Expert Opinion

How Can Brands Optimize Digital Shelf on eCommerce Platforms?

The Share-of-Digital-Shelf on e-commerce platforms measures the recurrence of a brand’s product listings versus the competition based on keywords. It informs brands about their discoverability on eCommerce platforms like Shopee, Amazon, Flipkart, etc. Higher discoverability through keyword searches could likely trigger higher click-through rates, add-to-cart actions, conversions/sales, etc., of organic and sponsored listings. Brands optimize their Product Display Page (PDP) using SEO and customer-centric information to optimize their discoverability on the digital shelf. Product listings with higher visibility or ranking often have a higher chance of achieving the SOS goals. Optimizing SOS requires enhancing the findability of paid and organic keywords, improving the perfect page analysis scores, finding customer-centric touchpoints, etc. Optimizing the digital share-of-shelf on eCommerce platforms is a dynamic and ongoing process, which can be easily comprehended using eCommerce Competitive Analytics, a.k.a. mScanIt. Moreover, the solution offers advantages like keeping an eye on the competitor’s digital shelf progression across eCommerce platforms and helps to identify opportunities for growth for your brand. How to Optimize Digital Share-of-Shelf on eCommerce Platforms? Table of Content Monitor the Digital SOS Ensure Brand Compliance Across e-commerce Platforms Address Consumer Grievances in Real-Time Discover eCommerce Trends Monitor the Digital SOS The easiest and simplest solution to keep track of digital SOS is by using eCommerce Competitive Analytics. The digital shelf analytics reveals your brand’s share versus the competitors on generic, brand, and competition keywords. Brands with higher discoverability and visibility on keyword searches acquire a higher SOS. In addition, analyzing the digital shelf at category, variant, SKU, and other levels gives in-depth information about the brand’s performance and keeps track of the competitor’s performance in real time. Therefore, brands can find opportunities for scaling up their business by monitoring the digital shelf. Ensure Brand Compliance Across e-commerce Platforms Third-party, or unauthorized sellers of the brand products often give discounts, promotions, offers, etc., that create MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) violations. In addition, it causes the diversion of brand customers to sellers that could even provide duplicate or counterfeit products and create a bad reputation in the market. Besides this, brands need to monitor their PDPs continuously, as consumers constantly share their reviews and ratings, which could include remarks like fake, duplicate, counterfeit, etc., as consumer feedback. Moreover, it could help find sellers not associated with the brand and report them to the eCommerce marketplaces. At times, the product information could also consist of discrepancies and need attention to detail so that the customers no longer get misled by third-party or unauthorized retailers. Address Consumer Grievances in Real-Time The Customer Q&A section of the product pages on eCommerce platforms often consists of problems, queries, tell-tale signs of customer demands, etc. At times, multiple questions might require a similar answer. For example, smartphone brands commonly find this question in different forms – “does it come with an adapter?” Being a proactive brand that monitors and answers consumers’ queries within 24 hours can certainly impact add-to-cart actions and conversions/sales. Similarly, mScanIt’s proprietary Sentiment Analysis consists of sentiment intensity scales. Whenever the negative or neutral scale moves upwards, it is time to find the cause for the same from the word cloud. The word cloud highlights the problematic areas and the number of times they occurred in duration on an eCommerce platform under the sentiment themes. Customers often leave feedback under the reviews and ratings related to packaging, delivery, counterfeit/duplicate products, etc. The brand could allocate the relevant teams to address the buyer issues and might influence the sentiment intensity, as other customers would read the same replies making a decision. Moreover, brands often leave their customer service number in replies, creating a similar impact and enabling brands to control R&R and influence the overall sentiment score. Optimize the PDP with the Search Intent The product listings on eCommerce platforms should match the common searches of the consumers. Monitoring aspects helps brands to find their areas of improvement, such as keywords that have a higher SOS for the competitors and are usable under specific product variants of the brands. Our solution also detects pin code level SOS, which helps brands segregate their product listings based on the SOS of a particular geo. Higher SOS of the competitors would also mean greater frequency of their product listings. Therefore, brands can optimize the PDP of similar variants to increase the recurrence of their listings. At times, brands can find the intent searches by analyzing competitors’ keywords with the highest SOS. Analyzing the title, product description, bullet points, A+ content, and other relevant detail scores can help see the number of mentions of the intent-based search keyword and enable SEO optimization. Conclusion Optimizing the factors influencing the digital shelf positioning and sharing is a brand’s priority, made possible using eCommerce Analytics, a.k.a. mScanIt. The solution detects sentiment analysis, reviews and ratings, Q&A, and other factors in real-time, which helps brands address consumer grievances, optimize product pages, ensure eCom marketplace compliances, etc. Our solution is used by world leaders in finance, banking, food, Q-commerce, Quick Service Restaurants, gaming, beauty, fashion, and other industries.  Get in touch to learn more about the digital shelf.

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page-analysis

Why Does Page Analysis Matter for eCom Brands?

