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Share-of-Shelf

Why are eCommerce Brands Competitive About Share-of-Shelf?

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Retail eCom sales have been booming since 2014. According to Statista, global eCom sales accounted for $4.2 trillion in 2020. The report also predicts that eCom sales would reach $7.3 trillion by 2025, with spending of $5.5 trillion crossing in 2022. Nowadays, eCom brands retain their existing and new customers through promotions, offers, subscriptions, and deals, which also gives them a competitive edge. Share-of-Shelf (SOS) has become the next big model for boosting these deliverables. SOS measures the visibility of a product based on a specific keyword under a particular category of an eCom marketplace. A high SOS means that the brand has eased consumer discoverability and product visibility on eCom searches. However, harnessing such results on the eCom store is tiresome as brands constantly need to review the keywords of their brand’s products and competitor listings. Besides visibility, a higher share of digital shelf correlates to more money for the brand. How? Brands with higher visibility, especially on the first-page results, have witnessed higher number of consumers undertaking add-to-cart actions and conversions, hence higher sales. Forecasting such consumer behavior significantly impacts the product marketing strategies, sponsored listings, cross-selling across opportunities across eCom stores, etc. Moreover, the knowledge about the eCom platform offering the highest SOS helps identify which marketplace has consumers more receptive to the brand? – another valuable insight for the sales and marketing team. Similarly, the brand also recognizes the keywords that offer the maximum search visibility to their products and the hero product under the categories. Traditionally, brands measured the share-of-shelf in offline stores by calculating and analyzing the facings and linear listings. Brands reviewed the total products facing a category and compared it with competitors and variants. The linear listing accounted for the total products of a brand listed in a linear length and reviewed against the competitors. However, the story of the share of the digital shelf is entirely different, as they are measured across eCom stores using keywords. Measuring the presence of a brand’s products helps identify trends across eCom stores, cities, and pin codes. 3 Reasons eCom SOS Has Become Highly Competitive Reviewing the share of digital shelf help brands to gain insight into the presence of the product on eCom platforms. Brands can also learn about consumers’ journeys through SOS. Moreover, the need to track the share of sponsored and organic listings has become unavoidable. Tracking the brand’s discoverability under a category using keywords helps detect the most commonly used consumer searches. Moreover, a brand can even decipher its product’s visibility based on competitor, organic/inorganic, and brand keywords. Unfortunately, brands sometimes get zero views on sponsored listings, which is worrisome. Simultaneously, competitors might also be making money by enhancing their visibility using your brand’s keywords. But these are secondary advantages of reviewing the share of digital shelf and can get dealt with by contacting the eCom marketplace. However, the primary advantages offered by keeping track of the SOS are as follows: Optimize Searches Brands often enhance searches using the preferred keywords on pages, results, or lists. Moreover, they are further segmented into long and short-tail keywords. Brands understand that basket conversions and shopper awareness are substantially higher for the top five products (of the first page) on an eCommerce platform than others. So, the need to safeguard ‘brand-specific’ keywords from competitive bidding becomes important for enhancing product visibility. Unfortunately, brand bidding is still a prevalent fraud even in the eCommerce industry and gravely hampers the search results. Share of brand search can summarize keyword search result share across each eCom marketplace. Analyzing the share of voice can prove helpful for benchmarking the top brands/products under definitive categories. Data-driven results help brands curate looped feedback about consumer behavior, optimizing revenue spending. mScanIt even determines insights post SOS analysis based on city, pin code, or other classifications. Such segmentations help brands to optimize their marketing campaigns. Measures Essential KPIs Dashboard of mScanIt tailors the eCom results of Share-of-Shelf (SOS) through Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The KPIs help to enhance search results, display tailored results, improve the user experience, etc., using a single platform. The brands can discover the ongoing product, category, page, trends, besides performance and competitive data. The SOS covers KPIs like SKU range share, overall SOS, top product by search, average page positioning, etc. According to Amazon, the top three search results account for 64% of clicks, and 70% of eCommerce shoppers make decisions based on the first page results. Utilizing SOS KPIs can help brands devise strategies to increase add-to-cart conversions and brand awareness. So, optimizing the KPIs of SOS can significantly boost sales. Moreover, every eCommerce platform uses a different algorithm for ranking. Brands can’t use the same strategy for gaining higher visibility. Customizing content using keywords can significantly improve product listings when shoppers use filters. Influences Consumer and Brand Behavior Another significant advantage of reviewing SOS using an eCommerce competitive analytics solution is determining the consumer behavior or journey. Understanding the habits of the online shoppers on eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart can help devise multiple strategies. For example, for any given keyword, e.g., brands like Aashirwad, Fortune, Pillsbury, and other brands’ products constantly appear on the first page. Moreover, consumers searching for FMCG or CPG products are almost instantly looking to fill their shelves. Therefore, products of brands with the highest visibility under the search term “atta” will likely incur higher conversion due to urgency. So, SOS retains the capacity to influence consumer behavior. Industry researchers have also suggested that first-page product results in higher add-to-cart actions and conversions under a specific keyword and category. Simultaneously, such brands would significantly diminish their cart abandon rates. Conclusion Measuring the share of the digital shelf has become essential for brands because of the multiple advantages and competitor insights, other than product visibility under different keywords and categories. But, it is only a single discoverability aspect. But, brands require a more in-depth analysis of availability, performance, visibility, search, exec compliance, and brand safety before making the final marketing strategy calls. An eCom Competitive Analytics solution like mScanIt

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eCom-Competitive-Intelligence

Why is eCom Competitive Intelligence a Need for D2C Brands?

