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click-spamming

Know the Difference Series: Click Spamming and Click Injection Explained

Leave a Comment / Ad Fraud, Blog /

Digital ad fraud is growing at breakneck speed. This year, marketers are expected to lose over $114 billion to ad fraud collectively. The situation is scary, and the future seems bleak. However, many marketers and brands still successfully turn a blind eye to ad fraud, and they do it because of a lack of awareness. Awareness of the different types of ad fraud can help you be more vigilant and cautious towards the rising threats and help you save your ad budgets from getting wasted. With this blog, we hope to help you bring this awareness. As part of the “Know the Difference series”, first, we will discuss two of the most common types of mobile ad fraud prevalent in the industry. These are click spamming and click injection. While both terms may seem similar, they follow different procedures to carry out ad fraud and steal your marketing budget. Let’s look at them in more detail: Know the difference: Click Spamming and Click Injection What is Click Spamming? Click spamming is a relatively primitive way to commit ad fraud. As the name suggests, click spamming is the act of generating a large number of fake clicks on an ad. This type of fraud mostly takes place on mobile apps but isn’t limited to them. In some cases, click spamming can also be observed on websites accessed through mobile devices. In most cases, an unsuspecting user downloads an app laced with malware. In others, the websites visited by the users are operated by fraudsters. The malware allows fraudsters to click on ads without the user’s knowledge. This kind of fraud can take many forms. Some examples are: The user never sees the ads, but they are live in the background, and the fraudsters are clicking on them. This is also known as click flooding. Apps running in the background can generate clicks anytime or throughout the day (and night). Common examples of such apps include launchers, battery-saving apps, and memory-cleaner apps. Some fraudsters mask views as engagement by the user and get paid for that engagement. And in some cases, fraudsters may also send clicks from the device to different vendors to collect a payout. While Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store have security measures to detect and ban apps loaded with malware, fraudsters have found innovative ways to bypass them. For instance, some apps download malware after the app has been downloaded on a user’s device by disguising it as an update for the app. Impact of Click Spamming The most apparent impact of click spamming is the wasted advertising budget. However, click spamming has a deeper, much more dangerous impact on advertisers- skewed advertising data. Because of click spamming, certain advertising platforms and apps (publishers) may deliver an impressive number of clicks on your ad. When this is reflected in the reporting of your campaigns, it may make said ad platforms and publishers appear more impactful than they are. This keeps the advertisers in the dark and they make business decisions based on these skewed metrics which eventually impacts the performance of the digital ad campaigns. Moreover, the advertisers also keep spending on these platforms under the impression that it is providing them with performance. What is Click Injection? Click injection is an ad fraud technique similar to click spamming but more sophisticated. For advertisers, that means that detecting and avoiding instances of click injection is exponentially more difficult than detecting click spamming. Instead of frantically clicking on an ad, click injection uses a single click to conduct organic traffic poaching. This is done by ‘injecting’ a click right at the point of download. Fraudsters make use of Android apps to listen to “download broadcasts”. Simply put, these broadcasts are sent by Android apps whenever a user downloads a malicious app that has an Android broadcaster that notifies the fraudsters about a new install. When the fraudsters are notified of an app install, they ‘inject’ a click right before the installation is complete. When this happens, the fraudulent app gets access to the user’s unique device tracking code. Using this code, the fraudsters can make their click appear authentic. By doing this, the fraudsters receive the credit (and the payout) for the app install, even though the app install is usually organic. Impact of Click Injection This sophisticated fraud technique not only leads to the wastage of ad spending but also hampers the organic traffic of the advertiser. Not just the advertisers, but the genuine publishers are also victims of click injection. Due to organic traffic stealing, they lose payout to a fraudulent install. Furthermore, click injections attribute organic downloads to fraudulent websites and apps. This can mess with the ad reporting data advertisers use to make decisions about their future campaigns. Using this skewed data, advertisers may continue spending their budgets on ineffective platforms, resulting in more wasted ad spend. This also costs advertisers in the form of lost opportunities by diverting their attention from other effective platforms that may deliver better results. How can advertisers protect their ad spends? As mentioned earlier, protection begins with awareness. Now that you know about click spamming and click injection, you can look at ways to detect these activities and take corrective actions. While click spamming can be detected manually, click injection is a sophisticated form of mobile ad fraud that is hard to detect by humans. These sophisticated fraud techniques are discreet, and human-like which makes it difficult to detect with general ad fraud detection practices. For these reasons, marketers valuing holistic protection must look beyond basic ad fraud tracking techniques to prevent mobile ad fraud. mFilterIt’s advanced ad fraud detection tool helps eliminate invalid traffic across the funnel using AI/ML and data science capabilities. The solution identifies sophisticated fraud patterns based on device, behavioral, and heuristic checks and ensures that the fraudulent traffic doesn’t seep through the funnel. It is an effective PPC click fraud prevention solution that helps marketers secure their ad budgets.  Conclusion Click fraud and click injection both affect marketers at multiple

