Good morning search marketers, guess which is better at commerce queries, Amazon or Google?
Voice assistant use continues to grow and has now reached "critical mass," according to new data from eMarketer. There are nearly 112 million people in the U.S. using digital assistants at least monthly — roughly 40% of U.S. internet users. That number is expected to increase to nearly 123 million over the next two years.
A comparison study of virtual assistants by Loop Ventures, released last week, found Google Assistant to be the most accurate in understanding and answering questions. Interestingly, Google Assistant outscored Amazon Alexa on commerce queries. Google Assistant answered 92% of commerce-related requests correctly while Alexa completed just 71% correctly, just 2% better than Siri which had 68% accuracy. With Google Assistant embedded in a growing number of platforms and devices — it's on more than a billion devices, is replacing Google voice search on Android home screens, and it seems only a matter of time before it's integrated into the Google app for iOS — brands and marketers should be thinking about potential advertising and transactional implications.
We all know reviews are important to businesses, but it's not worth trying to keep customers from posting negative reviews. In fact, it's illegal in the U.S. to try to prevent or retaliate against negative customer reviews with so-called non-disparagement clauses. Five businesses have learned that the hard way. The FTC announced it has settled administrative complaints with the firms for using illegal clauses around reviews in their customer contracts. Be sure you've implemented best practices when it comes to treating and responding to reviews.
Read on for a Pro Tip. While it's tailored to local businesses, data cleanliness and accuracy should be priorities for all of us.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
