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Today we welcomed eleven new starters to our London office, hence the need for additional office space, we're on a serious recruitment drive at Ve. Strong leadership and governance are behind our year-on -year growth and success to date. (That and no VC involvement). And we are building for the long term, to give everybody involved in Ve a sustainable working life.
 
Good business practice and innovation are two of the ways in which we are doing this to future proof our company, as well as helping us to continually meet our clients' demands. We have always worked towards being leaders and game changers. Whilst copying another company's business model might be a safe way to operate for some, it limits your growth potential and without subsequent innovation you will eventually have to put restrictive parameters in place.
 
And there's good reason for Ve's continual innovation. As Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda said in her speech today: A Single Telecom Market for Growth and Jobs in Europe - "the whole economy craves connectivity." Indeed by the end of this year, there will be as many connected devices in the world as there are people {Source: Cisco}.
 
The UK is well placed to take advantage of this revolution. We came 7th in the World Economic Forum's 2012 Global Competitiveness Rankings for technological readiness and we have one of the most sophisticated e-commerce markets in the world, making up one third of the whole EU e-commerce market. However, it is vital that players in the UK information economy are effective and ethical in managing the complex privacy and security challenges in it, if we are to grow the eco-system and gain the consumer trust that it depends on.

 
Recently we highlighted some of the irresponsible behaviour going on behind the scenes in the performance marketing industry. As everyone knows, unethical corporate behaviour can affect consumer purchase decisions as the recent horse meat scandal illustrated, but to date there has not been much of a platform for businesses to compare and contrast the ethical behaviour of third party digital companies they are considering working with.
 
But who knows, may be the fallout from Prism will start to wake brands up to some of the weak governance going on, especially where serious issues like consumer protection are concerned? And then headway will be made for our industry to concentrate on shaping the opportunity-strewn, green field of the single EU digital market, and the building of tomorrow's economy.
 
If you are interested in learning more about careers at Ve, we would love to hear from you.

This is the view of our Tech City HQ. It's taken from the roof of The Clerkenwell Collection. The omnichannel concept store that Ve is the digital partner of. We moved here in March 2012.



 And this is the view of the latest work space we have taken on, next door to The Clerkenwell Collection. There's two floors and this week our design team have moved there, to accommodate their expanding numbers.
 



 
And we're still hiring! Want to be a part of an exciting, multi award-winning, multinational game changing technology company?
 
We're waiting for your CV...
 

In the first of my series last week, I talked on the importance of getting online with respect to the automotive industry. This week I will discuss how to you can begin converting online.

For most, making a purchase in the automotive industry is no snap decision. More than likely your customers will rigorously and carefully comb the market, browsing a number of different auto websites before arriving at their final decision. That’s why it is critical that your ecommerce site is as well-oiled as the parts you sell.

‘Converting Online’ all comes down to encouraging your customers to do what you want them to do on your site, be that finding your range of product, signing up to your mailing list or making a purchase.  There are a lot of factors to take into account in order to achieve your optimum conversion rate.

Firstly, website structure is very important. If this is poor, conversion rates will inevitably be low. There are however ways to improve conversions without having to spend thousands on a new website. I will come to these shortly.

If you are looking to build a new website there are some key considerations to take into account in order to boost your conversions:
·         Purpose – What is the aim or objective of the website?
·         Design – A good design highlights the important areas of a website, is it easy for visitors to find what they want, quickly and without hassle?
·         Content – Consumers visit websites primarily for information. Does every page have a goal and is it specifically aimed with the target audience in mind?
·         Navigation – When arriving at a new website, visitors have limited patience before going elsewhere. Is there clear navigation?
·         Usability and Accessibility – Is the HTML formed properly for usability with all browsers? There has also been a major rise in Smart phone browsing, have you made it mobile friendly?

Fret not if your website doesn’t tick all the boxes, here are a couple of solutions to improve your conversion rates:

Shopping cart or booking abandonment is a major issue for Ecommerce websites, but the majority of them don’t realise it, and if they do realise it, they quite often don’t do anything about it. Here at Ve Interactive we see an average abandonment rate of 80% in the automotive sector from the cart through to the completion page. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that there is a massive chunk of potential business being missed out on.