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With the growing trends of mobile advertising, fraudsters are finding new ways to sneak into the digital ad ecosystem and loot the advertiser’s money. One of the known frauds in the mobile advertising segment is Click Injection. According to Statista, followed by SDK spoofing, the click injection cases have increased up to 27% worldwide in 2018. And with the increasing cases, fraudsters are making money while the advertisers are losing their ad spending on ineffective campaigns. Apart from the revenue loss, the click injection fraud also leaves a big impact on the brand in terms of credibility. But before we move forward, the foremost thing is to understand the meaning of click injection. What is Click Injection? This is a sophisticated form of click-spamming that is majorly related to Android devices. According to Statista, in 2021 the install fraud rate was found up to 12% in Android devices whereas in Apple IOS it was 7%. Click injection is like a hidden spy camera installed by fraudsters. When a user downloads an app that is affected by the “install broadcasts”, fraudsters can detect when any other app is downloaded. Further, it triggers a click before the installation process completes. As a result, the fraudster receives the credit for the completed app installs. Along with this, the act also results in poaching of organic installs that were driven by genuine advertising. This fraud impacts both the revenue and efficiency of the campaign run by the advertiser. Here are a few instances of how click injection impacts a brand. Impact of Click Injection on Brands Draining Advertising Budget Though the ad engagement is fake, the advertiser remains under the impression that the received “ad click” is genuine and eventually leads to the payout at CPI to the affiliate network or the publisher. This leads to a loss in the advertising budget which can be instead used to reach genuine users. Stealing Real Conversions Beyond the loss of the advertising budget, the click injection also costs the advertiser the conversions expected from the campaign. When a user clicks on an injected ad, the fake action on the ad will be attributed. This further leads to poaching of organic conversion and unknowingly the advertisers continue to invest in an ineffective campaign. Manipulated Analytics If we look at the bigger picture, apart from the revenue loss, the brand has compromised data due to click injection fraud. For instance, when an advertiser sees that their paid campaign is attracting traffic, they will most likely spend more to optimize the ROI. However, due to the manipulated results, the damage becomes two-fold. First, the advertiser is investing more in ads, and secondly, they are ignoring the possible channels which will bring real traffic. How To Protect Your Brand from Click Injection Fraud Data Analysis The Average Click Install Time (CTIT) is an important factor to understand and detect click injection fraud in ad campaigns. If the installs are fraud-proof, then the data will be most likely be in the range of an average CTIT. On the other hand, if the installs are fraudulent then there will be a visible peak in the number of installations during the time range of CTIT. However, there is a loophole in this process. Some of the apps are also capable to manipulate the data pattern by setting a time range after which the app opens. Choose A Reliable Marketing Partner When choosing a marketing partner ensure to do a deep analysis of their previous work and expertise. If anyone claims to provide an ‘n’ number of app installs at a surprisingly low price, then it is highly likely to be fraudulent installs. Even though the rates may differ for different industries, the delivery of genuine installs by ethical methods comes at a high price. Fraud Detection Solution Instead of beating around the bush, it is better to focus and eliminate the bug first. In this case, despite taking all the precautions it is hard to say that your campaign will be protected from click injection ad fraud. Thus, it is better to switch to a holistic ad-fraud elimination solution like mFilterIt. Our ad-fraud elimination suite helps advertisers run digital campaigns and avoid becoming a victim of app fraud. With the advanced solutions provided throughout the customer journey, the advertisers can rest be assured to get engagement from real humans and eliminate bots from their ad campaigns. With the help of high-tech and future-driven AI and ML techniques, we ensure to provide the best solutions for the fraud-free growth of your business. Conclusion Even though the click injection fraud generates manipulated install numbers, the CPI and other associated events are real. This makes it very hard for the advertiser to differentiate between a real and fraudulent lead. The earlier the advertiser decides to take the right action to prevent and eliminate ad fraud from their campaigns, the sooner they will be able to divert their revenue spend on effective campaigns. And to take quick action, the mFilterIt ad traffic validation solution will be your helping hand to eliminate click injection fraud from your mobile advertising campaigns.

