Good morning Marketer, how do you bring digital to the in-store experience? 

Chicago-based advertising startup Cooler Screens is on a mission to solve the ‘last-mile’ problem of digital advertising by bringing digital displays to one of the most critical customer touchpoints of in-store shopping. The company offers an out-of-home advertising solution that replaces conventional refrigerated-case doors with digital screens. The screens can showcase product inventory inside the refrigerator or display ads dynamically, functioning as both an in-store merchandising platform and an ad network.

While there are other digital out-of-home networks in the market, Cooler Screens’s digital doors offer a scalable awareness opportunity along with dynamic in-store merchandising at the point of sale. 

In other news, earlier this week HubSpot reported on the widespread impact of COVID-19 on digital businesses by aggregating second-quarter data from its 70,000-plus customer base. The data confirmed a notable growth in web traffic (18% for Q2 over Q1), a steady rise in chat volume showing an overall increase of 31% for Q2 over Q1, strong marketing email open rates at 32% above pre-COVID-19 levels, among other insights.

“The biggest and most obvious takeaway, in my opinion, is that companies that invested in a really good online presence really benefited when the world suddenly found itself sitting at home looking at the computer all day,” said HubSpot’s VP of Marketing Jon Dick. “We saw a huge spike in traffic to our customers’ websites starting the week of March 15. There was a peak in mid-April of about 24% above benchmark. Companies that invested in really good email marketing also benefited.”

Keep scrolling for more news, including an update on WhatsApp Business. 

Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor

 
 
 
Social Shorts
 

WhatsApp Business is growing up

The Facebook-owned WhatsApp Business added QR codes to the app yesterday. Now instead of having to add a business number to their WhatsApp contacts, users can scan a business’ QR code. You might place a WhatsApp QR code on product packaging, receipts, or in your stores, for example. Users can scan the code to start chatting with your business. There’s an option to show a pre-populated message to get the conversation started.

Users can also now share links to catalogs and individual products from a WhatsApp chat in other chats as well as on websites, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

WhatsApp now claims more than 50 million users and “thousands of larger businesses” using the WhatsApp Business API.

More in social news …

 

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What we're reading
 

We've curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader

Gen Z wants brands to be ‘fun,’ ‘authentic’ and ‘good,’ study says – Marketing Dive

Police Are Buying Access to Hacked Website Data – Vice

Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired – The Verge

Pay to Get Rid of Ads on Social Media? Consumers Say Maybe, Maybe Not – StreetFight 

Coronavirus impact sends app downloads, usage and consumer spending to record highs in Q2 – TechCrunch