Re-engagement with abandonees is imperative in order to increase revenue as well as customer satisfaction. Typically, this re-engagement is done via email having captured the customer’s email address, which produces some fine results. However, in the instances where an email address is not provided, an artificial intelligence abandonment chat solution is the latest piece of technology to emerge into the marketplace to engage customers before they leave your site, thus addressing 100% of abandonees from the checkout process. As a result live chat technologies recover between 3 and 8 times the revenue of a standard email address capture solution. Think abandonment, think chat.

I look forward to seeing you all again next week for the third and final blog, ‘understand online’. Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you wish to discuss any relevant insights.
 

Yesterday, I explained how larger and faster mobile phones will impact the mobile marketing industry. Today's post will look at two mobile device trends, dualscreening and showrooming, and how these, combined with more smartphones in consumers' hands will also contribute to the growing industry.

3.       #dualscreening
As our phones become more sophisticated and we rely on them more and more, they are becoming harder to put down, even when we are using another device. Dual screening is, as it sounds, the use of two screens at the same time and usually refers to the tendency to use our smartphone whilst watching TV and according to Google, up to 49% of us do this. What does this mean for mobile marketing though? In Twitter’s TVBook, data strongly supports the value of advertisers promoting their ad campaigns on Twitter or incorporating hashtag slogans into their TV adverts in order to promote viewer engagement on the social media service. They have recently taken this a step further with the debut of their TV ad targeting feature which allows advertisers to easily promote their tweets at the same time as their adverts are being shown on TV.
In the UK alone, 60% of users are engaging with Twitter at the same time as watching TV, 80% of which are doing so on a mobile device. The opportunities this creates for marketers to catch the attention of viewers when it has been lost by TV is huge and certainly something that should be taken advantage of.
 



4.       Showrooming
Showrooming, the habit of visiting a brick and mortar store to physically view products and then compare prices of other retailers on your smartphone, has been made possible by the high-speed mobile internet connections of the last five years, and is only set to become more prevalent as these speeds increase. The threat this poses to department stores and the high street is most clearly represented by the large online retailers such as Amazon who are able to offer better prices and often, free delivery. A recent study has found that up to 70% of shoppers are using a mobile device whilst at a store and while two thirds of those are visiting that same store’s website or using their app, 37% are browsing a competitor’s site. In order to reduce this second number, retailers need to increase their efforts to make their mobile sites and apps as user-friendly as possible in order to retain as much of the footfall they have already managed to bring in. Of course, there is also work to be done within the store itself, to prevent customers from reaching for their phones in the first place, but that’s another discussion for another time.
 
5.       More smartphones.
None of these factors will have any effect though, unless these devices are actually in people’s hands. Luckily, 2013 is set to be the first year that global sales of smartphones will reach 1 billion, taking the estimated global total to 2 billion, thus potentially doubling the receptive audience for advancements in mobile marketing. What this will mean for the future of mobile marketing is an exciting prospect, but I would certainly expect the 4 points above to feature heavily in the discussion and hopefully to be taken into account in future marketing campaigns.

Mobile marketing has, until now, failed to realise its full potential as an advertising medium. It has not succeeded in engaging a wide enough audience, and those that do receive mobile adverts are subjected to small, low quality images on their mobile device that get in the way of what they’re trying to do. All this has resulted in low levels of engagement with mobile adverts which has led to low returns of investment for advertisers and thus less incentive to continue spending on this medium.

The coming months, however, bring with them a roster of new trends and technologies that should help increase the possibilities of mobile marketing and make it a more attractive option for advertisers and consumers alike.

The first half of this 2-part blog will discuss the impact of bigger and faster phones, while part 2 will see what effects dualscreening, showrooming and the higher numbers of smartphones will have on mobile marketing.