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blind-spot

The Blind Spot: Advertisers’ Limited Visibility into Contributing Publishers

Leave a Comment / Ad Traffic Validation, Blog /

With the rapid growth in the mobile app ecosystem, the number of fraudulent activities is also increasing at the speed of lightning. From the installs to events, the fraudsters have become smart enough to tamper with these metrics and steal the advertiser’s money. One of the common and sophisticated types of mobile ad fraud is Click Injection. Click Injection is a technique that not only impacts the advertisers but also the genuine publishers who are generating real traffic. Here is a handy guide to know how click injection impacts your app and how the click injection rule can help combat this threat. What is Click Injection? Click injection is a sophisticated form of mobile ad fraud that is used to manipulate app installs. It is a technique where a malicious app or a spoofed SDK in a user’s device fires an ad click between the duration of a genuine app download till it’s first open. The genuine publisher loses their payout as the last click is attributed to a fraudulent install. How does Click Injection happen? How mFilterIt Protect Against Click Injection? Due to the last click attribution, the install is attributed to the publisher who has fired the last click on the advertisement. However, the fraudulent publishers steal the last click attribution by firing a click just before the app install completes. To detect this anomaly, we apply our click injection rule which analyses the concentration of clicks by contributing publishers for a specific publisher in a day. And if the clicks by contributing publishers exceed 40%, then we analyze the time difference between the clicks (the time when the first click on the ad happened and the time when the contributor click happened) If the click happens within a certain timeframe, then we mark it as fraud. To simplify this further, this pattern happens when the publisher is involved in a click-injection activity. Otherwise, the chances of this happening are minuscule. These checks are conducted on three levels to get a deep-dive understanding of the anomalies in the installs and give transparency to the advertisers to evaluate their ad traffic quality. Real Case To explain this better, we have taken an example of a publisher who was actively involved in these kinds of activities. We observed the installs from this particular publisher for a period of 15 days in which he gave 11,917 installs out of which 6,434 installs were contributed by other publishers or came organically. This consisted of 54% of the total traffic. According to the click injection rule, we marked all the records as a fraud whose difference was within a certain timeframe. It’s Not All Black There is a grey zone in the digital ecosystem. Not all contributing publishers are participants in mobile ad fraud. Some of them are unaware of the fraudulent activities that happen within the app they publish or distribute. While there are some contributing publishers who are misled by fraudulent app developers or ad networks. This led to financial losses for not just the advertisers but the genuine contributing publishers as the fraudulent publishers steal their share of revenue by capturing the last-click attribution. Way Forward The fraudulent techniques in the digital ecosystem are becoming sophisticated and discreet with every passing day. Due to this, marketers are in a constant dilemma of choosing the right media partner to advertise with confidence. Therefore, validating the ad traffic from publishers and sub-publishers has become a necessity to ensure that there is transparency and trust among all parties. With the right ad traffic validation solution, marketers can get clarity on their ad traffic, and decide which channels they need to focus on to get greater returns. Marketers, it’s time to leave the old ways and advertise fearlessly with a media partner you can trust!

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brand-sentiment

BRAND SENTIMENT: Do You Know Who Is Saying What, Where & Why?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Listen To Everything Said About Brands and Products Across social media eCom Platform “Kuch toh log kahege, logo ka kaam hai kehna!” (People will always have opinions, this is what they do) but the voice of an eCom shopper cannot be left unheard or dismissed as useless chatter. Opinions and experiences of shoppers matter when it comes to the digital commerce ecosystem. Brands must be aware of every single word said about them be it customer reviews, shoppers queries, lashing-out tweets, gentle words of appreciation, or simple suggestions.  Every sentiment needs to be monitored and analyzed as it deeply affects brand reputation. But why? The answer to this why” is a little complicated but here we are going to simplify the brand sentiment what it means and its impact on the brand. Building brand reputation is a continuous extensive process that comprises multiple factors. Brand messaging is one such factor that drives brand sentiment. So, Let’s dig deeper and find out why it matters so much. According to a survey, 76% of customers claim they would quit a business that fails to respond to a negative social media post while 82% of customers expect brands to respond to their social media posts within 24 hours. The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Brands must be aware of every kind of sentiment about their products and brands. Evaluating Brand sentiment is critical for brand health and the reputation of the business. Let’s presume a case where a customer got a wrong color item or some part or accessory is missing, leaves a negative review, marks for return or replacement along with venting out on social media.  Just imagine what an unresolved tweet can do to a brand’s reputation. This makes social listening and quick follow-up critical to brand reputation. The digital commerce landscape is cut-throat and competitive It’s not just about social media conversation and customer sentiment about brands but even cross-platform conversation also needs to be monitored. Brand sentiment also covers understanding and analyzing what people feel about their interactions. Brands must carefully monitor this dynamic and enhance those aspects that leave a positive impact and enhance customer experience! How people feel about your business or product can have a huge impact on product sales, brand loyalty, and customer retention. Lend Your Ears Are You Listening? The most powerful element in building a brand reputation is word of mouth the experience leads to voices, and voices turn into opinions. These opinions shape the buzz about the brand. For example, let’s consider the case of TATA Nano, a pocket-friendly car with a budget of the middle class that faced a major bump in the market as it got labeled as a cheap car. It is important to ensure what the brand wants to convey about the product matches the target audience’s interpretation. Brands need to pay attention to what people are saying. Being aware of how the brands are responding is crucial to product performance in the market. Brands need to stay alert in real time to track sentiments across the digital ecosystem. This includes understanding. Context and tone of sentiment Subjectivity of sentiment Change in sentiment over time Source of sentiment Understanding sentiments will help brands categorize sentiments and grade them accordingly. Brands need to keep track of word-of-mouth mentions and respond accordingly. Perks Of Tracking Brand Sentiments Tracking brand sentiment is like social listening crisis management under one roof. According to a survey, 88% of people look for opinions online before making a purchase. Finding your brand mentions and making your presence felt is an important step toward upswinging brand digital efficiency. Turn the insights into action by monitoring and analyzing brand sentiments across the digital ecosystem. Here are some core benefits of being aware of brand sentiments: Improved Customer Satisfaction Respond swiftly to Customer feedback Ensure customer retention making customer opinion/experience feel valued Understand the target customer and what makes customers happy Understand your industry segment Identify threats or opportunities Improve marketing strategies Data Driven decision making What Brands Should Do To Improve Brand Sentiment? The reputation built by positive words about the brand or product is what propels sales and helps acquire new customers most organically. The way brand sentiment shapes up decides the fate of the product. The challenge lies in identifying sentiments and responding to them swiftly as the more time negative feedback is spent in the digital landscape the more damage it does to brand reputation. So, what can the brands do about it? Relentless Monitoring The digital space keeps on evolving at a rapid pace. The monitoring and analysis process should be relentless and continuous to keep up it. A comprehensive system should be in place for automated sentiment monitoring with actionable insights to support data-driven decisions. Swift Response Make sure customers feel valued. Personalized responses to negative feedback will go a long way in building brand trust and loyalty. This will help the brand handle the problem before it turns into a crisis. Make strategies more adaptable The strategies that can turn a crisis into opportunities. Understand customer sentiment and respond accordingly. Never miss a conversation about your brand monitor Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, News, Blogs, and the entire world wide Web including the eCommerce marketplace customer feedback reviews and QAs. Track every social channel Join conversations about your brand Keep an eye on the competition Manage your reputation online Final Thoughts Be Sensitive to Sentiments ‘Whats in a name? In the digital commerce landscape everything. As any mention of brand or product name matters. Brand sentiment plays a pivotal role in building brand reputation and value across the digital ecosystem and beyond. Social Listening, digital commerce intelligence with sentiment analysis, and optimizing customer experience are the core digital efficiencies that every brand should strive for in the digital landscape. Omnichannel Shopping including Live Social commerce and expanding geographical outreach of digital commerce retail is opening up new avenues for shoppers. Now shopping has become more interactive where shoppers can directly engage with the sellers or brands. Knowing

