Category: Blog

In the past few weeks we have all taken the time to reflect upon recent events. Whilst this has been a tumultuous time for many communities around the world where systemic racism has been ignored for far too long – it has also been a time of empowerment and togetherness.

We understand that without intentional and deliberate change, racism and social injustice will not go away. As a company, we are working hard to ensure we educate, communicate and take the necessary steps to ensure diversity and inclusion are at the core of our culture.

As a first step, we are undertaking the following actions:

•  Juneteenth as a paid leave day: To commemorate independence, freedom, Black history and culture, we are giving all US employees one day of paid leave on Friday, 19th June.

•  Unconscious bias training: All LoopMe employees will be asked to complete learning modules on unconscious bias.

•  Encouraging open dialogue: We are creating internal anti-racism resources to further our collective education. We hope this will foster open dialogue in the organisation. 

•  Causes we are supporting: Our teams are working with clients and employees around the globe to create programmes that support the Black Lives Matter movement, with all proceeds being donated to the cause.

•  Corporate social responsibility and LoopMe Gives Back Day: We are creating forums across our global offices to lead LoopMe CSR Committees.  This will enable us to formalise a company wide employee plan to support relevant causes that drive diversity and inclusion.

As part of our ongoing commitment to our communities, we are launching a LoopMe Gives Back Day. All offices will have one day every year, during working hours, to give back to communities in any way they decide. 

•  Setting expectations and accountability: To truly change our culture, we need all of our employees to champion anti-racist behaviours. 

We understand that this is not a point in time exercise but an ongoing commitment to our internal and external community. We are committed to supporting everyone through these difficult times and also to ensuring that we are doing all we can to create an environment where diversity is prioritised and each employee feels empowered to drive change. 

As a company, we support the Black Lives Matter movement and will continue to ensure we are doing everything we can to promote equality, fairness, and freedom of expression.

Stephen and Marco

Co-Founders of LoopMe

#IP2020

This week the adtech community came together once again at Adexchanger’s Industry Preview to discuss the progress the industry made over the last year and what’s to come for the year ahead. Kicking off the day were two (female!) CMOs from leading brands Pandora (the jewelry retailer) and Del Monte foods in a session on the new realities of retailers.

Moderated by Forrester’s principal analyst and adtech guru, Joanna O’Connell, the session dove into the evolving role of the CMO and how these brands were driving growth and innovation. Bibie Wu from Del Monte Foods asks herself two questions: how can we grow brand value and how can we grow company sales? Not only are they looking to find ways to “get out of the can” – their motto on product innovation and relevance to their consumer, but they are doing very interesting things internally to align that innovation within the marketing function.

The most eye-opening insight was that they have the R&D department report into the marketing function. Connecting the CMO to the R&D group will help drive innovation and adoption of new product lines but bringing the voice of the customer into the ring and leveraging the data they have to fuel innovation.

Charisse Hughes from Pandora spoke about the art and science of advertising and how we’ve gotten so far into the data and science, we’ve lost the art of the storytelling. To that end, they launched a TV campaign during a typical ‘non-buying’ season for jewelry to get back some of the good will at the brand story level – infusing more brand awareness messaging and ‘warm fuzzies’ to keep their brand top of mind with consumers when thinking about a purchase.

Hughes also mentioned that their data has shown that 80% of transactions still occur in store, while 80% of engagement is done in digital. So they are finding the balance between staying relevant when their demand is outpacing their strategy.

At a data and tech conference, it was refreshing to see brands getting back to the core of what they do best – connect with consumers and tell a story. Data and tech will empower these stories to be shared at the right moments, to the right people, but it’s great to see the role of the CMO is still in tact in the retail vertical.

The holiday season is officially underway — and with $7.4 billion spent on Black Friday and $9.4 billion spent on Cyber Monday, reveal that shoppers are looking to shop at brick and mortar stores, but also rely heavily on e-commerce. In fact, Cyber Monday has been reported as Amazon’s biggest shopping day in its history. 

Capturing the purchase of in-market shoppers will be a big challenge for brands as consumers attention spans are shorter and split across screens. LoopMe’s data revealed key insights into consumer shopping habits that highlight opportunities for marketers. 

Based on LoopMe’s proprietary Audience Intelligence tool, we found interesting trends for retail buyers, automotive shoppers, and even food & beverage.

What’s In Your Cart?

Based on LoopMe first party data, this season’s holiday shoppers show high interest in purchasing toys, apparel, and gaming consoles. 

LoopMe wanted to know more about the 33.6M in-market toy shoppers.  What motivates these shoppers purchase: Price or delivery? Where are they planning to shop: Amazon or other retail stores? According to LoopMe data, toy shoppers show higher affinity towards Walmart indiciating price as the primary driver for this category, followed by Amazon. 

For apparel, LoopMe data identified 47.8M in-market apparel shoppers. Amazon is the preferred destination for these shoppers, as compared to Macy’s, JCPenney and Target. However, mature shoppers (55+) are more likely to shop non-Amazon this holiday season. Female apparel shoppers are 20% more likely to shop non-Amazon while male shoppers are 50% more likely to shop via Amazon than other retailers. 

LoopMe identified 22.8M Americans that are looking to purchase a gaming console for the 2019 holiday season. Xbox & PlayStation are top brands among in-market shoppers. Of those looking to buy a console, young adults who are at their early earning potential are more brand loyal to Nintendo, Xbox and Sony. LoopMe is keeping an eye on emerging trends in the Gaming category, such as streaming services including Google Stadia & Apple Arcade.

With LoopMe’s Audience Intelligence tool, we provide both accuracy and scale for your desired in-market shoppers.

