• Brand Content for Discovery and amplification can bring better campaign ROI for your brand. Campaign reach on Digital channels brings reach beyond the targeted audience with content amplification. Here are sixteen content marketing tips that can prepare your Brand Content for the mobile-first and digital audiences.

    Content That Engages

    Snickers

    Snickers launched Super Bowl 50 contest with a Facebook post, where audiences can participate in an online game to win prizes from December 28 till the end of February 2016. According to the press release, Mars Chocolate North America and Wrigley will kick off 2016 with the company’s first joint-selling program in honor of Super Bowl 50. The Sweet 50 campaign will  be supported by 360-degree activations, joint in-store support, and relevant consumer promotions around Super Bowl 50.

    The prizes that can be won are:

    • Instant win prizes: 1,000 USD 75 NFL Shop Gift Cards, 150,000 Free SNICKERS Bars, and 150,000 Free SKITTLES (awarded as coupons).
    • Grand prize party packages: USD 2,000 Best Buy gift card, USD 500 Visa gift card, USD 100 Party City gift card and USD 75 NFL Shop gift card.

     

    Engaging your  audiences with  co-promoted Brand Content can bring newer followers for your brand and at the same time increase recall for your campaign. The co-promotion is powered by shopper insights.

    • 97 percent of consumers who buy non-chocolate confections also buy chocolate.
    • 76 percent of consumers who buy chocolate also buy non-chocolate confections.
    • 67 percent of grocery shoppers who intend to buy just soft drinks and salty snacks end up buying confectionery.
    • The velocity of Mars-Wrigley products grows by 15 percent when merchandised near non-confectionery snacks.
    Takeaway: Engage different audience segments with co-promoted contests based on shopper insights. Content Discovery for Mobile audiences takes place through the buyer journey,and content that is targeted at fans for brands that are bought at the same time increases the probability of consumers discovering your product. Using the right format, networks and time is important. Viral impressions from publisher posts is higher.The incidence of viewing video content on Smartphones is 98 percent for 18-34 years old.

    Mobvidmillenials

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    Advertising:  Targeting Mobile audiences with App messaging on entertainment apps and text messaging and Instant messaging campaign can help brands reach the younger audiences. Native Ads are seen to increase Brand Favorability and Purchase intent.

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    nativevideo

    Content That Entertains

    Netflix

    Humor and Action led content is seen to be a common creative approach for Brand Content that is viewed and shared . Viral posts are seen to evoke emotions that can be described as Amusing, Surprising, Heartwarming, Inspiring and Shocking  as analyzed by BuzzSumo from a study of 1 Million posts.

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    Takeaway Content that entertains and at the same time is emotionally evocative is likely to be shared and viewed more.
    Advertising:  Targeting Mobile audiences  on popular entertainment apps with a native video advertising campaign or promoted posts for featured publishers with branded content properties can boost the engagement for your content and improve content marketing ROI.
    Entapps
    Videous

     

    Content With Purpose

    BdastContent that is created with purpose resonates better with audience. For a trending topic, giving options to different audience segments brings better engagement. BuzzFeed’s post “Seven day Clean Eating Challenge” gives comprehensive options for Healthy eating for all days of the week.

    Walmart’s content for the Holiday Season with ideas that are accessible from the main menu focused on making holiday entertainment moments rewarding for engaged content users with tips and tricks. Among other recipe ideas Walmart’s site allows for user reviews that users can browse through for inspiration. The ideas for cupcake recipes  have a featured section with recommended recipes that helps users browse through other recipes of interest.Walmart’s content  has been designed to give a seamless experience for users who are looking at planning and entertaining. With a clear content strategy Walmart engaged different segments of Gift shoppers as well as those that entertain at home.

    Takeaway: Create content that will answer search queries for all segments for a topic. 

    Advertising:  Google’s  RLSA can help you promote your content for engaging the users that have browsed your retail site, but have not purchased. For Cart abandons, targeting audiences with content campaigns based on intent or behavioral signals can repurpose content for relevant search queries.

