10 interesting digital marketing statistics we’ve seen this week

This week it includes Facebook’s latest billion dollar purchase, ecommerce integration, Android’s dominance of the smartphone market and online marketing spend in China.

And for more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.

Facebook drops $19bn on WhatsApp

• The biggest digital stat we’ve seen this week is obviously the $19bn that Facebook spent on mobile messaging app WhatsApp.
• For the meaning behind the money, read Matt Owen’s post explaining why Facebook made such a massive investment.

Integration challenge seen as main tech barrier to online business growth

• A new report from Econsultancy, in partnership with Neoworks, has found that integration with current/legacy systems remains the biggest challenge when expanding an ecommerce business, cited by 43% of company respondents and 39% of supply-side respondents as one of the three biggest barriers to success.
• Given the difficulties of in this area, it is no surprise that some companies are turning to integrators and implementers to help them customise and integrate their ecommerce tech.
• The Technology for Ecommerce Survey Report shows that a quarter (27%) of organisations have used a systems implementer or integrator, and that a further 9% are planning to.

Do you or your clients use (or have you / they used) a systems implementer or integrator?

65% of global smartphone owners use Android OS

• Android use has climbed from 27% in 2012 to 65% in 2013. An even more impressive figure is the 270% increase in Android use since the end of 2011.
• These figures come from the Q4 2013 market research study by GlobalWebIndex (GWI), in which 170,000 respondents were interviewed in 32 markets, representing 89% of the global internet population.
• Globally, South Korea (81%), China (75%) and Malaysia (75%) had the biggest increase in Android uptake.
• iOS is only used by 20% of the global mobile internet audience, however it does hold the greater than average market share in the US (42%), Australia (40%) and Canada (37%).

Digital marketers plan to invest in CRM, analytics and email in 2014

• Just over two-thirds (70%) of businesses are planning to increase investment in digital marketing technology in 2014, according to a new report from Econsultancy and Responsys.
• In comparison just 2% of businesses will decrease their level of spending while 28% will maintain the same level of investment.
• These figures, which come from the Marketing Budgets Report 2014, are largely consistent with the findings from last year’s survey with just a few percent difference for each answer.

What best describes your plans for digital marketing technology spending in 2014?

Global spend on online movies, games and mobile apps hit $57bn in 2013

• 2013 saw a year-on-year increase of 30% in global digital spend on online movies, games and mobile apps combined, topping $57bn (£34bn) in 2013 compared with $44bn (£26bn) in 2012.
• These figures come from IHS Technology & App Annie’s recently published Digital Content Report 2013.
• Although the market share declined for digital games (excluding apps) it is still the biggest global content category with consumers spending $34bn on downloadable games for PC, Xbox and Playstation in 2013.

Mobile commerce abandonment rates reach 84%

• New data from remarketing firm Cloud.IQ shows that during January the abandonment rate for smartphone users on ecommerce sites was 84%, compared to 72% on tablet and 68% on desktop.
• To give some inspiration for mobile designers, I rounded up some of my favourite UX features from various mobile commerce sites and apps that might help to limit user frustration and abandonment rates. You can read about them here.

Nike edges out competition in UX test of global sports brands

• Nike has edged out the competition in a report that compares the online buying experience offered by seven of the world’s top sports brands.
• The latest Qubit benchmark looks at the on-site effectiveness and UX of Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Fila, Asics and Converse.
• As mentioned, Nike came out on top with a score of 80% closely followed by Adidas with 79%. Reebok came in third with 68%, just two points above the average score of 66%.

Student uses Twitter ads to gain internships

• Graduates currently face a difficult task when trying to find their first job opportunity, so one enterprising marketing student tried to gain a head start by using Twitter ads.
• Tom Pascoe-Williams used a Promoted Tweet detailing his LinkedIn account and the fact he is looking for an internship in the ad/digital marketing industry in London.
• Within a week more than 400 people looked at Tom’s LinkedIn profile, with the ad achieving an engagement rate of 12% from more than 70.000 impressions.
• More importantly, numerous people messaged Tom regarding possibilities of working at their agencies or places they know of that or hiring, ultimately securing him nine interviews.

Online sales for Valentine’s Day

• New data from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark shows that overall sales rose by 21% during the week before Valentine’s Day (7-13 February), compared to the same period in 2013, and half of all traffic came from mobile devices.
• Mobile traffic accounted for 50% of all online traffic, up 41% compared to the same period last year. Mobile sales also remained strong at 39% of all online sales, up 54% over 2013.
• Smartphones drove 27% of all online traffic compared to tablets at 23%, making it the browsing device of choice.  When it comes to making the sale, tablets drove 22% of all online sales, higher than smartphones, which accounted for 16%.

Baidu and Alibaba dominate Chinese online marketing

• Baidu and Alibaba accounted for almost half of online advertising services in China in 2013, a market worth 100bn yuan and growing at 37% a year.
• Data from EnfoDesk and Analysys International shows that Baidu (31.4%) and Alibaba (17.5%) dominated the sector, while Google China was far behind these two with a share of 5.7%.
• Breaking down the online advertising formats, keyword search accounted for 37.9% of total revenues, followed by brand images/text with 24.6%, video with 22.1% and email with just 0.8%.