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Bricks to clicks: Brands expanding their footprints

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It’s not about the wings, it’s about the will to fly high. Shopping has been traditionally about look & feel, banking high on customers’ needs, and getting assured by trusting what they see. But times have changed Brands, digital-first, or offline stores, all are moving to the new sky of digital retail expanding their wings and flying high with massive boosts in omnichannel sales in the post-pandemic new normal. Let’s explore how brands are expanding their digital commerce, what’s then towards it, and the perks of going digital. Big Brands Moving to Digital Stores and Luxury eCom Marketplaces The implementation of lockdown measures has not impacted people’s expenditures significantly; rather, it has led to a shift in their spending habits. In response to this change in consumer behavior, well-known fashion brands have adapted by investing in their online shopping platforms and eCommerce stores. As a result, major players in the fashion industry, such as H&M, Puma, Hugo Boss, and Zalando, have witnessed a remarkable surge in sales and an expansion of their customer base over the past few months. For example, H&M, the Swedish fashion retailer that ranks as the world’s second-largest, managed to recover from a 57% decline in local sales through a nearly one-third increase in online sales. Puma, the world-known sportswear firm has decided to invest more in online logistics after they saw their e-commerce sales grow by around 40% in the first quarter and by 77% in April. Showcase For Offline Sale In today’s digital landscape, where a majority (63%) of shopping instances commence online, it has become crucial for businesses to establish a strong online presence to reach potential customers. Even if these customers ultimately make their purchases from local brick-and-mortar stores, it is vital for companies to showcase their products or services on the web. However, the rising costs associated with digital marketing and the need for eCommerce adjustments have raised concerns about the sustainability of exclusively direct-to-consumer (DTC) business models. According to the State of Fashion 2023 report, brands will need to diversify their channel strategies beyond DTC to foster growth and success. Why do brands need to expand their online footprint? Most brands across the world are available online now in the post-pandemic world, even the luxury stores and houses of brands are also available on niche luxury online platforms or selling via their own online store. The ease of accessibility is the key. The ease of purchase and expanding reach to new shoppers who prefer online stores even for luxury shopping. Customer experience. Seamless transition from offline to online saves on massive inventory management costs and store costs. It translates the offline shop experience to online with more consumer-friendly options. What do brands need to do when they decide to go online? Understand the eCom landscape & competition: When a brand goes online, it needs to get hold of the market first to understand what & where it wants to sell and who it is targeting. Understand competition various product performance matrices as it has sharp contrast, starkly different from a brick and mortar sales competition. Know your target: The target customers need to be identified as the brand decides to move into new territory in the online segment. What future holds? The future looks bright as brick-and-mortar stores can co-exist with online marketplaces. The brands on the shelf of the store now making a smooth transition to digital shelf with more control over product performance. The growing digital retail marketplaces with new technology like augmented reality are enhancing the shopping experience like never before. Brands also moving towards competitive intelligence to stay ahead of market trends with insights and analysis vs competitors across geographies and platforms. The sales channels on the online shopping spectrum are also evolving with new avenues with on-the-go shopping potential – Live commerce and Social commerce are extending the reach of brands beyond the bounds of platforms. But still, eCommerce marketplaces remain the key for a brand to boost sales. The rise of Digital Native Brands (DNB) has also opened door the to an innovative set of products and more options for customers along with Brands which has both online & offline presence. The race to reach the top shelf is heating up but the future looks exciting for more Brands across industries and sectors on the eCommerce landscape. Conclusion To sum it up – the World is changing and brands need to change with it. Marketing strategies and sales channels are expanding and online sales is the bandwagon they need to hop on. Expanding digital footprints in the eCommerce arena is the right move. But brands need to back the decision with data-driven decisions, getting that top spot on e-commerce marketplaces is not that easy. Gear up with digital commerce intelligence, and make your marketing strategies based on insights & analytics while keeping a sharp eye on market trends and competitors’ activities. Spread your winds in eCom Sky, fly high, and make your journey more worth it. Click here to connect with us and learn more about what your brand needs to expand its digital footprint in the global digital commerce ecosystem.

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Fraud Exposed Series: Unmasking Device Spoofing and Its Impact on Advertisers!

