Cut your ad spend!
Be sensitive.
Drop vendors!
Be helpful.
Cut staff!
Engage.
Stop the bleeding!
Breath.
The stream of tips, suggestions, information, and updates that has been drowning the professional community around the world is bouncing between truths, inaccuracies, panic, and wholesome advice. And if you’re in marketing – the joint connecting a brand with its consumers – you have been on the receiving end of perhaps too much of that lately.
Too much information, especially at a time when we need to come up with new business plans, is not just very time consuming, it is also risky. When you don’t have the resources or the attention to verify sources and separate the wheat from the chaff, you might end up following the wrong lead.
And when room for mistakes is extremely narrow, it could be one blow too much.
So, you know what’s coming now, yes? Indeed, another tip. You’re right.
But, hopefully, you’ll find this one (just one!) agnostic and helpful enough to appreciate the time you took to read this and implement it into your strategy.
We’re talking about the data. The most important thing to cling to, in times of uncertainty more than ever.
I’m sure you’ve seen it in a bunch of different “tip” articles. I trust you are already engaged in different sorts of data initiatives. And as PostFunnel is owned and operated by the data geeks of Optimove, we thought we can help here a bit.
To do that, I decided to focus on the one thing that is currently on top of probably all our readers’ minds – consumer behavior and trends. And not just because this is where your analysis must begin when coming up with new tactics. But also, since the way consumers behave right now seems to be changing every week, and keeping close track is ever so vital to the success of your business.
So, we gathered a few sources we know and trust, that give you good glimpses into that kind of data precisely.
Optimove Pulse
Let’s start with the hand that feeds us. Optimove Pulse is a free tool that enables you to assess your overall performance against industry wide KPIs, collected from over 400 companies worldwide. It gives you access to where the wind is blowing when it comes to critical engagement metrics. Optimove Pulse helps you gain a comparative insight and clearer understanding of which KPIs you need to improve.
It has two sets of data for you to investigate. The first, online gaming – also regularly covered by professional gaming media, including this monthly report published by iGamingBusiness.com.
In the most recent one, published yesterday with data from March, we see deposit amounts and conversion rates were up in the casino vertical as sports bettors, starved of fixtures, turned their attention to other games instead.
“Since the beginning of March, the number of casino players has been increasing every week. In part this is due to an increase in sports bettors turning to casino games,” the report says. Which is in line with other trends reported on this update on COVID-19’s impact on online gaming, where the main takeaway is that cross-selling is key right now – and completely doable. Cause data is the building block – but deriving marketing tactics from it is just as critical to your success.
Weekly Gaming Pulse
Due to the current situation, Optimove also just launched a new interactive report, with more frequent data updates, and quick insights. You can find it on the new Coronavirus Gaming Pulse page.
What might catch your attention immediately upon checking that page out is this trend:
The decline in online sport bettors, that is compensated by the incline in almost any other game. For example, Casino:
Retail Pulse
When we jump over to numbers from retailers, and looking at the Health and Beauty segment, the exceptionally sharp 12% increase in items per order really catches the eye.
We can only assume it’s a result of people stockpiling supplies.
WITHIN Retail Pulse
The next source, full of interactive charts with a focus on eCommerce metrics, comes from the WITHIN agency – and is very much complementary to the information on Optimove Pulse.
“[We are] monitoring the effects of COVID-19 on eCommerce,” the report explains, “Using data from a sampling of clients, we are tracking year-over-year trends in eCommerce revenue, ad spend, and conversion rate relative to the pre-COVID benchmark period.”
And here’s one thing I’d like to highlight from it. On the one hand, the upward trend we see on the Essentials chart below is something we could perhaps guess.
(source: screenshot from WITHIN Retail Pulse)
Right? And similarly, we could perhaps anticipate a decline in revenues in Fashion. But, could you have seen this segment spiking right now, so quickly after it went down so sharply?
(source: screenshot from WITHIN Retail Pulse)
The fact that consumers are now spending more on fashion items is in line with the trends that Optimove reported as well, as detailed in this blog post. It also shares some action-items based on what the numbers show. See for yourself!
Attentive Trends by Verticals
We also recommend regularly checking out Attentive’s COVID-19: eCommerce Trends & Tactics page.
And as charts like the one below show it’s easy to explain in simple terms…
(source: screenshot from Attentive COVID-19: E-Commerce Trends & Tactics)
The Sports Apparel & Equipment chart (below) is maybe sending us to more sophisticated sociological explanations. Something about the significance of worn-out yoga pants when Zooming into a class.
(source: screenshot from Attentive COVID-19: E-Commerce Trends & Tactics)
Recent Reports
It’s also similar to the analysis by Coresight Research and Klarna.
“The crisis has driven shoppers away from brick-and-mortar and back to the safety of their home offices and couches, making online shopping an attractive option for those who are still inclined to spend,” writes Kate Nishimura on SourcingJournal, “The good news? A substantial portion of those buying more online are spending on apparel,” Coresight Research analysts said.
And when ChainStoreAge wrote about the same research, Dan Berthiaume highlighted how when comparing week-over-week, in the week ending on March 28th, 2020, the apparel, footwear and accessories category’s share of all Klarna-enabled purchases increased by 18% among Gen Zers, 13% by millennials, and 4% by Gen Xers – so, across the board.
Make sure to check these pages and such reports out regularly. Then move into action-items. Which we won’t do here, cause we promised this article gives you just one tip. Okay, two.