That’s one serious commission. Retail performance marketing company Connexity has acquired Skimlinks, one of the larger (now formerly) independent affiliate networks. Terms of the deal, announced on Thursday, were not disclosed. But Connexity is adding the roughly 80-person Skimlinks team, said CEO Sebastien Blanc, who took on the top job in 2018. That brings Connexity’s […]
Criteo on Wednesday launched a self-serve ad platform for its retail media network. The platform connects demand from brands directly to supply from retailers across Criteo’s network, said Geoffroy Martin, EVP and GM of retail media at Criteo. Previously, brands could access Criteo’s retail media supply through a managed service. Criteo works with more than […]
Walmart and Target, which both reported quarterly earnings this week, underscore how American shopping habits are being reshaped. Walmart and Target both saw a double-digit increase in average cart value (16.5% and 12.5%, respectively) and a single-digit decline in the number of transactions, since people stocked up with fewer shopping trips. Older Americans also boosted […]
Facebook on Tuesday launched a new commerce toolkit, called Shops, with a revamped model for how the company fits into the online shopping landscape. Shops will give every SMB, merchant and product company the ability to set up a virtual storefront across Facebook’s app properties. Unlike previous Facebook and Instagram commerce products, Shops will also […]
CPGs like Pepsi and Kraft-Heinz urgently need to develop ecommerce and direct-to-consumer business lines, whereas Anheuser-Busch InBev – having invested already in ecommerce – can now shift its media spend to support it. “As you’re hearing from everybody else, ecommerce has become a high-growth channel at this point,” Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta said Wednesday during […]
A wave of new brands and merchants are adopting Shopify’s retail technology, as consumer behavior swings during the coronavirus pandemic. Shopify said during its Q1 earnings Wednesday that the number of new stores selling on its platform grew by 62% in the second half of Q1 compared to the first half, and the number of […]
The dynamic duo of Bryan Wiener and Sarah Hofstetter is back in business. This time at the helm of the ecommerce analytics company Profitero. Wiener and Hofstetter were the CEO and president, respectively, of the agency 360i, which was acquired by Dentsu. Later, they both took up similar positions at the measurement firm Comscore, before […]
After Neuro, which manufactures natural caffeine-infused gum and mints, rebranded in February, it was gearing up to double down on retail, including at CVS pharmacies, GNC stores and Barnes & Noble locations on college campuses. Best-laid plans. COVID-19 hit the United States hard in early March. But co-founders Ryan Chen and Kent Yoshimura, who met […]
A year ago, if you overheard someone say “BOPIS is all the rage,” you could be forgiven for mistaking the reference for obscure ’90s-era slang. But nowadays, “buy online pick up in store” is as normal as, well, doing groceries. And it’s going to change retail advertising forever. Publicis Groupe forecast in 2019 that it would […]
No company in the world is better positioned than Amazon to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic stronger. Most advertising companies suffered a painful contraction in March. But Amazon’s advertising revenue was up by about 40% in Q1 compared to the year before, accounting for most of the $3.9 billion Amazon earned in its “Other” business […]
Amazon has removed third-party vendors from its affiliate program. Starting at the beginning of this month, affiliate networks such as Skimlinks and Sovrn (which acquired VigLink) can no longer send traffic to Amazon and get a cut of transactions, according to sources at many affiliate networks and publishers. Removing third-party affiliate networks frees up significant […]
Ecommerce is all about planning. It’s a carefully choreographed dance between manufacturing, warehousing and selling. But what happens when Amazon – and the world in general – has gone off the rails? It’s the nature of ecommerce and Amazon that tactics constantly change, said Sarah LaVallee, VP of client success at the ecommerce agency Channel […]
Consumer buying habits are in flux. Need proof? Just look at the affiliate marketing category. Affiliate network Pepperjam is seeing “a dramatic shift” in how people shop,” said CEO Matt Gilbert. Between March 11 and March 16, just as the coronavirus crisis was really starting to crack wide open, Pepperjam’s sales volume, measured across about […]
We’ve all heard the anecdotes about people hoarding fortresses of toilet paper. And you’ve probably seen the empty store shelves where home and cleaning supplies used to sit. Now the numbers are coming in that give shape to those trends. Sales of toilet paper were up 845% last week compared to the month prior, according […]
How do all these changes affect marketers, and how should they adapt their messaging and media strategies to the COVID crisis? Click here to find out. Once the coronavirus-induced toilet paper panic buying dies down, consumers will probably chill on their TP sprees. But COVID-19 has the potential to create more permanent behavior changes in […]