Auto Holiday Sales Trends

We asked Americans what would motivate them this holiday season to buy a new car from their local dealership and found that males are 33% more likely to favor low ‘cash out’ options (favorable lease terms or low APR)  while females are 15% more likely to favor “cash in” (favorable cash back or trade in value) options when purchasing a car. The single highest incentive for a purchase was trade in value with 32% of respondents choosing that as a motivating aspect to purchasing a car, followed by a favorable lease (26%), cash back (23%) and a favorable APR (19%).

These insights can inform a brand’s creative messaging to drive better performance for increasing dealership visits.

It’s Party Time

Apart from other marketers, LoopMe wanted to know how our audiences were spending their time over the holiday season: Would they host or be a guest? LoopMe data shows that Americans are 40% more likely to host and than to be a guest this season. Hosts are shopping at big box stores like Walmart and Target, but also they are frequenting grocery brands like Aldi, Randall’s, Albertson’s, and Safeway. 

Through the LoopMe Audience Intelligence tool, your food or beverage brand can reach the 23.5M people that will be guests and the 16.5M that are hosting with the right brand message to influence relevant purchases this season. 

LoopMe can identify these types of audiences for you or any other audience that might be right for your brand this holiday season. Make sure your marketer is able to identify not only the demographic but also the psychographic attributes of your customers and potential customers. Reach out to us at marketing@loopme.com to learn more. 

Based on the premise that UK public trust in advertising is at an all-time low (25% this year compared to 48% in 1992), LoopMe’s panel at Advertising Week Europe wanted to explore the reasons why and discover how brands can win back public trust.

LoopMe’s GM International, Pete O’Mara Kane was joined by an expert panel which included Carl Carter, Head of Marketing Strategy & Effectiveness at IRI Worldwide, Amy Williams, Co-Founder & CEO at Good-Loop, Celine Saturnino, Chief Commercial Officer at Total Media and chaired by Chris Babayode, Managing Director EMEA at the Mobile Marketing Association UK. This is what they had to say:

Short-Term Focus

In a discussion about the issues marketers have faced in the last year, both Celine and Carl highlighted a shift from long-term strategy to short-term impact such as investing more time into developing ecommerce. FMCG was noted as an industry in a real state of change, with a multitude of data touchpoints but varying understanding of what will work for them, not to mention the issues they have faced in preparing for Brexit.

Lack of Trust

Amy asked the audience to think about why people ad block. Research shows that it’s down to control and choice which is a source of frustration for consumers. She encouraged brands to find more respectful ways of engaging with consumers – don’t follow people around the internet!

Be Authentic

One point which was reiterated by Carl and Celine was the importance of ensuring authenticity. Brands are moving to purpose-led marketing, but this needs to be realised through the entire company and supply chain otherwise they can be perceived as unauthentic. Patagonia and Lush were two examples of brands doing this well, with an honest and transparent business which is reflected in their advertising.

Establish Effectiveness

Pete asked brands to consider their measures of success, to move away from clicks and views and look at the impact their ads are having on their brand goals. Amy expanded on this, talking about the campaigns that LoopMe and Good-Loop have run utilising PurchaseLoop Brand that have measured and optimised to brand perception for ‘ethicalness’.

Close the Feedback Loop

There was a general agreement that brands aren’t using their first-party data enough to close the feedback loop. Pete encouraged brands to stop speaking to broad audiences and start speaking to people, because we don’t sit in broad buckets! The panel concluded by advising brands to focus on their long-term goals and ensure that these are reflected in the advertising and strategy.

Thanks again to our brilliant speakers for making this panel so interesting. See you next year Ad Week Europe!

If you want to find out more about LoopMe’s brand solutions, contact your local account manager or marketing@loopme.com

On March 7^th 2012 Marco and I registered LoopMe as a company. We were working out of the shed in my back garden.

Then, as now, we saw huge potential for data to be used in combination with artificial intelligence to close the loop on brand advertising, providing real-time feed-back and optimization on campaign goals.

Today our flagship product PurchaseLoop has been used by over 150 brands on 200+ campaigns, delivering improved results for brands and experiences for users. Instead of clicks and views, we are delivering incremental store visits, sales and brand sentiment.

We’ve learnt a lot over the last 7 years, first and foremost the importance of building a fantastic team. I’d like to say thank you to all the Loopers, past and present, for their talent, hard work and dedication, which has made LoopMe the success it is today.

Here’s to the next 7 years!

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We’re hiring! Check out our open roles and apply here.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

I was born in Eastern Ukraine, in a town called Stakhanov, but when moved with my family to Makiyivka, most famous as a coal mining and metallurgical centre. Before entering on a career in engineering, I attended the Univerity of Donetsk, where I studied Applied Mathematics.

Why did you decide to join LoopMe?

Having worked for several software companies including Ciklum, a digital solutions Fortune 500 company with expertise in IoT, Chatbot Development and Big Data & Analytics, I wanted to use the skills I’ve acquired in an emerging and innovative industry.

When I first met with the senior management team I was extremely impressed with how their vision and I wanted to be a part of it.

What’s your job role and day to day responsibilities?

LoopMe has a team of extremely talented and enthusiastic developers. My role as VP of Engineering is to guide them so they’re working on the right projects and with the right priorities. I make sure that our products are in line with business needs, that the capacity of our servers is scalable and so we’re constantly innovating and working with new technology.

What’s been the best moment at LoopMe?

To highlight a single moment is really hard, If I had to choose one in recent memory it’s definitely when we closed out the latest investment round.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself.

When I was working as a game developer most of my relatives thought all I did was play games. They still hope that I’ll stop playing with computers and find a “real” job one day.

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We’re hiring! Check out our open roles and apply here.