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by Yap Heng Kiong
Blockchain is known to be one of the transformative technologies which has contributed towards the rise of FinTech in recent years. It is the underlying technology upon which the digital currency, Bitcoin, is based upon. Many have said that Blockchain is a disruptive technology and will define how money and payment operate in the new financial world. Numerous Fintech startups have built solutions based on Bitcoin in the area of peer-to-peer funding and mobile payments. Blockchain is more than just an enabler for new businesses and payment concepts; the true value and real opportunity lie in the data that can be extracted from the business transactions. Besides shaping the future in the financial services, it is perhaps worthy to look at how the blockchain technology, coupled with Data Analytics and Internet of Things (IOT), can help towards building Smarter Cities of tomorrow. For example, Smart Vending Machines could be installed with sensors to continuously monitor stock shortages. Once the stock level hits the minimum order quantity, the Smart Vending Machine triggers an order to the supplier using Smart Contract based on a Blockchain platform and automatically makes payment to the supplier via the digital wallet. Smart contracts enables us to create a binding legal agreement instantly, when a supplier meets the obligations at our pre-defined level of requirements. In addition, companies could use Blockchain technology to track the assets of the Vending Machines and the stocks they carry. Data analytics could be used to monitor the transactions to streamline marketing strategies. Suppliers could achieve great time savings by being able to reduce the number of trips made to every vending machine. Replenishment of stocks is required only when suppliers receives a “low-stock” notice directly from the Smart Vending Machines. Suppliers could benefit from Smart Vending Machines capable of making payment for the delivery of new items automatically using Smart Contracts and Bitcoins. Fully integrated data analytics solution could also be used to monitor the transactions. This will allow suppliers to extract insights at speed to dynamically understand real time supply and needs. Blockchain technology and Bitcoin affect not only the financial industry. It is up to the imagination of application developers to take the full advantage of the secured, peer-to-peer public ledger features of the blockchain technology, IoT and other technologies to make cities even smarter. What other case examples can you think of? Feel free to share your additions in the comments section below. Source
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Online Advertising
You have probably come across many metrics used in online advertising like the ones shown below.
Online advertisement is a good way to increase site traffic and hopefully brings about more business. There are many online metrics used by the online advertising industry such as Ad impression, Click-Through-Rate, Cost-Per-Click, and Conversion Rate, etc.
Understanding these online metrics will help you better understand your advertisement dollar effectiveness. What exactly do these metrics mean? This post attempts to explain with the help of a spreadsheet, such as Microsoft Excel. Open your Microsoft Excel and type the following:
Let's say you have spent $100K on a particular online advertising campaign, e.g. Google Adwords. Type $100,000 into cell B2 in your Excel spreadsheet.
Let us now fill in the Ad Impression B1 cell onto the Excel spreadsheet.
Open up your Google Adwords Control Panel as shown below. Each time your ad appears on Google Search Page Results or on Google Display Network, it is counted as one impression. You cannot have Clicks without Impressions. Users need to see your Ads before they can decide whether to click on them. In this example, you have spent $100,000 to get 10,250,000 ad impressions.
Next, check out the number of interactions under your Google Adwords control panel. An interaction is the main user associated with an Ad format. "Clicks" for Text and Shopping Ads, "Views" for Video Ads, and so on. The interaction column counts different user actions depending on Ad formats, Regardless of formats, this column indicates how well your Ads are meeting your advertising goals.
Fill in 27,560 under Clicks in cell A6 in your Excel Spreadsheet.
Next, we are going to fill in the Opportunity response which is also known as 'Conversion'. A Conversion happens when someone clicks your ad, and then takes an action which you define as valuable to your business such as subscribing to your company's newsletters.
Conversion Tracking is a free tool in Google Adwords that show you what happens after someone clicks on your ad, whether they purchase your product, sign up for your newsletters, call your business or downloaded your app. When someone completes an action which you define as valuable, these actions are defined as conversions.
For information on how to set up conversion tracking, click below resource.
Retrieve the number of conversions from your Google Adwords Conversion Tracking dashboard as shown below and fill in the number in your Excel Spreadsheet.
Now that you have entered the four basic information into the Excel Spreadsheet, let us now proceed to work on the rest.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on the Advertisement link to the number of Ad Impressions.
Hence, type the formula =B6/B1 into Cell B3. You should get 0.27% for CTR. Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM or CPT)
Cost-Per-Thousand is a marketing term used to denote the price of 1000 advertisement impressions.
Type the formula =B2/B1 * 1000 into Cell B4. You should get $9.76 for CPM. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) refers to the actual price you pay for each click in your online advertisement.
Type the formula =B2/B6 into Cell B7. You should get $3.63 for CPC. Conversion Rate (Action)
Conversion Rate is the average number of conversions per Ad click, shown as a percentage. Conversion Rate is computed by simply taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the total number of Ad clicks.
