Datalicious Blog - Data Driven Marketing

Gigya and Compete report on increasing importance of social network referral traffic over Google

We all heard the news when Facebook overtook Google as the most popular website in the US in March this year according to Hitwise but now the guys at Gigya have released a research report based on Compete data that adds an interesting new perspective to this trend suggesting that social networks are becoming the next/new search.

Although Facebook has overaken Google as the most populate website, marketers were wondering if that would actually translate into increased traffic to their sites which according to the Gigya reports is exactly the case. The below chart clearly shows that referral traffic from social networks has become a major traffic source that rivals Google and marketers would be well advised to develop suitable strategies to address this trend.
A social revolution is dictating dramatic changes in how companies run their websites, and their business. With the advent of social feeds - a live stream of friends’ activity shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter - consumers can more easily rely on trusted personal relationships to determine what’s worthwhile to read, watch, play and buy online. For many, the conclusion is startling; referral traffic is as significant from social networks as it is from search engines, making Social the next Search.

Gigya info-graphic on the different social network identities people are using to sign-in online

The guys at Gigya created a great info-graphic showing what accounts and online identities people are using to sign-in online.

The most popular social identities are Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Twitter, but popularity differs by user segments and website categories. Users are most likely to log on to entertainment sites via Facebook, but Twitter for news sites, etc. 

Given the data that is available to companies if their users subscribe using one of their social online identities you wonder why there's still normal subscription processes being used, especially as the social identities probably have better data quality anyway (i.e. you want Facebook to have your real/main email address).

GetResponse study on impact of social sharing features in emails shows 30% increase in CTRs

GetResponse just released an interesting new study on the impact of social media sharing options in email.
 
Among other topics the study investigated if social emails improve click-through rates and found that if you let readers share your email messages on their social pages, they’ll generate on average 30% higher click-through rates. The click-through rates also varied by social network with Twitter and Facebook leading the field.
 
Download the full report here

New Syncapse empirical research on Facebook fan value, additional product spend and brand loyalty

"A fan base is a self-segmented group of highly valuable customers."

After all the buzz about the value of a Facebook fan, Syncapse just released the first proper empirical review on this topic which I encourage everyone to read (and it's free anyway). Especially the figures on average additional product spending by brand are pretty interesting (see below chart).

Summary of key findings
  • Fans spend an additional $71.84 on average compared to non-fans
  • Fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using the brand
  • Fans are 41% more likely than non-fans to recommend a product
Many brands overcomplicate their measurement requirements by tracking dozens of independent variables. Many oversimplify by trying to apply a single number concept of value, and far too many fail to quantify ROI in such a way as to convince a CFO of the merit of increasing or shifting investment towards Facebook marketing. [...] This study will examine the five leading contributors to Facebook fan value. (1) Product Spending (2) Brand Loyalty, (3) Propensity to Recommend, (4) Brand Affinity and (5) Earned Media Value.
Download the full Syncapse research report here

Flowtown identifies social profiles, demographics and influencers from customers email addresses

I just came across this new service called Flowtown which is pretty interesting. 
 
The platform lets you upload your contact's email addresses for which it then returns the respective social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr and StumleUpon. And if all you have is an email address, the service can also give you a name, age, gender, occupation and location. But the best part is the integration with Klout, a service that determines a person's influence level based on Twitter and basically identifies your most influential contacts for you. 
 
Have a look at the below chart, which shows the statistics for all my 1,800 contacts compared to the 50 identified influencers. Not surprisingly, but still interesting to see is that the influencers are definitely much more likely to have a social profile online across multiple networks and that all Twitter influencers also have a Facebook and LinkedIn account.
Visit the official Flowtown website or watch the below demo video to find out more.
 

Research: Google Ad Planner data on website user demographics could be wrong by up to 20%

A quick analysis we did today revealed that Facebook user figures reported in the Google Ad Planner platform can differ by up to 20% from the actual Facebook data.
 
Most online marketer probably know the Google Ad Planner platform and love the data it provides but might have wondered how accurate the user figures and demographics actually are for each website. Well, Google is not exactly open when it comes to revealing its data sources or methodology but it occurred to us that the Facebook ad targeting service would provide a perfect sanity check, at least when it comes to user data on Facebook.com.
 
Summary of key findings
1. Total user numbers are very close
2. Google might have the genders wrong
3. User might not be as old as Google thinks
 
Although the Google data seems to be pretty accurate in terms of total user numbers by country when compared to actual Facebook data (numbers differ less than 0.05%), there seem to be significant differences when comparing user numbers by gender and age groups. 
The gender split between male and female users only seems to match in the US, whereas in Australia and the UK it is actually reversed, i.e. Google thinks there are more male users on Facebook than female users which according to Facebook data is exactly the other way around (user numbers differ by up to +/- 9% here). 
A similar pictures presents itself when looking at users by age group across Australia, the UK and US. Google seems to think that Facebook users are on average much older than they actually are across all three countries according to Facebook profile data (user numbers differ by up to +/- 19% here). 
Now don't get us wrong, we love the Google Ad Planner and the data it provides but we hope that this simple analysis will get more marketers to actively question the data they're looking at (and maybe even get Google to provide a little more transparency in the future).
 
You're welcome to repeat the experiment by extracting the data yourself from the below sites or just download the raw data we collected as well as the Tableau workbook we used to analyse and visualise the data.
 
Facebook ad targeting service
http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/
 
Google Ad Planner platform (now DoubleClick)
https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile#siteDetails
 
 
(download)
(download)

New integration: Use Omniture SearchCenter to manage and optimise Facebook media buys

This is an interesting new integration, something one would have expected to happend between one of the big search engines and Facebook but Omniture clearly stole them the show on this one, nice one Omniture! 

Omniture and Facebook announced that they will provide online marketers with solutions to optimize Facebook as a marketing channel. This partnership builds on the Facebook analytics and Facebook application analytics capabilities Omniture announced last year.

As the industry moves beyond marketing that 'interrupts' the consumer's online experience, companies are increasingly seeking ways to join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers. This alliance can help companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in order to connect to and have relevant conversations with Facebook's more than 400 million active users.

Omniture customers can now utilize Omniture SearchCenter Plus, which is the combination of the company's search engine marketing management application with new functionality for purchasing Facebook Ads. Omniture customers can now more easily ramp their ad spend on Facebook and compare Facebook ad campaign metrics alongside other media channels.

Marketers see the opportunity to build and reward customer loyalty on Facebook. To help in these efforts, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as Facebook Pages and applications.

Contact us at insights@datalicious.com if you would like to find out more or enable this integration for your company.

Read the full story here on MarketWatch 
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/omniture-and-facebook-join-forces-to-optimize-social-media-for-marketers-2010-03-03

MediaPost.com: Facebook Develops Conversion Tracking Tool: What's A Fan Worth?

Facebook plans to add a conversion tracking tool to its suite of advertising products based on demand from the marketplace. The platform will allow marketers to track clicks through conversion, Brian Boland, manager of direct response solutions for Facebook, told OMMA Social attendees in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Reports will provide a list of tracked conversions and the impressions and the clicks that led to each. The feature will help marketers build out messages as the campaign expands into a variety of pieces.

Boland also served up advice on how to calculate a cost-per-fan metric to determine the campaigns return on investment (ROI). Not only the cost to acquire a fan, but the fan's worth. "Some businesses have looked at it as the depth in which they have the community engaged and look at the downstream effects," he says, pointing to Starbucks and Threadless as two examples.

Read the full article here.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121357#

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