It’s clunky getting people to add something to their shopping cart from a display ad. Ad tech company LoopMe launched Tuesday a shoppable in-app unit designed to streamline that process. “The more you can reduce the number of clicks, the better it is for conversion,” said Par Vajihollahi, marketing manager at vitamins and supplements maker […]
Although Amazon, Walmart and Target know which brands are sending them fruitful traffic, the brands themselves are often in the dark. Some of the top-spending brands don’t have meaningful dot-com sales of their own, and even when they direct traffic to retailers with an affiliate link, people don’t always convert immediately or on the same […]
Brand Velocity Partners (BVP), a private equity firm founded in 2019, is creating a new business model as both a marketing services provider and as an owner of small brands. BVP’s first deal was in January for Original Footwear, which makes gear for police departments and military groups. Last week, it acquired Magma Products, a […]
Your experience scrolling your social media feed will be very different from your friend’s. But when you go into a retail store, you’ll have the same experience as everyone else who steps in. So while digital-first companies like Amazon and eBay are built to create personalized experiences, brick-and-mortar retailers are not, said Liad Agmon, founder […]
Amazon’s advertising business grew by about 40% year over year, in line with the annual growth of the overall “Other” segment, CFO Brian Olsavsky told investors during the company’s Q4 and year end 2019 earnings call Thursday. Advertising revenue is still a drop in the bucket compared to the $280.5 billion the entire company brought […]
PayPal raised eyebrows and bank balances in the ecommerce marketing technology space on Wednesday when it announced its $4 billion acquisition of Honey Sciences Corporation. Honey operates a shopping tool people install in browsers and apps that scrapes the web for discounts. The deal, expected to close early next year, is a home run for […]
Retail and ecommerce technology companies are forecasting a strong holiday shopping season, except for one problem: the late Thanksgiving this year means there’s one fewer week in the prime shopping period between Black Friday and Christmas. But does it matter if there are fewer days for shopping sprees this year? On the one hand, US […]
The ecommerce technology company Kibo is acquiring Monetate, a brand personalization and content optimization startup, the company announced on Thursday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Monetate had raised $46 million since 2008. Kibo was launched in 2016 when Vista Equity Partners, a leading mar tech private equity fund, bought and consolidated three […]
Amazon earned $63.9 billion across its retail, cloud computing, subscription and ad sales businesses in Q2 2019, a 20% increase from the same period last year, the company reported on Thursday. Those are eye-popping totals, but the ecommerce giant’s profitability is actually down from the three previous quarters, bringing an end to a profit growth […]
Prime Day has grown out of Amazon to become a general shopping holiday. Monday and Tuesday were the third ever two-day period with more than $2 billion in online shopping in the U.S., aside from the Thanksgiving holiday week, according to Adobe data. Only Memorial Day weekend this year and Labor Day 2018 had similar […]
Google released a slate of new shopping ad products on Tuesday, upping the ante in commerce marketing as Amazon, Facebook-agram and Adobe ramp up their shopper ad businesses. Google’s new shopping ad formats, unveiled at Google Marketing Live in San Francisco, tie formerly siloed properties within Google, such as YouTube and Maps, into a more […]
Adobe launched a cloud product suite for retail and ecommerce technology services on Monday. The Adobe Commerce Cloud is the fourth Adobe cloud offering, joining the Experience, Advertising and Analytics clouds. The core of the new commerce package is the Magento ecommerce platform Adobe acquired a year ago for $1.68 billion, that’s now been integrated […]
Amazon reported slower than usual revenue growth in its earnings report, with overall sales of $59.7 billion in Q1 2019, a 17% increase compared to the year before. Amazon’s annual growth rate dropped, but it is more profitable and its business has a higher profit margin than ever. The company’s operating profit reached $4.4 billion […]
Dentsu Aegis Network launched Sellwin, an Amazon-focused consultancy, on Wednesday. The business is made up of six consultants, with access to another 130 specialists across Dentsu’s US agencies for things like ecommerce search, creating product page content and Amazon voice skills, said Sellwin President Travis Johnson. The consultancy model is new for Dentsu, Johnson said, […]
Buying beer online may be uncommon, or downright illegal in some states, but that isn’t stopping Anheuser-Busch from investing heavily in ecommerce. Except since beer is such a poor ecommerce converter, the world’s largest beer brewer is focusing on merchandise and apparel to generate online sales and shopper data. Branded merch is insignificant compared to […]