1.       Year of the ‘phablet’.
It was once the case for mobile phones that the smaller the handset, the better, but that was back when phones were used for making calls and sending text messages at the most. In order to minimise the inconvenience of a device that quickly became essential to have on our person at all times, they were designed to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. Then came the cameraphone, which called for a slightly larger screen so we could see what we were taking photos of, but the keyboard remained as frustratingly small as possible. Now though, phones are doing so much more than before and consumers are opting for larger, more feature-rich devices.
What this means for mobile marketing is that advertisers now have more screen space to play with and can deliver larger, clearer content. This content doesn’t even have to take up the whole screen to be visible, thus reducing interference with the user experience, continuing to make ad-subsidised free apps a viable option for those who would rather lose a small part of their screen to an advert than pay full price for an ad-free option.
 
2.       4G
Soon, we will also see global rollouts of 4G technology, including the major UK mobile network providers, which means that compatible phones will be able to send and receive data faster than ever before. This will allow for more engaging and creative content to be delivered to users’ devices faster than previously possible. Imagine, while playing a free game on your smartphone a bonus level appears that incorporates both a brand and the game that you were playing. Wouldn’t you pay more attention to that brand’s message than if it was a static image getting in the way of your game? It is by embracing new technologies in this way that the mobile marketing industry will be able to gain a significant grip on a sector that they have until now, mishandled.
 
In part two, we will discuss the effects dualscreening, showrooming and the higher numbers of smartphones.

Yesterday was the beginning of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, which traditionally starts with a keynote presentation by the CEO and other senior members of staff to update the audience, and the world, on the company’s performance. During this presentation I realised that whilst this is a massive publicity event, in terms of size and expense, the core principles behind it are easily transferable to businesses of any size. So here are the four lessons that I took from last night’s keynote presentation.
 
1. Innovation is as important as Creation.
If you have had success with a product or service, but it is losing ground to competitors or is starting to feel out of date, chances are an entirely new, untested, creation is not called for, just a tweaking of what has already brought you success and a customer following.
Nowhere is this more evident than with Apple’s iPhone. Since its first iteration in 2007, it has defined the smartphone market, being the device, and bringing the success, that other manufacturers have strived to emulate. Although its hardware has undergone several rounds of improvement and updating since then to resemble a completely different device, its software has largely remained the same.
Now that Apple are facing increased competition from the likes of Google’s Android operating system, time has called for a new approach to their iOS mobile software. But rather than create a new software from scratch and risk alienating those who have come to know iOS for its simplicity and ease of use, they chose to innovate, and refresh the look and feel of the operating system whilst maintaining its fundamental character. A process that is best summed up by Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi’s statement that “Installing iOS 7 on your phone is like getting a new phone, but one you already know how to use.”
 
2. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge mistakes…as long as you can fix them.
There is no harm in showing humility and admitting an error of judgement, so long as you have taken the necessary steps to fix it. It will show your customers that you are listening to your own criticism and able to improve.
This was demonstrated by Apple in the unveiling of their new Mac and iOS software which has finally done away with the skeuomorphic design cues plaguing current releases. The use of leather effect visuals to recreate the look of a real life diary on a screen – amongst others - has been replaced with simpler, flatter, and much more attractive designs that are not only easier on the eye, but also make more room on the screen for more useful functions. The jokes made on stage during the presentation also helped to highlight their unnecessary addition in the past and the intention to improve and better themselves.

3. Don’t be afraid to brag.
Celebrating your success is nothing to be ashamed of, it gives you a chance to sell your business to those new to your products, as long as your boasting is backed up with reasons why you have sold this many units or acquired so many clients.
Apple are well known for this, beginning every presentation in front of the backdrop of numbers and charts, citing how well they have performed since their last public display of success. This can be emulated in a slightly lower key manner by regular updates on your website or via social media.

4. Show Excitement and Passion
If you want your customers to feel this way about your company and what you’re doing then it has to start with you, after all, if you’re not passionate about it, then why should anyone else be?
Every year, different people talk at Apple events, depending on what is on the agenda at any given time, one thing they all have in common though, is enthusiasm and passion in abundance. It is this energy that helps to create the buzz and attention around their new products which in turn helps drive sales. That doesn’t mean you need to host expensive conferences and sell tickets for thousands of dollars for people to attend, but when you do get the chance to talk about your business, do so with the excitement that you would want others to have too.