Page analysis is a part of discoverability and signifies the search rank of your brand’s versus the competition on organic and sponsored listings across ecommerce platforms. Page analysis signals brands that would likely have the highest click-through rate (CTR), create more awareness on e-commerce platforms, etc. Generating brand awareness is crucial for search engine optimization. According to a report, 17.8% of global search rankings of brands are influenced by brand awareness, which is among the leading SEO factors. Besides this, results derived through page analysis often drastically influence a brand’s marketing and advertising decisions across e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, BlinkIt, BigBasket, etc. The parameter helps brands make marketing decisions like deciding the type of campaigns they should run on multiple eCommerce platforms, e.g., paid searches, banners, display, etc. Hypothetically assuming that the listing doesn’t appear in the top ten results of any specific  keyword search, or re-appears less than the competition on each page. In that case, your competitors would likely achieve higher search rank, visibility, discoverability, etc. The page analysis could vary across platforms, time frames, categories, etc. Brands could use this detail to create multiple strategies for their listings on these platforms where the product is listed. Moreover, SEO plays an important role in search rankings, and brands with the highest discoverability have likely optimized their listings for specific keywords, which is also an important activity for eCom Brand Managers. It is a well-known fact that brands with the highest eCommerce platform listing often appear higher on search engine listings. It means they would have a higher share of voice than their competition on respective e-commerce platforms. Brands often optimize their product pages to achieve the highest ranking on the keyword search results. Our experts continuously analyze the product description, title, review scores, etc., which helps in enhancing the position of their listings on the Digital Shelf. Another prerogative of page analysis is to check if your brand’s listings make their mark on the prominently searched consumer keywords across e-commerce platforms. Imagine that you are a smartwatch brand that is also running sponsored ads for your product, but consumers don’t find them in the top three pages or the top ten results against the commonly searched keywords. In that case, there is a high chance that your competition must be grabbing that space. How Does mScanIt Help You With Page Analysis? mScanIt helps the brands understand the overall search rank of their brand w.r.t. to the competition and get a more detailed insight on the search rank of multiple pages of any eCommerce platform. Why does page-wise search rank matter? Besides revealing the top-ranking listings on each page, it also states whether your brand listing is visible on the top results/pages and the change in your search ranking over time. eCom Competitive Analysis, a.k.a., mScanIt, powered by mFilterIt, measures the following aspects to reveal accurate page analysis: Search Rank – Overall and Page Wise: The higher the page ranking, the higher the chance of click-through rate. Our solution curates the overall search rank of a brand/product being listed on the first three pages. mScanIt also detects the page-wise ranking of the product or brand versus the competition. Keyword Search Rank: A subset of search rank is the keyword search rank, which establishes your brand’s position versus the competition based on keywords. It is beneficial as it helps you discover your product’s positioning when your brand name is included in the searches or ranking of your brand in your competitor’s brand-based keywords. Pro Tip by Praveen Dhama, Manager, mScanIt: “Lower the search rank higher the chance of product being visible on the top ten listings on the eCommerce platform first-page.” Conclusion Search rank is pivotal for harnessing higher CTR, generating brand awareness, increasing discoverability, etc., on e-commerce platforms. mScanIt helps brands achieve these goals by measuring accurate page analysis through detailed insights and real-time reporting. Measuring page analysis also defines whether your brand meets the product searches of the most commonly searched keywords for any specific product which usually the end consumer is looking for, e.g., running shoes, tablets, and smartphones. Set up a meeting with us to learn more about the benefits of mScanIt’s page analysis for your brand, such as acquiring higher discoverability, easing customer journey, acquiring a higher market share, etc. To know more, get in touch with our experts today!

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brand-safety

Brand Safety: The World Before and after Digital Marketing

Brand safety has been significantly impacted by the evolution of technology, content, and sharing platforms. In just 25 years, brand safety has evolved from the pre-digital dark ages to the forefront of advertising technology. In the pre-digital era, brand safety largely consisted of tangible issues such as poor product placement, trademark infringement, and bad press. Simple isn’t always better though, it was hard to target, scale, and measure campaigns, and a lot of creative energy was wasted on things computers now can do. A brand’s safety concerns today include more than just traditional print advertising, including websites, blogs, and social media platforms. Marketers and advertisers must now change their approaches to brand safety as a result. Here’s how brand safety has evolved over the years: Prior to Digital Marketing  In the past, advertisers used billboard ads and print ads to entice customers to make a purchase. During that time period, these methods were effective, but they posed brand safety concerns. The placement of ads could negatively impact a company’s reputation. In the past (and still today) advertisers were concerned with: Placing the logo incorrectly. It only takes something like a Turkish Airlines ad on the side of an escalator having an aeroplane flying straight into the ground or a Starbucks sliding door van failure to turn a basic logo placement and brand name into a negative one. You see Starbucks ‘logo followed by “Sucks” as you close the door of the van. This is a prime example of the poor placement of a logo. Poorly placed products. The placement of certain products next to items in the store could also undermine brand safety. Imagine you are in the grocery store and see a display of condoms next to the kid’s section. Your reaction? We’ll let you fill in the blanks, but there’s likely to be nothing positive. Products that are used negatively. The backlash against a brand as a result of products being used for a negative purpose is not new. A famous example of it is the 1994 white Bronco chase involving O.J. Simpson, which predates digital marketing. Thanks to Simpson, the Ford Bronco became infamous. People immediately think of Simpson’s getaway vehicle when they hear the word Bronco. This is not what Ford intended. These are just a few of the obstacles advertisers faced. After digital marketing burst onto the scene, these issues developed into a whole new set of problems. After Digital Marketing  As digital advertising evolved from traditional advertising and reached a wider audience, it also raised concerns about brand safety. Here are some of them: Poor programmatic ad placements. In addition to poor product placement, programmatic ads have also been placed next to non-brand safe images and articles and on unsavoury websites. As an example, Applebee’s dancing cowboy commercial appeared on CNN on a split-screen alongside the headline “Russia invades Ukraine”. The QSR chain reported its disappointment to CNN and stopped spending with the broadcaster. Hijacking your brand by rogue groups. In an anti-marriage equality ad, Meghan Trainor’s brand and likeness were used without her permission. A group of individuals stole her image from the internet and used it to make their own propaganda. Trainer soon found herself dealing with the damage. She’s not the only one. Also, the TIKI torch brand was inadvertently linked to a brand safety issue when they were used at a white supremacist rally. Disastrous PR and influencers. Influencers work with brands to increase audience reach. Nevertheless, sometimes this can backfire for both the influencer and the brand. Consider yourself an influential figure like beauty guru Huda Kattan. You are featured in an ad for Sephora that appears on an unsavoury website. Or perhaps Kattan has a PR disaster, and Sephora is forced to decide whether or not to continue running her ads (not unlike Papa John’s). Either scenario could be disastrous. The negative effects of YouTube. YouTube lost 5% of its top North American advertisers due to brand safety in 2017. The key cause: Ads were being served on extremist content. Top brands such as Netflix, Nissan, Under Armour, and others were affected by this major brand safety issue. Nissan and Under Armour decided to pause their YouTube ads because of this. It’s time to take control of advertising  Brand safety is fluid in digital marketing. It is difficult to enforce and regulate because there is no universal rating system. Advertising placements that are negative for one company may be beneficial for another. What’s more concerning is that YouTube is asking creators to rate their own videos given the massive amount of content they have to control. Creators aren’t unbiased, and most aren’t familiar with offensive or safe content. Marketers and advertisers need to move beyond antiquated thinking and focus on how to deal with brand safety right now. Engage with a brand safety solution provider such as mFilterIt and be assured that your digital assets are devoid of threats. We help in protecting your brand reputation by keeping your assets away from high-risk digital content for both web and app. Get in touch to know more. To know more, get in touch with our experts today!