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guard-your-wicket

Guard Your Wicket: Why Digital Advertisers Need to Be Vigilant Amidst The Cricket Fever?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

The Cricket Fever is Unstoppable!   From IPL to the World Cup, the audience goes all gaga to see their favorite teams playing. The advertising world also goes into a frenzy during this time and wants to capture the attention of the “Cricket Heads”. The pitch might be clear on the ground, but the pitch in the advertising world has hurdles at every step.   While the advertiser spends meticulously, the fraudsters also look forward to stealing their money and having a gala time. Over the years, these scamsters have evolved and adapted more advanced techniques to steal the advertiser’s money.   In this blog, we have covered some of the advanced techniques of ad fraud and brand safety threats happening across the gaming and betting industry which is most impacted during the major sports events. Digital Threats During Sports Events 1. Rise in Fake Accounts The IPL and World Cup season is much awaited in the advertising world as gaming/betting advertisers spend heavily to ensure they are part of the game. However, the advertisers are hardly able to make a sixer during this time as the scamsters are also ready to make them go clean bowled. They are the most active during this time and look for all the best opportunities to steal the ad spends of the advertisers. And one of their easy-to-execute techniques is using disposal email addresses and phone numbers to create fake accounts.   Here is an insight from an analysis done for a leading gaming app: Based on the data extracted, mFilterIt detected sign-ups occurring from similar-looking email addresses in less than a minute interval. This activity was suspicious, and we detected the patterns to identify bot activity which was eventually impacting the performance of the gaming advertiser.   These disposable email addresses and numbers are also used by fraudsters to commit referral or coupon fraud which eventually hurts the brand’s image among loyal consumers. The brands run referral programs to bring in new users and retain loyal users. However, due to fraudsters’ involvement, these programs are often manipulated, and genuine users cannot use these benefits further blaming the brands. 2. Event Spoofing Beyond the misuse of disposable email addresses and phone numbers, the fraudsters have another winning move that can help them win the cup (in this case advertisers’ ad spends). They use advanced fraud techniques like SDK spoofing to commit event spoofing.   In this case, the scamsters often manipulate the events like sign-ups to get their payout. The advertisers are under the impression that their apps are being downloaded by genuine users, but the reality tampers. The publisher receives their payout, but the advertiser neither gets the genuine audience nor the growth. 3. Use of Misleading Ads The last season of IPL saw a massive surge in misleading and manipulated ads run by fraudulent affiliates/influencers to lure innocent users. ASCI flagged 285 real-money gaming ads on social media on the account of violation of the ASCI guidelines of March’22. Furthermore, 14 ads were found as violating ASCI during the IPL on both Television and OTT. This year, the government has become more stringent about the ads run by gaming and betting platforms. There has been a rise in cases where these platforms leverage news content or eCommerce promotions as a disguise for betting-related advertisements.   The game season is the best time for fraudsters to leverage the brand’s name to commit fraud and enjoy the benefits. Whereas the brands have to pay the price in the form of wasted ad budget and tarnished brand image resulting in loss of consumer trust. 4. Brand Reputation at Risk Misleading ads by fraudulent affiliates are a real problem. Another behind-curtain fraudulent practice is where the brand’s ads run on illicit or adult websites.   An ad of a legitimate brand appearing beside obscene content is a brand safety nightmare. In this situation, often the consumers assume that the brands have placed their ad beside illicit content consciously and they are not concerned about their consumer’s safety. This leaves a deep impact on the brand’s reputation as the consumer questions the reliability of the brand. 5. Organic Traffic Stealing Apart from misusing digital brand assets, these Sports events are also the “hattrick season” for fraudulent affiliates/publishers. During this time, usually, the brands put money on search advertisements introducing “exciting offers”. The fraudsters use this moment as an opportunity.   They bid on the brand’s keywords to appear above the “legitimate brand” in the search results and divert their organic traffic to their website resulting in organic traffic stealing. This also increases the bid prices of the brand keywords and the bhas have to pay more for their branded keywords. Don’t Be ‘Clean Bowled’ this Season Sporting events have been the “festival of joy” for fraudsters as advertisers spend heavily during this time. To safeguard the ad budgets and protect the brand reputation, the advertisers need an advanced solution to validate ad traffic and ensure that the ad is placed in a safe environment.   mFilterIt provides advertisers with this transparency to make efficient business decisions. With cutting-edge and innovative media validation solutions, advertisers can validate their ad traffic and eliminate invalid traffic to target only the audience that matters. It also helps the advertisers to ensure their ads are placed in a GARM-compliant environment and are protected from brand safety threats.   Take quick action to make the best out of these sporting events in 2023!

