MAGnet #36 04/02/22

Magnet #36

Welcome to this week’s edition of magnet. We’ve got lots of data for you this week.

Enjoy.

Shopability:

Marks & Spencer recently  launched ‘Live Shopping’ on its ecommerce website, which is a shoppable live broadcast series in which customers can hear about a product range, ask an M&S expert  questions about the products, and then buy products as they watch.

According to McKinsey research, live shopping is expected to account for 10-20% of global ecommerce by 2026. In China, 17% of all online shopping comes via livestreams.

To M&S, live shopping is the company  “investing to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience however, wherever and whenever they choose to shop”.

M&S has said that the technology will open a “new channel of communication” with customers providing the opportunity to drive brand awareness and style perceptions, as well as gather customer feedback.

We know that  bringing shopability into the advertising and retail experience is something that’s only going to continue to grow.

Data: Google Topics

Google is going back on plans to replace third-party cookies with FLoC, by instead proposing the Topics API, a new system for interest-based advertising.

But what is it? Topics works by pinpointing five of your interests based on your web activity, such as “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation.” It’s measured by participating sites, and the data is used from the previous week.

Your browser will then store these topics for three weeks before deleting them.

Google says that these categories “are selected entirely on your device and don’t involve any external servers, including Google servers. When visiting a website, Topics will show the site and its advertising partners just three of your interests, consisting of one topic from each of the past three weeks.”

As noted on the Topics API GitHub page, there are currently 350 available topics in its advertising taxonomy. Google also said that  Topics won’t include any “sensitive categories” like race or gender. And if you’re using Chrome, the company is building tools to let you view and delete topics, as well as turn off the feature.

Data: RAJAR

According to the latest RAJAR figures, a combined audience of 49.5 million people are tuning into UK radio, equalling the highest total audience ever recorded in the previous quarter, and representing 89% of the UK adult population. Radio, it seems is thriving.

Total digital listening now represents 64.4% of all radio listening. This is mainly accounted for by DAB radio (42.5%), while online (including smart speakers) now represents 16.9% of all listening time. The remaining 5.1% is listening on digital TV.

On the commercial radio side increased its share of listening time to 48%, up from 47.1% during the third quarter, while the BBC’s share fell to 49.9% from 50.9%. The total commercial radio audience is now 36.77 million, just shy of its biggest ever audience of 36.8 million last quarter.