With Black Friday 2017 just a few days away, we stumbled across a new infographic created by Partner.Everdata that offers a bunch of interesting facts, stats and predictions that marketers need to know about the biggest shopping day of the year. Check it out below:

With online sales for Father's Day exploding, the importance of these key occasions in the calendar gives good reason for digital marketers to sit up and take notice. Thanks to the folks at AdRoll, who analysed 35,000 of its advertisers globally during the two weeks leading up to Father's Day, here's a sneak peak to find out what sectors have been performing best.

2deHands.be is Belgium's largest online second hand store. In order to be innovative, stay in sync with young people and help people sell their goods in an effortless way, agency Happiness has created "Chat with your Ads" - the first iMessage App that turns ads into unique, animated and clickable stickers. 

Taking photo images from sellers on the site, ranging from clothes, cars, boats and everything in between, clickable sticker cut-outs of the items for sales are created, added into user chats and shared within the iOS instant messaging app.  

TV viewing figures are on the decline. The UK has seen a 13 per cent drop in viewing in the past two years, according to Accenture – far from promising for TV advertisers. Conversely, due to a deluge of platforms, services and devices, online video is stronger than ever.

The IAB reports that the UK’s online video ad spend grew by 56 per cent to £292m ($387m) in the first half of 2015, demonstrating the recognition of the ad potential of online video. Its latest iteration, shoppable video, brings another opportunity to win over brands and advertisers who may have otherwise been unconvinced of its success.

Ads that earn money in seconds

Shoppable video provides a direct route to commercial opportunities, by providing a link to shop the products featured in the video. Burberry’s runway video, for example, incorporates new looks with the purchasing experience, allowing viewers to scroll fashion stills, click for more information, and buy. By combining video with an interactive component, brands can capitalise on‘in the moment’ consumer impulses. 

Many have been quick to realise the potential that shoppable video holds and are beginning to experiment with the format, developing innovative campaigns that take advantage of the decreased gap between purchase inspiration and transaction completion.

Smartphones have really defined the term “mobile” in its truest sense. The growth of these devices have made it much more easy and convenient to search for products and shop on the internet. In response to the recent increase in m-commerce, Syncline have identified seven top mobile marketing trends to watch out for in 2016. Check them out in the infographic below:

The growing ROPO phenomenon, where customers research online using their mobiles and buy offline, makes it vital for retailers to be more than just mobile-friendly. Kevin Sparks, Commercial Director at FACT-Finder shares the mobile search essentials that every retailer needs to know.

"Customers coming into a store today are better informed than the sales staff."

So says Jörg Geilgens, Client Solution Manager at IBM.

This isn’t down to poor training by retailers, but because the vast majority of people with a smartphone (88% to be precise) use it to carry out research before even entering a physical store.

This new form of retail therapy means customers visit stores on a mission to buy, having already done their browsing online. This means they are more likely to buy, making this mobile habit – called ROPO – vital to retailers.

The downside is that if your online shop isn’t mobile friendly, these ROPO-ers won’t be heading your way. And that’s pretty much everyone with a mobile – do you know anyone in the UK and Europe without a smartphone?

If you want to become a real ROPO magnet, you need to be more than just mobile-friendly – you need to be mobile-optimised. This means making it as easy as possible to search for your products with a smartphone. So where do you start?