    • intent: user intent as expressed by the search term entered into the Google Search engine
    • behavioral signal: a previous visit to your website is generally a strong signal that the user is more likely to convert on your site than a searcher who has not yet visited your site

    Google’s Text messaging can help you reach audiences that may have looked up your offers and deals for special promotions,targeting them with a text messaging campaign to sign up for content updates can turn them into repeat visitors.

     

    Content That Influences

    Creating content which has an influence value as a work of an artist or a social media celeb brings newer audiences to interact with your brand. Starbucks regram of Paulo Asi latte art has earned 292 K likes making the Brand Content a focal point for the art in the post.”If you can dream it, Instagram latte artist Paulo Asi can create it”. User-generated content is one of the ways of creating an influencer campaign.

    Takeaway Use Influencers to engage audiences that your advertising cannot reach with varied interests.
    Advertising Promoting Influencer content with publisher posts and social media shares. Influencer posts can inspire fans to share more content that engages their fans creating a viral effect.
    Content That is Co-Created

    Brand Content can help create attractiveness for your brand that makes audiences look for inspiring ideas and return to your brand site for inspiration.

    Takeaway User Generated and Co-created Content that appeals to other viewers creates more social media shares and better engagement for your posts..
    Advertising Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest is an example of Co-creation that has successfully engaged audiences with content that is advertised across channels and social media networks.

     

    Content That Is Shareable

    Content that is seen as shareable by the audiences often has an interesting twist that engages audience by piquing audience interest. The same phenomenon is seen for most posts that makes the audiences look intelligent.

    Takeaway: Brand Content that piques the audience interest is most likely to be shared.
    Advertising: Mobile Video and Messaging Apps Campaign Can engage  audiences where they are most connected.
    Content That Provides Social Proof

    As high as 65 percent of the consumers share content from friends and family members. As high as 36 percent of customers trust recommendations from colleagues and 23 percent of consumers trust content from companies whose products they do not buy and as high as 43 percent of consumers trust content from companies whose products they buy.

    Takeaway : User Generated Content and Referral Marketing Programs through the customer journey creates social proof.
    Advertising:  Include user-generated reviews in your ads as far as possible or on the brand site.
    Content That Generates Interest

    Know how your audiences are discovering content and promote your content with posts featured for those publishers. The Huffington Post, featured deals for Star Wars fans with links to the sites where audiences are most likely to find the merchandise, with links to the landing page.

     

    Takeaway: Publisher content that your users are most likely to be looking for can feature brand content, such as reviews that can help you up sell or convert .

    Advertising:  Facebook’s  Social Media Posts from publishers provide a greater reach and obtain a higher number of viral impressions. Update the product Landing page with user-generated content that audiences are most likely to share.

    Content That Is Suitable

    Design your posts to connect audiences with a context. Feature products and content that audiences find relevant within a context.

     

    Takeaway : Create content that will answer a specific query within a context.

    Advertising:  Facebook’s Promoted Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets as well as Facebook offers can be used to promote the offer during the holiday season. Update the Offer Landing page with content that audiences are most likely to share.

    Content That Is Snackable

    As important as it is to make appealing and engaging content for gaining shares, Content that is snackable is most likely to be acted upon. Content Hacks that are presented in a visually engaging format which are more likely to be viewed. With video providing the entire experience in one go, audiences looking for answers or further information will visit the brand site. Engaged audiences that have gained information required are most likely to complete the purchase.

     

    Takeaway : Creating Snackable content not only answers a query within a context, but helps audiences decide with relevant information.

    Advertising : Formats that engage users with an engaging tagline can help you get the winning content piece. Start with how the content helps your audience. Use the advertising format on Social Networks that is appropriate for promoting your post.

    Content That Provides Value

    Content that is focused on giving audiences value with ideas that are time-saving and give rewards to audiences. The value can be customized for different audience segments.

    Takeaway : Creating offers-led content can re-engage users who may have looked for gifts earlier. Segmenting your users based on past purchase behavior can help you promote the content at the right time.

    Advertising : Timing Matters. If Your customers convert at a later stage, promote posts and Shopping Campaigns with offers and deals when they are most likely to click-through and convert.

    Content That Is Preferred

    Audiences engaging with a certain topic prefer to receive stories around the topic. To create content preference, create engaging content based on topics that audiences like.