Leave a Comment / Blog, Mobile Ad Fraud /

Your ad campaign data is probably skewed. The platforms you think are driving results may be delivering numbers, but there’s a chance they may be only delivering numbers. The reason? Ad fraud. Ad fraud takes many forms, and device spoofing is one of the most common ones. Spoofing allows fraudsters to hide behind a veil and carry out fraudulent activities. Unfortunately, because of the lack of awareness and ability to detect device spoofing, advertisers lose millions of dollars to ad fraud. This article will solve both of those problems. In the upcoming sections, you will learn what device spoofing is, how it is carried out, how it impacts advertisers, and how you can protect your business from mobile ad fraud that uses device spoofing. Let’s jump right in and start with the basics. What is Device Spoofing? The word “spoof” literally means “hoax” or “trick”. Device spoofing is the act of tricking advertisers by presenting a device as a different device. Let’s understand this with a simple example. If you are running an ad for app downloads, you are only interested in traffic coming from mobile devices. With device spoofing, fraudsters can present a server in their data center as a mobile device visiting the publisher’s website and clicking on your ad. Fraudsters employ a variety of technical processes to achieve this. One such method is known as User Agent (UA) spoofing. The User-Agent string of every device carries many data points that are used to identify the device. These include the device make and model, processor information, location information (based on IP address), and information about the operating system running on the device. UA spoofing allows fraudsters to falsify this information. Most advertisers also use a technique called device fingerprinting to identify the devices clicking on their ad and subsequently accessing their website or landing page. This includes going beyond the UA string and looking at additional information to identify devices. This may include GPS information, caller ID, and other technical device information like unique Android/Apple ID, graphic card information, etc. However, using techniques similar to UA spoofing, fraudsters can fake almost every piece of information associated with a device. Surprisingly, UA spoofing is a useful tool in software development circles. Developers employ it to test their applications on different devices without actually having to access them on other devices. Unfortunately, this means that UA spoofing is a relatively easy undertaking, especially with the right developer tools. Even fraudsters with limited resources can use this technique to commit mobile ad fraud. What’s more alarming is that this exact method can be utilized to get around a large variety of online security protocols. This means that the use of device spoofing can be used to conduct a variety of fraudulent activities including, but not limited to: Advertising click fraud Malware injection Spam attacks Account hijack Card fraud Online advertisers are one of the biggest targets of device spoofing-led fraudulent activities. How does device spoofing impact advertisers? As mentioned earlier, committing ad fraud using device spoofing is relatively easy. There is device spoofing software available on the dark web. One can obtain such software for as little as $130. Combining the abilities of this software with a VPN network, fraudsters can easily commit thousands of dollars worth of fraud in a matter of a few hours. This has made committing ad fraud so easy that many fraudsters use this method as simply a way to make some extra cash. However, this can mean a collective loss of billions of dollars in ad spending for advertisers. Alarmingly, this loss isn’t the only negative impact that advertisers experience because of device spoofing and fraud. Besides the obvious loss, device spoofing also messes with the data advertisers use to make campaign-related decisions. For instance, running an app promotion campaign and seeing a lot of traffic from iPhones may motivate you to push a larger percentage of your budget on App Store advertising. However, if a certain percentage of this traffic is fake, then this decision will not deliver the results you may be anticipating. This, in turn, can lead to more wastage of ad budgets. In other words, device spoofing results in the loss of advertising budgets and leads advertisers to misjudged conclusions that subsequently lead to bad decisions. Why is it essential to take action against device spoofing? Device spoofing, and ad fraud, in general, must be stopped to ensure advertisers continue to place their trust in digital advertising. This is necessary to ensure authentic publishers can thrive online. Online advertising presents a lucrative opportunity for advertisers of all sizes. It’s a technology that supports small and local businesses and enables large businesses to expand quickly. It levels the playing field and enables small advertisers to compete with the giants of their industry. If ad fraud isn’t controlled in time and advertisers lose their trust in online advertising, the future of digital advertising will indeed be bleak. Device spoofing is a useful technique that is being misused to conduct fraud. Since it is relatively easy, it presents a lucrative opportunity for those with questionable ethics and a will to make quick money. We’ve already discussed how device spoofing results in a dual loss for advertisers. However, another party this practice hurts is authentic publishers. Because some publishers with malicious intent, it becomes difficult for advertisers to trust any publisher or advertising network. Practices like device spoofing pose a big threat to the overall reputation of the digital advertising industry. How to protect your app from device spoofing? Putting a stop to device spoofing is necessary for advertisers. Unfortunately, there aren’t many manual ways to track instances of device spoofing and avoid fraud. Advertisers will need to depend on an ad fraud detection. Using such a tool to track and block ad fraud isn’t just more convenient. It ensures that your ads and your app are completely off-limits for fraudulent traffic. For you, this means better use of your ad budget and access to more accurate

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consideration-phase

Consideration Phase: What Makes Shoppers Pick Your Product?

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The second phase of the eCom Customer Journey is where shoppers evaluate and consider your product The job is not done yet. Creating awareness and generating interest in your product is just the beginning. To truly win over shoppers and make your product the top bargain, you need to excel in the consideration phase. “ACCORDING TO A SURVEY REPORT, 85% OF CONSUMERS COMPARE PRODUCTS BEFORE MAKING A PURCHASE ONLINE” This is the phase where shoppers evaluate your product for their purchase decision. They go beyond the product description and start asking questions like: Is the product available? Does the price suit their budget? What are other customers saying about the product? When will it be delivered? These are the key questions that need to be addressed during this phase. Checkpoint I: Quest for the perfect price Pricing plays a crucial role in a shopper’s decision-making process. It is essential to analyze and determine the perfect price point for your product. Conduct thorough market research and competitor analysis to ensure your pricing is competitive and attractive to potential customers. To optimize their performance with the right pricing brands need: Identify and monitor pricing & discount trends Boost market positioning with the better pricing decision Identify MAP violations across platforms “ACCORDING TO A SURVEY REPORT, 57% OF CONSUMERS CITE PRICE AS THE MOST IMPORTANT PURCHASE CRITERION” Checkpoint II: Stock it up Product availability is a significant factor influencing purchase decisions. Nothing turns away a shopper more than finding their desired product out of stock. Implement a robust inventory management system to track and ensure sufficient stock levels. Anticipate demand patterns and replenish stock accordingly to avoid missed opportunities. Being aware of their stock situation across geography and platforms brands need: Insights on competitors Out-of-Stock (OOS) gives for pushing own brand on such geographies The optimized stock status also ensures that competition does not eat up their brand market Upswing buy-box wins with improved availability across geographies “44 PERCENT OF CONSUMERS CHOSE TO PURCHASE THE PRODUCT AT A DIFFERENT RETAILER WHEN THE PRODUCT WAS OUT OF STOCK.” Checkpoint III: Lend Your Ears Listening to your customers is vital in the consideration phase. Analyze customer feedback, reviews, and ratings to gain valuable insights into their experiences with your product. It helps brands address any concerns or issues promptly and make necessary improvements based on their feedback. This not only builds customer trust but also helps in product refinement. To understand customer sentiment brands need: Provide actionable insights for every department in the company to improve product pricing, packaging, and logistics Optimize product experience for the customer and thereby reviews and ratings Insights unraveling what’s working for the brand and where need to improve in terms of price, quality, quantity, packaging, taste/flavor, genuineness, delivery, etc. “ABOUT 70% OF CONSUMERS HAVE CHANGED THEIR PERCEPTION OF A BRAND BASED ON IF AND HOW THE COMPANY REPLIED TO AN ONLINE REVIEW” Checkpoint IV: Seller Check Collaborating with reliable sellers is crucial for maintaining a positive brand image. Regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of your sellers. Ensure they meet your brand’s standards in terms of product quality, customer service, and adherence to pricing policies. Take appropriate actions if any issues arise to maintain consistency and reliability. To stay updated on seller activities your brand need to: Monitor Best performing brand in the sub-category Actionable insights for making effective decisions to upswing product into being a best seller Boost the brand’s positioning in the market Checkpoint V: Deliver on time Timely delivery is a key factor in customer satisfaction. Monitor and optimize your delivery process to ensure that orders are fulfilled promptly. Set realistic delivery time frames and communicate them clearly to customers. By consistently delivering on time, you build trust and enhance the overall customer experience. For uplifting delivery performance and build customer trust your brand need to: Optimize delivery time/TAT Ensure faster delivery across product categories especially for the best sellers Upswing Amazon Buy Box win percentage Checkpoint VI: Stay SKU healthy Each stock-keeping unit (SKU) represents a unique product variant. It is crucial to track the performance and health of your SKUs. Analyse, identify underperforming SKUs, and take necessary actions such as promotions, marketing campaigns, or discontinuation of low-performing SKUs. By optimizing SKU performance, you maximize profitability and align your product offerings with customer preferences. Understand your SKUs and optimize performance through: Deep Insights into Perfect Page Analysis of SKU Monitoring inventory, and financial analysis at the SKU level Find new ways to push products based on perfect page scores and better the product experience Final Thoughts To be on top of the competition, brands need an extra impetus to stay ahead. Digital commerce intelligence provides that edge by optimizing every touch point across the customer journey. The consideration phase is a make-or-break moment for brands as customers evaluate and make purchase decisions. Imagine a scenario where your product goes out of stock during a holiday season sale, or your competitors are driving more sales through dynamic pricing and discounts. To avoid such scenarios, it is crucial to optimize the consideration phase using mScanIt digital commerce intelligence and rewrite your brand’s success story. Wait! It’s not over yet the final phase purchase phase is still due. Follow up and discover what your brand needs to optimize the customer journey and boost efficiency across the three phases.