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Click-Injection-Fraud

Click Injection Fraud Costs More Than Just Money for A Brand

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With the growing trends of mobile advertising, fraudsters are finding new ways to sneak into the digital ad ecosystem and loot the advertiser’s money. One of the known frauds in the mobile advertising segment is Click Injection. According to Statista, followed by SDK spoofing, the click injection cases have increased up to 27% worldwide in 2018. And with the increasing cases, fraudsters are making money while the advertisers are losing their ad spending on ineffective campaigns. Apart from the revenue loss, the click injection fraud also leaves a big impact on the brand in terms of credibility. But before we move forward, the foremost thing is to understand the meaning of click injection. What is Click Injection? This is a sophisticated form of click-spamming that is majorly related to Android devices. According to Statista, in 2021 the install fraud rate was found up to 12% in Android devices whereas in Apple IOS it was 7%. Click injection is like a hidden spy camera installed by fraudsters. When a user downloads an app that is affected by the “install broadcasts”, fraudsters can detect when any other app is downloaded. Further, it triggers a click before the installation process completes. As a result, the fraudster receives the credit for the completed app installs. Along with this, the act also results in poaching of organic installs that were driven by genuine advertising. This fraud impacts both the revenue and efficiency of the campaign run by the advertiser. Here are a few instances of how click injection impacts a brand. Impact of Click Injection on Brands Draining Advertising Budget Though the ad engagement is fake, the advertiser remains under the impression that the received “ad click” is genuine and eventually leads to the payout at CPI to the affiliate network or the publisher. This leads to a loss in the advertising budget which can be instead used to reach genuine users. Stealing Real Conversions Beyond the loss of the advertising budget, the click injection also costs the advertiser the conversions expected from the campaign. When a user clicks on an injected ad, the fake action on the ad will be attributed. This further leads to poaching of organic conversion and unknowingly the advertisers continue to invest in an ineffective campaign. Manipulated Analytics If we look at the bigger picture, apart from the revenue loss, the brand has compromised data due to click-injection fraud. For instance, when an advertiser sees that their paid campaign is attracting traffic, they will most likely spend more to optimize the ROI. However, due to the manipulated results, the damage becomes two-fold. First, the advertiser is investing more in ads, and secondly, they are ignoring the possible channels which will bring real traffic. How To Protect Your Brand from Click Injection Fraud Data Analysis The Average Click Install Time (CTIT) is an important factor to understand and detect click injection fraud in ad campaigns. If the installs are fraud-proof, then the data will be most likely be in the range of an average CTIT. On the other hand, if the installs are fraudulent then there will be a visible peak in the number of installations during the time range of CTIT. However, there is a loophole in this process. Some of the apps are also capable to manipulate the data pattern by setting a time range after which the app opens. Choose A Reliable Marketing Partner When choosing a marketing partner ensure to do a deep analysis of their previous work and expertise. If anyone claims to provide an ‘n’ number of app installs at a surprisingly low price, then it is highly likely to be fraudulent installs. Even though the rates may differ for different industries, the delivery of genuine installs by ethical methods comes at a high price. Fraud Detection Solution Instead of beating around the bush, it is better to focus and eliminate the bug first. In this case, despite taking all the precautions it is hard to say that your campaign will be protected from click injection ad fraud. Thus, it is better to switch to a holistic ad-fraud elimination solution like mFilterIt. Our ad-fraud elimination suite helps advertisers run digital campaigns and avoid becoming a victim of app fraud. With the advanced solutions provided throughout the customer journey, the advertisers can rest be assured to get engagement from real humans and eliminate bots from their ad campaigns. With the help of high-tech and future-driven AI and ML techniques, we ensure to provide the best solutions for the fraud-free growth of your business. Conclusion Even though the click injection fraud generates manipulated install numbers, the CPI and other associated events are real. This makes it very hard for the advertiser to differentiate between a real and fraudulent lead. The earlier the advertiser decides to take the right action to prevent and eliminate ad fraud from their campaigns, the sooner they will be able to divert their revenue spend on effective campaigns. And to take quick action, the mFilterIt ad traffic validation solution will be your helping hand to eliminate click injection fraud from your mobile advertising campaigns.

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Brands-Analyze

Why Do Brands Analyze Reviews and Ratings?

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Nearly everything is available for buying online through eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. However, reviews and ratings highly influence consumers’ buying decisions or even add-to-cart actions. Our research states that eCom buying heavily relied on R&Rs in 2021. A positive R&R score can become a factor that drives impulse buying decisions most of the time and offers scope for increasing the product price. Many consumers don’t mind paying more for a good product. Meanwhile, a negative score leads to a diminished customer base, switching to competitive sellers/eCom platforms, and finding alternative solutions. Therefore, R&R can help a brand build a vast consumer base and enhance targeting/reach. The impact of R&Rs is not limited to consumers’ buying or a brand’s pricing decisions. It extends implications in SEO rankings, product return forecasts, detecting underperforming products, and more. For example, reviews often include brand names and product-related keywords, affecting search engine rankings and easing product discoverability. On the other hand, ratings have also become a part of a digital advertisement to showcase consumer trustworthiness in a brand. Therefore, R&Rs are a big part of user-generated content. Analyzing R&Rs can prove helpful in identifying the bestsellers, most favored brands, the average rating of the brand across platforms, etc. Brands also analyze ratings to understand the likelihood of consumer repurchases. Monitoring the R&R score can greatly influence the marketing and advertising decisions. For example, if you check that Biscuits’ is receiving negative reviews such as broken, crushed, etc., it should go back to the packaging team. 3 Reasons Brands Monitor Reviews and Ratings Understand the Consumer Needs Reviews and ratings give a first-hand impression of a brand’s product listings on eCom stores. The positive, negative, and neutral reviews often specify the best and worst features, besides competitor advantages. Moreover, reviews on eCom stores often consist of supported pictures and videos, which helps brands to understand the problem stated by the consumer even more. Understanding the consumer’s needs helps make product improvements, launch new listings, and enhance the user experience across eCom stores. Simultaneously, reviews give brands a chance to build strong long-term relationships with customers and uplift the brand’s market reputation. Simultaneously, reviews help find warning signs on eCom platforms such as fake/duplicate products, bad quality, products not matching the description, etc. The personal experience shared by people through reviews cultivates trust among other buyers and in the brand. Find the Buying Decision-Making Factors User-generated content, including reviews, influences the buying decision of 25% of online shoppers. Therefore, monitoring online reviews and ratings on eCom platforms helps brands find the key factors influencing buyers’ decisions. According to a source, online reviews uplift sales by 18%. For example, if most people state that the “quality of the speaker is awesome, but the price is slightly high,” eCom buyers that value quality over price would not mind paying a bit extra. Simultaneously, the brand received a pricing intelligence that the product has a higher cost than similar listings. As such, reviews are the online form of open-line communication between brands and consumers. So, brands can find their areas of improvement and enhance the products’ most likable features/qualities. Measure Trustworthiness on the Product Listings Given that most online shoppers go through at least three reviews before making the final purchasing decision, it is inevitable to state that trust in a product or brand is built through R&Rs. Moreover, consumers share the best qualities or worst experiences through ratings and reviews, which offer a clear picture of the product that a potential consumer would bring home. As a result, ratings and reviews give a true picture of the brand and its products, even with influencers continuously trying to alter the scores. According to a source, consumers are less likely to buy products without ratings and reviews, as they would most likely become the first to share the experience. Also, many consumers try to avoid the risk of buying from a new seller with no R&Rs, as it does not establish trust. Lastly, too many positive reviews tend to make the consumers suspicious of the product. As per a source, 55% of consumers often become skeptical that reviews of a product are fake if they encompass similar wording. Therefore, brands need to continuously take measures to grab verified user-generated reviews and ratings to acquire the trust of potential new buyers. Analyzing reviews and ratings help brands to measure the consumer trustworthiness of different product listings versus the competition. Takeaway Monitoring reviews and ratings give insight into the favored platform and product performance and suggest growth opportunities. Moreover, brands constantly analyze the reviews for deciphering the hero product under different categories and allocate marketing budgets. Additionally, checking review and rating scores helps a brand decide on product inclusions in ads, PR, and influencer campaigns. Therefore, R&R has become a crucial part of mFilterIt’s eCommerce Intelligence Tool.  The solution offers deep insights based on many filters such as product, platform, sub-category, etc., and enables brands to make sound decisions. Using the dashboard, brands can also review competitors’ product performance based on reviews and ratings.