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amazon-buy-box

Amazon Buy Box: 5 Ways to Win It

Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Buy Box is the fiercely contested prized possession of sellers in the eCommerce arena. The battle is for the shoppers’ attention as sellers’ success and growth on the eCommerce platform mostly depend on it. According to a research report, approximately 82% of all sales get converted due to the Buy Box. The fact clearly, reflects why every seller seeks Buy Box on the eCommerce platform. Amazon Buy Box is the most coveted need of every seller on Amazon, the world-leading e-commerce Marketplace. So, take a closer look and find out how to win an Amazon Buy Box. What is Amazon Buy Box? Simply put, it’s a CTA that takes a shopper directly to the purchase page and leads to a swift purchase. But not every seller has it. Let’s first understand why it’s so valuable and what makes sellers eligible for a chance to win the buy box. Amazon has mainly 5 types of sellers – Manufacturer & Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Brands, which Produce and sell their products under their brand names, Private Label Brands, which Sell products manufactured by a third party under a different brand name, Factory Brands, sourced from often overseas factories and go direct to global consumers with more often at comparatively lower prices, Resellers, who buy products in bulk and often sell them at a higher price to make a profit and Aggregators, Companies that purchase multiple Amazon brands to consolidate and grow them. Broadly they can be put into two selling methods Amazon itself, 1st party sellers sell wholesale to Amazon and Amazon acts as the retailer selling to customers, and 3rd party sellers sell directly to customers via the Amazon Marketplace. Buy Box quickly takes shoppers directly to the purchase page, avoiding spending time considering whom they are buying from Amazon or 3rd third-party seller. Only businesses with excellent seller metrics can win an Amazon Buy Box. Not every seller is eligible to win a Buy Box. Why it is important? Nearly 80% of all Amazon’s sales come via the Buy Box. In 2021, $389 billion worth of sales among net revenue of over $469 billion came from Buy Box purchases. This clearly, reflects Amazon Buy Box Win boosts sales. Sellers must meet the following metrics* to win the Buy Box: ​Key Matrices Requirement Order Defect Rate (ODR) < 1 % Cancellation Rate (CR) < 2.5 % Late Dispatch Rate (LDR) < 4 % Valid Tracking Rate (VTR) > 95 % On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) > 97 % Invoice Defect Rate (IDR) < 5 % *Subject to changes as Amazon keeps raising the bar on eligibility to win Buy Box. 5 Ways to Win Amazon Buy Box Sellers having significant order volume and quality products can strive for Buy Box. Here the quality of products is measured via Seller Controllable Return Rate (returned or refunded due to product-related issues) and Customer feedback & ratings. Amazon keeps on raising the bar, The digital e-commerce Seller needs to ace the performance matrices to boost their chances of achieving more Amazon Buy Box wins. Here are a few ways sellers can boost Amazon Buy Box win percentage. High-quality products: A genuine and high-quality product can delight the shoppers reduce return requests, curb defects and enhance customer ratings which lead to higher chances of Buy Box wins. Optimize Products Listings: Product listings are like the physical storefront, where shoppers get attracted by the looks, title, and description. Create product pages accurately with high-performing keywords, bullets in descriptions with product features, and high-quality product images. Cataloging and categorizing products are also crucial to avoid customer confusion. Offer competitive pricing: According to Amazon, you can automatically increase your chances of winning the Buy Box by listing your product within 5% of the current Buy Box price. Optimize Delivery Turn Around Time: Amazon customers expect to receive their orders by the estimated delivery dates and delivery leads to a higher win box %. Respond to negative feedback: High rating & review leads to a higher boy box win percentage. Amazon always strives for a high customer satisfaction level. 92% of customers say they will buy again from a brand if the returns process is easy. That’s exactly what you need to focus on by offering hassle-free returns and exchanges, leading to a positive return experience. Final Thoughts – Keep Your Eye on The Digital Commerce Landscape The bottom line is performance optimization is key to upswing Buy Box win percentage. The massive product range and variants on Amazon means cut-throat competition. A pinch of slip-up by brands and sellers can lead to a loss of sales and customer drop-off. To prevent such fallacies and boost chances to Buy Box wins brands and sellers must plug in e-commerce analysis. Keep an eye on multiple product performance matrices like product share of Shelf, visibility share, the content of product page, product stock availability, pricing, delivery turn-around-time, etc. The actionable insights and dynamic dashboard of mScanIt, an e-commerce competitive analysis can help brands optimize their customer journey on multiple touchpoints. It keeps track of sellers’ performance and Buy Box wins across geographies and digital commerce platforms. The Buy Now button on the product page is the ladder that takes your product to the top amidst the vipers of competition waiting for you to slip up. eCom is not a game of snakes & ladders it is a place where data-driven decisions thrive and earn multi-fold sales with Buy Box wins. Get in Touch for more information about Amazon buy box.