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How Can Competitive Pricing Analysis Boost eCommerce Growth

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Things are changing rapidly in the digital commerce arena. A lot of smart, socially conscious, and sustainable D2C startups are entering the fray, each one telling the customers why they need to rethink product choices and buy only the products on offer. While that is the job marketers must do, what they need to remember is that for online shoppers, price is still a key consideration. You might hear that product pricing is no longer relevant, and customers prefer quality over discount now. That might be right for particular cases and luxury commerce products but the comparison of average prices and trying to get products at lower rates is something that always attracts online shoppers. Barring some instances, customers tend to do a thorough pricing comparison to identify the best deals and buy from sellers that offer more suitable prices. That is where the challenge lies. There are new brands entering markets almost every day and it is humanly impossible to keep track of the product pricing of each new player. When you look at a platform like Amazon, chances are that sellers offer a discount that causes variations in the pricing of the same item, and customers would naturally go for the seller that offers the best value. Competitive pricing analysis and smart product pricing is the only way to beat the competition, and for that, digital commerce players need to use digital commerce intelligence tools that enable the monitoring of price trends and facilitate data-driven dynamic pricing. What is Competitive Pricing Analysis? Competitive pricing analysis is the process through which digital commerce brands can undertake competitive analytics of the pricing strategies of their rivals. They can monitor price trends, and choose competition-based pricing. When such pricing strategies are adopted, brands can identify and cover the market gaps by ensuring that they offer discounts or pricing that makes the products more appealing to the customers than the competition. Let’s take a deeper look at some of how competitive pricing analysis can boost eCommerce brand growth across the digital commerce ecosystem. – Outpacing the competition: One of the biggest benefits of undertaking pricing analysis is that it enables brands to monitor price trends continuously, and they can base their pricing decision on the prevalent trends. You can sweet spot the pricing and outpace the competition through such smart pricing strategies. – Formulating a data-driven pricing strategy: Since competitive pricing analysis empowers brands to monitor market trends, you can use the right competitive analytics tools to understand the price metrics and figure out the best average price for the product. This ensures that the price is neither high enough to discourage the customers nor too low to make you lose out on potential revenue. You also get to identify which products are popular and trending, and which ones are not, and adopt a dynamic pricing strategy to boost sales accordingly. – Tracking MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) violations (also called Pricing violations) A study revealed that 50% of the time, unauthorized sellers ignore a brand’s Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) guidelines. These violations adversely affect a brand reputation and also reduce profit margins. That is why you need to monitor the minimum advertised price violations. However, it is almost an impossible task manually since there are going to be a large number of products on multiple eCommerce marketplaces. For instance, an authorized seller be selling product A above MAP, but someone else on another portal could be selling it at a 5% lower price. You won’t know it, but will bleed sales and revenue. That is where it is extremely important to use digital product pricing trackers that can identify minimum advertised price violations and enable remedial action by your brand. If a product is sold below the threshold price it could severely hamper brand reputation. – Offering Attractive pricing and discounts boosts customer acquisition and retention When you undertake pricing analysis and monitor all pricing trends, you can create pricing strategies that are competitive and attractive. Customers would not only buy from you but keep coming back if they perceive the brand as value-for-money and trustworthy. In the competitive environs, where customer acquisition is getting costlier by the day, and greater lifetime value (LTV) through customer retention is key to growth, this is one advantage you can’t overlook. Conclusion There is no doubt that modern-day consumers are usually more aware, conscious, and better informed than the average brick-and-mortar store customers. However, pricing still holds the key to market dominance and acquiring more customers quickly. By adopting digital pricing analysis tools, you can create pricing strategies that are more profitable, sustainable, and appealing to the target audience. mScanIt, Digital commerce intelligence is the key to expanding the customer base and staying ahead of competitors across the digital commerce landscape. Get in touch to learn more about pricing analysis.