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eCom-Stores

3 Dreaded Reasons for Order Cancelation on eCom Stores

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Canceled order means canceled conversion and loss of potential revenue post-transaction. Brands dread canceled orders because, unlike exchanges, it means that the customer no longer wants the product. So, even though brands increase their likely customer base, they lose out on building an authentic connection by offering a product-based experience. Also, customers that cancel orders might share their remorse of delayed delivery or delight in finding a similar item at lower costs with faster delivery in alternative stores as feedback on eCom platforms. As a result, brands lose their grip on scalability while losing money on acquiring customers through marketing and advertising channels. Also, if the customer buys a similar product on an alternate eCom platform, a competitive brand has managed to boost its customer base, get a higher market stake, and generate more significant revenue. According to a Statista, 17% of online shoppers cancel orders frequently, whereas 24% have done the same “at least once.” Customers commonly terminate their ongoing shipping due to long delivery durations, reviews & ratings, promotions/discounts/offers, etc. In many cases, the remorse of order cancelation is not limited to brands but also to customers, as they incur shipping charges if the order has been shipped/dispatched. Moreover, if the customer shares a bad review, it would contribute to the negative sentiment intensity of the listing and tarnish the brand/product reputation. 3 Common Reasons for Order Cancelation on eCom Stores Late/Delayed Delivery Late or delayed shipments build a bad reputation for the brand and seller in the consumer’s mind. The most common reasons for late deliveries can include delayed shipment by the retailer, location search problems by the courier, incorrect delivery address, etc. According to a source, 34% of deliveries get delayed due to the retailer. While the cause is an issue for the brand, the frustration is felt by the customer, who is facing the consequences of ordering online. Another report states that 35% of consumers cancel orders due to delayed deliveries. One of the most common reasons for the delay in delivery from the retailer is “out-of-stock,” which means the unavailability of the product in the store. During the peak COVID-19 outbreak in the US, 40% of the consumers faced a delay in grocery items. So, the state of delayed delivery has not significantly diminished even after the pandemic (as it is still at 35%). Revisit to Reviews and Ratings Besides price after coupons, offers, promotions, or discounts, and free delivery, reviews play a vital role in product purchases. 35% of online shoppers make the final buying decisions after reading product reviews. The share of online shoppers that read between 1 and 3 reviews before buying a product is 36.4%, whereas consumers that read more than 10 reviews for the same is 14.6%. So, reviews play a vital role in product buying. Imagine if these customers read the online reviews after placing the order. 45% of consumers often cancel orders if they change their minds, and reviews have that capacity. Better Promotions, Discounts, and Offers Online shoppers often search for promotions, discounts, rewards, cashbacks, and offers, even after placing an order. 92% of eCom product buyers ‘always, sometimes, and usually look for offers or deals before making the final purchasing decision. Another report states that 52% of consumers research percentage off, whereas 22% get convinced with flat discounts as the best options while shopping online. Such a scenario could even happen after placing the order. Consumers don’t want to pay for too high shipping or service charges and would likely change their minds if a similar product comes with better options. According to a source, 40% and 22% of customers cancel orders due to these two reasons. For example, if a brand is offering a washing machine without additional cost for setting up, e.g., Rs 1,000 and Rs 200 for service cancelation. On the other hand, if another eCom store has the same washing machine with free service and setting up cost, whom do you think consumers would prefer if the price is nearly the same? Reducing Order Cancelation with eCom Competitive Analytics Brands dread the three common reasons for order cancelation; however, they can take action based on real-time insights and alerts. eCom Competitive Analytics tracks stock availability, reviews & ratings, sentiment analysis, pricing, discounts, etc. By checking their SKUs across eCom stores, brands get to learn consumer behavior and demystify the commonly faced problems. The positive and negative word cloud of the sentiment analysis highlights keywords recurring in reviews. So, brands can deal with listing issues upfront and provide a better user experience. Similarly, the availability section displays the percentage-wise segregation of stocks, which means stock availability versus stockouts. Upon deep diving and reviewing insights, brands can check reasons and actionable measures for decreasing ‘out-of-stock’ problems. Takeaway Order cancelation is frustrating, painful, and saddening for brands and sellers as it comes with multiple disadvantages. However, brands can decrease or resolve cancelations by figuring out common issues causing them through eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt. mScanIt offers a chance to brand for tracking sentiment intensity as KPI or threshold and gives a chance of receiving real-time alerts with actionable insights. Using eCom Competitive Analytics, brands get a fighting chance of potentially increasing their revenue, building a bigger pool of customer base, and delivering a better customer experience/shoppers user journey. Connect with us to learn more about the advantages of insights and real-time alerts offered by mScanIt for your brand.