In a whistle blowing, to rival The Pentagon Papers, both international governments and tech companies are currently in crisis, following Edward Snowden’s leaking of Prism - the US National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

Data itself is ethically neutral, but in past posts we have regularly raised and discussed questions of identity, privacy, ownership and international regulations. Now the ‘detonation’ of Prism in the press, has once again exploded ethical questions into the public consciousness about the security:privacy ratio balance.

Technologies have vastly increased the speed and quantity of data that can be harvested now and this has implications for those in performance marketing who handle it. In a recent Performance In article, our CEO David J. Brown alerted readers to players who flout regulations and laws, and in doing so "are damaging the industry that so many of us try to professionalise." In the interests of protecting this industry, Ve has always chosen to blow the whistle on discrepancies in the values that some companies publish, compared to what they actually practice.

So as the shockwave of Prism moves through the media, the moral has to be that, whilst people hand over their personal data in exchange for the convenience of interacting online, it is vital that any data handling company gives their clients the confidence that they operate within a frame work of accountability and legality.

Ask yourself, does your third-party provider have the right checks and balances in place? Or better still, ask them.

”I love pictures made in Microsoft Paint. At Stockholm School of economics (Swedens elite business university) I made a presentation in Paint. People thought it was some ironic cool retro statement, but I have never used Photoshop. You should never forget who you are and where you come from”.

When expanding, most Swedish online retailers set Scandinavia as their first destination. The next step is often countries with similar cultures, such as Germany and Holland. Rarely do you hear of Swedish e-retailers who aim for Russia, even though the geographical distance to this huge economy is no further than to Germany. There are uncertainties regarding Russia, but of course that has not stopped ROCKET INTERNET. We spoke recently with Gregory Gorelik, Managing Director of Westwing.ru, one of Rocket Internet’s projects in this region. The company provides furniture and lifestyle goods through a ”membership club” and targets the affluent middle and upper class. Globally the company has raised over $80M in venture capital for its ten markets, and .ru is one of the most important ones.

What is the difference between the Swedish and Russian ecommerce markets?

One major difference is the lack of honest service providers available in Russia. Once you reach a certain size, you have to build your own operations such as a delivery fleets, warehouses and so on. Otherwise you risk being in a position of dependence, which these ”partners” will take advantage of.
Furthermore, the logistics is a major problem. Importing goods to Russia whilst remaining competitive is difficult. We as western company that play by the book is at a disadvantage when local competitors find "other ways" around duties, taxes and so on, therefore, it is difficult to compete with certain products. An advantage however is that we can be the first one offering a product to the Russian market, and this ability to offer something unique affords us larger margins.  The middle class is growing rapidly and e-commerce even faster thanks to ever-increasing internet penetration. However, there are still many concepts that are completely lacking in the market, and with the right idea and execution, there are huge opportunities.
There are also differences in customer behavior. People don’t Google but instead use Yandex.ru, Russia’s largest search engine. Furthermore the largest social network is Vkontakte.ru and not Facebook; thus, all marketing must be adapted to the local market. Affiliate networks exist but they are not as evolved, in both function and converage they are a long way behind Europe.

Is Russian bureaucracy so massive as we think here in Sweden ?

Unfortunately, things can be quite complicated. Russia is a country that still requires all documents to have a stamp to be considered valid. However, there are many skilled lawyers and consultants who can help you through this, and this type of labour is relatively cheap in Russia.

Is Venture Capital backing necessary, or can a small Swedish startup succeed in this market?