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ecom-marketing-service

eCom Platform Marketing Service: “Everything Everywhere All At Once”

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Yes, you read it right. But we are not going to talk about an Oscar-winning movie. It is about a complete Marketing console in one place, eCommerce Platform Marketing Services like what Amazon provides for its sellers. The eCommerce giant Amazon has expanded and enhanced the services for its shoppers and sellers alike. The integrated comprehensive marketing console, Amazon Marketing Service (AMS), helps Seller control and monitor how the product does on the platform and organize what it needs to boost performance. The collection for several Amazon services for sellers, AMS has tools for Amazon Sponsored Brands, Amazon Sponsored product management, and Amazon Display Ads. But the question is – Is it enough for the brands and sellers?1 Let’s take a deeper look at the platform marketing services and highlight ways to optimize services like AMS. What does AMS do? Why does it need optimization? While all other eCommerce platforms are evolving in terms of Advertising Services provided, Amazon is leading or could say dominating in it. The massive presence of Amazon in the eCommerce Retail domain led to the rise of a fiercely ecommerce competitive landscape. As a brand, business, or seller here you are running against thousands of others running a race against every evolving algorithm. To stand apart and reap high profits, brands need to advertise with a clear understanding of segments and competition. Platform Marketing Services like AMS Provides Complete Amazon Advertising Console Support for Amazon Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brand Ads, and Amazon Sponsored Displays. The competition is fierce in a global marketplace like Amazon. Most online advertising platforms allow you to pay for impressions and clicks but Amazon takes a different approach. As it provides an option to choose how much you want to pay when a shopper clicks on the ads. This provides hands-on control over the ad budget. This also impacts the conversion rates based on the strong purchasing intent of the audience. They also streamline it to provide advertising reports. They may not be the best ones to get deeper insights into customers’ search patterns, but they are extremely useful to understand what works for you and what doesn’t. This created the need for optimization of marketing services provided by the platform to save time and money along with enhancing brand recognition. Challenges for Sellers using Amazon Marketing Service – No Visibility of High-Performing Keywords​: Identifying high-performing keywords plays an essential role in making effective campaigns and efficient product display pages. Building a comprehensive keyword bidding strategy is key to the upscale product. Brands or Sellers must be aware of high-performing keywords that work or don’t work. – Time-consuming and prone to manual errors: The need for an auto-generated response is key to reducing the time consumed and mitigating errors caused by manual entries. Tracking performance and managing optimizations can lead to greater achievements. – No Standardized Automated Process: Standardized processes are needed to avoid hit & trail elements like keywords bidding. High returns are expected if the standard processes and data-driven decisions are used for AMS. – Missed Opportunities with Uncertain Returns​: Ambiguous returns of advertising campaigns need to be consolidated and sustained with a clear process in place to boost advertising performance. Perks Of Platform Marketing Service Optimization Optimize Ad Campaign- Reduce Ad Spend Optimization of Platform Marketing Services empowers eCommerce Platform Advertising Campaigns. Full-fledged coverage is provided from setting up your different Ad Campaigns (Own, Competition, Generic) and managing your budget in Ad Groups via AI-based Automated System. Advanced Automated Solution raises your advertising game Crystal Clear Data for better understanding to drive overall sales Business decisions driven via actionable insights lead to sustained growth Saves hours of manual work by bypassing Amazon Advertising complexities 1. AI-driven marketing Optimization Amazon Advertising Campaigns gets a boost through AI & ML, keeps track of the performance of the keywords and help adjusts your campaign budget to maximize your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). The sophisticated AI is used to automatically turn competitor keyword bidding ON/OFF depending on the stock availability of the competitor. Completely Automated Process Product code Bidding Keyword Bidding Comprehensive Budget Planning 2. Continuous Optimization of Keywords Identifying and monitoring keywords should be a continuous process as the bids need to be optimized according to the keyword performance change. The use of AI can turn on/off bids on keywords, based on Keyword performance. The campaign performance can be optimized by bidding on high-performing keywords. Brands or sellers need to be aware of keyword performance on a real-time basis to optimize the campaign and avoid waste of ad spending. The Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) can be optimized with an automated process in place. 3. Effectively Optimizing Ad Budget Platform Marketing Service Optimization boosts campaign performance not just by optimizing Campaign Spends and deciding what amount to spend but also how and when to spend it. The click and traffic analysis can help generate automated bid prices and empower budget shuffle across multiple ad campaigns for optimal ad spend utilization. 4.  Adding Value to Brands The optimization of advertising services raises the brand’s advertising game. Plugging in automated solutions for optimization can add value to the services. Improvement in ROAS and Conversion Rate is a key value addition to the brand performance with data-driven decision-making. The automation of the process reduces advertising complexities and saves several hours of manual work. Final Thoughts Marketing on eCommerce platforms has eased with comprehensive marketing services provided by the platform but that’s too much manual work considering the massive number of products and wide geography to cover. The Optimization of platform marketing services automate systems and reduce ad budget by making ad campaign more effective. mScanIt eCommerce Intelligence Solution can help guide brands or sellers to automate and optimize advertising strategies on the eCommerce platforms. With the pace at which advertising is evolving, it’s important to get hold of things swiftly as any lag in strategy can push back your brand way behind other sellers or brands. The digital commerce universe is so much bigger than you realize. Brands need