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Brand Suitability

Brand Suitability: How to Set Your Standards?

Nearly 90% of consumers believe that ensuring ads don’t appear next to unsuitable content is a “brand responsibility.” Brands create their identity in the market and in customers’ minds through marketing and advertising efforts. However, their brand identities are put at stake whenever their digital assets appear next to unsavory content. The rise of unsafe digital environments, ad fraud, and evolving methods of cybercrime constantly fuel this relentlessly growing fire, always keeping the brands on their toes. Defining parameters for safeguarding the personality, i.e., incorporating brand suitability, has become paramount. Brand suitability is an extension of brand safety, as it avoids serving ads next to bad content. Deciding the relevant ad placements offers many advantages to the brand, e.g., better engagements, revenue, affiliate associations, etc. According to the IAB report, new brands have witnessed a 44% increase in ad engagement due to ad relevancy with the content. Incorporating brand suitability certainly helps to enhance user experience, and ROAS (Return on Advertising Spends), and drive positive associations with customers, reputable affiliates, and potential investors. The following steps can help your organization to set brand suitability standards: 3 Steps to Set Your Brand Suitability Standards Step 1: Create a Whitelist Selecting the content suitable for the ad placements requires figuring out the most suitable domains/URLs. At this point, many brands don’t want to appear next to Ukraine war news, as it could drive unwanted traffic, deplete the advertising budget quicker than their estimated time and deliver results lower than expectations. Making a content/context whitelist is one way of dealing with unwanted traffic on your ads. Brand suitability also includes defining the best context/content placements for boosting the ad relevancy, engagement with the customer, targeting the correct audience, etc. The affirmation of knowing that the ad is appearing in suitable environments and has high relevancy offers relief. But recently, we also uncovered that websites are often miscategorized. For example, Vogue is considered an adult website. Creating content/context whitelists for the ads is challenging, and comes with a few drawbacks, such as limited reach, but it can increase the ad relevancy and prevent unsavory content next to the ads. Simultaneously, selecting a whitelisting would drain the advertising spend faster than campaigns without them, but what feature doesn’t come with drawbacks? Step 2: Define the Exact Content Segments The need to blocklist irrelevant content/context ad placements has already been established. By doing so, you would increase target reach, drive conversions, and increase revenue or ROAS. Moreover, contextual targeting of products/services aligned with the brand personality helps brands to reach a niche audience, instead of targeting the general population or wider nest of the category, a majority of which is not interested in the ad or just wants to research/explore it. For example, your brand has recently launched a sedan car model and wants to increase sales. Brand suitability would ensure that the ads reach the relevant audience, boost brand awareness, and increase calls/queries related to the model by selecting the correct category niche and selecting a potential allowlist/whitelist. Step 3: Validate Vendor Sources Knowing the REAL sources of a publisher’s traffic is essential for many reasons. Primarily, your ad and competitor’s ads could get placed next to the same content. So, the reachability could get substantially hampered. But, even if that doesn’t matter, the “type of content” or the “content piece” should certainly matter, as irrelevant content can diminish ad campaign results and brand reputation. But, validating the vendor sources doesn’t come as easy. Brands need to constantly monitor the placement of their ads on apps and websites, especially if they are using pre- and post-bid programmatic advertising platforms. Continuously updating the whitelist and blocklist of URLs would enhance ad relevancy and reach the target audience. mFilterIt’s Brand Hygiene protection can offer this solution to brands and even trigger alerts whenever the ads appear on URLs not selected by the brand. This would keep the vendors or affiliates in check and enable the brand to avoid damage to its ROAS as well as its brand reputation. One Solution to Meet the Ad Placement Needs of Your Brand mFilterIt’s Brand Hygiene Protection covers all areas of brand, safety, brand infringement, and suitability, offering wholesome measures and results for dealing with misplaced ads, affiliate malpractices, etc. The solution defines the optimal placement sources after analyzing the platforms and content pieces, without the influence of domain/URL miscategorization. Our contextual analysis enables us to avoid misplacements that harm the brand’s character. Moreover, the solution works after the brand defines the personality and uses GARM standards. Brands can achieve higher relevance, revenue, and target audience by implementing mFilterIt’s Brand Hygiene Protection. The solution helps to keep ads away from unsafe environments, fraud affiliates, and untrustworthy publishers. Get in touch to learn more about the Brand Suitability.