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How to boost product discoverability with keyword recommendation

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Most shoppers know what they want, approximately 43% of shoppers go straight to the search bar Whenever we want to buy anything online whether it is a grocery item, a gadget, or a pair of shoes, we would invariably type in the words that describe what we are looking for. It could be ‘black running shoes’ or ‘basmati rice,’ or ‘best smartphone under 50k’ and so on. Typically, what customers look for is the type of products and often not a specific product from a particular brand. In the eCommerce setting, the search results will show a brand’s product in response to a query containing such organic keywords only when the brand has integrated the right approaches toward SEO keywords along with key elements that makes products more discoverable. What is Product Discoverability? In the e-commerce landscape, large aggregator marketplaces have such extensive options for each type of product that the customers can’t look at each offering that matches the search. Even if you sell a white shirt and the customer is looking for the same on Amazon, they might not see your product. That is why brands need to understand the customers, and their intent to purchase a product, and then present the product closest to what the customers seem to be looking for. Smart product discoverability tactics enable brands to display the products likely to be the best matches for the customer’s search. When customers can see the right products faster and get better offers, chances are that sales conversions will be higher. Role of Keywords in Product Discoverability 1. SEO Optimization Product discoverability is critical for digital commerce players. Whenever customers search online for your type of products, they should be able to see the brand. This is what we can achieve through SEO optimization. The first thing that a brand needs to do is to use the right keyword. A keyword analysis is key to identifying the relevant keywords that the audience is most likely to use for searching the products. These tools would analyze search volumes, competition, and various other factors that can improve the search rank of the keywords that you use. Companies also need to analyze the keywords that competitors are using. When a competitor’s products are ranking high, you can analyze and find out what keywords are working best, and use similar keywords in your product listings. However, it must be kept in mind that the content used in your product description should appear genuine and contextual, and you must not stuff keywords for the sake of it. Usage of long-tail keywords (phrases that are more specific than generic) in product descriptions, titles, or tags, enables greater product discoverability to the real-time audience. Product titles are a vital aspect of this strategy and they must always be optimized through high-ranking keywords. Regular, real-time performance analysis of keywords would boost the share of the shelf in the digital commerce ecosystem, and the brand would be able to scale search rank in a way that reduces the need to spend more on keyword bidding. Most shoppers know what they want, according to a survey by Catalyst Digital  43% of shoppers go straight to the search bar which makes keywords more important for product discovery. Further, several obstacles in product discoverability can be overcome by smart SEO strategies. For instance, the search ranking of product pages is affected by the content, imagery, and information that is provided on the page. By using good quality images, text that is easy to understand, relevant, and authentic and the addition of further details about the product can lead to superior discoverability. 2. Expand The Reach of Products Expanding the reach of the product implies that it is made available to a larger audience through multiple channels. You can optimize product listings on e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart etc by improving titles, and tags, and adding images and videos that can better display the products. Another key channel to expand its reach is social media. Most digital commerce brands use platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to engage audiences across different regions and boost sales opportunities. Running advertising campaigns featuring sponsored keywords on Google Ads is likely to help find more customers looking for products in the category that you offer. Such campaigns should also integrate discounts and promotions as consumers relish great deals that save money and deliver value. Such promotions also help in generating buzz and increase brand visibility. One of the most impactful options to expand product reach is to optimize the product listings for mobile viewers. Mobile commerce through smartphone apps is already big and enables users to find products. 3. Monitor the Brand’s Organic and Sponsored Discoverability Once the brand’s organic and sponsored discoverability is boosted, it is also important to monitor the same and continually analyze the performance for improvement areas and greater outcomes of the keyword bidding activities online. It is important to regularly revise and monitor keyword performance and keep replacing low-performing keywords with other relevant options. Using advanced AI-powered digital commerce intelligence tools with keyword recommendations to monitor search rankings, keyword performance, and discoverability with a comprehensive dashboard can exponentially boost discoverability. 4. Monitor keyword-based digital Share of Shelf performance Digital share of shelf performance monitoring requires constant tracking of the product/brand visibility in the SERP. Setting up tracking through an advanced digital tool that would help in tracking search volumes, and analysis of snippets, images, and videos to help in the identification of best-performing content is essential. At the same time, one needs to monitor the share of the shelf for the competitors and as mentioned earlier, analyze their keywords and content strategies. 5. Track and analyze discoverability trends vis-à-vis competition across e-commerce marketplaces It might be challenging to track and analyze the discoverability of your products on eCommerce marketplaces, especially in comparison to the competition, but through a smart and strategic approach, it is doable. What you need is to clearly define the metrics that have to be tracked. Whether

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omnichannel-commerce–gateway