    Takeaway : Topics that are preferred by your audience are based on their interests. identify  your audiences interests and create content that brings them back to find out more about the topic.
    Advertising : Publisher posts and influencer posts around the topic can bring more audiences.
    Content That Is Memorable

    Create recall for your content with unique elements that make your content memorable. This can be done with effects such as time-lapse or loops that make for repetitive viewing or something extraordinary.

    Cake

    Takeaway : Elements that are unique to your content makes greater social media buzz.
    Advertising: Native Video advertising can bring best results as it has higher recall.

     

    Content That Converts

    Content that retargets site visitors and fans in the path to purchase is most likely to convert. Targeting audiences with content value proposition that is convincing and compelling brings higher conversion. creating conversations in consumers path brings them back to brand content looking for specific queries that are likely to increase conversion. At the same time increasing the likelihood of your content being discovered creates more conversations that lead to conversions.

     

    Takeaway :  Content Value Proposition defined to answer specific need for content. Publishing content that answers a specific content need for your audience engages audiences through the purchase path.
    Advertising: Native video advertising and content partnerships are likely to bring greater conversions.
    Content That Brings Your Audience Back

    Content plays a role in retaining your audiences. To retain audiences, update your content value proposition to remain in your audiences’ content eco-system by knowing your audience’s content needs.

    Takeaway : Update Your Content Value Proposition to bring your audiences back. 
    Advertising: Native video advertising and content partnerships are likely to bring greater conversions.
    Content That Is Disruptive

    Content that makes your audience think and is disruptive is more likely to be shared.

    Takeaway : Disruptive content is seen as opinion forming and brings audience reaction by way of social media actions.
    Advertising : Advertising Content that disrupts in the Native feed  is likely to be viewed more than in display or search advertising formats. 

     

     

    Content

     

     

  • According to Tubular Labs, 654.7 million videos have been uploaded by 66.7 million creators in the last 365 days to more than 30 video platforms. And these videos have 2.8 Trillion  views, or an average of 4,390 views per video. According to an AOL State of the Video Industry report, desktop video spend grew from USD 3.7 billion to nearly USD 4.7 billion in 2014–2015 (a 27 percent growth), while mobile video grew from USD 1.5 billion to USD 2.7 billion (75 percent growth). While short-form dominates as a percentage of content monetized long-form mobile video has a growing share of viewers for online video on Smartphones.

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    Snapchat’s rise to have almost the same number of daily video views as Facebook with only a fraction of the user base, while also being 100 percent mobile, is something that a lot of marketers missed in 2015.

    YouTube is known to play an important role in buyer journey,  with Sixty-four percent of shoppers, according to Google Insights and  forty percent growth year-over-year in viewership of product videos such as sneaker pickups, first impressions, and product reviews. YouTube  has created an Awesome Stuff Week with creators for content that audiences are looking at prior to purchase. Awesome Stuff week is a five-day celebration of awesome stuff hosted by tons of your favorite YouTubers. Awesome Stuff Week is a great way for audiences to discover  new products.

    Video

    Video is known to improve ROI for your content marketing. With online video focused on millennial audiences being more app driven, the advertising will be driven by intent and behavioral data. According to Media Post, To enable digital video advertising to deliver on its full potential — reach, intent-driven viewing, engagement, and targeting — in 2016 marketers will consider the major video platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, in unison.

    Use Keyword Analysis Tool to improve the search results by identifying the highest impact keywords.

    Optimize your campaign in AdWords for the metrics that matter the most to your campaign.

    Trueview

    Use Predictive Analytics to determine the campaigns and the video ad mix that is likely to perform better.

    Use Pre-determined Workflows to increase efficiency and efficacy of campaigns. If you are retargeting audiences with video creative, then work on a campaign and creative flow for each stage of customer journey.

    Look at all possible channels to optimize video views including Mobile, SEO, email and Social Media.

    Use Celebrities to promote your videos for a campaign.

    Promoting Video Clips of your ad brings about greater engagement.

    Best Practices for YouTube Marketing Success From Top 100 Global Brands Study

    Be a well-oiled, consistent, video content machine. The most successful brands have 50 percent more videos per channel compared to the least successful ones. The best-performing brands publish high volumes of content on a regular schedule. Top aggregate brands publish approximately 78 videos per month. Leading media brands produce even more: close to 500 videos per month.