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uncover-new-opportunities

Uncover New Opportunities: Fill the White Space in eCom Landscape

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

The cursor blinking on a blank page is the writer’s white space waiting for sweaty palms and dry throat to relax and get over the excruciating writer’s block. In business, things are not that different or as nerve-wracking yet very exciting. It is all about identifying the target and formulating strategies to acquire these white spaces on the eCom landscape and uncover new opportunities. Is it that easy? Certainly not. Brands need insights and comprehensive analysis of competition or lack of it in the geography or pin-code to target. The omnichannel shopping avenues and new demographics turning to online shopping have opened up white spaces for brands to target and make their brand presence felt in the untapped territory. For Example, global QSR giant, McDonald’s started with just two items on the menu. They surveyed competitors and found out that they need to hyper-focus on best-seller items instead of expanding the menu to propel customer satisfaction. These were the white spaces in their industry. The insights helped them focus on customer service which was lacking among the competition at that time. Just imagine what ecommerce competitive analysis can do now for business – identifying White spaces and beyond. Understanding what was missing from the market, identifying what customers were lacking, and turning that industry gap into a success. Let’s dig deep and find out what exactly are white space opportunities, and how can they be turned into an asset. Benefits Of Digital Commerce Analysis to Identify White Space Digital commerce intelligence across e-commerce platforms, geographies, product categories, sub-categories, and variants vis-à-vis competition provides actionable insights. These insights and analysis help uplift product performance in existing space along with displaying brand untapped potential. Analysis of white space could help improve the product sales process, strengthen customer relations, acquire new customers, grow business reach, and enhance potential. Here are some key benefits brands can achieve from analysis and identifying white spaces: Expanded customer base Increased opportunities for upselling and cross-selling Improved customer relations, acquisition, and retention Refined sales approach and strategy New opportunities for innovation The white spaces are filled when the unspoken and unmet needs of the customers are uncovered by brands holding on to new opportunities, leading innovation, and expanding product reach. How to Find White Space in the eCom Landscape? Map New Opportunities It’s time to map your white space opportunities. The mapping can be done in 3 ways – internally-focused, externally-focused, and future-focused. Internally focused white space mapping – identify your brand or company strengths, abilities, potential opportunities, and competitive threats. The comprehensive analysis of own product performances across the digital commerce ecosystem provides a clear picture. It helps businesses determine how effectively act upon the market barriers, opportunities, and competitive threats. Externally focused white space mapping – identify products and services in the existing market failing to meet needs – potential gaps in the system, lack of competition, non-consumers, or new market spaces. Future-focused mapping – strategic forecasting, based on insights, devise business strategies based on actionable insights. Analyze Your Findings The compiled data on KPIs and power SKUs help connect the dots. The data tells the story of your product performance vis-à-vis competition. Brands monitoring their own and competition across platforms and geographies keep them on their toes. Understanding customer needs, finding out and plugging gaps in brand performance, discovering new areas to focus on, and identifying existing region that needs a boost based on platform, geography, and product-specific data insights. The analysis will highlight the white space and illustrate where you can target customers with better solutions. Accelerate Revenue by Identifying White Space Smart businesses take advantage of customer data, sales performance metrics, and competitor information to formulate cutting-edge strategies. Full visibility into your sales, delivery TAT, and customer sentiments find the gaps in your offerings and fill them with suitable action. This leads to accelerate revenue generation from the existing system and venturing into new untapped markets and demographics opens new avenues for revenue generation and expands brand reach. Final Thoughts – Get the Competitive Advantage There are many different interpretations of ‘white space’ in business. Some consider it to be all about unchartered territories, while others feel it is a lack of competition. The key is finding the white space in your market segment and identifying market opportunities that your business is capable of capitalizing on. Map out new opportunities that your business has the capability, resources, and drive to meet. Evaluating the competition marketing strategies find a white space and define your target customer. Figure out What you do better than our competition. And What do they do better than you? Competitive advantage helps position the brand in the eCommerce market segment. Finding white space may sound straightforward – but it is not. Plug in mScanIt, a Digital Commerce Intelligence Solution, to get real-time actionable insights across the digital commerce ecosystem. Monitor and analyze your product performances vs competition at every touchpoint across the customer journey. Your ‘white space’ lies in Identifying key needs within the target market that are currently not being met by any other provider. This is where the brand focus for growth should be. Get in Touch for more information. 

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Luxury eCommerce: Making Shopper Aspirations More Accessible