Omnichannel Commerce – Gateway to The Open Internet Sales

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Gone are the days when customers were solely reliant on shop visits or logging into their desktops to do online shopping. Today’s customers are making purchases while in bed (43%), at work (23%), during their commute or even from the bathroom (20%), and almost at any hour of the day from their smartphones. Therefore, it is clear that for any retail brand especially in the eCommerce domain, growth lies in building an omnichannel eCommerce presence. What is Omnichannel eCommerce? Omnichannel retail is an integrated sales approach that puts customers first. Unlike the conventional practice of using marketing tactics to draw customers to a specific website, omnichannel retail integrates websites, smartphone apps, social commerce, eCommerce marketplaces, and even physical retail outlets to reach customers wherever they are whenever they need the type of products and services that the brands offer. In omnichannel retail, the different platforms don’t operate in silos, but everything gets seamlessly integrated to optimize the customer experience. Thus, building an effective omnichannel presence requires the elimination of the boundaries between different sales channels and allows customers to make the purchase through whichever touchpoint they are on. Why should brands go for Omnichannel eCommerce? It helps brands reach new customer segments – Customer preferences are rapidly changing and today, different categories of online shoppers have emerged. Despite the fluidity, there are a lot of customers who relish sticking to their preferred mode of shopping only. For instance, the millennials and Gen Z use smartphone apps to make purchases, and shopping through social media platforms like Instagram and even WhatsApp is gaining popularity among Gen Z. There are some who love to shop on eCommerce platforms as they offer massive varieties and price options, whereas others prefer brand websites as they are more concerned about the genuineness of the product than anything else. With the Omnichannel approach, brands can get all customers. Seamless Purchase – Omnichannel retail significantly reduces the risk of cart abandonment which was common in the era when shopping was done only through websites. Customers may add a product to the cart on a website and might want to purchase it hours later through the web app while commuting back home. Omnichannel retail helps convert such variable scenarios seamlessly. The customers get a hassle-free and consistent experience despite switching mediums. It also boosts customer loyalty. Better sales – The convenience of shopping through omnichannel eCommerce is helping brands acquire more customers at a faster clip from multiple sales channels. The customer being able to make a purchase when and where they see it opens up new revenue streams. Live commerce, social commerce, and eCommerce retail stores or brand online store are all new shopping avenues leading to more sales and enhancing brand visibility. This speed and convenience for the customers are also helping the brands and retailers increase cart size. Thus, there is a great boost to the sales. Future of Omnichannel eCommerce The era of Social Commerce – India is right at the cusp of a social commerce boom. Tier 2, Tier 3, and beyond shoppers are the biggest adopters, and recommendation-based, suggestion-based purchases are major drivers for brands in these areas that house nearly 70% of India’s population. It is estimated that the social commerce market size is going to grow from $8,258.8 million in 2022 to over $143,583 million by 2028. Brands in the fashion, beauty, and personal care domains are getting a lot of growth through the social commerce space, and even electronics and gadgets are witnessing a rise in shopping volumes. With the constant increase in smartphone penetration and better internet speeds, this space is unmissable for any retail business today. Live commerce Live commerce, as the term indicates is a sales channel wherein live streams are held, and customers can purchase products in real time. It is different from teleshopping because as a customer you are not watching pre-recorded content and are not bugged to make a call. You can simply watch a live stream on a social media platform, eCommerce, or live-commerce platforms, engage with the brands, enjoy the entertainment, and click on ‘buy now’ to complete seamless purchases, just the way you do on an eCommerce marketplace app. It is a new shopping avenue that is being explored by large and small brands alike. A RedSeer report estimates that live-commerce sales will grow up to $5 billion in India by 2025. Brands don’t see Live commerce as just a sales channel, but also an excellent medium of customer engagement and influencer marketing. You may see a great product in a live stream, and even if you don’t buy it then and there, you might research and purchase it later through other eCommerce options. SUGAR Cosmetics has already participated in such sessions on Myntra and Nykaa and got encouraging results. Going forward, the fashion segment is expected to achieve 60-70% live commerce growth, Beauty and personal care and other segments would make up for the remaining 30-40%. Visibility generation through such activities includes the launch of Hero MotoCorp’s Hero Xtreme 160R Stealth 2.0 bike and the session had a viewership of over 2.6 lakh. Several other Indian brands are also leveraging Live commerce sessions on eCommerce platforms. Role of social media Influencers in social and live commerce Social media influencers play a critical role in this arena. Influencers are people trusted by shoppers from all over the country, especially the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. When they are integrated into live commerce or social commerce campaigns, users get a personalized and familiar experience which boosts chances of conversion. The influencers are content creators with whom regular social media users engage on a one-to-one basis. Most of them conduct meetups, and live-streams to build engagement and trust among the audience. Thus, when these influencers recommend a product, those followers who are actively looking for such products are most likely to seriously consider the recommendations and make purchases. Influencer marketing is also highly instrumental in driving awareness. For instance, Amazon unveiled its live

