Marketing Forward

SMS compliance: What you don’t know CAN hurt you

Alex Krylov — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:30:37 +0000

There is no question that when used correctly text messaging can have a great positive impact on a brand’s relationship with their customers, not to mention the potential to drive significant incremental revenue in the process. Part of creating that positive relationship with customers through this channel is clearly communicating the instructions, terms and conditions, benefits and your privacy policy related to the program you’re offering. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission recently released a declaratory ruling in support of the Mobile Marketing Association’s efforts to preserve “consumer preference and choice” through its US Consumer Best Practices (MMA CBP) guidelines.

In honor of SMS’s 20^th anniversary late last year and the MMA CBP’s 7^th edition we would like to provide you with some key information about mobile marketing compliance.

Regulatory background

Since the passing of the US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, it has been widely believed that commercial SMS and MMS messages were subject to the same opt-out consent and unsubscribe requirements as commercial email. While the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider mobile messages when developing guidelines, the FCC has taken the position that text messages sent by automated broadcast systems are ‘automated calls’ and are therefore best covered under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991. Under the original Act, implied consent through a pre-existing business relationship and not opt-in consent was the standard for commercial telephonic communications and robo-calls.

On February 15, 2012 the FCC amended the TCPA to remove any ambiguity surrounding consent requirements for SMS, making it mandatory for businesses to receive “prior express written consent” before auto-dialing or texting consumers.

Industry self-regulation background

In 2003 the MMA published its first set of ethical guidelines for mobile marketers. Now a global-facing document, the MMA Code of Conduct can be distilled into the following privacy principles:

Adequate notice.Whenever requesting a mobile phone number marketers should inform consumers that they will be receiving SMS messages from a concrete shortcode-based program.
Opt-in consent. Regardless of offline, online or handset-originating acquisition, consumers may not be automatically enrolled into an SMS program. Consumers must first give their express (opt-in) consent by knowingly volunteering their mobile number or using a handset-originating command to join the program. Submissions through online forms require a double opt-in.
Opting out. Users should also know the ways to opt-out of a program, how to get help from their handset and where to reference terms and conditions, as well as the fact that message and data rates may apply when participating in an SMS program.

While advocated, the Code was not enforced and there were no concrete rules it’s practical application. The shift to robust self-regulation came in 2007 when the Florida Attorney General’s Cybercrime Taskforce aggressively pursued affiliate networks and mobile carriers who enabled the proliferation of deceptive premium-rated mobile programs.[1] The AG’s actions resulted in a number of key settlements, the terms of which became the backbone of the MMA CBP and carrier-specific monitoring and enforcement playbooks. This self-regulatory schema has evolved steadily over the past 7 years and is currently administered by the custodians of US shortcodes, the CTIA. In 2012 the CTIA, in collaboration with wireless carriers and industry auditors, developed a consolidated Common Shortcode Monitoring Compliance Playbook for SMS marketers.

Regulatory win for consumer best practices

The FCC’s amendments to the TCPA resulted in unintended consequences for MMA-compliant senders who were subjected to threats of civil suits for alleged violations under the Act.[2] On November 30, the FCC clarified that MMA-prescribed confirmation messages were not in violation of the TCPA. According to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, “Hopefully, by making clear that the Act does not prohibit confirmation texts, we will end the litigation that has punished some companies for doing the right thing, as well as the threat of litigation that has deterred others from adopting a sound marketing practice.”

And while not an explicit endorsement, the FCC Commissioner’s comments in support of “sound marketing practices” should not be overlooked. Some marketers have already dealt with the consequences of breaking these rules by way of CTIA audits, program short codes being de-provisioned and private legal actions from consumers.[3] With the TCPA updated to better reflect the state of privacy and practice in the industry today, rogue senders now have more reasons to worry.

Michael Puffer, one of our mobile marketing experts at Experian Marketing Services, suggests you ask yourself the following questions when reviewing your mobile program: (HINT – If the answer is no, it might be time to take another look)

Are you only sending mobile messages to those users that have provided express consent as defined by the MMA?
As part of that consent, are all programs identified and are the instructions, primary and secondary charges ( message and data rates), program terms and privacy policies clearly displayed anywhere opt-ins are promoted?
Are you ensuring that a user’s consent only applies to the specific program for which they opted-in, and not treated as a blanket approval for other programs?
Are you double opting-in subscribers who are joining programs from Web forms and other methods? (In most cases, texting from a phone is the only time a single opt-in should be used.)
Are you maintaining opt out (STOP) and assistance (HELP) mechanisms and communicating their use at the time opt-ins are collected?
Are all opt-out requests honored no later than 72 hours after receipt?

