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A study has found that direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand advertisers have higher click-through and conversion rates on mobile inventory than on desktop inventory.

The LiveIntent study analyzes dozens of D2C brands running marketing campaigns with LiveIntent, which reaches 250 million verified people monthly.

The findings suggest the click-through rate (CTR) for D2C brands is three times higher on phones than on desktop, and the conversion rates for D2C brands is 50% higher on phones than on PCs.

Kerel Cooper, SVP global marketing at LiveIntent, attributed a high CTR and conversion rate to the high usage rate of email on mobile compared to desktop.

In an email to Digital News Daily, Cooper said mobile devices were not optimized for actual purchases in the past, adding that D2Cs "have been pioneers in building mobile friendly purchase pages." D2C checkout pages have the "luxury of simplicity," he said, because D2C brands are often "singularly focused on one product -- a toothbrush or a mattress -- the simplicity lends itself to an easier check out than, say, a big box store, which has thousands of products to purchase.”

Mobile increases clicks and conversions and keeps costs down. The data shows that D2C brands have a 25% lower cost per conversion (CPC) on mobile inventory compared to the rate on desktop computers.

D2Cs have always spent heavily on marketing and advertising, Cooper said, because it was the only way to get around the disadvantage of not being in big-box stores.

“They need a hefty budget to create relationships with customers to make up for not being around foot traffic,” he said, pointing to changes in the D2C model that has become so popular.

Evidently the LiveIntent platform has been flooded with D2C brands that sell everything from apparel to furniture to wellness tools to bedding, he said. DTCs launch direct relationships with consumers when they understand how simple it can be to run acquisition campaigns in incremental inventory.

As for D2C product ads, they seem to perform best in consumer-focused publications like newsletters that are about shopping tips, travel news, or general news perform the best for D2C brands looking to find audiences -- driving conversion rates and clicks 5 times higher for D2C brands.

Visual search -- the ability to initiate a search query using an image captured by the camera lens on a mobile device -- has increasingly become a channel that can drive consumers from becoming aware of a product to making a purchase.

Gartner classifies visual search as an emerging technology, which puts it right on par with findings from eMarketer survey suggesting that few consumers "regularly" use it.

On average, only 3% regularly use visual search and only 10% have used it in the past, according to the findings. On the other site of the spectrum, 7% are familiar with the technology, according to an eMarketer ecommerce survey conducted in June 2019 by Bizrate Insights and published in August 2019.

Gartner Analyst Mike McGuire points to artificial intelligence (AI), which sits high on the list of transformational trends, as an important technology that supports visual search platforms like Google Lens, Google Apps for Android and iOS, and Prism.

Google, Microsoft, Pinterest and other augmented reality vendors continue to invest in visual search. Their platforms use computer vision and AI to identify the image.

“Marketing success depends on the maturation of these technologies and mature data and image metadata and tagging capability on the marketing team,” wrote McGuire in a report titled Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising 2019. 

ASOS, a U.K. online fashion retailer, already uses visual search. Its search tool, Style Match, integrates into the ASOS mobile app, so customers can zoom in on a man’s suit in a magazine picture, for example, and receive suggestions on similar suits, McGuire explains.

McGuire calls visual search a tool that will enhance the customer experience, benefiting brands most in e-commerce, content marketing, product and search marketing. Amazon also supports this media.

Earlier this month, Mondo released a study showing that 21% of the 1,000 marketers surveyed cite visual search as an important marketing strategy for their organizations through 2020. Visual search fell in line behind strategies such as experiential marketing, micro-moments, and motion design.

Gartner rated visual search as an “on the rise” strategy, along with over-the-top TV advertising, consent and preference management and personification. At the peak are advanced supply-side bidding, customer journey analytics, real-time marketing, conversational marketing, artificial intelligence for marketing, and customer data platforms.

While they don't directly impact Facebook’s bottom line, the company’s ties to academia add an air of respectability to its vast mobile data-grabbing practices.

Threatening those ties, the Social Science Research Council is accusing Facebook of jeopardizing an existing data-sharing initiative.

First announced by Facebook in 2018, the effort was intended to encourage independent research into the role of social media in elections and democratic systems more broadly.

Among other benefactors, the effort has been funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Now, however, the council’s backers are saying that technical difficulties associated with making data available to independent scholars have bogged down research efforts.

They say that 83 independent scholars whose proposals were selected for funding have been given access only to a portion of what they were told they could expect.

“This has made it difficult or, in some cases, impossible for them to complete the approved research,” the funders said in a letter to the SSRC.

The backers are also frustrated by what they see as Facebook’s inability to give a definitive timetable for when the full data set will be made available. The council has given Facebook until September 30 to turn over the promised data.

For its part, Facebook says it remains committed to the project.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook has been far more careful about giving third parties access to user data.

This summer, for example, the tech titan

a market research app that prioritized transparency, data safety and participant compensation.

Exact Editions, a London-based company that digitizes the archives of periodicals, has partnered with Tribal Art magazine to digitize and offer subscriptions to its 15-year archive.

This comes a week after the company announced it was working with Dancing Times, one of the oldest monthly dance magazines, to do the same.

Tribal Art magazine’s publishing director Alex Arthur called the partnership a “new opportunity for digital subscription revenue in both the individual and institutional realm.”

Individuals and institutions can access Tribal Art magazine’s archive online and on mobile. A subscription gives users access to both the archive and new issues. 

Individuals can pay $19.99 quarterly or $72.99 a year.

Tribal Art magazine is devoted to the arts and culture of the traditional peoples of Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Americas. Each issue runs around 160 pages and contains articles from international scholars and specialists, reviews of exhibitions, interviews, histories of objects and collections and coverage of art market news. 

Exact Editions’ platform lets subscribers search, browse and share the archived magazine’s content. Issues can be used as a research tool for students, artists, historians, authors and librarians, as well as for enthusiasts in the space.

In addition, Dancing Times digitized over 50 issues in collaboration with the producers, developers and designers at Exact Editions.

“The new digital archive offers us an opportunity to maximize revenue from institutional subscriptions, a market in which we are particularly keen to expand,” stated Dancing Times editor Jonathan Gray.

Individuals and institutions can subscribe to the last five years of the magazine's archive and new issues as they are published. Individuals can pay $11.99 quarterly or $40.99 a year.

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The long-awaited Nintendo game Mario Kart Tour for iOS and Android mobile devices is coming on Sept. 25.

Players who want to know when the game is available for download can pre-register at the AppStore or Google Play.

“For the first time ever in a Mario Kart game, players can drive past giant Warp Pipes while drifting through a New York-inspired cityscape, all with the swipe of a finger,” stated Nick Chavez, Nintendo of America senior vice president of sales and marketing.”

In the game, players can experience endless racing while collecting drivers, like Mario, as well as karts and gliders.

The game is free to start and requires a Nintendo account.