But while many start-ups possess these core components, only a handful manage to distinguish themselves with that extra something that makes a workplace worth returning to. As cliché as it sounds, company culture is the invisible glue that bonds employees together. But culture extends far beyond a written manifesto that you wish for your employees to aspire to. Never successful as a top down initiative, it springs unprompted and perpetuates rapidly among peers, whether in accordance or not with a company’s desired values.

Now back at RichRelevance, I’m happy to find that the mutual respect, consideration and care that my fellow co-workers naturally share for one another continue to be mainstays of the {rr} culture—something that I experienced back in the early days, when I was employee #36. After my return was announced, I was showered with heartfelt communications; my first day on the job, I was greeted with “welcome back” hugs from friends old and new. I was informed that my favorite frozen yogurt place on Sansome had closed, and provided suggestions for new afternoon treat venues. My laptop, phone and an afternoon of meetings were set up for me so that I could have a productive and satisfying first day. Surrounded by the goofy humor and laughter of my colleagues, everything clicked easily back into place, as if I had never left.

As Day One of RichRelevance 2.0 drew to a close, I couldn’t help feeling a bit Dorothy-like—after she’s tapped her heels three times. There’s simply no place like home.

The birth of the internet shook the foundation of many markets, in particular our own media industry. Over the past decade and a half, online advertising has blossomed into the potential genius alternative to the more traditional media outlets — wooing media buyers with the promise of “real-time metrics” and the technology that allows better targeting capabilities. It’s all these promises of marketing capabilities that has propelled online media into securing a larger slice of overall budgets — stealing dollars from traditional media bucket. However, in order for online media to surpass traditional media budgets, the industry must further innovate in terms of scale and targeting. This will involve delivering value above and beyond what advertisers are currently capturing from TV.

One of the critical components that will enable the shift in budget allocation is in the one thing that makes online advertising so unique: the underlying power of ad-targeting data. As it currently stands, the digital industry is overrun with data: “Data, data everywhere, but no one has the means to truly leverage it.” The digital ad industry is still a ways off from being able to leverage “data potential” from ad context and consumer behavior.

Read the full article on iMedia Connection

RichRelevance’s Darren Hitchcock blogs on Econsultancy.

The importance of fast load times in an online retail environment has been proven time and time again. Online, a shopper’s time literally equates to money.

Now, the research from our recent mobile study shows that it’s a shopper’s time on tablets that should be the focus on your website optimisation initiatives.

In the UK, 82% of mobile purchases are made on the iPad.

Tablets and speed: the stats

This past March, Compuware surveyed shoppers and found that almost 70% of tablet users expect a website to load in two seconds or less. If your mobile site isn’t fast enough, your customers will move along (and quickly) to the next click.

According to the study, a bad web experience will drive 46% of tablet users to competitive websites and 33% are less likely to purchase from that company. Comparatively, a Strangeloop survey reveals that shoppers using a PC are a bit more patient, with the majority allowing a full three seconds before making the jump. A shocking 80% of those users, once they’ve abandoned the site, will not return.

Performance is also key when digging deeper into our mobile study. Not only is mobile responsible for over 10% of all online business; but the study also revealed that browsers spend more time on iPads with page views higher than any other channel.

Read the full article on eConsultancy

When the movie “Minority Report” was released in 2002, it was pure Hollywood that depicted a world where personalized screens would follow a shopper’s every move — whether walking through a mall or entering the local Gap store. Fast-forward 10 years, and this world of personalized screens is actually a reality driven by the sheer number of mobile devices consumers have access to today. This “ubiquity of screens” combined with the untethering of shopping from physical stores, has created a highly fragmented marketplace making it a greater challenge for brands to engage with consumers in the right context.

However, with change comes opportunity. A consumer’s shopping mode can be turned on at any moment, not just when they’re in the store or watching TV, but when they see something that piques their interest (think of the rapid rise of Pinterest) and want to explore or buy at that exact moment. The smartest brands are shifting their media investments to be in direct alignment with the shopping actions of the consumer by leveraging new and unique marketing channels that directly intersect with the path to purchase.

Read full iMedia article

What’s that got to do with RichRelevance? Ok so I co-founded another real-estate company, Redfin, but that seems pretty far afield to justify a blog post…

Well, there’s more! I met Dave Vivero, the CEO of RentJuice when he was still at HBS and “contemplating his next big thing,” so when he moved to San Francisco, it was an obvious opportunity to help him out—RichRelevance incubated the early RentJuice team until they got their first round of funding (should have taken some stock—darnit!). I even introduced them to one of their lead investors on that  round.

This is one example of the opportunity for more developed startups to help accelerate the entrepreneurial ecosystem—one example of what I believe to be many opportunities. Sometimes this means opening up your offices to a young company, or offering up a resource where you have slack within your business. It could be as simple as letting someone borrow your graphics guy for a few hours, or brainstorm their next version of their product.

I’ve helped other companies similarly (GoodReads and Interactive Touch Books), and will continue to because we believe that this pay-it-forward approach is critical for a healthy ecosystem. In fact, as a part of the pay-it-forward cycle, we were also the benefactor of a similar sub-leasing favor thanks to Tod and team at BrightRoll, who leant us a hand and some space when our salaries were still paid in sandwiches and hugs. Good Karma from BrightRoll set a precedent for our company and we have made it a point to ALWAYS pay-it-forward.

So the next time someone asks you if you have office-space to share, even if it’s a janitor’s closet, understand that you may be acting as a catalyst for something much more significant. You may even play a part in the creation of the next Billion-dollar startup (there seems to be quite a few these days)—and even the future billionaire’s of the world need help in early days because real estate in SV is ridiculously expensive.