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ad-fraud

Ad Fraud: The Digital Advertising Industry’s Biggest Battle Yet to Win

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

That’s the estimated amount of money advertisers are expected to lose this year because of ad fraud. While ad platforms are getting better at detecting such fraud, fraudsters are also coming up with more innovative, hard-to-detect ways to commit fraud. These days, fraudsters employ a variety of sophisticated techniques to fool advertisers. Even modern ad fraud bots have become sophisticated. These sophisticated bots have authentic user/device IDs, that can perform complex actions, and mimic human behavior almost perfectly. Entire communities of cyber criminals, backed by handsome development budgets, are engaged in ad fraud. Using Google Ad Traffic Blocking is a good way to protect your ad campaigns, but it is not enough. Let’s understand how: Loopholes In the Google Ad Traffic Blocking Google Ad Traffic Blocking allows you to block ad traffic from specific sources. This means you can block traffic from known sources of fraudulent traffic. While this sounds great in theory, this strategy has a number of problems: – The list of sources of fraudulent traffic is constantly growing. Nearly half of the traffic on the web is bot traffic, and bad bots account for 39% of this bot traffic. As you’re reading this, there are hundreds of fraudulent websites being created. By the time you add new websites to your ad traffic blocking list, new ones will already be in operation. – Many advertisers depend on their Google Analytics data to detect fraudulent traffic sources and use Google ad blocking to prevent their ads from appearing on these websites. This isn’t a sustainable strategy. It is almost like you are paying the ad platform to learn about fraudulent traffic sources. Depending on the size of your ad budget, such a strategy can potentially cost you thousands of dollars every month. – The combination of Google Analytics and Google Ad Traffic Blocking only works for sites using simple bots. It is much more difficult to detect the activity of sophisticated bots manually. – While Google does not release how it tracks fraudulent clicks, many experts believe it uses IP addresses. If that is the case, fraudsters can simply change their IP address and avoid being included in the Google Ads exclusion list. Marketing professionals and ad platforms realized long ago that they must evolve to put an end to ad fraud. To that end, there have been a number of innovative attempts in recent years. Let’s examine some of these and determine if they are truly effective. Methods Used by Marketers and Ad Platforms To Combat Ad Fraud 1. Ads.txt Ads.txt is a public text file that allows publishers to identify themselves as authorized publishers and prevent spoofed inventory. Unfortunately, the use of Ads.txt did little to stop ad fraud. Besides major sellers like Rubicon, most publishers also allow other “resellers”. You can find these resellers in almost every Ads.txt file. These resellers are not required to disclose the names of the advertisers, they are selling their traffic too. This means that they could be reselling the same traffic to you and some other parties. Moreover, fraudsters have found many ways to conduct fraud using Ads.txt files. 404 bot is one of the most famous instances where fraudsters have launched entire bot networks designed to surpass ads.txt protection. 2. Play Protect Play Protect was another initiative by Google, designed to potentially prevent the release of fake and malware apps on the Android Play Store. Play Protect scans applications for malware and other threats before allowing them to become available for download on the Play Store. While this effort did stop some obvious forms of malware and fraud on the platform, it has not been very effective. The proof of the same lies in the fact that there have been many cases of ad fraud on Google’s Play Store and even Apple’s App Store in the recent past. 3. Fake Account Prevention Just like Google ads face issues with fraudulent publishers, social media platforms are plagued by fake accounts. The issue got serious attention when the Elon Musk-Twitter deal almost fell through because Twitter (allegedly) failed to disclose the real number of fake accounts on the platform. Social media platforms claim that they routinely run checks and purge fake accounts on their platforms. However, new fake accounts pop up just as quickly as old ones are removed. While it is true that creating fake accounts is relatively difficult these days, it is still easy enough to be done at a scale. Why Is Ad Fraud Hard to Stop? Ad fraud is hard to stop for multiple reasons. For one, there are significant monetary benefits associated with successfully committing ad fraud. This motivation makes fraudsters stay committed to finding new ways to steal advertisers’ money. Another hard reality is that some ad platforms may let a small percentage of bad traffic through to inflate numbers. After all, the only one losing money because of ad fraud is the advertiser. Finally, as fraud techniques and bots become increasingly sophisticated, detecting, and preventing fraud will only get more difficult. So, what are advertisers supposed to do? Should they accept that they cannot do anything about ad fraud? Quite the contrary. Just like fraudsters have committed teams and communities constantly finding new ways to commit fraud, you need a team on your side that is committed to preventing said fraud. mFilterIt’s ad fraud detection tool enables the detection and prevention of invalid traffic in real time. In other words, with mFilterIt, you can not only identify bot traffic coming to your ads, but you can also prevent its impact, essentially saving your precious ad budget. Our tool employs AI, ML, and data science capabilities to detect and prevent ad fraud. Conclusion Ad fraud is constantly evolving, making it incredibly difficult to detect and prevent. However, combating ad fraud isn’t impossible. Advertisers need to go beyond traditional methods to survive in this ever-evolving digital ecosystem impacted by malicious elements like bots. With an advanced ad fraud solution, advertisers can ensure that sophisticated bots cannot sneak under their noses

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The Power of Perception: Navigating Brand Safety in the Era of Fake News