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Cart-Abandonment

4 Common Reasons for Cart Abandonment on eCom Stores

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Cart abandonment means a customer added your product to their cart but never completed the transaction. It is frustrating for brands because they are so close to a sale, yet all efforts fall flat when the carts are deserted. Brands calculate cart abandon rate by dividing overall transactions by total initiated conversions. The global cart abandonment rate has fluctuated between 68.07% and 69.8% between 2014-and 2020. So, nearly 70 out of 100 customers leave the eCom store without conversion. Regionally, the online cart abandonment rate is the highest in Middle East & Asia at 90.88%. Brands work relentlessly to figure out the reasons for cart abandonment and have discovered that high shipping costs, price comparison, out-of-stock, etc., are some of them. But, the severity of cart abandonment is more significant for businesses, as they spend tremendous hours and money on optimizing marketing and advertising efforts. A high abandoned cart rate makes all these efforts wasteful. Why Consumers Abandon Carts on eCom Stores? Unexpected Shipping Costs Online shopping is a matter of convenience. One can shop at their time in the comfort of their own space. The catalyst that makes it an even more enticing option is the brand’s pricing and discounts online to lure its customer base. However, while this leads to impulsive add-to-cart actions, it doesn’t assure a guaranteed sell. It has been observed across ecommerce platforms that many listings do not display shipping charges upfront, which is instrumental in making or breaking a sale. This happens to be the last leg of completing a transaction. According to sources, most consumers that don’t make bulk purchases often face heavy shipping charges if they don’t meet the minimum basket cost. So, while the consumer is delighted with the product price, the shipping cost becomes a deciding factor for looking at other sources, even nearby brick & motor retail stores. On the other hand, some consumers might not worry about the shipping cost until it is a substantial percentage of the order value. A survey reveals that 41% of customers abandoned their carts for this very reason. Imagine paying nearly half the price of the book as delivery charges. Would you pay? Many customers would look away. Nowadays, shipping costs are mentioned on the product pages; however, even stores like Amazon India do not display them in their product listing. Low Price on Alternate Stores Digital shoppers have the flexibility of reviewing multiple seller prices on different eCom platforms. Low price on the alternate store has also become a reason for cart abandonment before checkout. According to a survey, 18% of consumers don’t make a transaction because of price comparison. eCom store app notifications and emails to consumers might not prove effective once the consumer has abandoned the cart after finding a lower price on alternative eCom stores. This scenario is more likely to happen for quick commerce. Simultaneously, loyal customers might try to find the same quantity of their lovable brand at alternate stores while abandoning the cart. Therefore, the silver lining here is that the brand doesn’t lose its customer base and gets a deeper understanding of pricing, one of the essential pillars of digital commerce. Out-of-Stock During Checkout “Lightning deals” or “only two more available” indeed sound enticing, especially while shopping online, as they display hefty discounts or products at unbelievable prices. However, many consumers, including me, have faced another message, “this product is no longer available,” during checkout. According to a 2019 report, 28% of consumers have reported “out-of-stock” as the reason for abandoning their cart. Unavailability due to mismanagement of stock-keeping units (SKUs), tracking systems, seller issues, etc., are no longer news to brands. Besides this, out-of-stock during checkout often highlights the seller and makes both brand & seller unfavorable in the eyes of potential consumers. As a result, OOS during checkouts doesn’t only lead to drawbacks associated with it but also creates long-term disadvantages associated with cart abandonment. Better Discounts on Alternate Stores While low price is an incentive for online shoppers, promotions and discounts play vital roles. Consumers often use multiple resources to find additional discounts, offers, or promotions on products already available at a low price. In 2018, one of the common reasons for 46% of U.S. consumers abandoning carts was a “non-working discount code.” However, even if the discount code works, the consumers are likely to compare prices on alternate eCom stores and include pricing intelligence in the buying decision. Therefore, tracking competitor prices, discounts, promotions, and offers becomes vital for brands that want to reduce their cart abandonment rate and increase revenue. Other reasons for knowing all four factors are understanding your brand’s competitive edge in the market, consumer behavior, and highest/lowest values. Diminishing Cart Abandonment with eCom Competitive Analytics Cart abandonment has been a significant reason for losing eCom revenue or building a smooth consumer journey. Shopify states that eCom stores face a potential loss of $18 billion in annual revenue to cart abandonment, which states that brands often fail to build actionable marketing strategies. eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt, enables businesses to navigate this dynamic space with detailed insights and actionable items. Simultaneously, brands can track competitor performance across eCom stores and build strategies around real-time inputs. Takeaway Cart abandonment would never decrease on eCom platforms. However, businesses can certainly diminish the cart abandonment rate with valuable insights and simultaneously increase the online conversion rate using mScanIt insights. While insights offer multifold advantages, knowing the competitor’s intelligence in the market also provides many advantages. These include understanding consumer behavior, finding scalability alternatives, comparing analytics with company sales to know marketing conversions, etc. Leave us a comment, or connect with us to learn more about the benefits of eCom Competitive Analytics for your brand.