    YouTube SEO follows very different rules than traditional SEO. Within traditional SEO—Google prioritizes web pages with YouTube video embeds.
    The best performing 25 percent of Top 100 Global Brands took more care in optimizing their videos and channels, maintaining twice the number of playlists and video tags than the bottom 25 percent.

    Don’t get caught in the overproduction trap; lesser quality video works well, too The best YouTube marketers produce a broader range of video content.Videos do not need to be prime-time quality because those with lower production value can be just as effective.

    Apply an “Always On” strategy to video marketing The most successful brand marketers on YouTube integrate their online video   strategies with their traditional, offline marketing strategies. Successful video marketers don’t hesitate to produce video series for very limited, but highly engaged audiences, such as event participants.  Continued advertising results in sustainable channel growth and subscribers.
    Apply branding consistently, intelligently and methodically The top performers consistently brand their videos in both the video content itself as well as in metadata, which includes titles, tags, and descriptions.
    An appropriate level of branding within videos is essential because successful YouTube videos are often used outside of the context of a branded YouTube channel, such as website embedding. Over-branding may limit sharing within independent communities of interest

     

    Adding more content is more important than adding more channels 37 percent of all channels have not been updated with fresh content for over 120 days. Successful marketers have YouTube channels that clearly focus on specific target audiences.

     Engage your community On social media
    Facebook and Twitter are among the most important sources of traffic on YouTube within the Top 100 Global Brands. Users frequently share videos on social networks, as video content has greater sharing appeal.  The top 25 percent of brands had significantly higher social sharing of video than the bottom 25 percent.Viewer sentiment is starting to show distinct trends for different verticals. Home and luxury segments have the highest sentiment, while financial services and consumer goods have the least.
    Unboxing videos

    Unboxing video views have grown 57 percent over the past year, and uploads have grown more than 50 percent.  And the unboxing videos have more than a billion views in this year alone.

     

     

    Source: Pixability, YouTube Insights, AOL, Momentology

     


  • Carat

    According to Carat’s Ad spend report the forecast for 2016 for Digital, states a significant increase in Mobile and online video with Programmatic being a key media technique. By the end of 2015 US market Programmatic transactions will account for 52 percent of non-search digital advertising spend, with predicted growth of 20 percent to continue for the next few years. Overall, Mobile is experiencing the greatest spend growth across all media and Carat predicts year-on-year growth in Mobile spend at +51.2 percent in 2015 and +44.5 percent in 2016.

    Social Media Revenues – which encompass advertising delivered on social platforms including social networking, and social gaming websites and apps reached USD 4.4 billion in HY 2015 according to an IAB study and are likely to grow at the same rate in 2016. Mobile represents 30 percent of all revenues and is the fastest revenue growth category, followed by Online video. Retail at 22 percent, financial services at 13 percent, and automotive at 13 percent  top three advertising verticals continue to account for nearly half of advertising revenue, 48 percent. Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, reached USD 2 billion in the first half of 2015, a 35 percent year-over-year jump from USD 1.5 billion in the first half of 2014.

    Retail Brands Digital Marketing Strategies targeting the Mobile Only and Omni-Channel customers can benefit from the trends that are dominating the digital buyer behavior and customer journey as well as the consumer decision making process across channels.

    Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, reached USD 2 billion in the first half of 2015, a 35 percent year-over-year jump from  USD 1.5 billion in the first half of 2014.

    Real-Time Programmatic For Mobile Moments

    AOL and Verizon are investing in Tech Stack that lets marketers offer advertising programmatically with real-time bidding to offer Brand Marketers unified customer view cross devices.

    DoubleClick Bid Manager  from Google offers Active View Bid optimization for clients globally. Active View Bid Optimization offers advertisers to bid for impressions with data available across URL, Page Views and Time of Day, giving advertisers the flexiblity to bid for viewable impressions.

    Brands Personalize Content To Create New Experiences

    According to L2’s Digital Index report, Ninety-three percent of brands tracked in the Index display a video on their site, and 75 percent host a blog. Brands with Video and Branded Content have doubled the Average Order Value and Conversions for their products in comparison with sites without branded content or a fewer pages with Branded Content.