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Ad Fraud Detection

Domain Spoofing Not Just Impact Advertisers, But Also Publishers. Know-How?

Imagine someone impersonating you and stealing all your money. In the digital advertising ecosystem, fraudsters are sitting behind the cloak to do the same with your ad spending with domain spoofing. It is one of the common forms of scams committed by fraudsters. However, it not only manipulates your digital ad campaign data and drains an advertiser’s ad budget. It also leaves a deep impact on the reputation and revenue of a publisher. If you don’t want to be in this stage, learn how domain spoofing may impact your brand and what the are possibilities to curb it. What is Domain Spoofing? This is a type of phishing scam where a fraud publisher disguises itself as a premium publisher in a programmatic marketplace. By spoofing a premium publisher, the ad impressions generated are more valuable and the demand is also high. On one hand, the advertiser is under the impression that their ads are shown on premium websites. However, the advertiser’s ads are shown on low-quality websites for the bots. Usually, the fraudsters create a domain that closely resembles the URL of a genuine publisher. They not only create fake domains but also make a duplicate copy of a website’s content. Impact of Domain Spoofing Domain spoofing heavily impacts both advertisers and publishers. Not just monetarily, but it also has many other long-term consequences. On Advertisers Invalid Traffic: When the advertiser’s ad is shown on illegitimate and spoofed websites, they attract invalid traffic coming to these websites. This not only leads to wastage of ad spending but also impacts the campaign’s SEO. Damaged Reputation: Brand reputation is one of the most valuable assets for any company. In the case of domain spoofing, the customers are often unaware of the counterfeit products being sold by fraudulent websites. And when the quality deters which happens quite often in the case of fake products, the customers often blame the original brand. They lose their trust in the brand and often write bad reviews online which directly impacts the brand’s reputation. Not just this, counterfeit products can also impact the health and safety of the end consumers. This can be especially dangerous in the case of FMCG and Beauty products. As the product and packaging are identical, the consumer may not be able to differentiate. And if in any case, the products can cause any skin infection or other health problems it can be havoc and can cause serious repercussions on the brand’s reputation. On Publishers Loss of Revenue: Due to domain spoofing, the publishers lose the revenue coming from ads as the website running on the programmatic platforms is not theirs. Stolen Identity: Not just the revenue, domain spoofing also impacts the brand reputation of the publisher. Like identity fraud, the spoofed domain of a publisher must face the consequences of brand safety and unexpected abysmal conversion rates of the fraudulent sites that are using its name. High chances of getting blacklisted/blocked: As the buyers are not able to analyze the RTB data, they inadvertently block the high-quality publishers seeing their domains flagged due to brand safety or illegal content. Due to domain masking, the reputation of the publisher and their credit score is impacted which further impacts the revenue. How does Ads.txt help to reduce Domain Spoofing by up to 10%? In 2017, IAB introduced ads.txt to bring a certain level of transparency to the programmatic advertising ecosystem. It is a simple text file that publishers insert into their root domains. With Ads.txt, the publishers can inform the companies that they are authorized to sell their ad inventory. Every publisher’s ads.txt file works like a public ledger that buyers can use to cross-reference and ensure that the inventory they are investing will redirect to the claimed domain. Though the websites with Ads.txt have a low rate of IVT (Invalid traffic), they are not 100% fraud-free. How Fraudsters Manipulate the Ads.txt? Blank Ads.txt Files: When the ad exchanges declared that they would not allow any websites without Ads.txt files to continue selling, the fraudsters found a different route. To crack this, they started adding fake or blank ads.txt files to their domains to continue making money. They were able to do this because the exchanges only focused on checking the existence of ads.txt files on the domains and not the actual content of the ads.txt file. Ads.txt Files with Errors: It is not possible to make errors in the Ads.txt file unintentionally. These are deliberate acts committed by fraudsters. For instance, publisher “A” works with deceitful “supply-side platforms” (SSP) to sell ad inventory using the same seller ID that is used by other mainstream sites to sell from the same SSP. This very easily launders the impressions because the ad exchange cannot see “Publisher A” making any payment to the SSP. Ads.txt Syndication: This one is the latest in the list where fraudsters rent an ads.txt file from an established seller. In this case, the fraudulent sites make a deal with the owner of the vetted ads.txt. file to run inventory through them. These sellers even take payment from the ad exchanges. And on the other hand, they make under-the-table payments to the sub-sites that don’t have their seller IDs. This way, the sub-sites never show up as paid for the ad exchange because they have never paid to these Seller IDs of strange sites. The only thing the ad exchanges see is the increase in volume which comes through the suppliers who have been in business with them for years. How Does mFilterIt Protect Your Brand from Domain Spoofing? Our Ad Traffic Validation suite can ensure that your digital ad campaigns don’t have to become a victim of domain spoofing in the future. We at mFilterIt use the capabilities of AI, ML, and Data Science to detect spoofed domains by reviewing your webpage. Once detected, for prevention, we ensure to blacklist these domains to avoid further ad spending on irrelevant traffic and protect your digital ad campaigns. Conclusion Along with the rise of digital advertising, fraudsters are also becoming smart to

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E-Commerce Platforms

How Can Analytics Detect Counterfeits on E-Commerce Platforms?