If the answer to all of the above is YES, then you are well on your way to establishing a mutually respectful and beneficial relationship with your subscribers.

[1] See Agreements of Voluntary Compliance with AzoogleAds, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, et al

[2] See Gutierrez v. Barclays Group. Barclays paid $8 million to settle class action complaints that it violated the TCPA by sending MMA-prescribed STOP Confirm messages.

[3] Although industry requirements are publicized as best practice guidelines, they are vigorously enforced by professional auditing firms under the direction of the CTIA.

Christmas Day 2012 retail visits increase 27% compared to 2011

Matt Tatham — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:51:36 +0000

The home stretch for the holidays is nearing as second wind for retailers is just starting as Experian Marketing Services analyzes the post-Christmas retail trend. Christmas Day 2012 saw a 27% increase in online traffic to the top 500 retail sites compared to 2011. The top retail sites received more than 115.5 million total U.S. visits. To date the holiday online traffic for the past 7 weeks to retail sites are up 10% for 2012 vs. 2011.

Each retail holiday milestone day saw online traffic increases so far this season.

Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers for this past week ending Dec. 22, 2012 and was also the top visited site on Christmas Day. Walmart, Target, BestBuy and Macy’s round out the top 5 most visited sites. The chart below includes the top 10 results:

As tablets dominated our weekly top product search lists all holiday season it wasn’t surprising to see that the Apple iTunes site visits increased 193% and Apple.com visits increased 155% on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012. The top product search terms sending traffic to the Apple.com site were iPod Nano, iPad Mini and iPad 4. Amazon.com visits increased 24% on Christmas Day 2012 vs. Christmas Eve 2012 as the top product search terms sending traffic to their site were Amazon Kindle, Kindle Fire and Kindle

Also seeing growth were gift card searches as the year-over-year total search volume for “gift card” variations increased 6.1% this year compared to 2011. The big spike in searches happened last week (as online shoppers passed shipping deadlines). Below are the top 10 gift card searches for last week.

We will continue to publish retail site data and insights through this holiday season. Please leave us a comment below if you have any specific questions along the way.

UPDATE: The top 500 retail sites received more than 129 million total US visits on Dec. 26^th, an increase of 1% compared to 2011 and 12% compared to Christmas Day 2012. Amazon was the top site followed by Walmart, Target, BestBuy and Macy’s. JCPenney, QVC and The Home Depot all moved into the top 10 on the day after Christmas.

Statistical significance in a testing world

Adam Sugano — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 06:00:43 +0000

Statistically significant is a phrase that many people throw around to add a little gravitas to their arguments, but I often wonder how many of these people actually understand what this phrase means. Some of the more frequent explanations I hear are that it means the p-value is small, or it signifies an important outcome to take note of, or it is an outcome that is most likely not occurring by chance. All of these responses are true, but having a fundamental understanding of the mechanics that lie beneath this phrase is essential for anyone responsible for conducting A/B tests, multivariate tests or pretty much any situation where analytics are being leveraged to defend an idea or hypothesis.

Last month, my blog post focused on the concept of hypothesis testing in statistics. Namely, defining what is meant by the null and alternative hypotheses, and why it is important to define these before any data have been collected. This month I will focus on how to interpret the results of your study after your hypotheses have been defined, the data collected and the results analyzed.

Let’s consider the following situation:

You have a friend who claims he has the ability to correctly predict the outcome of a coin toss more than 50% of the time. As a rational person you, of course, are skeptical, but you also realize that the only way to settle this assertion is to put your friend to the test and begin flipping coins. Wisely, however, you remember reading my last blog post on Marketing Forward about the importance of defining your hypotheses upfront before any data has been collected. So, you write the following on a piece of paper:

Null Hypothesis: My friend can only correctly predict the outcome of a coin flip 50% of the time

Alternative Hypothesis: My friend can correctly predict the outcome of a coin flip more than 50% of the time

Your friend agrees with your hypotheses and then you two begin a discussion around choosing an alpha level. The alpha level (α) is very important when it comes to statistical significance because it is the dividing line between what will be deemed statistically significant and what will not be deemed statistically significant. In a lot of ways this can make the phrase statistically significant seem rather arbitrary, which is why it is important to always choose your alpha level before any statistics are calculated. A typical alpha level is 5% or 0.05. What this means is that if the result of your experiment could only happen by chance less than 5% of the time, then the result is defined as being statistically significant. Similarly, if an alpha level of 1% or 0.01 is chosen (a stricter test) then statistical significance can only be claimed if the result should only happen by chance alone less than 1% of the time. But because your friend is so confident in his supernatural ability to correctly predict the outcome of a coin flip he is willing to meet that higher burden of proof and allows you to set the alpha level at 1%.

