As a ground-breaking development, Facebook is replacing its relevance score -the ad metric that measures the success of your ad campaign with more measurable metrics. Facebook is retiring this score at the end of April and is replacing it with three different granular metrics such as:
Quality ranking: A metric that measures the quality of your ad as compared to other ads intended for the same target audience.
Engagement ranking: A metric that compares your expected engagement rate to other ads targeted for the same audience.
Conversion ranking: A metric that compares your expected conversion rates to ads with the same target audience and optimisation goals.
The relevance score is a metric that tells you whether your ad is relevant to the audience it is going out to. The new metrics that are being rolled out are similar to the relevance score but are a more detailed analysis.
According to Facebook’s official announcement, ”When used together, ad relevance diagnostics will help advertisers understand whether changes to creative assets, audience targeting or the post-click experience might improve performance."
Whenever you run an ad on Facebook, it takes a look at your campaign goal and your target audience to understand what your audience is likely to do after seeing your ad. In other words, the relevance score is based on the expected action of your audience.
Since the relevance score is based on expected performance, it is indeed a vague parameter to measure the success of your ad. It is one of the primary reasons why Facebook has replaced the relevance score with three granular metrics. The greatest advantage of granular metrics is that they give you a more in-depth and focussed view of your ad’s performance. According to Facebook, these metrics will help advertisers offer the best user experience for their audience. Facebook advertisers can get better insights to produce engaging videos to drive traffic and revenue.
Apart from relevance score, Facebook is planning to shut down six other metrics such as saved offers, cost per offers saved, messaging replies, cost per messaging replies, mobile app purchase and web purchase.
The three granular metrics will be rolled out by Facebook from April 30, 2019. It is highly important for advertisers to keep a tab of these metrics as they help with specialised insights about ad performance. This is indeed crucial for advertisers to strategise high-quality ad campaigns and improve their optimisation initiatives for better brand visibility and revenue.
One of the key highlights of the Digital Leadership Summit held in Mumbai was the panel discussion on the topic ‘Building a brand through digital marketing – Pushing the Frontiers’. The discussion moderated by Mr Suneil Chawla, the Co-Founder of Social Beat, had two reputed panellists: Mr Ajith Narasimhan from Sundaram Mutual Fund and Mr Vipin Guliani from Piramal Group. Let’s take a look at the key insights of the session.
Everyone has been talking a lot about the increasing impact of digital marketing in building a brand. But the most important factor that needs to be discussed is the nature of the digital marketing technique, which in fact, plays a major role in achieving the desired results. That very thought started off the panel discussion. So how strategic or technical is digital marketing today?
Ajith from Sundaram Mutual Fund strongly believed in the strategic nature of digital marketing techniques. To substantiate his stand, he explained how the shift of mutual funds from being a push-driven product to a pull-driven product, paved the way towards the necessity of digital marketing today.
Due to major changes brought in by GST and demonetisation, mutual fund companies no longer need a medium of distributors to sell their products. Customers from the newer generation are more interested in getting serviced by the companies directly. Therefore, it becomes very important for companies to build a connection with the customers as well as retain that connect for a very long period of time. This is why the industry gives a highly strategic approach to digital marketing. Doing that helps them understand the need of the customers and provide them with services as per their requirements.
Vipin, from Piramal Group, too emphasised on the strategic nature of digital marketing today. When the aim is to build and sustain the brand, it becomes important to strategise digital marketing. However, he gave equal importance to the technical aspect of digital marketing as well. He was of the opinion that only the technical data mattered as far as the sale of the service or product was concerned.
Both the panellists were of the same view that digital marketing has evolved to a great extent and is no longer just a marketing tool. Over the years, the type of customers who consume different products and services have changed to a great extent. The customers of this generation need to be acquired, nurtured, retained and engaged with.
The need to innovate new ideas in order to connect with and understand these customers is the need of the hour. Apart from giving companies the advantage of targeting the right customers, digital marketing also helps them to understand the needs of the customers and design their brands and services accordingly. Therefore, it becomes important to incorporate digital marketing techniques right when the idea of launching a product or a service comes into the picture.
With changing times, the kind of products and services that customers need are also changing. Ajith was of the opinion that in the coming years, there will be a need to re-categorise the products completely. The need of the hour then would be curated solution-based products and goal based offers. That is when there will be a great scope for bringing in innovation in the digital space and engaging with India's next billion internet users.
