail more important now than ever before? Isaac Korn: Yes, technology is crucial to the [...]

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In this piece, Joe Rohrlich, EVP & general manager, Bazaarvoice tells RetailTechNews how having consumer ratings and reviews on your website has become essential to meeting shopper expectations. According to their latest Shopper Experience Index, businesses with customer-generated content on their website now see a 106% lift in conversion and a 119% boost in revenue per visitor. As reviews become more prolific, the need to ensure the authenticity of reviews is reaching a crescendo. Recent research by CIM for BBC Five [...]

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RetailTechNews’ weekly Amazon watch brings you some of the company’s biggest moves from the past seven days, analysing how the giant is revolutionising the retail space. In this week’s edition: The State of the Amazon Marketplace; Smart Speakers to Surpass Wearables; and Cosmetics Sector Showing Resistance. The State of the Amazon Marketplace Amazon’s third-party selling platform competition is starting to lose serious ground on the internet giant, according to Feedvisor’s ‘The State of the Amazon Marketplace 2018‘ report.While Amazon remains the leading marketplace [...]

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Selling goods online is by no means an even playing field. Some companies base their whole business models around it, while some find it a perennial thorn in their side. Speaking exclusively with RetailTechNews, David Trolle (pictured below), head of online marketing, Summit, highlights some of the businesses that have succeeded, and some that have struggled, as they attempt to optimise their offerings to sell online. ExchangeWire: What is Summit’s role in the shift from traditional to online retail? David Trolle: At [...]

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The retail sector has often been regarded as slow when it comes to the adoption of artificial intelligence. However, an industry that once seemed unsure how best to leverage this technology, is slowly getting to grips with its proper application. In this piece, Peter Ellen, co-founder and CEO, Big Data for Humans (pictured below) takes a look at the purpose, and deployment, of AI in retail. It’s confession time. Two years ago I kicked a robot hard; but I believe there [...]

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In an omnichannel marketing world, customers are engaging across any number of devices: viewing ads, visiting websites, and conducting searches. Here, Amelia Waddington, director of data science & analytics, Acxiom (pictured below), explains that as a result of this marketers have become more reliant on multi-channel attribution models to track these movements over the last few years. These models help them understand the kind of impact each online marketing channel contributes to online sales, how effective campaigns are, and how the different [...]

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