Counterfeit is a serious issue for brands for many reasons; however, ‘bad reputation’ ranks at the top of the list. Why? A consumer places trust in the brand to receive products described and shown in the ecommerce stores. However, when the customer receives a duplicate or counterfeit product, the brand ‘trust’ is lost forever. Also, fraudulent product sellers target brands that have built their market reputation over time, and such consumer grievances create long-lasting bad publicity. Brands would try to recover their trust and the lost consumer base due to this issue; however, the customer would remain unsure of the brand/product and may not even engage even after rigorous marketing and advertising efforts. In 2020, counterfeit goods caused a loss of 26.3, 10.3, and 4.7 billion euros for the clothing, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics & personal care industries. Besides the loss of sales, counterfeit product sellers could engage in MAP violations, further damaging the brand’s reputation, creating legal issues, and hampering price perception. Knock-offs could also cause health issues, and customers often complain, blame, or sue the brand for their problems, which could further escalate legal problems. Given these facts, brands need a solution to detect counterfeit or fake product sellers across e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, BlinkIt, Snapdeal, etc., in real time. eCom Competitive Analytics offers data supported with snapshots of counterfeit products for countering and diminishing consumer problems. Let’s find out how. How Does mScanIt Resolve the Counterfeit Product Distress of the Brands? Tracing Online Seller Activities in Real-Time Reputable brands often enlist the approved sellers on their websites, make mentions on e-commerce platforms, take measures to avoid fakes in their packages, etc. For example, MuscleBlaze Whey Protein comes with authorized seller mentions on their product pages across Amazon, Healthkart, Healthgenie, and other supplement e-commerce stores. Their genuine products also consist of packaging with QR scans through their app, ensuring trust in the brand. However, many reputable e-commerce platforms don’t have a real-time monitoring system for detecting approved third and first-party sellers. mScanIt offers the capability of sighting all types of sellers across e-commerce platforms and gives a chance to brands to revoke unapproved or counterfeit sellers through deep-diving results. Tracking Reviews and Ratings The biggest solutions for detecting counterfeit or fake product sellers on e-commerce platforms are reviews and ratings. Monitoring mScanIt’s word clouds of your brand, which includes the commonly used words/phrases such as fake, duplicate, copy, etc., by users, can help to sight counterfeit or unauthorized sellers. A sudden upsurge in the negative sentiment intensity also becomes a reason to check out the reviews and ratings and the associated negative or neutral word clouds. mScanIt deciphers all forms of sentiment intensity and helps brands set alerts in case of sudden spikes so that the brand can take action in real time. Moreover, the solution detects all types of listings across e-commerce platforms for the said products so that brands can easily see the products sold by authorized and unauthorized e-commerce sellers. Reviewing MAP Violations Counterfeit product sellers often don’t worry about the lowest price of their product on e-commerce platforms, as they might not even deliver it. Also, if they deliver the product, it would be fake, likely costing less than the original manufacturer’s cost. As a result, they often engage in MAP violations. mScanIt offers relief to brands for tracking their MAP violations across e-commerce platforms. Upon deep-diving, brands can review screenshots of the products, e-commerce marketplaces, and types of products sold at an undervalued price. Keeping an Eye on Discounting Analysis As stated earlier, counterfeit product sellers often tend to sell products at lower than the market value. Their offers, discounts, cashback, and other promotions can cause MAP violations and require continuous monitoring. mScanIt’s discounting analysis tracks seller-wise discounts across e-commerce platforms and enables brands to review the highest discounting percentages. Discounting analysis through mScanIt is another solution for finding sellers exceeding the maximum promotional percentages and taking action against them. Simultaneously, the solutions help brands to know the maximum discount competitors are offering for similar product listings com platform-wise and get a summary of the average discount. Bottom Line Not resolving counterfeit product problems on e-commerce platforms is no longer an option for brands, as it has long-lasting and damaging repercussions. Brands need eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a. mScanIt, to fight the war against fake or duplicate products every day. Today, mScanIt has become a necessity for brands that want to keep their market reputation intact, enhance their sales/revenue, and track the online activity of sellers/re-sellers while managing their marketing efforts. Connect with us through direct messages, comments, or filling out the contact page form to learn the advantages of mScanIt for your brand. Subscribe to our blog to learn why counterfeits are an e-commerce and brand infringement issue and more.

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D2C Issues

How is Analytics Solving D2C Issues?