A visual way to understand the process described above would be as follows:

We all know there is natural variability involved with flipping a coin, but done repeatedly, we expect to arrive at a proportion of heads or tails that is very close to 50%. However, if your friend can truly predict the outcome of a coin flip at a rate significantly better than 50%, we are willing to reject the null hypothesis and conclude he does have some sort of supernatural gift or ability. But, we are only willing to give him this statistically significant designation if he lands in the top 1% (because we chose an α-level of 0.01) of the distribution shown above.

The exact value of this top 1% (rejection region) is dependent upon the number of coin flips your friend must try and predict. Let’s assume you guys both agree on 100 coin flips. In this case, the above graph can be updated with the following numbers.

This graph adds two new points of reference. The first is at the center of the distribution where P = 50% (‘P’ here is notation for proportion). This corresponds to what is assumed under the null hypothesis. Remember that in the null hypothesis we are stating that our friend has no predictive ability, and so his chances of predicting correctly should be centered at 50%. The other reference point is P = 62.9%, this percentage represents the 99^th percentile of the distribution and is the dividing line between a statistically significant result and a result that is not statistically significant.

Well, after 100 flips of the coin your friend records an impressive (but not statistically significant) result of a 60% success rate. In this situation a 60% success rate corresponds to a p-value of .0228 or 2.28%. The p-value is always defined as the probability of getting a result as extreme or more extreme than what is observed, assuming the null hypothesis is true. In other words, if your friend’s ability to correctly predict the outcome of a coin toss is only 50%, there is still a 2.28% chance that his 60% success rate happened purely by chance alone. And since this percentage is higher than our alpha level, he does not fall into the rejection region and we fail to reject the null hypothesis. In other words, we do not see enough evidence statistically to believe his claim of supernatural coin flipping prediction ability.

An interesting note to mention, however, is that if the α-level had been set at 0.05 or 5%, the p-value of 2.28% would be less than the threshold required for statistical significance (5%) and we would have concluded that our friend does possess special predictive powers. This highlights the need to always specify an alpha level before proceeding with any statistical calculations as practitioners may be tempted to adjust their original alpha levels after results have been calculated in order to reach a statistically significant result.

To summarize, statistically significant is a phrase that has an inherent meaning and interpretation. But for those without a firm understanding of what is meant by the terms alpha level, p-value and null and alternative hypotheses, this phrase should be used a little less liberally until proper background knowledge is comprehended. Gaining this understanding will aid you when interpreting and defending the results of any statistical tests you have performed.

CNBC “Squawk on the Street” features Experian Marketing insights & data

Scott Anderson — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:30:35 +0000

Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services, joined CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” the day after Christmas to share insights and data regarding the rise of online shopping this holiday season.

View the segment below to learn more about the importance of multi-channel marketing, and how we’re helping marketers connect with their customers in this dynamic and complex multi-channel environment.

Bill also shares details and data on the most visited retail Websites, as well as the most popular products this holiday season in comparison to years past.

View additional broadcast segments and videos featuring our thought leaders and subject matter experts.

Hot holiday trends: week of December 9th – 15th

Shelley Kessler — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:59:36 +0000

Experian Marketing Services, has released its holiday insights for the week of December 9^th, 2012.

This week the study finds:

Email campaigns with offers in the subject line make up 28.6% of campaigns this holiday season – a 6% increase over the 27% of campaigns with offers seen last year.
Offers in subject lines for percent off, dollars off, BOGO, gift cards and coupons have increased as a percent of total offers, while flash sales, free shipping and urgency make up a lower percentage of offers than they did last season.
87% of traffic generated by search terms containing “free shipping” was organic traffic during the week ending 12/15.
Hot Products: top search terms to appliance & electronic sites were “beats by dre” and “otterbox” for the week ending 12/15.
Multi-channel retailers, catalogers, and publishers had double digit increases in volume for the week of 12/9 – 12/15 compared to 2011.
The increases in revenue per email we have seen this year over last year are holding as we approach the last 2 weeks of the season.

Highlights and trends: continue the conversation

As the holiday is almost here, it is important to expand upon and continue the relationships you have achieved with subscribers and buyers this season. Email is an excellent way to have multi-channel conversations with your customers

Social media:

Encourage subscribers to share their holiday gifts and experiences on your social media sites. Facebook and Pinterest are the most popular social media sites to appear in subject lines, and both received higher than average open and click rates during this holiday season.

