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Typical online purchases involve seven steps taking three hours
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Shoppers work through several stages before making a significant buy via the internet, which includes spending at least 35 minutes deciding whether a purchase is absolutely necessary.

Following that, an online search for a product or service, including on social media sites, will take place over the next 33 minutes.

And the survey of 2,000 adults found an average of 30 minutes is then spent reading online reviews and recommendations, with the average shopper avoiding a purchase if something has less than 3.4 stars out of five.

While one in 10 wouldn’t buy something with 99 five-star ratings if it has just a single one-star review.

Half an hour will also be spent narrowing down the choices between brands by comparing to other similar products for price and quality.

Other steps include sharing potential purchases with friends or family, putting something into a virtual basket – then the final hurdle of completing the transaction.

The research was commissioned by Vision Direct, whose CMO, Ashley Mealor, said: “As purchasers are spending so long scouring reviews, it is so important for businesses, especially those operating online, to be accurately and fairly represented.

“We recognise there are some brands which have reviews that cannot be trusted, as those writing them have been incentivised to do so.

“Implemented for the main purpose of generating favourable online appraisals, the concept of proposing incentives or hosting competitions can be misleading and skew authenticity.

“It’s encouraging to see platforms such as Trustpilot, starting to take great steps to ensure it is a level playing field for all by revising regulations and stopping all consumer incentives – to address a controversial grey area.

“With the prevalence of dishonest reviews online, the seven stages of shopping feels like a sensible way of ensuring a purchase – particularly one of value – is made well.

“You are then not just relying on reviews, but also word of mouth, social media, customer service and brand comparisons.”

The research also found 62 per cent of respondents think of themselves as ‘considered’ purchasers – who don’t buy without thoroughly researching the item first.

However, 14 per cent are happy to describe themselves as an ‘impulse’ buyer, who shops first then asks questions later.

But Brits would not consider something to be a ‘significant’ purchase if it fell below the £163 price point – and the last time they spent more than £100, they deliberated for eight days.

And 31 per cent are more likely to make a significant buy online, while 25 per cent would rather do it face-to-face – with the remainder not caring either way.

Although consumers are more likely to be suckered by an impulse purchase in a real-life store, than by something they see online (30 per cent vs 23 per cent.)

It also emerged that in order to ‘fully trust’ a brand, Brits want to receive their goods in perfect condition (45 per cent), experience super-quick delivery (26 per cent) and be on the receiving end of exceptional customer service (41 per cent).

But while 78 per cent of shoppers leave online reviews after using a company, just under half are more likely to do so if they are offered an incentive like money off their next order, or a chance to win a prize.

However, a huge 83 per cent of those polled via OnePoll believe unscrupulous sites or brands often put up fake positive reviews to try and trick people into buying their goods.

Ashley Mealor added: “Our study found online reviews to be hugely important to lots of people – half say they are important, especially when considering eyewear or eye medication.

“It can be hard sometimes to know whether an online review can be trusted, particularly where your health is concerned.

“This is where the fifth stage of shopping – getting real-world feedback from people you know in real life – can be hugely beneficial.

“If somebody you know and trust is willing to recommend something that word-of-mouth review is worth its weight in gold to any manufacturer.”

THE SEVEN STAGES OF SHOPPING
1. Deciding on a need for something – 35 minutes
2. An online search for the product you want including social media sites – 33 minutes
3. Reading online reviews and going through recommendations – 29 minutes
4. Narrowing down between brands by comparing to other similar products for price and quality – 31 minutes
5. Share links with friends and family – 14 minutes
6. Getting something into your online or real-life basket – 19 minutes
7. Actually making the purchase – 24 minutes
TOTAL – 185 minutes – 3 hours and 5 minutes

Five trendsetters in digital marketing to follow this year
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By Gary Peeling, CEO at Where The Trade Buys

Whether it’s changes in algorithms, innovations in technology, or cultural trends that are gathering swarms of online attention, there is always something new to keep on top of in the digital marketing sector. Because of the ever-changing face of digital marketing, there are always new trailblazers and trend setters to watch out for. 

AI first began to influence the world of marketing in 2019 and, according to the Smart Insights report, content marketing was thought to be the single marketing activity to make the biggest impact. Throughout the year, consumers were swayed by experiences rather than traditional ads, and we continued in the shift away from television advertising towards a completely digital world based on big data.

With all of this in mind, we consulted Google’s own data dig into their marketing resource ‘Think with Google’. They uncovered the most-read articles of 2019 on this go-to marketing resource platform. Here’s what marketing experts were most interested in over the past year.

  1. Inside Google Marketing: 3 ways we think about SEO by Sean O’Keefe

“How does Google approach SEO?” is the golden question in marketing. Every digital marketer wants an answer to this almighty query. It’s no wonder that this topic was the most read and hotly discussed in 2019. With a constantly changing, mysterious algorithm, it is essential that digital marketers stay up to date with this topic. Sean O’Keefe leads the way and gives us all an insight into the world of Google. 