The needs of consumers dynamically change time and again. D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) e-commerce has become a blessing in disguise for matching the needs of the growing number of online shoppers. According to a report, 85% of global customers shopped online in 2020, and Amazon was the favorite e-com store for most buyers. Besides Amazon, D2C brands use marketplaces like Flipkart, Big Basket, Etsy, eBay, etc., to diversify their customer portfolio and gather more buyer personas. DTC models offer the advantage of eliminating the middleman, direct connection with the customer base, and offering a lower cost of products to the buyers. Moreover, the brand handles the entire customer experience instead of the retailer or a third-party seller. Personalization, authenticity, smooth shopping experience, etc., make D2C e-commerce appealing to Gen Z and millennials; however, a large proportion of them still like to know about previous customer experiences through reviews & ratings. While deep-diving into R&R gives a perspective to DTC brands; measuring other analytics is also important to get a wider idea of the customer’s needs and decisions influencing the buying decisions. Problems Commonly Faced by D2C E-Commerce Brands Enhancing Customer Journey Orders can go through the roof, especially if D2C e-commerce runs an ad campaign on the online marketplace. Sponsored ads have been one of the biggest sources of higher conversion rates for most brands. However, a long line of customers may also resonate with the ads seen on social media handles and connect with brands advertising on Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc., and other marketplaces. The connectivity builds trust in the customers’ minds and makes the brand more approachable. However, customer journeys are made nowadays through unboxing or product videos, informative pictures, A+ content, detailed descriptions, titles, etc., which are part of the perfect page analysis. Brands can also derive buyer personas at pin code, product price, stock availability, recommendations, etc. Brands want to build a frictionless journey that enhances the conversion rate and diminishes the cart abandonment rate at all costs. Decoding Data-Based Decisions Customer buying journeys vary across e-commerce platforms. Therefore, analyzing data across online shopping stores has become a priority. Sellers or brands often try to decode the data through the analytics provided by the platform. They often evaluate factors like stock availability, the share of visibility, share-of-shelf, etc., at the deepest level, leaving out a vast majority of the potential customer base. Moreover, the data given by the e-commerce platform may not deliver actionable insights and doesn’t offer a comparative view on a real-time daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Generating actions through insights is left in the hands of the internal team recruited by the brand. Knowing the data is not optional because customers want to connect with the products they bring home. Therefore, enriching the data has become necessary, and brands lack the necessary solution for analyzing the information, which could probably enhance their loyal customer base. Grasping the Ongoing (Invisible) Trends Market and social media trends often influence e-commerce brands. While hygiene was a priority for nearly all brands during the COVID-19 scare, safe delivery was an approach used by others. D2C brands have been shaped to tune into the customer’s needs. For example, watch brands like Fasttrack, Armani, etc., have been focusing on a smartwatch. Meanwhile, smartphone brands like Realme have entered the smartwatch market, too, giving tough competition to their rivals. A while ago, consumers started purchasing cosmetics certified/approved by dermatologists (and it remains ongoing for some niche products). According to a source, people also demand cruelty-free & vegan products derived from caffeine, tea-tree oil, or argan oil. Did you know that established D2C e-commerce brands would drive vast sales compared to native brands? Identifying hidden trends in e-commerce through analytics is challenging; however, it can build roots and scale businesses. While the visibility of such trends remains debatable on social media, the forecasted or foreseeable demand across pin code, variant, and other levels remains unknown. Therefore, brands constantly face problems identifying their customer’s needs and managing availability accordingly. How Does eCom Competitive Analytics Cure Major D2C Problems? Enables Brands to Make Informed Decisions in Real-Time Reviewing analytics at pin code, location, variant, sub-category, platform, and other levels through eCom Competitive Analytics gives a bigger perspective to brands. The distillation of share-of-shelf, keywords search results, the share of visibility, etc., while comparing with competitor information gives more valuable information to brands and signifies their standing on the e-commerce marketplaces and among their rivals. Deciphering this data in real-time provides knowledge of the hidden demand, growth opportunities, favored/unfavored listings, etc. For example, if Brand A has a higher score in the product description, and the information is compared with the Q&A and R&R sections, your brand can reveal whether the customer problems are being addressed. Curates Information for Enhancing the Consumer Journey Wouldn’t you want to know the cost of products similar to your listings in real-time? eCom Competitive Analytics gives you this picture at platform, variant, category, sub-category, and other levels. Therefore, brands can find the factors that make their competitors more favorable than them. For example, if the perfect page analysis of your competitor is 100%, it means that it meets the average review, title, product description, and other criteria that influence buying decisions. Similarly, pricing comparison reveals the average cost of similar products, making rivals favorable and enabling brands to avoid MAP violations. Likewise, if a competitor uses your brand keyword, keyword search analytics would depict the picture and the share-of-shelf under discoverability. If your brand has a lower SOS, it could report the same to the e-commerce platform and resolve the issue. Identifies Problems Every Day Out-of-stock is visible on most seller dashboards, however, are competitors keeping stocks available for the same product isn’t. Moreover, you could view the stockouts of your competitors on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis through eCom Competitive Analytics. Downloading such reports can give an idea of the average sales, stock requirements, etc. But, eCom Competitive Analytics also shows the most commonly used words for a product listing across e-commerce platforms. It means you can come

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eCom Competitive Intelligence

How Can eCom Competitive Intelligence Help You to Create Great Product Descriptions?