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Brand-Safety

The Myths Around Brand Safety and How to Combat Them

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In explaining brand safety, people often use the example of how a display campaign can go wrong. An example is an ad for a family-oriented brand appearing on a site with adult content. As another example, an airline advertisement will run alongside a news article about a plane crash. An ad inserted in such a way could start a public relations firestorm and ultimately damage the brand’s reputation. The purpose of a brand safety solution is to prevent such things from happening. Although these examples are vivid and easy to understand, they may make brand safety sound simpler than it is. An online survey found that 51% of millennials and Gen Xers are four times less likely to purchase and three times less likely to recommend a brand when they see ads in unsafe environments, even if the placement was not the brand’s fault. Unsafe ad placement can have lasting negative effects on your customer. It is more difficult than ever to protect brand safety. Brand safety systems need to evolve along with new media formats and address the concerns unique to each. In fact, it might be time to put an end to some myths and misconceptions about brand safety, including what exactly brand safety entails, who is responsible for it, and how to protect it. How to Combat Brand Safety Myths? Myth 1: Global, English Based Brand Safety Analysis Provide Regional Context There are 22 official languages in India, but only 5 are supported by Google. 95% of the videos consumed are in regional languages, according to a recent study. If this issue is not resolved, the regular blacklisting tools will become redundant. Brand safety issues may be universal, but each country and region has its own culture and expectations, making it unique and subjective. One region’s inappropriate and unsafe behavior may be acceptable in another’s culture. Due to these concerns, brands usually implement contextual targeting measures like keyword blocking and URL blocklists to protect their brands. These strategies, however, lack the flexibility and control necessary to safely use programmatic advertising today. Therefore, they’re ineffective. So why? Keywords and URL blocking rely on definitions of words to categorize content and the associated inventory as “safe” or “unsafe.” Additionally, these approaches often lead to over-blocking of safe content or incorrectly categorizing harmful content as safe, leading to both loss of money and increased risks. In addition, publishers struggle to monetize inventories while covering topical and newsworthy events. Regionalization is the new buzzword for solving brand safety concerns, and that’s what we need to understand. When it comes to analyzing brand safety, regionalization influences contextuality. Brand ads are also placed differently based on the target audience in a particular region, which is an important part of contextuality. Myth 2: Blacklisting Keywords is Blocklisting Keeping brands safe means more than blacklists The pandemic era has made brand safety a major concern for brands and marketers alike. Ads should not be displayed next to content that deals with morbidity, violence, hate speech, or other derogatory content. Blacklisting certain keywords to ensure that the ads are not displayed next to objectionable content is one of the most common ways to deal with such issues. It is not possible to successfully advertise and protect brands through keyword blacklisting. Keyword blacklisting assumes that the platform already knows the context of the content. It may be true for typical English-focused content, but regional content is a whole different story. The platforms do not support regional languages (especially in a diverse country like India) and because of that, keyword-based blacklisting does not work. For example, what if the terrorists use ‘bread’ instead of ‘bomb’ in their meta tags and descriptions and your ads show up next to videos of violent terrorist activities? In this way, blacklisted keywords are bypassed. Content creators avoid using unsafe tags when they submit their content to YouTube to get better marketing campaigns. Again, this defeats the purpose of keyword-based blacklisting. We need context-based blacklisting, which should be constantly updated based on the most recent news story and relevant to AI-powered algorithms. By doing so, the campaign’s effectiveness will be maximized while ensuring brand safety. Myth 3: Brand Safety Is Not My Issue This is wrong! Regardless of the industry, vertical, or scale of the enterprise, brand safety is imperative. In short, no matter what scale the enterprise functions at, no matter the industry it serves, one instance of unsafe advertising can destroy the company’s reputation forever. The modern consumer is more educated and aware than most marketers. Due to the powerful voice consumers have through social media, one negative comment or tweet can tarnish a brand’s reputation forever, thus compromising the brand’s safety. Even though the scale of the operation is small, digital advertising helps increase brand awareness. Within the same ecosystem are consumers who consume a wide variety of content every day. Imagine you are a brand that offers baby products, and one of your ads appears within an inventory that contains material that is surrounded by adult content. What’s next for you? For quite some time, there has been the misconception that brand safety is only for B2C companies. Isn’t it possible, though, that a b2b company can be negatively affected by the complex challenges the advertising ecosystem presents? According to a recent study conducted in Singapore, 7 out of 10 consumers believe that advertising with misleading content is the brand’s responsibility. Taking this into consideration, the detrimental impact of not addressing the issue rests with the brand. Myth 4: Brand Safety Has Nothing to Do with ROI and is an Unnecessary Cost Please reconsider! The majority of the time, unsafe content will also perform poorly for your campaign. Someone who is going to adult content is unlikely to click on your ad and go to your landing page! In general, ads on unsafe inventory will underperform and degrade the ROI of your campaign. Thus, by addressing brand safety (and protecting your brand), you also get the benefit of improved campaign performance and

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Digital-Ad-Campaign

Real Humans or Bot Humans – Is Your Digital Ad Campaign Seen by the Right Audience?