Vipin also agreed with him. The requirement now is to first find out what the customers need and then build the product. This involves a lot of research for which innovative ideas have to be developed to find the right information from the customers through the digital space.
The number of consumers has increased rapidly. And not all the people who consume data are recurring customers. There is a need for customer profiling in order to put forth the right suggestions to the customers. Both the panellists agreed that the digital strategy that needed to be applied here varied in the case of B2C and B2B.
Since there has been a shift from mass targeting to micro-targeting, strategies, too, need to be changed. Instead of bombarding all the people with the same digital ads and search ads, it is important to connect with people based on their profiles. This data-driven model would do wonders in the area of lead generation.
In the case of B2B, the target audience is very limited. Therefore, a blended strategy could be used, wherein apart from directly trying to convince the distributors, the help of customers could be taken to influence the decision of the distributors. This could be done with the help of social media platforms like LinkedIn.
The new generation needs easy access to everything. Today, it is not difficult to bring a customer on board if your products are given to them in the most simplified manner. Going the digital way makes sure that customers get instant satisfaction. Therefore, it is necessary to spend the money to upgrade the reach of the company.
As compared to the other mediums, digital marketing is the most objective way of measuring ROI. It becomes easy to determine the success or failure of one’s campaign if it’s ROI driven. Not only does it help to determine the number of engagements, but it also helps in finding out the right platforms that help in targeting a specific audience. With ROI driven marketing technique, brands can easily recognise the right social media platform to connect with their customers.
Both our panellists were of the opinion that digital marketing is a key player as far as the game of connecting with the customers or distributors is concerned.
Earlier today, I spoke to a packed audience of retailers (omni channel and offline retailers) at the Chennai Retail Summit held by Retail Association of India (RAI) at ITC Grand Chola. I spoke on Winning the Connected Consumer, The Digital Way and you can see my slides below.
Local SEO and digital marketing for retailers is very critical in this connected world. Its very important for them to leverage a mobile first strategy to capitalize on every micro moment.
E-Commerce Product Photographers & Studios in Mumbai
According to recent statistics, more than 800 million people from Asia are expected to buy products online, and the number of digital buyers in India is estimated to reach more than 112 million, so online sellers are increasing rapidly in numbers. One of the biggest challenges that the retailers face is, “how to convince their potential buyers through captivating product images?”
To satisfy their customers, the sellers must find a perfect way to showcase their products. That’s why e-commerce product photographers play a vital role in selling a product. Here is the list of top photographers who will help in capturing your e-commerce products to perfection.
Radiance Vision offers bountiful services to their clients. They have their e-commerce photography studio with experienced photographers and editors. They also provide photographer and videographer services for other stuff like events, TV commercials, corporate films, animation film, etc.
Faisal Miya Photuwale is a Mumbai-based fashion photographer, who has an experience of 5+ years in the field of photography. The studio has a team of 19 photographers, and they have done more than 350 photo shoots that include fashion catalogs, portfolios, product shoots, glamor, wedding photography, and wedding videos.
He likes experimenting new concepts in different genres and has won many accolades. He has worked with various well-known actors, models, and designers like Rohit Verma, Karan Malhotra, etc.
Contact him at +91 91676 19991.
When Amit Desai was a kid, he loved to paint, play music, create art & read literature. Once he grew up, he completed his Bachelors in Commerce (Honors) and Masters in Finance from Mumbai University. He is passionate about photography; thus, he made his passion his profession.
He is one of finest photographers when it comes to candid photo journalistic wedding photography. He says, “I love the thrill and the excitement of capturing ‘the moment’ in my frame.” His knowledge about colors, lights, and tones helps him to give better outputs that satisfy his clients.
Contact Amit Desai at +91 98201 51581.
Pashminu Mansukhani is a Mumbai-based photographer, who specializes in industrial and corporate photography. Pashminu always had a great passion towards photography. Understanding his passion, he fine-tuned his talents to become a professional photographer. He has done photography in diverse genres like events, real estate projects, and industrial site projects, etc.
