Essential Marketing Stats from Mid-February

It’s time once again to share a few interesting and important digital marketing stats from the past couple of weeks. Whatever the size and nature of your business, you’ll hopefully find some kind of value in the following:

Right to be forgotten of interest to millions of Brits
First up, a recent study carried out by Mediatel found that up to a third (34%) of people in the United Kingdom are interested in exercising their ‘right to be forgotten’. What’s more, less than one in five companies are confident that personal data is handled and used responsibly, with 58% of consumers expressing concern regarding how much personal information is stored about them in general. If accurate, millions of Brits could issue requests to be forgotten over the coming years.

Mobile apps driving stronger retail sales
According to Criteo, retailers that offer their customers mobile apps are seeing around half of online sales take place via mobile devices. While mobile devices are known to account for around 40% of online sales in Europe in general, the figure for the UK is much higher at 53%. Customers in many regions and demographics are demonstrating growing preference to dedicated mobile apps, above and beyond purchasing through mobile browsers. The biggest increases in mobile sales have been noted in luxury, fashion and health & beauty sectors.

Too much personalisation is a bad thing
Personalised emails and marketing messages can be extremely powerful. However, take things too far and you’ll be interpreted as creepy, sending your customers in entirely the wrong direction. A recent study found that around 75% of consumers find all types of personalisation at least a little unsettling, with 22% having said they’d refuse to use a brand that takes personalisation too far. On the whole, around 50% of respondents said they’d had at least one creepy experience with personalisation.

Replying to online reviews is a must
New research from Harvard Business School shows that if looking to boost your brand’s overall rating, replying to reviews is an absolute must. Specifically, it was found that when hotels on TripAdvisor respond consistently to customer reviews, they in turn attract on average 12% more reviews and a star-rating boosted by 0.12 stars. Given that even the smallest of differences can have a huge impact when dealing with such huge competition, the findings of the study could prove highly significant.

Global internet user population surpasses 4bn
Last but not least, we’ve now officially passed the 4 billion global internet user threshold for the first time in history. That is, according to a new report published by We Are Social and Hootsuite. This would mean that more than half of the entire global population is now online in one capacity or another. The study also found that the average Brit now spends around six hours online every single day, with more than 95% of the UK population using the internet.