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The ad impressions are spiking high. The advertisers are feeling ecstatic. The publishers are making money. And then there is a shocking revelation. Are these impressions coming from a real human? No matter how effective your digital ad campaign is, it cannot add real value if it is not viewed by any real human. To resolve this, viewability as a metric was introduced to quantifiably measure how many ads are getting real exposure from users. Before moving forward, let’s first understand the meaning of ad viewability. What is Ad Viewability? A viewable impression is a standard metric of ad viewability defined by the International Advertising Bureau (IAB). According to them, an ad will be considered viewable when it appears at least 50% on screen for more than one second. This metric helps the advertisers to get a quantifiable percentage of ads that are viewed by real people. Why viewable impressions are important in digital advertising? In digital advertising, there has been very slow growth in adapting technology which ensures that the impression received is real. This means that a real human has seen the creative. Finally, this change is beginning to be a reality. Without a viewability metric, the advertisers cannot understand if their inventory is seen by people or not. Viewable impressions give a clear picture of how many ads are seen which further allows advertisers to precisely measure ad performance. Viewability Standards By MRC Many years ago, trade associations like the ANA left the advertisers in a dilemma of whether their ad was viewable or not. It was a genuine concern because if the ads are not viewable, then the scope of it impacting the digital marketing campaign is very less. This concern led to the setting up a standard of viewability by the Media Rating Council (MRC). According to the defined standards set by the MRC, an ad will be considered viewable if: 50% of a desktop display ad is in view for at least 1 second 50% of pixels of a desktop video ad are in view for at least 2 seconds. 30% of pixels of a large desktop ad unit (with 242,500 pixels) and larger is in view for at least 1 second. Expectations Vs Reality (Viewable and viewed) As per Statista, the viewability percentage of display ads in 2021 worldwide is almost 70 percent among which India has 55 percent. On the other hand, the video ad’s viewability is almost 74 percent according to Statista. There is a thin line between the ad being viewable (had an opportunity to be seen) and being viewed (had been seen in reality). Data released by Amplified Intelligence throws light on the gap between “viewable” and “viewed”. Expectation The advertisers are happy to see that the running campaigns are MRC compliant and receive an average of 70% impressions. They are expecting that this 70% is all human eyes. But here comes the horror. Reality According to the observation made by the Amplified Intelligence, out of the impressions served: 44% are MRC compliant but receive irrelevant active attention (avg. half second) 9% are MRC compliant but get zero attention. 17% are both MRC compliant and getting attraction for at least 2 seconds. This means that even the advertisers are thinking that they are paying for that 70% audience, but they are just paying for the 17%. And as a result, they don’t get the value as expected from the campaign. What Impacts the Viewability of an Ad? There are many factors affecting the viewability of an ad. Some of these are related to the website design and the ad placement. Whereas some are outside factors that are implanted by the fraudsters to churn money out of advertisers. Some of the common causes of poor viewability are: 1. Ad Blocker There is a set of browser plugins and filters that prevents an ad from loading. By the time ad is loading, the ad blockers identify these ad slots and block the creatives. As a result, the ad space remains blank, and the user doesn’t know about the ad. However, these ads are considered as served impressions for the ad networks and the advertisers eventually pay for it. 2. Bot Impressions A bot is an automated software program that performs pre-defined and repetitive tasks. These programs are technologically enabled by the fraudsters to download or refresh pages, scroll, click, and engage with the site content just like a real human. It is not easy to detect bots and most of the ad networks consider the bot traffic as real users. This further means that, the impressions served for the non-human visitors are counted as successful. It also reduces the viewability of the ads. 3. Ad Stacking Ad stacking is a common trick practiced by fraudsters where they place the ads in layers. This means that there are layers of ads placed on top of one another. As a result, though only the top ad is visible, the hidden ads are also considered as served and hence being charged to the advertiser’s ad spend. 4. Pixel Stuffing In this type of ad fraud, the fraudsters place 1×1 pixels around the website as placements for ad creatives. These pixels remain invisible to the visitor when the page loads, but it is considered “impressions served” for the ad networks. 5. Inactive Tabs One of the most common reasons for low ad viewability is when the impression is counted in a situation where the user has left before the loading of the ad. Approximately, 40% of visitors leave a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Another situation is when the user has opened multiple tabs or continues to browse other programs during the ad is served. In this case, even though the user has not viewed the ad, the impressions are still counted. 6. Wrong Positioning Sometimes the position of an ad is not accurate to the window dimension. This eventually creates in loading of the ad on certain types of devices. Another case is when the ads are placed

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Out-of-Stock

Out-of-Stock: The Most Dangerous Phrase in eCom

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Online shopping has experienced a significant boom with the increased number of web users in the last two years due to COVID-19. Finding the desired product and discovering new ones have also contributed to the increased conversions on eCom platforms. The new peaked velocity of transactions has made managing out-of-stocks challenging for brands. Stockouts mean the product is no longer available on the eCom platform and has multifold brand implications, not just limited to purchases/transactions. Out-of-stock leads to switching to another brand, checkouts on another platform, finding an alternative solution, diminished customer base, and more. Loyal customers may no longer stay associated with the brand if they can’t buy its products and might share their grief in reviews. Experiencing it during lightning deals can increase the chances of such negative feedback. Some eCom platforms may offer better product rankings to listings with higher sales/conversion. The ongoing and occasional sales, competitor offers, and availability of similar products on the eCom platform makes managing out-of-stock an essential factor for businesses. Reasons and Implications of Out-of-Stock The factors for product unavailability on the eCom platform can get segregated into mismanaged inventories, wrong product demand forecasts, supplier-side issues, etc. Whatever the reason, the customer becomes dissatisfied with the brand/seller and even more challenging to re-acquire, assuming all the problems get resolved, which is an impossible scenario. Our eCommerce Intelligence Solution reviewed the change in the brand for grocery products and found that the switch is almost immediate. Customers don’t wait to buy “atta” until it arrives at the specific store and is available through the particular seller. Instead, they find alternatives for purchasing the product. Our research states that customers who want to stay loyal to a brand or buy a specific product would go to lengths to switch apps or websites that are readily available and make transactions. Stockouts can also diminish the product demand, which directly decreases SKUs and even causes delayed purchases, as the brand continuously faces issues increasing the customer base. Furthermore, the brand would have to boost the advertising budget to achieve the previous customer base and cultivate marketing spending to increase the loyalty base. Fortunately, managing stockouts is possible for brands through eCom Competitive Analytics powered by mFilterIt. mScanIt Helps Brands to Manage Stockouts Our solution analyzes the stockout of your brand and your competitors. It offers a clear picture of the brand ranking. Reviewing these results offers numerous other benefits. For example, brands can identify and alert the responsible teams when the stock status changes. The solution also scans average availability demand across city, pin code, brand, sub-brand, variant, etc. Figuring availability and unavailability can offer many more advantages. For example, the brand can review the best platform for a particular product. Similarly, the brand can check the demand percentage of a single product across eCom stores. Moreover, a competitive analysis can give the scope of demand for such products on different eCom platforms and change SKUs. Additionally, the brand can discover the hero product that meets the availability criteria across eCom marketplaces. mScanIt offers daily, weekly, and monthly to manage availability across prominent eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, BlinkIt, etc. Managing out-of-stock can help brands understand the regions or warehouses with the highest/lowest availability problems and work on solutions to resolve them. By managing and diminishing stockouts, brands can increase customer satisfaction, sales, seller engagements, and market visibility. Takeaway No customer likes to read “The product is currently unavailable,” and keeping the customer satisfied is a brand priority. Out-of-stock causes severe damages to a brand and leads to a higher cost of recovering from them. Therefore, using an availability tracker like mScanIt can benefit a brand. The solution also analyzes competitor performance and offers a complete picture of the brand’s product rankings across stores. Such a solution offers multifold advantages to a brand on a single dashboard, making it easier to review and make decisions. Moreover, brands can make retail execution easier with a comprehensive solution scanning the web marketplaces and delivering customized reports.