Avito.ru (classified listings) is a Swedish startup in Russia. Also there is Yell.ru (reviews), but they are both backed by the Swedish VC firm Kinnevik and can’t be considered small anymore. All of the successful Swedish startups I know of are linked to major investors. But I know several examples of European sites that have succeeded in Russia without it being an explicit strategy. I know a scandinavian company that lists Russia as one of their largest markets, even though their focus is in Scandinavia. The supply is limited in Russia so some companies succeed almost by accident. But of course it also depends on how you define ”sucess” and what scale of success we talk about. But whatever the scale, you always need local people to guide you in the right direction.

It is said that Sweden is lagging a few years to the U.S. when it comes to e-commerce functionality. Few American sites have poor search function, or a new feature that has not been A/B tested. Is Russian ecommerce more or less evolved than ours?

Russia is very far behind. Many larger sites look and function like something you created in high school ten years ago. A good example is www.cian.ru, the dominant apartment brokerage site with millions of visitors, and this is after a big facelift earlier this year!
 

We start this week in Paris where we dropped off our former French territory manager and new Directeur General, Michael, at our new Parisian office. And he hasn’t wasted any time settling in, meeting with our biggest clients out there making sure everyone knows that we’ve moved a little closer to them to provide a truly local service.

VeUSA have also been on the road this week, exhibiting at the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago. The main highlight of the event (apart from Ve’s stand, of course) was Al Gore’s keynote speech on the growing international middle class and the global opportunities this presents for ecommerce, something we are well prepared for as our international reach continues to grow.

Thursday night saw Ve’s favourite boy band, JLS, launch the first of their annual OJAM fundraisers in aid of Cancer Research UK. Ve’s client and Clerkenwell Collection resident, The Perfect Cellar, were sponsors of the event, so we were lucky enough to witness this spectacular event that raised over £1 million for CRUK. Here are some photos from the night:


Always happy to do our bit for charity also, today at Ve, was Double Denim Day! Ed, one of our Digital Consultants, ran the Stockholm Marathon last weekend on behalf of our charity partner Concern Universal. To top up his JustGiving page, we had the jeanius idea of asking everyone to donate in return for the privilege of committing fashion atrocities, by coming to work in their ‘finest’ double denims, helping Ed along to a current total of £765.
Feast your eyes on this horrifying selection of some the best efforts Ve had to offer:

This is the first of a three part blog series on the impact of the Internet on the automotive sector. Our slogan at Ve Interactive is ‘Get Online; Convert Online; Understand Online,’ so I want to discuss how each of these three points is applicable to the automotive industry, starting with how to Get Online.

There are thousands of automotive businesses in the UK, which ultimately makes it a very competitive market. We are firmly in the digital era and it’s essential to embrace the Internet in order to engage with your customers. If you don’t have an online presence, you should initially look to see what successful online automotive companies are doing before devising your own strategy.

‘Getting Online’ means not only building a website but also being visible to your target audience. Visibility is essential, whether you are in a B2B or B2C market, because there is no point investing in a website if it doesn’t attract any visitors. In the B2B market, suppliers and buyers may wish to find contact details or a location. In the consumer space, customers will want to either purchase parts and accessories online, or book an MOT or test drive.

It is well known that the Internet can be a breeding ground for big players to become monopolies because they have the largest budget and product range to help their search rankings, which drives the most traffic. This does not, however, mean that independent suppliers and garages cannot compete. The key is to find your niche, be it with specific products or location and focus your marketing spend there.

Paid search can be a great way to see traffic in a short time period, although it can be expensive and must be managed by someone who has a thorough understanding in Google Analytics and Adwords. Once merchants have seen which keywords perform most effectively, they can use this to build their long-term organic strategy.  There are also other performance marketing methods for driving additional traffic which should also be considered.

Increasing organic traffic is no quick fix for a business and visibility will by no means be immediate. One factor to really take into consideration is the time that needs to be spent on it. If it is going to be carried out in-house, there must be fully dedicated personnel with expertise, as Google is continually updating their algorithm. Apply this approach, reap the rewards.

Getting online is not a simple process but with the growth of Internet-enabled devices, consumers expect a user experience online to reflect what you would expect to provide them in person.

Next week I’ll be writing about phase two, ‘Converting Online’, to ensure that merchants see an ROI from building an online presence.