Type the formula =B10/B6 into Cell B8. You should get 51.89% for Conversion Rate. Cost-Per-Opportunity
To find out the Cost Per Opportunity,
Type the formula =B2/B10 into Cell B11. You should get $6.99 for Cost-Per-Opportunity. Conversion Rate (Sales)
Assuming you made a total 1,235 sales after spending $100,000 in online advertisement campaigns, let us now calculate the Conversion Rate for your Sales.
Conversion Rate for Sales is calculated by taking Sales divided by total number of conversions. Type the formula =B14/B10 into Cell B12. You should get 8.64% for Conversion Rate. Cost-Per-Sales
To find out Cost-Per-Sales, simply
Type the formula =B2/B14 into Cell B15. You should get $80.97 for CPS.
To watch a video about this post, please click below
Summary
Let us summarise the following key metrics with the help of a Sales Funnel diagram as shown below.
How Google Adwords Work?
In Google Adwords, you control the amount you pay for every click to your site by setting the keywords' max. Cost-per-click (CPC) bid price. In this sense, Google AdWords gives you full control over your advertising costs.
When someone enters a search term in Google, E.g. Calculating Cost Per Click in Google Adwords, Google AdWords runs an auction to determine the ads and their ranks that show on the search results page (SERP). See illustration below. Ad position is the order in which your ad shows up on a page. Having an Ad position of 1 means that your ad is the first ad on a page.
In order to achieve a high ad position means that your ad must have a high ad rank. Having a high ad rank allows your ad to perform better in the auction. Does being at the highest position means paying the highest CPC? The answer is NOT NECESSARY.
Three Bidding Strategies in Google Adwords
To be included in this auction, you first have to choose a bidding stratgey. Depending on your goal, there are three bidding strategies to choose from.
Most beginners usually start with using Cost-per-click bidding. This means that you pay for each click on your ads that Google drives to your website.
To use CPC bidding strategy for your campaigns, you set a maximum cost-per-click bid or "max. CPC" - this will be the maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click to your site. (unless you manually set bid adjustments, or activate Enhanced CPC). For example, you have set a maximum CPC bid of $1 for your ads. The most you'll pay when a someone clicks on your ad is $1. How Much Do I Really Pay for My Clicks
Max. Cost Per Click is not the bid price you pay. This is the maximum price you are willing to pay for a click.
To understand, first we must look at how Ad rank works as the actual bid price you pay is dependant on Ad ranks. More specifically, it is dependant on the Ad rank of the second advertiser just below you in rank position. More about this in the later part. How Ad rank works
Businesses and site owners strive to have their ads appear higher on a page because it's likely that more people will see the ad.
In the Youtube video dated Jan 25, 2017 below, Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, explains how the AdWords auction works. The main factors affecting your Ad Rank are your bids and the quality of your ads and website. According to Google, the expected impact from your extensions and other ad formats also are taken into account when computing your Ad Rank Hence, Ad rank = max. CPC bids X Quality Score X Ad Format
Based on the examples given in the video, here's how the table will look like when comparing with other advertisers competing for the same keyword.
In the example above, Advertiser A will be placed at the top of the advertisements since it scored highest in terms of Ad Rank. Google has another way to work out the actual Cost-per-click which is different from the max. CPC. This means, the price paid by Advertiser A is not S$2 which was bidded. In fact, every advertisers only pay slightly above the immediate advertiser below them. In other words, the Cost-per-Click is a number calculated just enough to still maintain a rank higher than the one below their ranks. To put it bluntly, had Advertiser A put in a bid of $1.73, it would result in his Ad Rank being 16 (or 15.01??) with the same Quality Score and Ad Format values. Hence $1.73 is the Cost-Per-Click paid by Advertiser A since the Ad Rank of 16 is enough to outdo Advertiser B's Ad rank of 15.
Let's assume the formula to calculate CPC is
CPC = Ad Rank of the Advertiser just below you / Your Quality + 0.01 Again using the examples given in the video, I have added a column known as 'Quality' as a score determined by both the Quality Score and Ad Format. Example, CPC of Advertiser A = 15 / 8.72 + 0.01 = $1.73
The Cost-Per-Click for Advertiser A is $1.73.
You notice that Advertiser A, being the first in the ad position, is not paying the highest Cost-per-click CPC. In fact, Advertise B pays higher. Advertiser C paid the lowest among all because Advertiser D has the lowest Ad rank and hence paid the highest CPC. We do not know exactly if the above formula is the correct one used by Google. We also do not know the formula to derive at Ad ranks. However, I hope that the simple illustration gives you a better idea of how Google Adwords work. Below are more resources related to Ad rank and Quality Score. Ad Rank and Average Position
Having an Ad rank position of "1" means that your ad is the first ad on a page.
