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When it comes to online commerce, the point at which money changes hands has often been the moment a sale falls apart. What was a carefully crafted brand experience becomes off-putting and complicated. There are confusing redirects, forms that clash with the rest of the design, and a lot of sensitive data that needs to be entered.

It is no secret that hotels have had their Web-based business swiped from under their noses by the likes of Priceline, owner of Kayak and Booking.com. Now the preferred destination for hotel visitors online despite not owning any property or producing anything, Priceline has a bigger market value than the top 15 hotel groups combined.

Retailers made great strides, baby steps and big gaffs in the march toward SMS marketing excellence this past holiday season. Here is a recap of ideas to emulate or avoid.

The Indian luxury landscape is experiencing strong evolutionary undercurrents that are redefining the consumer profile and how luxury players will need to operate in this domain during 2016.

Smart watches offer a promising new customer touch point for retailers and financial services companies, but any successful effort to use them in your business will depend strongly on having a laser focus on the simplicity and utility of your application’s design.

Many still consider ad networks to be in an amateur state, and mobile marketing in its infancy. Over the coming years, the marketing community will be able to leverage greater value from information gleaned from users’ mobile devices, enabling more precise and effective marketing than ever before.

While mall owners blame the trend on the closing of anchor stores such as Macy’s, the real reason behind the demise of malls is that shoppers, especially the high-potential affluent customers, have lost interest.

Despite Google’s prediction that 85 percent of the top 100 retailers will have beacon technology in place by the end of 2016, true mainstream adoption on either side is still probably a couple of years away.

In the United States, mobile devices account now for 30 percent of retail commerce, while sales are expected to total over $100 billion.

Authenticity is an overrated term in the marketing and advertising industry. As marketers, we all vie for that deep relationship between our brand and our consumers, but many campaigns seem to fall flat.

This will be a fascinating and pivotal year for mobile’s role in marketing. But there will be opportunities as well as challenges.

The real news is the slowdown in China’s growth and the devaluation of the RMB.

Mobile proximity is ready for its coming-of-age moment this year, thanks to a better understanding of technology, methodology and best practice from all parties involved.

As we enter 2016, leading brands and smart marketers alike must adopt the proper strategies to navigate through the increasingly complex and competitive world of digital marketing.

LAS VEGAS, NV – We live in an uber-connected world and, as marketers, we have entered the third wave of digital advertising. The first wave was the desktop Internet. The second wave was mobile, with applications and the mobile Web. And now the third wave is adaptive mobility, coming from the world of wearables, sensors and the Internet of Things.

LAS VEGAS, NV – It is January, which means there is no shortage of articles that predict tech trends for the upcoming year, or list all the must-see hoopla at CES in Las Vegas. So let us consider this a “list of lists.”

According to eMarketer, the global mobile advertising market will account for more than 50 percent of all digital ad expenditure for the first time and cross more than a cool $100 billion in spend. U.S. mobile ad expenditures alone are expected to cross $40 billion.

The average United States adult spends nearly three hours a day on his or her mobile device, with advertising-friendly mediums such as games (78 percent), social networking (65 percent) and retail (46 percent) as favorites among mobile content choices.

The competition between ecommerce and conventional offline shopping channels continues to heat up – even at the high end of the consumer market.

Sixty-four percent of United States adults use Facebook, and a whopping half of those users get their news there and nowhere else. That means that more than 30 percent of the general population gets their news from a social media network.

We are witnessing a profound shift in power, one that takes it away from brands and gives it almost entirely to consumers. According to a new report from Forrester Research, this shift is due to the unprecedented growth of digital – from applications to mobile phones to Buy it Now buttons.