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Days of dreaming to own a Prada bag or a pair of Chanel pumps & Slingbacks for years are gone. Now, no need to worry about the death stares from the sales executives when you inquire about the price. Those fears weren’t unfounded either. The luxury eCommerce has opened the door for such dreams to turn into reality. The digital commerce landscape is transforming. Luxury brands are also getting available online with exclusive offers to acquire a new range of customers, who are willing to get the taste of luxury items. India’s luxury eCom race is heating up with Fashion, Beauty & Personal Care product-specific eCommerce platforms. There is definitely a lot more to come, as the geographically widespread market is a perfect fit for online selling. Let’s take a closer look at the elite items & brands reaching out to online shoppers. Luxury eCom Segment The major benefactor of the growing online luxury segment is the Indian designers and global Luxury brands, who were exclusively available in stores only. The eCommerce marketplace variants exclusively selling luxury goods are penetrating the Indian market steadily and preparing their niche customer base. Names like Ajio Luxe, NNNOW.com, Darveys, Tata CliQ Luxury, and Nykaa.com are all opening the door of luxury brands and items to Shoppers who wish to add these to their luxurious lifestyles. India’s $6 Billion luxury goods market is finally going digital. According to the Euromonitor International report, the Beauty segment is moving at a faster pace as compared to fashion. The 12.1 percent of super-premium luxury items in the beauty and personal segment are now getting sold through the eCommerce distribution channel. The number might not look much, but in terms of order value, it is quite significant. The Luxury fashion segment on the other hand is moving slowly as only 5.5 percent of designer apparel and footwear are selling online. The pandemic shook the luxury industry hard but opened new avenues for selling beyond brick-and-mortar glamorous stores. The industry segments bank on the growing purchase capacity of millennials in tier-1 cities and fluttering expectations of new wealthy shoppers from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. The convenience and availability meet the needs of these shoppers. Another factor that is driving luxury eCommerce is investment from conglomerates like Tata and Reliance. Tata owns Tata CliQ Luxury while Reliance sells Luxury products via Ajio Luxe. This appeals to Indian Luxury consumers and brands that feature on the eCommerce platform. New Opportunities for Luxury Brands India is on the verge of a Retail renaissance. As high-income individuals and consumer wealth is growing in India the Luxury segment is all set to expand its reach. Wealth spread across the cities reflect in the fact that according to Ajio Luxe – 60 percent of its orders are from outside the top 8 cities in India. The target audience is expanding as more and more people aspire to buy luxury items. They might start with high-end luxury handbags and push a little higher the next time buy Salvatore Ferragamo handbags. The Omnichannel approach to selling is also in place, offering personal service assistance recreating luxury brand store experience online. Loyalty programs, personalized service, luxury chauffeur delivery, exclusive guarantees, warranties, etc. are what enhance the customer experience. The brands need to respond to new Indian luxury consumers and optimize the brand performance, discoverability and track availability across luxury eCommerce platforms. As the kind of services is highly personalized brands there can’t be much saved on that but brands can save on physical store costs on the high street or shopping places in the city and operate from a warehouse in one-fourth of the cost. Optimizing Luxury eCom Retail A wide range of categories is focused on by Online Luxury marketplaces. Every Luxury brand in various market segments is an established name itself. To those shoppers who know the brands and products all they look for is what’s new is launched this season. The key area to focus on here is the availability of an exclusive product range based on the personalized preferences of the customers. For someone who is new to luxury products and brands, optimizing customer experience is key. As multiple brands of luxury items compete fiercely in the same space on the eCommerce platform, unlike a luxury store in an illustrious marketplace. Online Luxury stores like Darveys push aggressively with a massive range in online fashion presenting more than 380 authorized sellers worldwide to Indian luxury shoppers. Setting discounts and pricing becomes crucial in the online luxury landscape as well, catering to Indian customers middle class or ultra-rich, discounts are a must. In the Luxury segment, these margins are really fine to hold the brand value. Even Labels like Balenciaga and Burberry are also warming up with offers exclusive to discounts to Indian customers. Home Décor & Furnishings, Beauty & Personal Care, and Fashion & accessories eCommerce are the segments growing in the online Luxury shopping space, pumping a massive amount of order volume. Nykaa, in the past year, has witnessed sales rise by 300 – 400 percent and expects next year’s gross merchandise Volume to be approximately $250 million. Exclusively venturing into the fashion market with a range of luxury products. The Competitor Tata CliQ Luxury is not far behind. They venture into home goods, beauty, and fragrances, along with exclusive fashion Luxury items. The products are a mix of Indian luxury labels along with global brands distributed in India. They are trying to tap the emerging premium designers. Once the consumer moves into that price point, the glory days for Indian emerging labels will hit their stride. The Designer Label of Ritu Kumar can also be found on Tata CliQ Luxury’s ‘Indie Luxe’ vertical. Fashion eCom Category Expansion The most accessible category in the Luxury eCommerce is handbags & accessories featuring brands like Coach, Michael Kors, and Kate Spade, etc. These high-ticket pieces work like a bridge to the luxury category, bringing in more shoppers to other categories. Another growing category is a dedicated range of sneakers that attract a

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Surviving the Cookie Apocalypse: Tips To Prepare An Effective Advertising Strategy!

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Advertising /

In 2020, Google the phasing out third-party cookies starting with Chrome browsers – a piece of news that caused a flurry among marketers for all the right reasons! While this deadline has been slightly adjusted and extended to 2024, the news continues to remain interesting as marketers await a life without cookies but are also eager to understand what a cookieless marketing approach might bring to the table. On one hand, they eagerly await a life without cookies, and on the other hand, they are hesitant about what the cookieless future might look like. In this blog, we will look at some ways to run successful digital marketing campaigns in a cookieless world. Cookieless marketing is the term used for the various methods wherein brands can target their audiences without using third-party cookies. Cookieless digital campaign will be the new normal going forward as most web browsers have either already phased out or are going to eliminate cookies due to privacy concerns, and stringent data regulations globally. Why third-party cookies are disappearing? Cookieless marketing has come into prominence after the surge in demand for preventing the sharing of individually identifiable data by marketers. Legislations like GDPR became the key reasons why search engines decided to disable cookies. Apple and Mozilla have already done that, and Google is set to do it in 2023. Impact of Cookieless Advertising on Digital Marketing 83% of marketers currently rely on third-party cookie tracking to identify the target audience. Once the third-party cookies phase out completely, the marketers will no longer be able to track the audience’s behavior or undertake any kind of personalization of the marketing content. As a result, the quality of marketing efforts and their ROI will go down drastically if new means of cookieless marketing are not adopted. Things to Keep in Mind When Creating an Advertising Strategy for a Cookie-less World In the absence of third-party cookie tracking, marketers now need to shift focus to other data inputs such as context, weather, location, and other aspects that can help deliver more relevant ads to the audience. Advertisers who target new audiences instead of overspending on trying to bombard the existing or known audience with ads are likely to be more successful. One of the major benefits that digital marketers will enjoy in the cookieless advertising environment is the lowering of campaign costs. The usage of advanced AI-driven tools can help marketers perform better even without third-party cookie tracking in a privacy-friendly manner contextual ad targeting programmatic ad techniques will rule the roost in the new normal. Here are some of the ways in which marketers can thrive in the new normal of cookieless advertising: 1. Predictive Analytics and Better Messaging Most companies, especially larger organizations have massive databases available to them. However, no more than 23% of the executives in a survey reported that their organizations were able to effectively extract insights from this data. Usage of machine learning to analyze the data and predict the next best steps is one of the key options for the cookieless marketing scenario. Companies can use AI to undertake predictive messaging that would be highly personalized and relevant to the readers. Further, they can analyze what kind of messaging the audience responds to, and with time they can finetune to achieve the right content mix. 2. Hyperlocal Targeting Hyperlocal targeting is going to be one of the biggest trends in contextual targeting advertising. Marketers who can understand and integrate factors such as local weather, festivals, events, and other hyperlocal factors will be able to target the audience accurately. For instance, the weather in snowbound areas is likely to influence customer choices in a way completely different from the choices of people living in coastal or sunny areas. 3. Conversational Marketing 71% of the customers prefer companies that are available for real-time communication, and 79% of enterprises report better customer loyalty, sales, and revenue after deploying live chat. You can benefit from conversational marketing as it engages the customers directly and helps the brand get unique individual insights about customers, and those can help in extending the life cycle value of the customer. 4. Personalization 80% of regular online shoppers engage with brands that deliver a personalized experience. Smart geo-targeting and time-based marketing content can engage this audience better and generate significantly better results in the world of cookieless advertising. 5. First-Party Data Collection While third-party cookies are on their way out, brands can leverage first-party data collection to generate insights and gather quality data about the customers. Conversations and direct data gathering from customers who buy from your brand can help in achieving this objective. Building a sizeable database might take some time, but the quality and possible conversion rate of first-party data is going to be worth the effort. 5. Collaborating with Large Ad Publishers Directly Companies should focus on engaging with programmatic publishers who are contextually relevant. They have tremendous insights and data about different audience types and the kind of content that works with each. By collaborating with such publishers directly, businesses can better measure and plan their marketing efforts without cookies. 6. Contextual Advertising Shifting the focus from tracking users through cookies to the webpage content and positioning the ads in context. For instance, in user tracking, you might end up showing a travel ad to someone when he is visiting a webpage related to healthcare. This would change, and advertisers would be able to offer personalized and relevant marketing to visitors on web pages without any need to get invasive or to track the users. 7. Cultural Marketing Cultural marketing is more of a seasonal and time-bound marketing tactic that can help advertisers engage the audience with relevant content. For instance, a major sporting event like the Olympics or World Cup of Cricket, or festivals like Diwali and Christmas can be apt opportunities for cultural marketing. Way Forward The clock is ticking and there is no time to waste for marketers. The phase-out of third-party cookies is going to be a reality