Beauty products have dominated the marketing world over the past year and Rihanna’s Fenty range lead the way with the slogan “Beauty for All”. The concept of a truly inclusive brand shook up the way digital marketers approach the beauty industry. Merging marketing with celebrity culture and progressive positivity, there’s no wonder that this piece brought hooked in so many readers. 

Everyone enjoys a viral video. Especially one that rakes in thousands of pounds! In this think piece, Travis Chambers explains the marketing beauty of telling a story and monetising it — something that we could all learn from! Clearly, in 2019 video marketing still reigned, and storytelling was key to any brand’s success. 

If we needed any further evidence that video marketing was king in 2019, Sadie Thoma brings it. The fact that this piece was among the highest in terms of engagement proves that many digital marketing agencies focussed on telling their brand’s story through video. 

Again, storytelling is at the centre of this piece, shedding light on what we were most focussed on in 2019. Quick fixes and short marketing campaigns clearly didn’t capture people’s attention in 2019. Instead, we wanted to know the full story. For this article, Haller made reference to the Nemeziz soccer shoe launch by Adidas and how their marketing team utilised YouTube’s video ad sequencing tool to guide the viewers through an advertorial journey. 

These marketing trailblazers have set the bar high, and their insights are sure to inform big brands over the coming year. It’s safe to say that many agencies will want to get hold of these expert’s business cards as they plan their strategies for the upcoming years. With big predictions for 2020 in place, including ‘snackable video content’, inclusive marketing, and experience personalisation, it’s time to step into the new decade with a creative mindset and an ambitious digital marketing plan. 

2020 marketing predictions from SAS’ Wilson Raj
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Digital Marketing Briefing sat down with Wilson Raj, Global Director of Customer Intelligence at SAS, to pick his brains on the future of marketing, encompassing privacy, the blockchain and AI – here are his five things to watch out for in 2020:

  1. Data privacy & personalisation become C-suite priorities

In 2020, marketers will raise the personalisation bar by raising the data privacy bar. Topics such as data governance, data security and data management will be escalated to C-suite and boardroom level discussions as the balance between customer privacy and personalisation becomes a strategic differentiator for all brands.

2. Blockchain & advertising  

In 2020, blockchain technology combined with AI will start to gain traction to help businesses combat digital advertising fraud and waste.

3. Identity management

Identity management will be a primary goal (and struggle) for marketers in 2020.  Marketers must be able to identify and track specific digital visitors across a range of channels, devices, platforms and environments as they journey around web, tablet, mobile apps, voice assistants, and AR/VR. 

To this end, hybrid-cloud architectures will gain momentum in 2020 to provide dynamic MarTech applications with dynamic customer data, as well as offer management, decisioning engines, analytics platforms and the channels themselves in both real-time and batch capacity. 

4. Increased automation with AI

In its annual CMO survey, Deloitte found that despite marketing analytics budgets increasing over the next 3 years, perceived contributions from analytics remain weak.

In 2020, companies must turn to AI-driven automation to help operationalise those analytics if they are to remain competitive. With the deluge of data and proliferation of customer contact opportunities, it is no longer humanly possible to make the thousands of decisions required per second to deliver great CX without automation in the mix.  

5. AI & dynamic pricing

AI already helps marketers with dynamic pricing as it relates to product availability, demand and forecasting. But it can go much further in 2020. AI could further integrate with a company’s resource planning systems and supply chain inputs to access cost optimisation, inventory, and economic forecasting data to achieve both dynamic pricing and fulfillment into campaigns and customer interactions.

Marketing trends to watch in 2020
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By Sarah Evans, Senior Digital Strategist, Bottle

As we move into 2020, a new decade, the pace of change is only set to increase for the marketing world. This will be the year that some proposals will be out of date if they get stuck in a six-month queue waiting for the board to sign off the budget. It’s hard to benchmark and forecast results when it’s never been done before. Marketers must be brave, curious and nimble, balancing long term and short-term goals. Well strap in…. here’s what we think are the actionable trends coming next year. 

1.       The Social Marketplace: the role of social will change for brands and consumers 

Social sharing has declined over the past few years, digital detoxes are so common they’re boring, and people are becoming more conscious about how they use social media. They’re wising up to how the platforms use our data and the permanence of how and what they share online is off-putting. At the very least, this knowledge is now influencing the level of curation, editing and filtering that their social profiles undergo. Their presence is selective.  

The real conversations are hidden behind closed doors in closed groups or messaging apps – a consumer’s prerogative of course. For brands, that means social listening for consumer insight is far less informative, but also that if they want to get in front of that audience, they’re going to have to pay for that privilege.  

There is another version of social media – it’s increasingly the place you go to shop. Wired called Instagram a shoppable mall: introducing shoppable posts and features that make it easier for people to spend money directly from their feed. Brands may even forgo the money to engage their audiences when sales opportunities are now so readily available through this platform, and the audience is willing. 

Native integration has turned social posts into mini ecommerce experiences where the sales funnel can be much shorter. It’s a great traffic driver from social to a brand’s website too – not to mention making it easier to track sales from an influencer marketing program.  

