ExchangeWire Research's weekly round up brings you up-to-date research findings from around the world, with insight from Rebecca Muir, head of research and analysis at ExchangeWire.

In this week's edition: eMarketer’s curation of its latest coverage of issues affecting marketers seeking to engage with consumers as they traverse across multiple devices during their path-to-conversion. The Media Insight Project — a collaboration of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — exploring the online content consumption habits of Generation Y. ExchangeWire Research finds that the majority of marketers are turning to technology providers rather than independent research firms to understand trends and ultimately make business-critical decisions.

Path-to-Conversion

Of the estimated 165 million people in the US who made at least one purchase via a digital channel last year, 104.8 million made a purchase from a mobile device, including 88.3 million who made a purchase via a tablet specifically and 67.2 million who bought something via a smartphone. In addition, millions more used each of these devices to browse and research products without actually making a purchase.

With the use of beacon technology predicted to increase substantially in the next two years, and consumers’ continued adoption and use of retail apps, it has never been more crucial for marketers to solve the cross device path-to-conversion conundrum. Currently, share of retail time spent online on a mobile device is 66% (34% is on desktop), whereas, dollars spent via mobile makes up just 11%, with the remaining 89% being spent via desktop devices. The challenge for marketers is to determine the influence that time spent browsing retail products on a mobile device had on the desktop purchase. Only then can marketers attribute value to mobile and truly optimise their investment across these two channels.

Read the full report here.

Do You Know What Do Millennials Do Online?

At the heart of any marketing campaign is a deep understanding of the target audience; this drives media investment and creative strategy. With this in mind, brands are facing the challenge of understanding a target audience that is fundamentally different to any audience they have previously profiled. “Millennials” are defined as those aged 18-34, people who have grown up with the internet and are more comfortable browsing, engaging and spending online compared to the preceding generation.

In order to try to crack the millennial code, the Media Insight Project (a collaboration of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research) surveyed 1,046 US adults between the ages of 18 and 34, and asked them how they spend their time online.

The most popular digital activities among the survey respondents were:

• Checking and sending email (72%)
• Keeping up with what friends are doing (71%)
• Streaming music, TV, or movies (68%)
• Researching hobbies and other topics of interest (65%)
• Keeping up with the world and news (65%)
• Shop or research products online (56%)
• Find information about events, movies, restaurants, etc. (56%)

Interestingly, and contrary to popular opinion, playing games was reported as the least popular online activity, with under half (45%) of respondents saying they do so regularly.
When it comes to online privacy, just one fifth of respondents said they worry “a good deal” about privacy in general. The biggest worry, at 38%, was identity theft.

Read the full report here.

Technology providers vs independent research firms

Finally, research from the newly formed ExchangeWire Research team showed that almost two-thirds (64%) of marketers turn to ad tech providers for data into the latest trends and best practices in online advertising, while only 35% turn to independent researchers and 26% to governing bodies. This is concerning as technology providers do not necessarily provide an unbiased view, and marketers risk making decisions based on the technology-side view, as opposed to independent findings and insight.

When asked about the barriers faced when sourcing accurate, credible, useable research, more than two in five respondents (43%) cited a lack of data focussing on emerging channels and the same percentage said that the data available today is too generic. In addition, a similar proportion (39%) reported there was also a lack of data available for specific markets. Several respondents commented that data used to produce insights is too old to be relevant, as the advertising technology space evolves at such a rapid pace.

Nick Graham, global director digital marketing, Huawei Technologies, suggests that: “As a brand, we appreciate that true research neutrality is hard to come by. Both consultancies and leading research providers have ties with the industry, and ad tech vendors have similar ties, which makes quality independent research all the more rare and valuable.”

Graham highlights that: “This problem will only worsen as our industry growth explodes. We need only consider how a phenomenon such as the Internet of Things (IoT) will fuel even more demand for credible data, and over the coming years, vendor proliferation from ad tech through to the IoT will be immense.” He continues to point out: “We need only consider how challenging it is to get full industry support for these large-scale initiatives – such as JICWEBS – to realise how difficult it is to deliver industry-wide research and metrics.”

Rebecca Muir, head of research at ExchangeWire Research, said: “Technology spend by CMOs is expected to increase tenfold in 10 years from $12 billion to $120 billion, according to Ashu Garg, General Partner, Foundation Capital. With that in mind, having the right data available to support such significant investments is vital. Marketers require objective data to inform strategic decisions, such as investing in new advertising formats, breaking into new markets, and the selection of expensive advertising technology solutions.

“Generic reports and figures tend be headline-grabbing and receive a great deal of attention, but do not get to the remote of the issue at hand or empower marketers with in-depth data and insight to make business-critical decisions. With access to the world’s leading marketing and media companies, our results clearly show that there is a real need for more independent, timely, and topical data to be made available.”

OpenX has partnered with ExchangeWire Research to investigate the issue of marketplace quality in today’s programmatic advertising ecosystem.

We invite you to complete our survey and share your views on this subject.

To show our appreciation of your time, all completed responses will be entered into a prize draw with a chance to win one of four Amazon vouchers worth £250.

Click here to complete the survey.