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eCom-Brands

Negative Reviews: How Should eCom Brands Respond?

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Any brand’s reputation relies on the feedback of its consumers, and most eCom brands have at least a few measurable sarcastic and derogatory reviews across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other ecom stores. As per Statista, 48% of fashion consumers in India purchased a product after seeing reviews and ratings. On the other hand, another survey revealed that 36% of ecommerce shoppers have stated that their low online product ratings were rejected, whereas 30% of the buyers couldn’t say if they were rejected/accepted. A major portion of negative ratings gets eliminated from the ecom store product listings, while a significant proportion of the buyers rely heavily on reviews and ratings, and impact of negative reviews’ seems grave. Although negative reviews paint a horrible picture in the consumer’s minds, they also offer a positive edge, i.e., bring trustworthiness or genuineness to the product listings. Too many ratings and reviews with positive responses often make the consumers believe that the feedbacks are fake/influenced. According to a survey, 65% of consumers don’t trust the product’s ratings. Simultaneously, 68% of online shoppers consider reviews as valuable as recommendations and lay their trust in them. Implications of Negative Reviews A buyer reads at least ten reviews before trusting an online business. Moreover, 62% of eCommerce brands feel that their reputation is threatened by negative online reviews regarding products or services. Other major areas of concern for these brands include loss of revenue, diminished product visibility, decreased add-to-cart actions, low engagement, lower SERP, decreased consumer base, etc. Also, some industries like fashion (mentioned above) depend upon reviews and ratings for conversions and can suffer heavy losses and overstocking issues. Here is a summary of the implication of negative reviews and ratings: Reputation Damage: High number of negative reviews creates distrust of the brand and/or product. Also, recovering from a damaged reputation becomes a costly affair. Decreased Revenue: According to a source, U.S businesses with 1 to 1.5- star Google ratings incurred 33% lower profit than others. Bad feedback leads to low trust and lower conversions. Gives an Edge to the Competition: Customers often avoid products with negative reviews and ratings. They become tempted to opt for alternative or similar options. Diminishes SERP: Google searches often show the best results with positive reviews and ratings. According to a source, product listings with negative feedback decrease their rankings on search engines. Is There a Need to Respond to Reviews? According to a source, consumers that read reviews also paid attention to the responses. While shopping for a product, buyers want to check if the brand values its customers and the actions the brand is willing to take in case of an issue related to the product or retailer. By knowing these facts, ecommerce shoppers can make appropriate buying decisions. Moreover, responding to negative, neutral, and positive reviews enhances the brand’s impression in the eyes of the consumers, as they can see the efforts they are making. Another perspective from a source is that 70% of consumers would become more willing to re-engage with a brand or retailer if there is a response to negative reviews. Besides this, the Harris survey shows that 33% of buyers post a positive review if they receive a response to their negative feedback, and 34% of the shoppers delete their negative reviews. So, brands uphold the responsibility of responding to reviews as a priority, and most focus more on the reasons for negative and neutral reviews. What Guidelines Should Brands Follow While Responding to Negative Reviews? Negative reviews impact brand reputation and decrease the potential customer base and sales/revenue. Also, we have cleared that responding to reviews is necessary for brands. But, brands should follow a few guidelines religiously while responding: Monitor Reviews & Ratings on eCom Stores and Social Media The best method for knowing about the rising customer issues across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other online shopping stores is through eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt. The solution helps to learn more about the customer experiences by highlighting the positive, neutral, and negative words commonly used under the reviews and ratings. Simultaneously, an extended solution of mScanIt is a deep dive into sentiment intensity, which tracks instances of brand mentions on the open web using AI, even when the brands are not hash-tagged. By using these solutions, brands can ensure that they can instantly view a spike in negative review intensity and reduce the response time using the insights provided on the mScanIt dashboard. Customize Your Crafted Responses Giving a bad response to pressing issues mentioned in reviews states that the brand is not diving deep into the buyer’s concerns. Moreover, many customers would look for brands that give personalized responses, addressing their problems. The easiest method to achieve this goal is to continue using the scheduled responses but customizing the responses. It would give the brand a good impression and increase loyalty/re-engagements. So, you should acknowledge the problem, provide assistance for addressing the concerns, and give assurance of response time & resolution. According to Statista, 47% of customers from the U.S. and 59% of global shoppers have a favorable view of the brands if they respond to customers’ complaints or service questions on social media. Decrease the Response Time Upset customers tend to share their experiences on social media platforms, aside from e-commerce’s review and rating section. According to a source, consumers also wait for a response for their review for up to a week. However, health and safety issues can cause dramatic issues and require quicker responses even while investigating the problem. Assuring an upset buyer that the brand is looking into the problem and will get back to the customer could diminish lawsuits and bad publicity. Conclusion Negative reviews will remain never-ending, as would positive or neutral ratings and feedback. Therefore, tracking customer experiences through social media and the e-commerce review & rating section has become crucial. The best method for monitoring the brand or product reputation is through eCom Competitive Analytics, highlighting the commonly used words. Simultaneously, brands should address the customer’s pressing matter through personalized and quick responses. By doing so, brands have a greater chance of improving their

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