Pashminu has worked with more than 100 major clients like Sony India Pvt. Ltd, NELCO Ltd, Godrej & Boyce Ltd, Castrol India Ltd, Aditya Birla Group Ltd, Indiamart Intermesh Ltd, Hitachi Lifts India Ltd, Calyx Chemicals & Pharma Ltd, etc.
Contact Pashminu Mansukhani at +91 98205 78189.
As the name suggests, photographers of True shades photography will observe and retain the lights and shades of subjects. Arshid Bhimji is the founder of True shades photography. He started his career as a compositor in the VFX industry. Gradually, he began his career in wedding photography. Right now, he is primarily doing wedding, fashion, and product photography.
True shades have a team of 16 specialists, and they have completed about 210 projects with 196 clients. Almost all of their customers are delighted with True shades photography.
Contact him at +91 96995 44211.
Are you looking for a photographer who clicks creative and attention-grabbing product photos? If yes, Pixelmania photography should be your ultimate choice. They are doing photography services for more than 12 years. They provide high-quality product photography at affordable prices. They also provide other value added services like catalog design and printing, ad design, all web based designs, and website development.
Contact them at +91 99209 66691.
Are you looking for photographers from other cities? Check the top e-Commerce product photographers in Bengaluru and Chennai.
While some might say that digital has opened the doors to online players and has blurred the existence of local retail stores, new research says that the relationship between digital marketing & in-store shopping is far more interconnected than that. Foot traffic & word-of-mouth which were the assets of offline retailers before digital & mobile entered the lives of people, are not anymore the only assets which can be relied on.
Local retailers, in general, believe that online marketing works only for e-commerce websites. But, digital doesn’t just drive e-commerce, it actually gets consumers into local stores.
We are living in “always-on search world”, where people are always able to search. When they want to buy things or when they do have a query, they turn to their smartphones. Consumers now spend more than 15 hours per week researching on their smartphones.
There was a time when people would have to get to their computers. But now, searches on the desktop have dropped as mobile is always in reach. It is found that 21 percent of in-store shopping in urban India is influenced by digital and 18 percent is influenced by mobile. If you have a physical store, then mobile search is the new threshold to your store.
Most offline retailers in India are not aware of various mobile marketing techniques which they think are only for e-commerce players. This has led to them not making efficient use of the web to provide necessary information to the customer. Whereas, according to research customers are likely to go to an offline store when they find the store they are looking for listed in search results. It is found that 3 out of 4 shoppers who find local information in search results helpful are more likely to visit stores.
Image source- https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
The retailers need to realize that consumers shop digitally before going into the store and they should make sure they provide all the information that customers are looking for online. Thus, retailers should have the right digital marketers as this will help to drive more customers to visit the stores.
What most offline retailers lack is the right guidance how digital marketing can be leveraged to bring sales. There are many different ways in which the visits to their local store can be boosted.
This is the most effective method to reach out to as many customers as possible as shown by recent statistics. Many big companies engage in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This is because PPC ads work in a way that brings best customer attention with minimal expenditure.
Brand Search Advertising reinforces the brand name, increases brand value and brings about brand awareness. These ads are so effective because they give the customer all the information he/she needs to know about the brand within a few lines. This way the customer does not spend a lot of time reading the ad, but manages to get the required information.
Also, ads can be shown to the people who search for the products using relevant terms. For example, one who is looking for a laptop store close to his location can be targeted using relevant search terms like laptop store near me, laptop stores in Chennai, which people normally use.
Another advantage of the PPC ads is that they can be targeted to the desired audience of a particular location, preferably places around their stores using Radius targeting. This way the ads are shown only to the people who might be interested in the product or service and more likely visit the store.
Since the retailer is charged each time these ads are clicked, showing these ads to a targeted audience will result in an increased conversion rate which will in turn result in an increased ROI. Where they appear is chosen by the retailer, but its ranking is decided by Google based on a number of factors.
This is the most traditional method by which offline retailers can show up on a customer’s search field below top PPC ads without having to pay a penny. A link to the retailer’s website automatically shows on the customer’s screen when he/she searches for something relevant to the products offered by the local store.
Where the retailer’s website is listed is again decided by Google based on the relevance of content and other factors. What the retailer should ensure is to provide the right and relevant content on the website of the store so that it shows up higher in the organic search listings. Hence, by this way the store can get a few more customers to visit its website by making sure it has a user -friendly website.
