ExchangeWire Research’s weekly roundup brings you up-to-date research findings from around the world, with additional insight provided by Rebecca Muir, head of research and analysis, ExchangeWire. In this week’s edition: Boost in e-commerce sales for back-to-school season; Women working in STEM need more incentives; Publishers choosing ‘sponsored’ over ‘promoted’.

Boost in e-commerce sales for back-to-school season

E-commerce retail sales in the US will climb to USD$65.42bn (£49.97bn) for the back-to-school season, a new study published by Rakuten Marketing finds. This equates to an extra USD$8.68bn (£6.63bn) revenue, year-on-year.

Despite this, 85% of respondents said they would still travel in-store to make their final purchases. However, the study finds that 59% of adults are using their mobiles when conducting back-to-school purchase research. This highlights the increasing prevalence of mobile along the customer’s path to purchase.

More than half of customer respondents ranked social media adverts as one of the least effective formats for influencing purchase decisions. This is surprising, given that surveyed advertisers are increasing spend on social advertising by 19.3%, more than on any other digital channel. One possible reason consumers rank social ad influence so low could be the likelihood that these native ad formats are upper-funnel touchpoints, as opposed to the last touchpoint prior to purchase.

Despite this, the report still suggests that social advertising will impact back-to-school shopping more than ever. Consumers are now spending 43 minutes on social networks each day. Additionally, as social messaging apps allow consumers to interact directly with brands and make in-app purchases, marketers create one-to-one advertising experiences with consumers in new ways.

The study finds that shopping and browsing behaviour continues to grow online. There is an increasing shift to mobile, where nearly 60% of shopping parents are transacting. Interestingly, males are 22% more likely to purchase from a mobile device versus females.

Women working in STEM need more incentives

Women working in STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Maths) need greater career advancement opportunities, says research from WITI and 451 Research. Nearly half of this group (44%) aspire to a leadership position (C-suite, business owner or VP). However, the current proportion of women in leadership roles within STEM is only 13%. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of these women say a lack of opportunity for promotion hurts their career.

The report highlights the importance of exposing young girls to STEM careers outside the home. Of those who went into a STEM career, 50% had a father in the industry and 8% had a mother in it. On the other hand, 38% did not have a parent working it STEM, and 70% did not know a woman working in the industry while growing up.

The study suggests that young girls should, therefore, be exposed to career opportunities in this area at school and through extracurricular initiatives. The value of providing impactful STEM experiences up to the age of 18 also becomes clear, with 42% of respondents citing this as influencing their decision to follow this career.

Once in a STEM career, the study finds mentoring is crucial to workplace satisfaction. Nearly a third of respondents (30%) say mentor programmes directly help their career. There is a 67% greater career satisfaction rate among those with mentors than those without, and 75% say managers have been a positive driver in their career.

Ultimately, women working in STEM need more incentives if gender diversity in the industry is to thrive. Nearly half (44%) of STEM women feel gender discrimination has hindered their career. This is one reason why half (50%) of respondents are currently looking for new jobs, with 26% unsure if they want to continue working in STEM.

Publishers choosing ‘sponsored’ over ‘promoted’

More than half (55%) of premium publishers are using the native disclosure term ‘sponsored’, according to research published by Polar. Disclosure terms refer to the actual disclosure text that indicates a native ad is promoting an advertiser-paid piece of content, such as ‘sponsored post’ or ‘promoted by’.

With guidance and regulations coming from the likes of the FTC, IAB, DCN.org and several others, publishers are especially concerned with several guidelines on how to best label native placements.

The study was based on a sample of 65 partner websites, which overall contained 137 native ad placements. The term ‘sponsored’ and all of its variants (e.g. sponsored content, sponsored post) is by far the most commonly used disclosure term, at 55%. It is used over three times as often as the next most popular term, ‘promoted’.

‘Promoted’ is the best performing term, with a CTR of 0.19%. However, on desktop the term ‘sponsored’ marginally outperformed ‘promoted’ by around 26%. Despite this, when it comes to mobile, the term ‘promoted’ was the clear winner, outpacing ‘sponsored’ by a huge 105%. It is apparent that CTR performance can vary dramatically within disclosure terms, depending on the type of device in question.