Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 77
Inspiration from across the world for retail enthusiasts, e-commerce professionals, marketing lovers and technology fans. Welcome back! I summarized some great links again, I stumbled upon this week.
🤖AI isn’t optional. It’s as inevitable as the internet once was and mobile and social media after it…
The only question is whether you’ll embrace it from the mindset of iteration or the mindshift of iteration + innovation.
Yeah! I think very much true and far to many companies realise this or get stuck in bureacracy or company security policy’s. There are ways around that! Check out this great article from Brian Solis!
Slower and risk-averse companies that take a wait-and-see approach to AI give competitors not only a head start but an exponential leap ahead.
Picture this: a small retailer leveraging AI to deliver personalized recommendations on par with e-commerce giants or a healthcare provider using AI to improve patient outcomes with precision diagnostics. AI is leveling the playing field, democratizing innovation, unlocking possibilities not possible before, and opening doors to growth and agility.
https://diginomica.com/ai-eating-world-why-ai-revolution-good-business
🇮🇪 Ryanair: the social media story
What I don’t enjoy is when people stick to pure marketing jargon—just repeating standard abbreviations and buzzwords or marketing papers. I prefer to dig deeper, challenge conventional approaches, and explore alternative ways to grow or reach a goal—looking beyond what everyone else is already doing. Make things more lean, lower the automomy, being more creative. That thrives me.
I love Ryanair always did. They enabled cheap transportation to many and Michael O’leary -in every interview he gave- made jokes and was fun to read. He is also very creative.
Recently, I came across a thread on X breaking down Ryanair’s transformation on social media. Now this is exactly an example of thinking differently. I share a bit of the story here but there is plenty of information found across the web.
Back in 2021, Ryanair was known as the most hated airline. Terrible customer service, hidden fees, negative press coverage and the CEO called customers “idiots”
Instead of fixing their image, they leaned into the chaos—mocking competitors, roasting customers, embracing meme culture, and breaking every corporate rule.
The results shocked everyone—2M+ followers in a year, 1B+ organic impressions, the most engaged airline on social, and €500M in free marketing. All with a team of just three.
Zero corporate filter. They trolled competitors, politicians, their own customers—even themselves. No one was safe.
The crazy part? While other airlines spent millions on ads, Ryanair used phone camera videos, made memes in Paint, replied with emojis, and talked like a teenager. Corporate experts were horrified.
The numbers became insane:
TikTok: 1.5M followers. Instagram: 800K. Twitter: 900K. Engagement rate? 4x the industry average. All organic. No paid ads.
The business impact: Bookings up 50%. Brand awareness +300%. The youngest customer base in the industry. €100M+ saved in marketing costs. Competitors scrambled to copy them—but couldn’t crack the code.
Their most controversial move: Making fun of complaining customers. Traditional wisdom said this would backfire. Instead, complaints dropped 50%. No one wanted to be their next viral roast.
The strategy spread: Duolingo copied them. Wendy’s amplified it. Even LinkedIn tried. But Ryanair stayed ahead by breaking one key rule: no corporate approval process. Just pure, unfiltered chaos.
Great right? For some fun, checkout Ryanair’s socials or the original source of this post.
https://x.com/theoscarhoole/status/1885372879056842923
🌍E-commerce saturated? Try Central Eastern Europe
I said it before, focus at central/eastern Europe. Central European countries have already taken over Greece and Portugal. It probably won’t take too long till they catch up with Spain and Italy and I predict they also go beyond some Western European countries in the future.
If you need more info on doing business in these regions, reach out to https://www.linkedin.com/in/hristoradichev/ , an expert in e-commerce in these countries.
🔍New lookerstudio combines GA-4 and Search Console
A very useful lookerstudio template by Google. Very useful for doing analysis and analyzing both Search Console and Google Analytics data in one report. I share this here, as it is very easy to setup and you can use it for your own platform or if you are a freelancer you can use it for your client and quickly have insights.
I think this one can be particularly useful by the way:
Map your organic sessions against your engagement rate to see if there have been changes to your site engagement that align with your total traffic.
Details: https://www.seroundtable.com/using-google-analytics-search-console-data-together-38872.html
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/google-analytics-search-console
🧠Again….Unravel: the psychology of engaging apps
Ok after this one I stop promoting “Unravel” but after last weeks plug, they again had a very nice “webinar”. This time on “engaging apps” (although many practices also might work at other channels). I auto-captioned it again for your convenience and I also auto translated the slide deck. If you have a UX heart then also especially pay attention because some of the recommendations for engaging apps go against an optimal UX.
Some highlights (but do check for more details)
Delayed Notifications: Instagram doesn't give you real-time notifications for likes anymore. They initially give you a bunch quickly, then hold back to encourage you to keep checking the app.
On unneeded actions: “Sometimes, it's about getting people to consciously do something that makes them feel more committed, which eventually leads to them taking bigger actions."
IKEA Effect & App Personalization:"You can really make the app your own by having a bit of control over its appearance. You can customize it to look and feel the way you like, create your own profile, and set your preferences. All of this helps you to appreciate the app more, and because of that IKEA effect, you'll find yourself getting more engaged with it and using it more often."
🧐Seer Interactive CTR research
Seer Interactive has done research on CTR, both paid and organic. Its a valuable page if you work in e-commerce in a company or as a freelancer. And the good thing is they even made a “freelancer” and “CMO” summary. Very nice idea. A few quotes/citiations but do check the details:
Diversify off Google & test new channels - Declining paid CTR across the board may require shifts in budget allocation and creative approaches. (already saying that for a long time to people, do always try niche or alternate platforms, dedicate time for that, its not only fun, but as you read also worth it in the future.
AIOs are stealing clicks, but only from low-CTR queries. Even before AIOs showed up, these queries already had lower click-through rates, similar to how featured snippets affected SERPs.
Paid search is also struggling. Across the board, paid CTR is down—even on queries without AIOs.
Optimize for AIO presence: Securing a spot in the AIO can mitigate CTR losses and boost visibility.
All details: https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/ctr-aio
That’s it for this edition.
Did you not read the previous edition? It has some great topics, check it out:
🇳🇱 Coolblue: a product journey e-mail example (and a real story)
🇨🇳 Taobao offline stores: A new era for China’s retail?
🌏App screenshots from Asia
🇹🇭 A message can make a difference
🇩🇪 Marketplace watch in Germany: BEVH research
🧠Unravel: A-brands vs House Brands
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