An important feature that drags customers to stores near their current location is the store locator available on Google. Using this feature the customers can know exactly how far the store is located from their present location and they can head straight to the store with the navigation feature of Google maps. Hence it is essential that all stores add their location on Google using Business map locator.
When a customer searches for something like textile stores, a list of textile stores nearby his/her location shows up with the address information of each store. By clicking on any of these stores in the list the customer can know exactly how far the store is and how long will it take to get there with the help of Google maps. Hence, if a customer knows that a store is close by to his/her location, then it drives the customer to visit the store.
In order to track the source of the leads that we receive through the above advertising methods, it’s recommended to generate unique phone numbers for each advertising channel. This way we can measure the effectiveness of each channel.
Today the consumer's path to purchase is becoming increasingly mobile. Retailers that provide relevant, local information online will increase both reach and sales. While helping to drive customer in-store it will also help to enhance the customer’s experience once he/she has entered the store. Mobile has reshaped the way the people shop, that is in a good way and retailers who make use of this in the right way will see themselves moving ahead.
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At the beginning of 2015, we had spoken about how social media analytics is going to change in 2015, especially for ecommerce companies. Since then we have seen significant strides in multiple aspects. Each of the social media channels, their targeting and analytics has become a lot more powerful. In terms of integrated CRMs to build a single view of the customer we have seen lots of new products such as BetaOut which have made advanced personalization tools available to even SMEs and mid-sized businesses. In terms of content creation and using analytics, there are tools like BuzzSumo which help understand what kind of content is trending and being shared.
Introduction to the ISB Programme
2016 is going to be an even more exciting year for such advancements & we hope to see a lot more interesting tools being launched. With so many advancements, one needs to be abreast with the new trends and how to effectively integrate it into a singular approach. In this context, we came across the programme on Marketing & Analytics for Ecommerce Industry by Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. We have a list of digital marketing courses in India and this programme is an essential addition to it. This is a 5 day programme and ideal for CMOs, Digital Marketing Strategists, Ecommerce entrepreneurs. With faculty from ISB & Emory University, the programme is designed to give a strategic and hands-on perspective of cutting edge topics in eCommerce & mCommerce marketing.
The programme gives a holistic approach to omni channel retailers who are leveraging the ecommerce market place model and brick & mortar stores. Aspects like the purchase funnel and lifetime value of the customer are essential for an e-business and the programme focuses on how return on investment can be optimized for such businesses.
Analytics is key to success
Website/app analytics and social media analytics is also a key element of the programme and that is absolutely essential for ecommerce startups. By using tools like Google Analytics or Omniture for websites or MixPanel for apps, companies can get a lot of structured data in terms of which channels of acquisition are working, what content & messaging is getting better results and as to which demographics of users are converting. At the same there is a lot of unstructured data because still a lot of startups don’t have a single view of the consumer – there are emailing tools like MailChimp, On Site engagement tools like WebEngage, Intercom & HelloBar and ofcourse the ecommerce platforms like Magento, WooCommerce. All these tools don’t talk to each other yet and tools like BetaOut are trying to fix the issue. There are also a lot of conversations & comments across social media channels and it can be challenging to manage this and to decipher meaningful insights because it’s unstructured data.
Cost effective Customer Acquisition & Customer Retention is the only way to make it sustainable
Experimenting with different channels, messaging & audiences is an essential way to optimize customer acquisition cost. Granular targeting & advertising has never been easier to accomplish and each of the tools – be it Facebook, Google Search, Twitter or even Native Advertising, the tools are getting better at segmenting the audience and their interests. To add to this complexity users have multiple touch points with an app or ecommerce site – across multiple devices, multiple locations and gaps during their interactions. So attribution becomes a challenge as the last touch point cannot be attributed just to the last touch point. Zarget or Improvely are great tools to set this right where it captures each touchpoint of the user so that attribution can be made appropriately. This allows for optimization of marketing spends in the right channel. With immense competition in ecommerce with each company vying to retain the customer, retention strategies and personalized messaging is key to success.
Optimising your website and especially optimizing the product pages is critical to effective cost per acquisition (CPA). As Neil Patel points out in the above article, product pages is where visitors become customers and that should be the page that needs to be made persuasive, not just the homepage. Tools such as Zarget, CrazyEgg and Inspectlet help you understand how users are behaving on the site and how it can be optimized to get better conversions at lower costs.