eCommerce platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, BlinkIt, etc., open doors to new brands, competitive pricing, product variants, etc. The factors influencing consumers buying decisions also extend to user-generated content such as Q&As, reviews & ratings, product descriptions, informative & comparative tables, videos & photos, delivery details, etc. According to a Statista report, 22% of online shoppers make buying decisions based on accurate and informative product descriptions. Similarly, other factors have a high or low effect on the buyers’ purchasing decisions. Most businesses create detailed descriptions of their listings on eCom marketplaces based on their product knowledge and could also involve SEO. However, do they review their content score? Do they analyze their perfect page summary? Do they know the detailed score of the distinct aspects on a product page of their competitors? Most likely, the marketers and business heads would answer No. Knowing the product page summary and the content score of your competition and reviewing the pages with the highest score can offer many details. For example, your brand could learn the SEO strategy, commonly optimized keywords, content structure, keyword placement, etc., of the competition. Such information can help your brand improve your listing pages and optimize the content. But, this is just one aspect of it. It can help review the A+, image, and video content, which will likely enhance discoverability on e-commerce marketplaces and increase click-through rate (CTR), likely boosting conversions. What is a Product Description and Why is it So Important? A product description explains “What is the product and its uses? Thats it! But stating more about the listing like a robot or using unfriendly words could make the description uninteresting and drive away users to easy-to-understand or similar relatable products. However, most marketers should realize that the title, price, image, and delivery visible on the product searches have already made the user interested in the product. Also, the informative table is self-explanatory when it comes to features. Still, the user is likely to view the description visible next to the product images or videos of the listing before scrolling down through the A+ content and then visiting the informative and comparative tables. Therefore, it is important to make the product description as compelling as the information on the product search result listings. The question is – How? How Can eCom Marketers Create Great Product Descriptions? We have already established that eCom Competitive Analytics offers insights into the competitors’ content strategies on e-commerce marketplaces. Such insights can help brands curate great product descriptions, as the solution can help recognize customer needs, competitor strengths, ongoing SEO practices, etc. Insights derived through eCom Competitive Intelligence can help in this matter in the following ways: Identify and Implement Informative Words: Most e-commerce marketplaces have approximately 200 words for product descriptions. The consumer is looking for information before checking out reviews & ratings, and Q&As. Knowing the highest content score for the description and checking out the competition with the top results could give a clear picture of the user-friendly information structure, including the product details. SEO-Friendliness: Ideally, brands with a 100% score in the description would likely have a 100% SEO score for their description too. Therefore, brands should identify them and review the keywords and their placement, enabling them to achieve such a result. Post-review brands would also come across keywords that could match the description of their listings. Inclusion of Benefits: Consumers might expect the benefits of a product under the description; however, the description score could reach 100%, even without it. Once again, it is subjective, just like Product Titles. Therefore, analyzing the practices of the competitors through eCom Competitive Intelligence can help you decide on whether the product description should describe the benefits. Before writing a product description based on these aspects, it is necessary to answer the following questions: Should the description: Include words used in brand images or videos. Consist of the keywords included in the title or secondary keywords? Address user queries in the Q&A and R&R sections through the description. Following this approach and competitor intelligence can enable marketers and brands to curate great and compelling product descriptions. The details could help the user decide the advantages of the listing over similar products, upsell recommendations or basket listings, curate loyalty towards the brands, etc. Final Words Product descriptions might seem the simplest form of explanation of the listing; however, it isn’t. Brands require eCom Competitive Analytics to understand more about them. The solution can highlight the score of your brands’ listings versus the competition and offer an understanding of its compelling nature, user-friendliness, keyword, etc., which would affect sales. Get in touch to learn the impact of perfect page analysis of your listings, connect with us through email, or leave us a comment.

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Geotargeted Ads

Are Your Geotargeted Ads Reaching the Right Audience?

Whether you have an online business or an offline store, if you don’t get the targeted audience to connect with your brand, all efforts go in vain. Just imagine, you’re running a campaign to attract traffic from India, and people from South-East Asia are engaging with your ads. This will not only attract people from outside the targeted market but also result in the wastage of your advertising budget on irrelevant results. Imagine as a marketer what kind of a digital advertising disaster it is. With the ever-evolving digital ecosystem, the solution to reach the right type of audience at the right time is now a reality. Geo-targeted advertising helps marketers show up at places where their ideal audience is browsing. But just like every coin has a flip side, there is a second side to this. But before we go ahead, let’s understand the meaning of Geotargeted advertising. What is Geotargeted Advertising? This is a type of advertising where the location data is used to reach consumers. In geo-targeted ads, the messaging is appropriate to the location and behavior of the customer. With the help of this advertising, marketers can connect with user-appropriate content based on the information acquired from the consumers’ location. When consumers allow the location-tracking option in the apps on their phones, geotargeting advertising will help to show ads based on their actual location. This can be a very effective advertising method for QSR businesses. They can target their ads to customers who live in proximity and encourage them to visit. In conclusion, geo-targeted ads help advertisers plan and execute more targeted and relevant promotions, resulting in increased engagement. Every Shiny Thing is Not a Diamond Geotargeted ads sound like the best solution for every advertiser. It ensures to reach the targeted audience and give good engagement. What else is required? Sadly, there is a flip side to geotargeted advertising. Below are a few stats that explain better why geotargeting is not just all good things”. According to a data verification firm Location Sciences, approximately two-thirds (65%) of media spending on location-based ads goes down to waste because of misdirected targeting. Almost 29% of the media spending on geo-targeted ads resulted in delivering impressions outside the geotargeted area. Whereas 36% was wasted because of poor-quality location signals. 36% of the top GPS-enabled apps were found to display location fraud. The geo-targeted ads are less optimal because of the simple inaccuracies in the geodata. In the case of GPS, the location data is estimated based on the proximity of the public WIFI hotspots when a GPS signal is not present, or a user has not given consent to use location data. These inaccuracies can show a difference ranging between 1 km to 1,000 km. On the other hand, IP addresses are only accurate enough to identify a user in a state, city, or neighborhood. But it may not be efficient to locate a user within a range of meters or feet. The IP addresses are often dependent on the Internet Service Providers located in a neighborhood or are dependent on the type of connection like a cable modem or cellular connection. Fraud In Geotargeted Programmatic Ads Ad fraud in geotargeted programmatic media buying is a huge problem that costs billions of dollars. And it is estimated to get bigger with time as the ad spend increases in the digital ecosystem, especially in the media targeting local audiences. As compared to direct media buying, there are different levels of risk involved for marketers when using geotargeted programmatic media. In programmatic advertising, geotargeting refers to the targeting of users based on the approximation of their geolocation. This is usually analyzed by estimating their location according to the respective IP address. However, in the case of direct media buying the local media outlets put ads on the websites of local publishers. And in the case of direct media buying the audience is usually the people residing in the city, region, or designated market area. In geotargeted programmatic ads, the fraudsters commit ad fraud by making their bots appear from different geolocations through a variety of techniques. One of the common ways to manipulate the geodata is by using proxy IP addresses to appear in specific geolocations. Further, the advertisers running ads in programmatic will be tricked into paying for ads that are shown to bot traffic pretending to be in the geographies targeted. To make the activity look real, the fraudsters also activate activities like page views, clicks, downloads, and other parameters. This makes the engagement look believable and further gives encouraging but false reports of the campaign. Are Google Ads also targeted by fraudsters? Some advertisers often face the issue where their ads show in areas that haven’t been selected as geo-targeted areas. Does this mean that even on Google ads geotargeted fraud can happen? Maybe no. Just like everything, there are some exceptions. For instance, you have a local pastry shop in Paris so your geo-targeted area in Adwords is in Paris. However, when looking at the IP list in Adwords you notice that the clicks have come from all parts of the country and sometimes even outside. Some of the few possible reasons can be: Case 1: Mismatch in IP Address and User Location This is one of the common cases in geo-targeting that confuses. The IP addresses are assigned by the Internet Service Provider to analyze the user’s location. Google uses the location of the IP addresses and ISPs to decide where to show the ads. However, Google also admits that the IP locations may not be the same as the actual location of the user. According to research conducted by Search Engine Land, two errors manipulate the location data within Google. One is a false positive where it appears that the user is in Paris when they are not. Another is a false negative where the user might be in Paris, but according to the search engine, they are not. Case 2: Mobile Device Problem