    Bigbox

    Beautybrands

    For Beauty Brands, that invested in Video nearly 51 percent of all views are organic, making a comprehensive video content strategy integral to Digital Presence.

    Unboxing Video trend is extremely popular with Unboxing being the key search terms on YouTube.

    Sephora, a beauty brand has taken the Video engagement a notch further by making the video content available in its stores. Audience Targeting On Mobile with Mobile Video that appears in the users native feed has been seen to generate Brand Performance Lift.

    Brands that are seeking to move forward will look at creating Personalized experiences to deliver better Campaign ROI.

     

    Excess Affinity In The Age Of Promotional Loyalty 

    Brands that engage audiences digitally with new offers, seasonal packs and deals or even posts on a regular basis that make audiences return to the social media profile create brand excitement and generate brand buzz.

    Digital marketing for brands remains closely connected to creating offers and propositions that engage audiences in the moment and make them favor the brands for the offers. Target with 10 days of Deals ahead of Black Friday has offers for all segments with codes and coupons that apply for the required purchase. Target’s website also features a free drink offer for Thanksgiving.

    Deals
    Krispykreme

    Brands need to at the same time create Excess Affinity for ongoing engagement. Millward Brown recommends brands supercharge the emotional connect with their audiences by humanizing brands and strengthening the emotional bond. For Brands, to create an excess affinity bond, consumer experiences will play a strong role. “Research conducted by Millward Brown for BRANDsense confirmed that the more positive and distinctive sensory impressions come to mind the more loyal people are to a brand. People are not one-dimensional beings, and the better brands engage with all five of our senses the stronger the impression they’ll make”.

    OmniChannel Capabilities

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    With IoT taking over, and newer digitally connected devices such as connected cars, marketers need to be ready with digital ordering services that tap into all possible options from where the audiences can connect.

    Dominos

    Personalized Seasonal Packs

    Oreo’s newest introduction allows users to create a personalized pack where users can make their own packs that are colorfilled and can be ordered online.

    Oreocolfi

    mms

    Seasonal Packs are the new way audiences are interacting with your brands. As Starbucks red Cup controversy created a monumental buzz digitally, Brands launching seasonal packs online are going a step further in building digital outreach where consumers can find an expression.

     

    Location Awareness takes Center-Stage
    location

    With more referrals arising from Social Media and customers preferring campaigns that are personalized, location awareness takes center stage with audiences requiring brands to make offers taking their location into account. Some of the location aware sites customize offers for audiences in the area the customers are located in. Store locators are being increasingly used by brands personalized offers based on location. Brands also use store locations to gain insights and build offers based on what customers prefer.

    Mobile Alerts For Personalization

    With Millennials and Gen Zers ready to share more information about themselves marketers will be able to create real-time offers and content that is personalized for moving the customer to a more involved audience for the brand. According to Forbes,  Savvy marketers will understand this and those who will be winning in 2016, will be the ones who can provide personalized and meaningful experiences beyond just financial incentives to earn lifelong loyalty.

    Mobilealerts

    Compelling Campaign Ideas For Engagement

    Your brand’s engagement idea can create ad recall that goes beyond the campaign reach with compelling content. Compelling content often creates a cascade where audiences are sharing what they like and the next “New” way to engage with a brand or an offer. Taco Bell’s Emoji Engine and Domino’s Pizza Tweet To Order campaign generated a majority of social actions, representing more than 50 percent of all consumer engagement.

    order

    Brands looking for Newer ways to engage digitally will require Campaign ideas that make the brand interactions distinctive and compelling.

    Pricing Strategy and Bundle Pack Offers

    Pricing strategy for your products will also need to address the mobile moments reality where audiences on the go can choose a pricing option that is easy to order. Wendy’s Four for Four is an example of an interesting combo where audiences can at a glance place an order for four items.

    wendys

    Subscription Based Content Streaming Apps 

    Apprevenuemobent

    According to comScore, millennials spend a dominant share of time on Entertainment apps making Entertainment apps an appropriate Engagement vehicle for Brands.