The programme at ISB has a key component to understand how this structured & unstructured data can be used to get actionable insights on acquisition, retention and conversion optimisation. Usage of many of the advanced tools will also be covered. The ISB Programme is from 4th to 8th Jan at Hyderabad and would be a great opportunity to get practical insights into the above aspects and to also cross learn from other specialists who will be attending the programme too.
ISB has also introduced a new program on Digital & Social Media Marketing Strategies, and the first batch of the same is going to take place from May 22 -25th, 2016. More details can be see at ISB Centre for Executive Education.
You cannot acquire a customer for life. In ecommerce, loyalty is a thing of the past. Many startups and new businesses struggle to find the right balance between customer acquisition & retention. This is especially true for the ecommerce industry. In the quest to growth hack to the next level, ecommerce businesses go all out to acquire new customers sometimes at unsustainable costs.
Over a longer term, online retailers might want to discontinue the channels that have a consistently higher cost of acquisition (CoA). But customer acquisition cost alone is not the right metric to evaluate the performance of an acquisition channel. Ecommerce businesses should instead be including average customer lifecycle value for customers from a particular channel as an important metric for strategic decision-making. This article can help ecommerce businesses garner a better perspective to guide their business decisions.
In simple terms, customer lifecycle value is the projected value a customer generates over the entire lifetime of their interaction with the brand. Focusing on CLV can help a company determine optimize the marketing spends, allowing it to focus on more profitable customers.
CLV as a metric assumes greater significance when put together with CAC. The CLV:CAC ratio is a powerful metric to define the Return on Investment (ROI). Focus on both the levers can help you devise a winning strategy.
Let’s take a look at the comparative illustration of 3 customers from different acquisition channels (A, B & C) assuming 1 year as the time period under consideration:
First step would be to segregate the customer acquisition and purchase data on the basis of marketing channels. Once this is done, there are 2 principal models of calculating the customer lifecycle value:
Under this model, the gross profit from all historic purchases of individual customers is summed up & divided by the total number of customers. This gives the average CLV for each acquisition channel.
This is an advanced method built upon the historic model. Predictive model uses the past customer behavioral pattern to predict the lifetime value of customers. This factors taken into account by this model are as follows:
Assuming next 10 years as the time period (T) for consideration, let us look at the formula that can help you arrive the lifetime value.
Average customer value per month (v) = N*B
Total customer value per year = S = v*12
Total lifetime spend of the customer = L = S*10
Average gross margin per customer lifespan = G = L*m
The final CLV value obtained can be plugged in the ROI ratio (CLV:CoA). Greater the ratio, the better the impact on the company’s growth strategy. The ROI ratio can be used as a good measure to evaluate the performance of the marketing channels and accordingly optimize the budget allocation.
For the CLV model to work, the data set under consideration has to be long enough to provide. CLV is not just for evaluating the marketing channels and campaigns, it can be a great lever to look at the overall business strategy for ecommerce businesses. There is nothing wrong in looking out for new customers. But, it’s important to look at the value brought by ten new customers acquired vis-a-vis ten retained customers. From the cost perspective, it mostly turns out cheaper to retain existing customers. With the wide array of choices thrown open to the consumers with just a click of a mouse, brand loyalty and customer retention becomes more important.
A quick look at Nielsen’s Global Loyalty Sentiment Report provides good insights into the consumer sentiments that result in switching retailer & brand-hopping.
The 5 factors listed above- price, quality, service, selection and features; can together drive the lifetime value of your customers. Doubling the CLV of existing customers is equivalent to doubling the customer base. Here’s some handy tips that can help online retailers increase the CLV:
In the rapid-growth ecommerce boom, it’s easy to get lost in the race for acquiring new customers. Brands go upto the extent of acquiring new customers at 10x the historical averages. They fail to remember that retaining your existing customer can cost lesser and would pay in the longer run to get hold of these low-hanging fruits.
Product Photography is an important design element for an e-commerce portal, as the sense of sight plays a major role in online shopping. One of the challenges for an e-commerce site is to satisfy the needs of a customer wanting to touch and feel the product before buying it. Visually appealing product images have the power to impress & persuade a customer into buying a product and tend to affect your website’s bounce rate and conversion rates.
