Every year, Mary Meeker from Kleiner Perkins releases the Internet Trends Report. Focused primarily on the United States but including global trends, it offers an in-depth glimpse into current internet trends, complete with historic analysis. In 2018 there is also a section specifically dedicated to China. While we are focused primarily in digital marketing for China, southeast Asia, east Asia, and Australia/New Zealand, we keep a close eye on the report every year as a way to see what's coming to this region. Here are some of the more salient points from our perspective:
- Facebook leads the way in product discovery on social media at 78%, followed by Instagram and Pinterest tied at 59%, then Twitter and Snap. 55% of survey respondents bought a product online after social media discovery
- Referrals from social/feeds to e-commerce websites increased from 2% in 2015 to 6% in Q1 2018
- The cost of reaching users online is increasing causing the return on ad spend to decrease
- Customer Lifetime Value is considered as most important when it comes to objective for optimizing ad spend according to global marketing professionals
- Mobile Shopping App sessions have increased 54% from 2016-2017 Y/Y, more than any other segment being tracked
- In the US, there is opportunity to shift ad dollars from print, TV and desktop to Mobile
- 9 of the top 20 internet companies in the world are from China (3 out of the top 10)
- Chinese spend 47% of their online time on social media, followed by video at 22%. Social media time has decreased while video watching has increased.
- WeChat accounts for 38% of China mobile payments, while Alipay accounts for 54%
There is a ton of information available in the report. We encourage all marketing professionals to take a look:
One of the slides that most caught our attention presented data on Customer Lifetime Value. 27% of global marketing professionals who responded to the survey identified this as the most important metric in ad spending optimization. Impressions/Web Traffic came in at 19%, Brand Recognition & Lift at 18% and 3 other categories were lower. As the slide points out in its title, as the cost of customer acquisition is increasing, marketers are looking more at Customer Lifetime Value. What this means is nurturing the customer once you have them so they continue to purchase from you as it costs less than acquiring new customers (see the third bullet point above). All very good information to ponder and apply in your marketing campaigns. Like Leonardo DaVinci said, "Knowledge is not enough, you must apply."