Just ask the guys at Zillow and RentJuice.

In the US, for instance, mobile purchases as a percentage of overall e-commerce have doubled in the last year from 1.9% in April 2011 to 4.6% in March 2012. Interestingly, the iPad is driving nearly all shopping, browsing and purchasing in this emerging channel and iPad shoppers here in the US, in March 2012, actually spent more than desktop users—five dollars more per order than the AOV of desktop users of $153.

By comparison, UK shoppers are blazing the trail for mobile shopping. UK mobile shopping is double that of their American counterparts, with mobile shopping representing just over nine percent of all e-commerce sales. The bulk of that mobile e-commerce revenue (more than 80%) is from purchases made on the iPad. Interestingly, the highest average order values, in March 2012, originated from the iPhone—$24 more than iPad shoppers and nearly $28 more than desktop shoppers.

These numbers are not just interesting, but they are telling a story about the ways in which consumers are embracing the freedom that mobile devices provide them in the ability to shop anytime, anywhere. Our Shopping Insights team believes that the difference between the mobile shoppers in the US and the UK has a lot to do with how we “live” in these two countries.

In the US, we are a car-and-couch culture; the majority of us drive to work, so using our mobile devices to and from the office or school is not an option. But when we do get a chance to shop, it’s often a relaxing event often taking place in front of the TV or even later at night in bed (iPad evening usage, from 8pm to 11pm, account for 26% of all iPad shopping sessions). This is also suggested by products iPad users frequently purchase in the US: fitness equipment, home furnishings and outdoor supplies. These are “aspirational” purchases, no doubt influenced by what is being seen on TV and the ability to relax with the device.

In the UK, it’s a different situation; while the iPad is squarely driving the majority of e-commerce sales, the fact that, in March, the iPhone is where the highest AOV occurs is very telling of the culture that is even more mobile than the US (a recent Times article revealed that there are more mobile phones in the UK than there are residents—62.5M, to be exact). Britons order everything online, from groceries to electronics and (according to our study) that includes large-ticket items purchased on a smartphone.

What does this mean for online retailers? It’s rather simple—or complex—depending on how you look at it. Simple from the standpoint that we must recognize our customers are engaging with us in the channel that best suits their needs at that moment. So as we have always said, put the customer at the center of your thinking and the business strategies become ultra-clear. The more complex initiative is the mandate to maintain different versions of your ecommerce site for each platform that a shopper wishes to use. Shopping on a smartphone is vastly different than shopping from a desktop. It’s incumbent on retailers to think about screen size, the form factor, ease of use—all aspects of the customer experience. That’s equally the case with the iPad, but there is also an opportunity to more directly engage with customers via catalog-style presentation of retail goods and services.

As we approach mass adoption, retailers must adapt their strategies to build specific interfaces to meet the needs of this emerging segment and the capabilities of the technology. You know, Steve Jobs did a remarkable job in building a mobile platform that consumers have embraced—the more retailers take advantage of this opportunity, the more relevant and lasting their brand will be to today’s shopper.

RichPromo targets promotional campaigns to each individual shopper thanks to the intelligence of the enRICH platform, and leveraging the same single site integration that begins when we introduce our personalized product recommendations, RichRecs™ to the site.    We call this a “segment of one” – which is a way to describe shoppers who will find each campaign relevant, and the platform does the rest.  RichPromo watches for affinities shoppers express to specific categories, brands and even product attributes, to select the most relevant promotion available.

Our testing shows that campaigns personalized with RichPromo provide a 4x increase to sales when compared to manually merchandised promotions.  As we continue to integrate this new product into our client base we’ll be sure to share success stories and best practices from these learnings.

How often have you heard the phrase “reaching the right person, at the right time, with the right message?” It is a phrase that represents the Holy Grail of media. A phrase that promises hope to advertisers suffering from sleep deprivation and battling visions of dancing mortgage ladies in their heads. A phrase that, up until recently, was more of a dream than a reality.

Over the last few years, with the increase of consumer spending online, ecommerce sites have cemented their role as a critical marketing channel for brands that want to reach online consumers at the highest point of brand consideration. This ability has quickly changed the face of advertising and is reshaping how brands engage shoppers in wholly new media opportunities on retail sites, which were previously relegated to MDF and trade funds.

Read the full iMedia article

We released a white paper today to help brands with this battle. Retailers sit at the center of facilitating this next digital advertising revolution, and the results we’ve seen thus far speak for themselves. This paper speaks to the WHO, WHERE, WHEN and HOW to connect with consumers, bringing them that much closer to establishing an effective targeted campaign that delivers results, but without wasting budget on unnecessary ad impressions. Every ad impression counts, and it’s the ad industry’s duty to ensure brand advertisers get the greatest return on money spent.

Give the paper a read, and take some time to consider the following: As long as there’s e-commerce, personalized brand advertising within the context of the retail environment is the most powerful, relevant method to effectively target your preferred audience.

Personalisation, when done right, can provide customers with delightful experiences that introduce them to product discovery—essentially replicating the in-store experience like that of a helpful sales person. It’s no coincidence that customer-centric retailers like John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Dixons (all customers of RichRelevance) have adopted personalisation as a way to extend their superior in-store customer service across multiple channels. House of Fraser (another customer) has gone that one step further by leveraging a loyalty program and recognising their customers across all channels.

Leading retailers like these, that choose to put the customer at the center of their business strategies, are having deeper and more relevant conversations with their consumers. And the ones that are able to connect, and realise the lifetime value of their customers, will be the ones that continue to succeed.

-Darren Hitchcock, VP of the UK/European Region