Product images should not only be appealing, but also match your brand’s image and the overall aesthetics of your website. Instead of solely relying on your vendor for product images, one needs to plan and make use of the best product images that have the potential to sell. This is where professional product photographers come into play, to bring out unexplored angles of a product and visually explain the product functionality in the simplest way possible.
Through this blog post, we bring to you some of the top e-commerce product photographers in Chennai:
Kunal Daswani is one of the leading photographers in Chennai with a unique style and eye for detail. Much known for his fashion and commercial photography, Kunal has worked across various brands & industries. Contact Kunal: +91-9840823223
Specialised in advertising and commercial photography, Prasana is one of the most sought after professional photographer for major retail and corporate clients. He has won awards in recognition of his work and is now the official photo mentor of Nikon School for Tamilnadu & Pondicherry. Contact Prasanna: +91-9884878101
3. Sukil & Khushboo Photography
Sukil & Khushboo are professional photographers with experience across various fields and have assisted iconic photographers such as Iqbal Mohamed & Sundar Ram. Their strong technical knowledge and passion for the art has helped them go a long way in accomplishing projects for clients in the field of fashion, food, architecture & consumer goods. Contact Sukil & Khushboo: +91-9841226201
Backed by a well-equipped studio and an image processing facility in Chennai, John Sudhakar has produced some of the remarkable works in the field of Photography. He’s been teaching Photography at various ad clubs &training institutes over the last few years and has represented many iconic brands photographically. Contact John: +91-9382148000
Dewakar is a Chennai based professional photographer with more than 10 years of expertise in this field.
He has worked with a wide range of corporate clients as well as advertising agencies and specializes in identifying and highlighting the uniqueness of each product through his camera lens. He infact owns a product photography studio that gives him the flexibility to explore new techniques and styles. Contact Deewakar: +91-9840053133
Muthukannan is not only a successful wedding & commercial photographer in Chennai, but is also known for his photography institute called the Visualite Academy. He strongly believes that a good product photograph can increase its chances of selling and uses his several years of experience in creating the right product portfolio for his clients. Contact Muthukannan: +91-9790836256
Are there any other Product Photographers that you know of and we've missed them in our list?
Do write to us or share their details in the 'Comments' section below.
Today, approximately 60% of Indians are shopping online and it is anybody’s guess on what would be the future of ecommerce in India. As the Indian e-commerce industry grows, practices such as dynamic pricing will gain significance and give strategic advantages to the e-retailers who use them.
What is Dynamic Pricing?
Simply put, Dynamic Pricing is the multiple price changes in a product at different times of the day. These price changes can be based on the consumer behavior on the website, the browsing patterns, etc.
Amazon changes its price every 10 min on an average
The most notable proponent of dynamic pricing is the airline industry – the sheer range of variation of ticket price can surprise even those who are in knowledge of this widespread practice. The airlines have been able to maximize their profits using this. The e-commerce industry statistics point out that Amazon changes its price every 10 mins on average1. They have been intelligently using dynamic pricing for more than a decade to undertake empowered business decisions. Offline retailers like Walmart have also followed suit in recent years.
Not leveraging pricing as a factor to drive sales? You are missing out on a big chunk of your revenues.
With technology as its backbone, the e-commerce retailers have the complete information from the pages browsed to the time spent on each page to the past purchase data. Moreover, you cannot simply change the price tag once a customer steps into the store, but in an-online counterpart you can change the prices for every customer who logs in using a plethora of information including browsing history.
Just think of a case where you browse through a product category for a long time and yet does not carry out a purchase transaction. In such a scenario, the e-commerce retailer has the data available and can roll out an immediate 24-hour expiry coupon for the purchase within that product category. This not only sounds interesting from a user point of view, but also makes business sense for the retailers.
If a number of e-retailers offer a standardized product, then in that case, price becomes the differentiating factor. Consider the following example for Samsung Galaxy S5:
Is dynamic pricing alone going to win it for the e-retailers?
Though many would want to differ on the importance of pricing, citing other factors like shipping, products on offer and customer service as equally important. Of course, these factors are also important, but in a price-sensitive market like India, dynamic pricing is going to play an important role in shaping the future of e-commerce.
1Amazon price changing machine http://www.retailwire.com/discussion/17222/amazons-price-changing-machine