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Stay Safe Online: How to Protect Your Website from Domain Infringement

Leave a Comment / Blog, Brand Safety & Protection /

Business websites first came into prominence in the 1990s, and the internet houses billions of websites, webpages, forums, etc., that pertain to brands all over the world. Any typical brand website has content such as blogs, product descriptions, podcasts, white papers, reports, case studies, videos, images, etc. However, this proliferation of content also faces the challenge of website copyright infringement or domain infringement, etc. You may not realize the full value of the content on your brand website until you get complaints such as illegal or unsuitable content emerging on your website or customers being duped by a website that looked almost like a replica of your brand. After having spent a lot of time and money building the website and original content on it, it is unacceptable for any business to suffer from impersonation through either domain infringement or website copyright infringement. Not only that, scamsters can imitate your website design and imagery or logos on it to create a duplicate website that could be stealing the traffic meant for your business. The first thing to prevent such occurrences is to put a legal disclaimer on your website to highlight that all content is the intellectual property of the business. Various types of website copyright infringement and website trademark infringement risks can target brand names, website URLs, logos, designs, taglines, brand songs, and even product design that can be subject to IP theft. That’s why it is important to identify the most vulnerable areas to such domain trademark infringement and protect digital brand. Types of Threats on a Brand’s Domain 1. Domain Name Infringement: Domain infringement is the technique wherein imposters use a domain extension to create a website that has the same or similar domain name. for instance, one might have a “.com” address and someone might create a .net copy. Alternatively, misspelling the website name to make it look identical is a common threat faced by reputed brands with heavy web traffic. 2. Counterfeiting: Counterfeiting is achieved by creating a duplicate website of a brand by copying content from it to sell spurious or counterfeit goods. Despite all the quality check mechanisms, billions of dollars of potential revenue are lost by companies due to such digital counterfeiting. 3. Brand Impersonation: Social selling and brands engaging with their audiences through social media platforms, has become the common practice for all modern brands irrespective of their size or industry. Fraudsters take advantage of this and often indulge in brand impersonation to attract customers looking for the actual brand and its products/services. They can damage the brand reputation by creating fake social media pages claiming to be the official representatives of the brand, and such practices are also carried out on e-commerce marketplaces by them. How to protect the brand from Domain Infringement? Social media community watch – Brands that are great with social media presence are capable to engage their audience to capture a superior response and loyalty from them. There is a very high chance that the audience members would notify the marketers if they spot any fake page, website, or social media profile in their brand’s name or even a lookalike. Taking legal steps – Website copyright infringement is a serious offense, and companies suffering from it can take punitive legal action. Marketers need to understand the legalities and what options are available to a business if a violation of the Copyright Act is noticed. Using an infringement identification tool – Apart from the manual efforts, it is essential for brands to partner with an advanced and automated solution to combat the ever-evolving threats. With an AI/ML brand safety tool the brands can identify the anomalies with accuracy and take immediate action. mFilterIt’s brand protection solution uses open-source intelligence capabilities to scan through the web including the dark web and identify infringement cases and takedown them immediately to protect the brand digital presence. Way Forward The limitless market access available through online platforms and the business growth opportunities on digital media are immense. However, brand infringement is a perennially looming threat that can affect any brand’s reputation, revenue, and consumer trust if it is not detected in timely and appropriate action is not taken to protect the brand. Go ahead and adopt a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach by deploying market-leading end-to-end brand safety tool to prevent domain infringement and advertise fearlessly in the digital world!

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