Most Popular MarketingSherpa Charts of 2017: Online reviews, disliked ads, email in lead forms and more

We took a look at some of our own analytics, and here are the charts that were most popular with MarketingSherpa newsletter subscribers in 2017.

Star ratings’ impact on purchase probability

Medill Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center conducted a study of 22 product categories to determine how star ratings in customer reviews effected the likelihood a customer would make a purchase.

“Reviews work as long as they're credible. Retailers should not suppress negative reviews because it damages the credibility of the review ecosystem. The retailer's interest is in providing useful information to the buyers who come to that website,” said Edward Malthouse, professor at Medill Northwestern and the Research Director of the Spiegel Center.

“Fix the product, fix the customer experience. Don't worry about fixing or rigging the customer review environment. Fix the way in which it works and good things will happen,” said Tom Collinger, the Executive Director of the Spiegel Research Center.

Read the full analysis in the article Ecommerce Chart: Star ratings’ impact on purchase probability.

Most disliked ad types

We asked 1,200 consumers to rank their least liked types of advertisements. The most hated — online pop-ups. The least disliked — print ads in newspapers and magazines.

One customer responded, “Make it less intrusive. Pop-up ads make me feel like the company could care less what I'm trying to do; their ad should take priority over everything.”

Read the full analysis in the article Advertising Chart: The types of ads consumers dislike the most (and the least).

Personal vs. business email in lead generation forms

We conducted an analysis of more than seven million form fills across 14 job roles and four company sizes to determine how often people use their personal or business email addresses in lead forms.

“Don’t make the mistake of forcing customers to interact with your brand on your terms. Doing so will end badly ... even when you have a phenomenally sound reason for doing it that way. Failure to put the customer first is failing to recognize a fundamental element of any business — without customers, you have no business in the first place,” said David Fortino, SVP of Audience and Product, NetLine Corporation.

Read the full analysis in the article B2B Lead Generation Chart: Business versus personal email addresses in lead forms.

Why customers ignore direct mail

We asked 2,400 consumers, sampled to reflect a close match to the U.S. population's demographics: Why do you ignore the print advertising you receive from companies? Select all that apply.

The most frequent response — “They clutter my mailbox because I receive too much direct mail in general.”

To hear it in consumers’ own words, they told us “I do not ignore all print advertising, only ones that send constant barrage of mail” and “the amount of advertising that I receive is overwhelming. I tune it out, mostly.”

Some of the responses were more colorful: “It's like a fungus, intrusive” and “I hate print mail. It serves no purpose except to clutter up my tiny mailbox with useless stuff.”

Read the full analysis in the article Direct Marketing Chart: Why customers ignore direct mail.

When customers ignore direct mail, here’s why they do it (by industry)

After we published the above chart about why customers ignore direct mail, one of our readers hit “reply” on his MarketingSherpa Chart email newsletter and challenged the chart.

“It also depends on the product and offer. Are you selling chewing gum, health supplements or Cadillacs?” said G. Mark Alarik, President, Sales Overlays, Inc.

So, we published further information on the data, broken down by industry.

“Most direct mail campaigns are hugely successful at a 95-98% failure rate. Depending on the product, generating a consistent 2-5% response may be a very acceptable goal,” Alarik said.

Read the full analysis in the article Marketing Chart: When customers ignore direct mail, here’s why they do it (by industry).

Why consumers unsubscribe from brands’ email

We asked 2,400 consumers why they unsubscribe from companies’ email, and they told us …

In their own words, the level of frequency that will alienate consumers varies. One consumer described too frequent as “Don't send me 2 or 3 emails a day. It's annoying.” Another customer response was “Don't send too many emails. I sometimes get three or four from [retailer’s name removed] per week! Way too much.”

Read the full analysis in the article Email Marketing Chart: Why consumers unsubscribe from brands’ email.

Which advertising channels consumers trust most and least when making purchases

We asked 1,200 consumers: In general, which type of advertising channels do you trust more when you want to make a purchase decision? Please sort the options into ‘Ads I trust’ and ‘Ads I don't trust that much’ categories.

Below you can see the results for the “Ads I trust” category.

“Many marketers are different from their customers, and probably assume that customers see and trust digital ads, but that is not the case. Marketers need to get out of their digital bubbles to understand what people are really reading and viewing,” said Louis Gudema, President, revenue & associates, when I showed him the data.

Read the full analysis in the article Marketing Chart: Which advertising channels consumers trust most and least when making purchases.

Related resources

Ecommerce: Northwestern University study on how online reviews affect sales (interview with Executive Director and Professor at Northwestern’s Spiegel Research Center)

Advertising Chart: Consumers’ preferred advertising channels

Free Reports, How-to-Guides and Marketing Resources