    Music is one of the fastest growing categories by Revenue  for app categories. Big Box retailers such as Walmart in partnership with Vudu are offering streaming services for Entertainment. In 2016 it would not be surprising to see more brands offering Content Streaming for entertainment as a subscription app or a product feature in existing apps.

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    Apptime

    Facebook  and Pandora Radio are the lead apps for the share of Total Mobile App Time Spent for Millennials, for whom every single app in their Top Ten Apps is a social or an entertainment app.

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  • Foodimgs
    Adobe reports mobile devices accounted for about 25 percent of sales and 45 percent of visits to retail websites from Nov. 1-Dec. 22. Adobe also reports that conversion rates have hovered between 3 percent and 3.5 percent since Thanksgiving, when it peaked at 5 percent. Out-of-stock rates are 10-15 percent higher than last year, indicating that retailers appear to be shifting more sales and inventory toward the start of the shopping season Adobe says.

    The highest out-of-stock days were Green Monday (16 percent), Dec. 7 (15 percent) and Dec. 21 (14 percent), Adobe reports. Top-grossing products through Dec. 22 are Samsung 4K TV sets, Xbox, iPad mini, PlayStation 4, gift cards and iPad Air 2 Adobe says. Free Shipping Day accounted for USD 1.48 billion in Online Sales, and Cyber Monday on Nov. 30, The Monday after Thanksgiving was the largest U.S. online sales day in history with USD 3.07 billion in sales, followed by Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, at USD 2.74 billion spent online, according to the Adobe Digital Index, which bases its estimates on the sales of Adobe’s online retailer clients.

    According to Internet Retailer, Data from e-commerce analytics provider Slice Intelligence shows that the online spending surge peaked on Monday Dec. 21, with revenues up 27 percent year-over-year. Slice bases its estimates by tracking receipts shoppers receive via email. According to Bloomberg, After getting online shoppers accustomed to two-day deliveries, the Web retailer is pushing to grab a bigger chunk of sales from brick-and-mortar stores. Amazon upped the ante this year by expanding its one-hour Prime Now delivery service to big cities. Total online shopping is on track to climb 11 percent in November and December to $95.5 billion, according to Forrester Research.

    Amazon

    Amazon Inc. was the most dominant retailer on what Slice calls Manic Monday with 55 percent of what Slice calls “relative market share,” the percentage of a retailer’s sales versus those of direct competitors. However, apparel retailers experienced the most growth, Slice reports. Carters Inc.  grew the most of any apparel retailer, seeing a year-over-year sales spike of 273 percent. Home goods e-retailer Wayfair LLC saw sales skyrocket by 158 percent, according to Slice. ChannelAdvisor clients selling on Amazon grew sales 18.1 percent from Dec. 15 through Dec. 21, down from the previous week’s 19.5 percent growth.

    According to Marin Software report the key trends in Search and Mobile advertising are :

    • Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, smartphone clicks grew by 87 percent YOY almost equaling desktop clicks. This reflects a dramatic increase compared to 2014, when smartphone clicks accounted for only 28 percent of all clicks.
    • Clicks grew across smartphones, tablets, and desktops, with the large increase in smartphone click share being attributed to growing smartphone adoption. The increase in tablet and desktop clicks YoY shows that people are using their smartphones in addition to desktop and tablet devices, not instead of them.
    • Marin saw similar trends across spend, with the ad spend share for mobile growing by 66 percent  YoY.
    • Overall ad spend for mobile was up 101 percent with spend doubling on both Google and Bing YoY.
    • Cyber Monday beat Black Friday in terms of clicks and ad spend for both 2014 and 2015 with cost per click (CPC) prices markedly higher than any other day over the weekend.

    However according to comScore the key takeaways indicate that mobile and Desktop have different trends for site visits for retail with Mobile peaking on Black Friday and Desktop on Cyber Monday.

    RBF

     

    • Mobile traffic significantly outpaces desktop traffic every single day, including Cyber Monday.
    • Mobile traffic peaks on Black Friday, while desktop traffic peaks on Cyber Monday.
    • Cyber Monday is the peak day for overall multi-platform web traffic, but Black Friday is not far behind.
    • Desktop traffic has a distinct weekly pattern with troughs occurring during the weekends, while mobile traffic is much more consistent across different days of the week.

     

     

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