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Quick Commerce

3 Major Quick Commerce Problems Resolved Through mScanIt

E-commerce paced up the sale of products largely due to convenience, and quick commerce is boosting these sales through faster deliveries. Earlier online shopping orders were delivered within a week. Then, Amazon introduced two-day, one-day, and same-day delivery, implementing the same approach for groceries or daily need products. Today, Dunzo, Instamart, Zepto, BlinkIt, and other brands have become pioneers in quick deliveries. Quick commerce refers to the delivery of online orders within 15-30 minutes. The fast-delivery concept was first implemented by Domino’s, and you can recall it if you ever received a free pizza due to a delay in delivery. Quick commerce has rapidly gained the attention of Gen Z and millennials who want to watch their favorite sport or movie at home. Both groups made unplanned orders in 2021, which enhanced the purchase of consumables within the year. According to the same source, the Q-Com industry had a revenue of $100 million in 2021, and 70% of the Indian Q-Com revenue came from Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. During the pandemic, safe deliveries were the trend; however, Q-Commerce is bringing its fast-paced delivery concept into the limelight. Q-Commerce has become a substitute for phone-based orders from the nearest retailers and a swift mechanism for receiving frozen, pre-packaged, and fresh orders. Brands offering this service focus on order fulfillment, timely reachability, and swift packaging, which has raised the demand for Micro-Fulfillment Centers (MFCs). Similarly, brands like Buyk are building pipelines based on buyer personas. For example, ordering seasoning for cooking a meal. While the concept is growing in the minds of the buyers, brands face some major challenges in resolving the need to provide everyday need products. How Quick Commerce Works? The general concept of Q-Com is that the customer adds products to the basket, and places an order, which is received by the platform, packaged, collected by the delivery partner, and delivered to the customer’s doorstep. Essentially, Q-Commerce is a form of e-commerce; however, the brands have separate warehouses, commonly referred to as “dark stores,” and deliver within 30 minutes. But, initially, Grofers (now BlinkIt) began the concept of fast doorstep delivery by connecting with local retailers. Also, unlike e-com orders, which often include delivery charges unless a minimum order value is passed, many Q-Com brands offer cheaper cost products in small basket orders with no such fee. Moreover, customers have the option to make orders 24×7, which likely results in impulsive buying during overnight stays, all-night parties, etc. Challenges Faced by Q-Com Brands and mScanIt Solutions Keeping An Optimal Price Globally, 52% of online shoppers make purchase decisions because of the delivery speed, whereas 38% of consumers buy products due to free or discounted shipping. We have already covered that most Q-Com brands offer both of these advantages. Also, the price was the main reason that influenced the shopping decisions of 87% of the consumers in the U.S. So, it would be safe to assume that when delivery speed and fee are no longer concerns, it will remain the likely choice unless the desired product or its quantity remains unavailable. Under such a scenario, keeping an optimal price becomes a primary concern of the Q-Com brands, and keeping an eye on the competitors becomes necessary. mScanIt helps brands review the price differences across online shopping platforms, resolving one of the biggest issues. Managing Stock Availability Stockouts are one of the leading reasons for switching apps, brands, or variants. Also, consumer behavior is rapidly evolving due to Q-Commerce. The changing needs demand managing the growing stock availability and avoiding stockouts. With rapid orders and impulsive buying heightened, the need to manage stocks at pin code, zonal, platform, sub-category, sub-variant, and other levels becomes important. mScanIt meets these requirements by showing stock availability daily, weekly, and monthly, with real-time insights, while showing competitor availability across online marketplaces. The analytics deep-dive into stock availability and help brands avoid stockouts at distinct levels to meet the forecasted requirements. Safeguarding Brand Reputation Quick deliveries don’t mean that consumers would remain satisfied with their orders. Their reaction would have the same sentiment intensity, similar to a regular online shopping experience. However, they might appreciate swift doorstep reachability, which has become a likely factor in reviews and ratings. The demand for safeguarding brand/product/seller reputation has become crucial, and Q-Commerce enhances the chance of replying and resolving consumer issues in real time. Simultaneously, knowing the standing of competitor listings at all levels gives a brand a better perspective of areas of improvement, and mScanIt offers such issues as part of its dashboard. Final Words Q-Commerce brands are transforming consumer behavior, and the changing needs require a solution to manage all aspects that remain relevant across e-commerce platforms. However, price optimization, safeguarding brand reputation, and managing stock availability would take the lead for Q-Com sellers. Brands need a solution that can manage the factors impacting product listings, sales/revenue, content, advertisements, etc., and mScanIt offers deep-diving into all these aspects. For more information about the advantages of eCom Competitive Analytics for your brand, connect with us through email or leave us a comment.

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