The tech scene in Europe and the US has been quite unsettled recently, just as Mark Zuckerberg issued a long manifesto about adapting Facebook into an overseas version of WeChat around the goal of user privacy, and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposed to split his company and other tech giants such as Google, among others, through an anti-trust action. Meanwhile, thousands of retailers gathered in Las Vegas for this year's Shoptalk conference to discuss some of the trends plaguing the industry.
Here are some of the most recent figures in marketing technology that stood out.
15 million users
According to a report by Edison Research, Facebook has lost 15 million users in the US over the past two years. The report says that after months of endless scandals, Facebook is turning its attention to more encryption and user privacy issues, making Facebook a more private social platform.
Zuckerberg said, "I believe that the future of communication will increasingly shift to more private, encrypted services where people can have absolute confidence in secure communication and that their messages and the content of their communications will not be there forever." "This is the future I hope we can achieve."
I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won "t stick around forever, this is the future I hope we will help bring about."
100,000 USD
Facebook and Instagram have recently filed a lawsuit against several Chinese companies, with the lawsuit seeking damages of US$100,000 for a single domain name. In the lawsuit Facebook and Instagram cite Chinese companies for peddling fake accounts, fake likes and fake fans. The tech giant also accused four Chinese companies of infringing on its brand trademark rights.
In their complaint, Facebook and Instagram allege that the defendants used a number of websites to promote the fact that they created, controlled, Snapchat and other platforms on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, Google Voice, Gmail, YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, Pinterest, Snapchat and others maintain and sell fake accounts on websites including, but not limited to: 9xiufacebook.com, 9xiufacebook.cc, 9 xiufacebook.net, Maihaoba.cc, myfacebook.cc and myhaoba.com.
50% of online shoppers
Google says that around half of online shoppers will consider buying an item after seeing a picture of it. That's why at this Shoptalk conference for retailers, the search giant was chatting about a new shoppable image format. The feature is currently being tested with selected retailers, for example if you search for "home office ideas" and so on.
Daniel Alegre, President of Google Retail Shopping and Payments, said during his keynote at Shoptalk: "We realise that no two paths are the same, and we've done a lot of research and thinking about the sales funnel. The truth is that the path doesn't really look like a funnel. The paths are different. There are so many options and perceptions, and the perception is that you are there when the consumer is looking for you."
We realized that no two journeys are alike, and we think a lot about funnel, [Daniel Alegre, president, retail shopping and payments at Google] said during a keynote at Shoptalk, a retail conference in Las Vegas. No journey is exactly alike. With so many choices and awareness, awareness is about being there when the consumer is looking for you. With so many choices and awareness, awareness is about being there when the consumer is looking for you.
8 to 13 channels
According to one survey, the average marketer currently uses at least eight different marketing channels, ranging from mobile apps to email marketing and more. According to a report by Salesforce this week, this number is expected to increase by another five within a year with the arrival of new options such as Virtual Reality (VR) and CustomerCommunity. The report also bodes well for cross-channel collaboration with more marketers who say they share common goals with other teams such as commercial and customer service.
Working across teams isn't the only pain point marketers face, as they are also looking at how to better leverage channels ranging from mobile apps to email marketing. 33% of marketers say their channel coordination is dynamic, an increase of 28% from 2017.
137
Facebook reported that 23 Facebook pages, 74 Facebook accounts, five Facebook groups and 35 Instagram accounts were seized in the UK during the latest platform clean-up campaign, as well as four pages, 26 accounts and one group in Romania.
The pages, accounts and groups discussed topics such as immigration, freedom of expression, racism, LGBT issues, extreme right-wing politics, Indo-Pakistani issues and religious beliefs including Islam and Christianity.
3 new metrics
Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will replace its ad-related metric scores with three new "more granular" metrics. It will also remove six other ad metrics and replace them with what it calls "more actionable" measurements. The three new metrics include quality ranking, engagement ranking and conversion ranking.
The quality ranking metric measures the perceived quality of an ad by comparing it to competing ads for the same target audience.
The Engagement Ranking metric similarly measures the expected engagement rate of the ad's users by comparing it to competing ads for the same target audience.
The conversion rate ranking metric does the same, measuring the expected conversion rate of the ad user by comparing it to competing ads for the same target audience.