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Fake news is no less than a plague in the online ecosystem. The list of people and organizations suffering from fake news seems to be growing indefinitely. However, digital advertisers have been a part of this list for some time now. That’s right. Even if your brand has nothing to do with politics or the ongoing current events, if you are engaged in digital advertising, your brand may suffer harm because of fake news. More specifically, fake news can lead to long-term reputation harm for brands. If that sounds alarming, it is because this is an alarming matter, and in this article, we will be diving deep into the details. Let’s start with the basics: What is Fake News? While there’s no fixed definition for fake news, the term refers to any piece of misleading information. When you search for the term on Google, the first result comes from a Wikipedia article dedicated to the subject. The article mentions that making ad revenue is one of the top reasons to use fake news. Here’s the extract, verbatim: “Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity or making money through advertising revenue.” So now we know that fake news can hurt a brand reputation and has something to do with advertising. Let’s dig deeper. How can fake news impact the brand’s reputation? If a brand’s advertising/messaging appears on a website that peddles fake news, the reputation of that brand may diminish in the minds of its consumers and prospects. Not surprisingly, this sentiment is not limited to fake news. If your ads are appearing on websites that publish hate speech content, conspiracy theories, and other forms of skewed information, you may be unknowingly causing damage to your brand reputation. This trend is not just limited to sentiments. It is causing real and serious damage to brand reputations, which is hurting the bottom line of advertisers. Over 80% of UK consumers surveyed say the ‘responsibility of ad placement lies equally across the supply chain.’ These consumers have also stated that they will stop buying from brands with ads next to hate speech, fake news, violent content, and even controversial political views, among other similar topics. Alarmingly, less than half of digital advertiser have clear guidelines to avoid advertising next to misinformation or hate speech. How might you be funding fake news/misinformation? Consumers hold brands responsible for vetting where their ads are appearing. This is because many consumers (correctly) believe that the ad budgets allocated to these websites keep them alive, enabling them to continue spreading false information. This means that if your ad appears on a website that publishes fake news, you may unknowingly fund its efforts to spread the said fake news. Global Disinformation Index (GDI), in 2019, estimated that around $235 million of ad budget is given to websites that publish and spread fake news every year. Considering that nearly 500,000 new websites are popping up on the internet every single day, the above number has undoubtedly inflated exponentially in the past three years. Nearly a year ago, GDI published another report about how ad tech giants are serving ads to (and thereby funding) websites that spread misinformation regarding the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The same companies were also named in a more recent report about ad tech companies funding websites that spread misogynistic disinformation. While GDI does not name advertisers in their reports, most consumers on the web aren’t aware of how digital advertising works and blame advertisers for funding the spread of misinformation and fake news. There is a gap between consumers’ expectations and what is being achieved with brand safety best practices. How to Combat the Impact of Fake News? Every entity involved in the digital advertising supply chain has the social responsibility to ensure they do not knowingly or unknowingly support the spread of fake news. So what can advertisers do? For starters, advertisers using platforms like Google, Facebook, and Bing can manually check where their advertisements appear. All these platforms allow advertisers to customize their placement lists, so you can simply remove the problematic websites from your placement lists. You can also add known publishers of fake news to a blacklist. It is also a good idea to start working on company-wide guidelines designed to avoid ad placements on fake news websites. However, if you are using third-party ad platforms, then manually vetting every publisher can be unrealistically time-consuming. This is where brand safety can come in handy. mFilterIt’s digital brand protection solutions help advertisers advertise in safe ad placements. The solution uses the capabilities of AI and ML to validate the content beside which the ad is placed and ensure it is GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) compliant and contextually relevant.  Conclusion While fake news may seem like a problem that has nothing to do with brands, the case is quite the contrary. As brands continue to spend their advertising dollars without vetting publishers, the monetary incentive for publishers to publish fake news and hate speech is only going to grow. Brands must take a stand against the spread of fake news, realize their role and responsibility regarding the same, and employ relevant solutions that enable holistic brand protection. Get in Touch to learn more about the Brand Safety

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Augmented Reality in eCommerce: The Future of Online Shopping

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Augmented Reality is taking the customer experience to the next level with eCom platform optimization Leap imagination and turn it into reality. It might be a tough task in life but now possible with product previews on eCommerce platforms. Need not imagine how a lamp would look on the bedside table or wonder will this lipstick shade suits my lips. All you need to do is click a picture or video upload on the eCom platform and see how that product fills the blank space with Augmented Reality. The lack of a full sensory product experience is a major obstacle in online shopping. Physical stores allow you to try on clothes, feel fabrics, or visually assess the size of a couch in a space. However, with augmented reality (AR) applications, customers can gain more comprehensive product information without leaving their homes. Let’s dig deeper to understand how Augmented reality is paving new ways to optimize customer experience and eCom platforms as well. Augmented Reality in eCommerce By using Augmented Reality for product display eCommerce marketplaces and brands are steadily moving towards providing customers with a more inclusive and immersive experience. A real-world-like environment with an interactive enhanced experience via digital elements, visuals, sounds, etc. Allowing shoppers to watch products in 3D or preview in their environment virtually like placing the item say a sofa in the space in your living room. In simple terms, Augmented Reality (AR) simply augments an existing world. Augmented Reality (AR) provides previews by placing items in a real-world scenario. For example, try out frames on Lenskart after uploading your headshot video, ‘Amazon view’ which enables shoppers to try on lipsticks by uploading pictures or live video, and an AR-powered ‘view in my room’ feature. Think back to Pokémon Go, one of the most well-known applications of augmented reality. Users would be playing the game while walking down the street, looking at the real environment through their phones, which overlaid digital characters in specific places. Augmented reality is taking off rapidly. More & more advertisers and brands are deploying it to enhance customer experience. A report by eMarketer stated that over 43 million people in the United States, which is approximately 21% of social network users, were expected to use social network AR monthly. The same report indicated that 35% of U.S. respondents had used AR to customize furniture or vehicles. This is not just relevant for the U.S. but quite evident in the global digital commerce landscape, especially in India where shoppers from tier-2 and tier-3 cities are warming up to online shopping with massive buying potential. With the increase in 5G availability and improved bandwidth, retailers are expected to show more interest in AR and VR experimentation. As a result, more brands are adopting AR product previews, such as “Amazon View” and Flipkart’s “View in My Room”. AR is particularly popular in the Beauty & Personal care segment for try-on purposes and in Home Décor & Furniture placement in a room. How are eCom businesses using AR? AR previews of products help customers make a purchase decision and make the shopping experience more personalized. – Virtual Try-On: It’s just like in a brick-and-mortar shop where you see a product on a mannequin, it looks great. But trying it helps make a more accurate purchase decision. Similarly, the virtual try-on uses the shopper’s photo or video to preview how the product looks. This also helps buyers understand what they are buying and if the item works for them. – Preview placement: For the Home décor and furniture segment preview placement is the perfect tool to attract shoppers. It helps place items in your room at your desired place. Shoppers can see how a 55’ inch TV would look on the wall or will that color and design bed will suit their bedroom. The real-time preview placement of products in Shoppers’ environment will help shoppers decide whether the product suits their needs or not. – Interactive user manuals: This is the more extensive use of AR-creating manuals as a response to user actions by scanning product indicating buttons or using graphical arrows, animation, etc. – Social media filters: Generally used for fun. Filters can also be used for try-ons. That can help boost social commerce sales. It can be used to showcase a new product by enabling people to test out how it’ll look on them. According to a survey conducted by Google on AR usage among consumers, 66% of the participants expressed their interest in utilizing augmented reality technology to aid them while shopping. How Augmented Reality can help eCommerce brands? The challenge of representing a physical product in a virtual environment is one of the biggest obstacles to eCommerce. AR technology has the potential to help overcome this obstacle by providing a more accurate representation of the product and helping customers understand what they are buying. Some benefits of using AR technology in eCommerce are as follows: Increase customer engagement: By offering an interactive experience, AR technology can encourage customers to stay on your website longer, increasing the chances of a purchase. Even if they do not buy it immediately. Engagement with the brand and product can lead to better recall in the future. Reach new customers: To stand out in a crowded market, you need to create a buzz. A well-executed AR campaign can help capture attention and attract new customers. Reduce returns: AR technology can provide customers with a more comprehensive view of the product than static images or videos. By showing how a product would look in a consumer’s space, AR technology can help reduce the likelihood of returns due to unmet expectations. According to recently published data by Shopify, an eCommerce platform, products that featured VR/AR content in their advertisements experienced a 94% increase in conversion rates compared to products that did not have such content. Final Thoughts – What’s Next? Augmented Reality is interactive and helps during the product evaluation and consideration phase of the customer journey which leads to purchase decisions,