Ratings and surveys:
Continue the conversation with your subscribers by sending surveys and/or requests for ratings and reviews of your products and services. Strong open and click rates on these types of mailings indicate that subscribers welcome the chance to interact with you in this way.

Thank-you mailings:
For a ‘quick win’ at the end of this holiday season and throughout the year, include campaigns with the words ‘thank-you’ in the subject line. Mailings sent to thank folks for subscribing to a list, or joining a loyalty program, or purchasing a product had more than 2.5 times the open rate and over 3 times the click rate of the average for all season mailings.

In addition to generating high open and click rates, ‘thank-you’ mailings provide exceptional transaction rates and revenue per email. Sending a ‘Thank-you for purchase’ mailing in addition to any order confirmations, can provide 6.5x higher revenue per email than the average for all season mailings.

Online consumer insights

Monday, December 17 was Free Shipping Day – which marks another major e-retail day as shipping deadlines approach to ensure timely holiday deliveries. Leading up to this day, variations of ‘free shipping’ search terms have been rising since November, and have increased 91% since the week ending 11/3.

Continuing our watch of gift card searches as we get closer to the Christmas holiday, we see that searches containing ‘gift card’ increased 42% in the past week.

Creating a single customer view

Caitlin Devore — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:42:00 +0000

A single customer view is an aggregated, consistent and holistic representation of the data known by an organization about its customers. While most businesses have been considering this strategy and working towards data integration for some time, the process is ongoing.

There are several benefits organizations see from a single customer view. A consolidated view helps with business intelligence, staff efficiency, marketing campaigns and effectiveness, collections in billing and the overall customer experience.

There are several reasons why organizations struggle to create a single view. First, many organizations house several databases, which collect unique data and are used by different departments. This siloed approach leads to duplicate database records, inconsistent data entry and less tailored customer interactions.

All of these scenarios lead to inconsistent data spread out across the organization. To leverage the information, organizations need to ensure consistent data entry across the organization, identify patterns of data errors and leverage matching technology.

Regular database maintenance needs to take place to ensure information is accurate and duplicate records are merged. This regular cleaning will help businesses achieve a single customer view and improve a variety of business processes.

Facebook was the top search term in 2012 for fourth straight year

Matt Tatham — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:19:19 +0000

Experian Marketing Services analyzed the top 1,000 search terms from Hitwise data for 2012 , and Facebook was the top-searched term overall in the US. This is the fourth year that the social networking Website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 4.13 percent of all searches, a 33 percent increase from 2011. Four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 10 terms and accounted for 5.62 percent of US searches overall, a 27 percent increase from 2011.

Among the top 10 terms, the top two terms stayed the same with facebook the top search term and “youtube” ranked at number two. The search term “craigslist” moved up from the fourth spot in 2011 to the third spot in 2012. “Facebook login” was the fourth most-searched term in 2012, followed by “facebook.com” and “yahoo.” The search term “amazon” moved into the top 10 terms for the first time. Analysis of the search terms revealed that social networking–related terms dominated the results, accounting for 6.03 percent of the top 50 searches. This is an increase of 44 percent compared with 2011.

When combined, common search terms for Facebook — e.g., facebook and facebook.com — accounted for 5.84 percent of all searches in the United States among the top 50 terms, which represents a 27 percent increase compared with 2011. YouTube terms accounted for 1.67 percent, representing a 23 percent increase compared with 2011. Google terms (including YouTube) accounted for 1.91 percent — an increase of 20 percent compared with 2011. Yahoo terms accounted for 0.79 percent — an increase of 34 percent compared with 2011.

“Navigational searches continue to dominate the top search results as users continue to visit their favorite sites via search engines instead of directly entering a web address into their browsers URL bar,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services. “Single-word searches grew 16 percent in 2012 as a result of continued reliance on search engine’s suggested results. Other top 2012 searches reflected the ongoing infatuation with celebrities online.”

Other highlights include:

The top 50 search terms accounted for more than 12 percent of all Internet searches in 2012 – representing a 30 increase compared to 2011.
New terms that entered the top 50 search terms for 2012 included: backpage, cool math games, fox news, pinterest and pof – an acronym for Plenty of Fish, the top visited dating site in the US.
The search terms yahoo and ebay have appeared among the top 10 since this ranking was started in 2006.

Top-visited websites in 2012

Facebook was the top-visited Website for the third year and accounted for 79.1 billion total US visits between in 2012. Google.com ranked second, with 78.5 billion total US visits — followed by YouTube (25.9 billion), Yahoo! Mail (22.2 billion) and Yahoo! (20.8 billion). eBay ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 2009.