2.       Influencer Marketing ‘Glows Up’: maturing and diversification 

This is not a new trend, but we’ll see the next phase of its evolution. Budget spent on influencers is estimated to grow from £4.5bn to £18.4bn in 2024, despite misgivings about transparency, efficacy and measurement to name a few: brands still insist on throwing money at this tactic. 

In 2020, we’ll see this kind of activity ‘grow up’, as governance increases and both brands and influencers themselves get more discerning and savvier when it comes to things like contracts, compliance and exclusivity. We expect to see the scale increase, both length of partnership and number of people in a brand’s ambassador program. 

Influencer marketing will go beyond Instagram and YouTube. Not least because algorithm changes, removal of likes and decline of organic reach all pose a threat to influencers’ livelihoods, but also due to the emergence of other niche channels. The explosion of TikTok for example, took most people over 30 by surprise. 

TikTok are trying to woo brands with their 800m global active monthly users and predominantly Gen Z audience. Brands could think laterally about where else to find authoritative people on existing channels as well as emerging ones: like Reddit (just tread carefully), LinkedIn, Medium and even Quora will mean that influencer marketing will be audience-first, not channel-first. This will be key for B2B brands looking to capitalise on this type of activity next year. 

3. The BERT Effect: humanising SEO means voice search will kick up a notch 

We all know of that stat that was absolutely everywhere (you know the one*). On October 25th 2019, Google launched its most significant update in five years, called BERT. It’s a deep-learning, natural language processing model, which is now powering search queries. This is huge and could give voice search the impetus it needs to hit critical mass, as the semantic and contextual understanding BERT will bring lends itself perfectly to that type of search. 

What do brands do about this new update? What they should have been doing all along – which is solve for the user. BERT is now able to read sites just like humans, so write for humans. Google also use humans to manually check websites and the effectiveness of the search results based on their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, so there is no hiding anymore.  

Be useful, trustworthy and authoritative with your content (the E-A-T update is here to stay), and create a lot of it to help people throughout the research process, even those who are at the speculative, low intent phase. Keyword optimisation is dead, it’s all about the topic. 

On a broader note around SEO – Google has been making moves to optimise for the best user experience possible. In years gone by, the methodology may have been clunky, but now it’s extremely sophisticated, so instead of trying to second-guess what Google is looking for now, focus on the user and you’ll always be heading in the right direction. 

4. Brands Without Boundaries: marketing will (continue to) break the fourth wall 

Native advertising will be taken to new heights – beyond advertorials and product placement. We’ve already seen some venture into the gaming world, like the Wendy’s avatar “saving Fortnite from frozen beef” and Burberry’s new online game to race a deer to the moon.  Brands will continue to break the fourth wall to connect with audiences where they are spending time, continuing to infiltrate the consumer’s every day. Product placement on streaming platforms will increaseas they offset money lost through traditional TV advertising, and people seem to be more receptive to accepting products alongside a much-loved character than force-fed them in TV adverts. 

2020 will see the introduction of the much-anticipated advertising on Whatsapp. Any communications channel, where it once may have been saved for personal communication, seems to be for the taking. Creative, irreverent and innovative use of these existing channels may earn forgiveness for crossing the line; like using Airdrop for a recruitment campaign.  

With all these opportunities within reach, brands must go beyond the excitement of new territory and ensure their presence is welcome and valued by their audiences – so think about why and how you have the right to be there – not just about the PR story you can tell about it afterwards. Remember, people have yet to forgive U2 for the automatic iTunes album ‘gift’.  

5. The Purposeful Pound: consumer behaviour pivots towards sustainable brands and shopping habits 

The damage we’re doing to the planet is coming into ever-sharp focus and concern about the environment is at its highest level on record. This is no longer an aspirational or status-driven trend for the liberal elite – the ones who could afford the first iterations of electric cars. It now concerns all of us and is shaping our behaviour and our demands on brands.  

Take one movement: veganism. By 2020, the number of vegans will have grown by 327%. Smart brands clocked the demand and responded: Burger King, Nando’s, Zizzi, Wagamama, even Greggs to name a few have all launched vegan options to their menus. Greggs’ Chief Exec is even vegan now. 

When it comes to environmental responsibility, for brands and consumers alike: it’s not status-enhancing if you opt in, it’s shaming if you opt out. Just look at #flygskam (or ‘flight shame’). 

Consumers (of all ages) are becoming more conscientious than ever before, voting with their money. With tools like Rank-a-Brand, people can find out how sustainable their favourite brands are. 

Brands will have to work hard to prove their green credentials to this growing, discerning group, but if they can then this will be a powerful marketing tool. Brands need to not only respond to, but also nudge consumers into better habits. Mastercard partnered with Doconomy to launch a credit card that tracks the CO2 of purchases and blocks it when you’ve reached your carbon limit. 

Whatever 2020 brings, you can be sure that the only constant will be change.   

*Really, you don’t? It’s by 2020 half of searches will be voice, by ComScore.