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Advertise Fearlessly: Best Practices for Brand Safety in the Digital Ecosystem

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The CNN-Applebee controversy that happened in February 2022 brought a serious problem faced by digital advertisers to light. The TV news channel ran a “squeeze back” ad for Applebee’s, which was displayed right next to their coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This attracted a lot of backlash from the public. The problem of advertising adjacency issues is even more serious in the digital world. While TV advertisers know exactly what content will be shown along with their ads, this isn’t true for most online advertisers. While the Applebee incident might have been the result of oversight, the truth is that with TV ads, advertisers have the freedom to make decisions in the interest of their brand safety best practices. Brands using programmatic advertising have little to no control over where their ad is published. Even in the cases where the brand can exercise control over who publishes their ads, vetting individual publishers can prove to be a complex and time-consuming task. A Times UK article sheds more light on this issue by naming several well-known brands whose ads are being displayed on extremist websites publishing violent and political views. Brands need to start thinking about this emerging threat and update their brand protection protocols to avoid it, and this starts with awareness. Brand Safety Risks The risks to brands’ reputations are not just limited to extremist websites. In this section, we will explore the biggest threats to brand reputation. Let’s get started: 1. M algorithms “Malgorithms” is the term used to describe instances where there is a contextual misalignment between the content of a page and the ad being displayed on it. Here’s an example of the same: The advertisement for the Hollywood film “2012” was displayed right on top of a news story about the devastating Chile earthquake. While some viewers may find this particular example funny, there are much darker ones that may lead to damage to the advertising brand’s reputation. 2. Fake News Fake news is a problem that plagues multiple areas of our lives. For marketers, this problem also poses threats to their brand’s online reputation. Consumers say that they will outright stop purchasing from brands that have ads appearing on websites peddling fake news. In a 2021 survey, respondents from the UK said they would boycott their favorite brands if their ads appeared on websites publishing COVID-19 conspiracy theories. This is primarily because the advertising budgets allocated to publishing on these websites are what keep them alive and kicking. Even if a brand is not aware that its ad is being displayed on a fake news website, the harm to its reputation is going to be very real. 3. Extremist Sites We have already briefly discussed an example of advertisements appearing on extremist websites. This problem is quite prevalent, with ads of some of the biggest brands on the planet appearing on websites discussing extremist religious, sexist, racist, and fundamentalist views. The problem with this is quite similar to the problem with fake news websites. A portion of the ad budget is paid to these publishers, which enables them to continue peddling their hurtful views on the web. Consumers have made this connection and are actively voicing their concerns against brands whose ads appear next to extremist content. 4. Unsafe YouTube Ad Placements These problems are not just limited to third-party websites that work with advertising networks such as Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Some brands have faced serious backlash because their ads have appeared on extremist YouTube videos. Here’s an example: Nissan’s ad is being played right before a video discussing racist views. Well-known brands like Netflix, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Amazon, and Adidas (among many others) have had their ads appear on videos published by extremist channels on YouTube. Such instances pose a serious threat to the online brand protection efforts of these brands. Best Brand Safety Practices to Incorporate Thankfully, brands that depend on digital advertising aren’t completely helpless. There are a number of brand safety best practices that you can employ to protect the reputation of your brand: 1. Define safety standards for your brand This is the most basic yet important step that any organization can take in this matter. Brands must have safety standards that clearly define the following: A list of ad publishers that are to be avoided What content is off-limits for ads, and How these websites and content pieces should be vetted and avoided For instance, you can decide to advertise exclusively with publishers that are transparent about their inventory and publish GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) compliant content. 2. Get A Transparent Overview The advertisers must be aware of where their ads are served and where the ad spends are invested in the ad supply. This will help the advertisers optimize their campaigns better and ensure their ads are not vulnerable to fraud. 3. Hire A Trustworthy Programmatic Platform The programmatic ad platform you use has perhaps the biggest influence on where your ad will end up. That’s why it is important to work with highly reputable publisher partners. The single most important quality to look for in a trustworthy programmatic publisher is transparency. Make sure you work with programmatic publishers that offer unrestricted access to their inventory, so you can see where your ad may end up and make an informed decision. 4. Run Ads On A Premium Inventory Many brands avoid premium inventory and stick to blind bidding, citing budget constraints. While access to a premium inventory may be a little expensive, it is a small price to pay to protect the online reputation of your brand. 5. Go Beyond Keyword-Blocking Keyword blocking is widely considered an effective way to avoid questionable publishers. However, the generic nature of this strategy deprives brands of access to many premium websites that publish great, contextually relevant content. 6. Rely on Context Than Content Instead of relying on crude methods like keyword blocking, brands pay attention to the context of the content on websites where their ads may be displayed. Contextual targeting doesn’t

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