The combination of Google properties accounted for 109.3 billion total. Facebook properties accounted for 79.1 billion total US visits, and Yahoo! properties accounted for 76.5 billion total visits. The top 10 Websites accounted for 276.3 billion total US visits or 32 percent of all U.S. Internet visits in 2012, which was slightly up compared with 2011.

Top public figure searches – Whitney Houston was the 196th most popular overall search term in the United States in 2012:

Whitney Houston (196)
Justin Beiber (242)
Kim Kardashian (291)
Nicki Minaj (371)
Bobbi Kristina (397)
Miley Cyrus (432)

Movies Titles – the top five searches from within the Movies category:

Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Magic Mike
The Dark Knight Rises
Prometheus
Dark Shadows

Music – the top five searched for artists/bands:

One Direction
Taylor Swift
Justin Beiber
Beyonce
Zac Brown Band

Branded Destinations – the top five search terms:

Disney World
Great Wolf Lodge
Disneyland
Hershey Park
Universal Studios Orlando

Top TV show searches – the top five primetime show searches from the Television category:

American Idol
Dancing with the Stars
The Voice
The Bachelor
South Park

Sports – The top searched-for athletes were Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning. The top searched for sports team was the Dallas Cowboys.

News and Media – The top non-celebrity search topics among News and Media sites in 2012 were hurricane sandy, iPhone5, election results and George Zimmerman.

If you are interested in more top 2012 data visits and fastest-moving searches, visit: the online trends page

The big topic of big data

Caitlin Devore — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:35:29 +0000

Big data is another trend for 2013. Big data is meaningful analysis based on a significant amount of information. This growing trend has a lot of interest. In fact, Gartner research recently predicted that businesses will spend $34 billion next year on big data.

While there are many components and challenges to big data, data quality needs to be a part of any strategy. With the proliferation of data via a greater variety of channels, organizations are working with more information than ever before, but it can be hard to keep all of that information accurate.

The concept of big data can be divided into 5 categories and data quality fits within each.

Volume is the amount of information stored and aggregated, which often lead to duplicate information and incorrect data entry.
Variety focuses on the assortment of information, including structured and unstructured varieties. Most organizations struggle to even format data, thereby affecting analysis.
Velocity is the speed at which data is acquired and accessed. Businesses need accurate data and a holistic view of the database to properly access data at the speeds required.
Veracity is the accuracy of information, which is certainly related to data quality.
Value is related to the business benefit for better data practices and aggregated analytics.

To gain the benefits of big data, businesses need to make sure the information feeding those analytics is accurate. Get as much structured information right within your system and put automated processes in place. These tools will allow you to ensure data quality and let staff spend more time on other aspects of your big data initiative.

Putting the customer first

Caitlin Devore — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 06:20:46 +0000

A customer-centric focus is something many businesses are working to achieve in 2013. The goal is to ensure customer loyalty and operate more efficiently, growing overall revenue.

To achieve a customer-centric strategy, many businesses are looking to tailored marketing, one-to-one customer service, brand loyalty and insight-led collaboration. All of these customer-centric strategies rely on accurate customer information and strong analytical abilities. Without accurate data, an organization may not be able to generate actionable intelligence.

There are several common road blocks to accessing the data required for customer-centric initiatives. First, information is often siloed. There are different databases and records based on individual channels or departments. It is difficult for organizations to aggregate and manage information in one central place.

Next, there may be poor data quality. Overall in the industry, there is a lack of verification techniques and a large number of individuals who can change information. In fact, a recent Experian QAS study found that 94 percent of businesses believe some of their customer and prospect information might be inaccurate.

Finally, businesses struggle to match new data to an existing record. Often, information is placed in a non-standard format that is difficult to consolidate and analyze.

To correct these road blocks, organizations need to create a plan around accurate data for their customer-centric strategy.

To correct these road blocks, organizations need to create a plan around accurate data for their customer-centric strategy. This should include standardization rules, verification techniques at the point of data capture and enhanced searching capabilities.

Customer-centric strategies are extensive and require many elements, just don’t forget the data quality in your planning.

Online retail visits increase 8% year over year week of Dec 9 – 15

Matt Tatham — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:00:26 +0000

With the busy holiday marketing season in full swing, Experian Marketing Services has released its online retail round-up for the week ending December 15.

The online traffic to the top 500 retail sites increased 8% for the period of December 9 – 15, compared to the same week in 2011.

Additionally, Amazon remained the top visited site among retailers, followed by Walmart and Target. The chart below includes the top 10 results:

Experian Marketing Services also tracks top product searches. Listed below are the top 10 product searches for the week ending December 15:

We will continue to publish weekly retail site data and insights through this holiday season. Please leave us a comment below if you have any specific questions along the way.