Ad rank isn't a metric that you can see anywhere in your account However, it determines the ad position you win in the auction. You can roughly gauge the performance of your ad by looking at another Google Adwords attribute known as Average Position. An average position of 1-8 is usually on the first page. What Determines Quality Score
By just looking at the table above in determining Ad Rank and Cost-Per-Click, it seems that to improve your ad position, you can either
How Google derive its Quality Score depend on various factors at auction time. Some of the important ones are listed below-
Nobody knows exactly the algorithm being used by Google in deriving at Quality Scores and hence Ad Positions. However, when more people who see your ad click on it, that is a strong signal to Google that your ads are relevant to the person searching. Therefore, Click-Through Rate is one important factor to be considered. Next, Google recently announced the inclusion of ad formats into its calculation of Quality Score. Ad extensions are common types of ad formats. These may include locations and business addresses, site links. On Quality of Landing page, according to Google, a quality landing page
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722122
Experimenting Google Adwords
Google Adwords - You can experiment with the keyword tools and learn more about Google Campaigns without having to run the actual ads.
However, you will be asked to enter your credit card details when you first sign up for a Google Adwords account. What if you just wanted to explore the keyword planner and are not ready to give your credit details yet? View the following on how to Open an AdWords Account without a Credit Card. When you first create a Google Adwords account, you will be prompted to enter some information such as email, country and time zone. Important Step to Bypass the Credit Card Information Page
Next, when you see the following page, DO NOT enter the rest of the details. Click on 'Skip the guided setting' immediately to bypass having to enter your credit card details.
You will see the following page available for you to explore the keyword planner within Google Adwords without having to enter your credit card details.
In his latest National Day Rally speech on 20 August 2017, Prime Minister of Singapore Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, mentioned that parking in Singapore will go coupon-free from October onwards with an mobile app.
To read more about this, please click below link
How Coupon-free parking work?
I went ahead to register myself as a trial user at the following website,
I was being selected and informed on the same day of request to become one of the 10,000 trial users of this app. (yay)
I received an email with an instruction to install Testflight on my iphone.
So what is TestFlight? Here's the official answer from Apple
Beta Testing Made Simple TestFlight makes it easy to invite users to test your apps and collect valuable feedback before you release them on the App Store. You can invite up to 10,000 testers using just their email address. Source - https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
To install the correct app, enter the app code provided in the email when prompted.
This is how the Streetsmart Driver app icon look like on an Iphone 6
Double click on the icon to launch the app on your mobile phone.
After determining my location, the following screen appeared.
Enter vehicle number, select car park to proceed
I entered my vehicle number, selected the carpark and the duration of parking, then pressed 'Proceed'. (For first time users, you will also be prompted to enter your credit card number to effect the payment.) The next page is the confirmation details. Once you are sure the information provided is correct, click on 'Park Now' to proceed. This is when you will be charged on a per minute basis.
I have now made payment to park for the next 30 minutes.
During this 30 minutes, I have the option to either terminate the parking charge by clicking on "End Now" or to extend beyond 10 minutes by clicking on "Extend" A reminder will be sent 10 minutes before the expiry of the parking duration so the owner can top up the parking fees via the phone app.
The old system of using paper coupons requires Enforcement officers (Parking Wardens) going around car parks issuing summons for vehicles without valid coupons.
How will verification be carried out on coupon-free parking vehicles then? There isn't much information available on this. From what I read from the FAQ at www.parking.sg, validation of coupon-free parking seem to work in a similar way. Except that upon seeing no paper coupons being displayed on a vehicle's dashboard, hypothetically, the Enforcement officers would then do a check via a terminal (probably an ipad) to check the vehicle's car plate number against a database system containing details of every car which has valid parking paid for using the app. Can We Make It Better?
Is this the best we can do moving towards a smarter city? How can we make it better? Perhaps a more automated way of verification could be considered using CCTV cameras with number recognition.
Instead of a Enforcement Officer patrolling and entering vehicle numbers for verification, one possibility is the use of High Definition (HD) CCTV cameras to capture vehicle numbers and checked against the central database automatically.
The location of the CCTV cameras need to cover the area where the vehicle numbers can be seen. This poses a challenge for car parks designed for parallel parking.
First In The World
Is this kind of parking charges payment via an app the first in the world? I do not know. But certainly this is not the first time I have heard about such a concept in Singapore.
In 2016, a group of polytechnic students came up with the idea of a parking system using an app and QR codes. It works this way, drivers first purchase valid e-coupons online using Paypal or credit cards. Then he or she prints out a paper QR code to be displayed on the vehicle's dashboard. The verification is conducted using this QR code for validity of parking.
Were Other Technologies Being Considered?
Did the authority consider any other platforms or solutions, before deciding on this Streetsmart Driver app for trial? Besides the Streetsmart Driver App, below are three possible solutions they could have considered-
Setting up of wireless access transponders across the island is a big infrastructure investment. M2M communication among vehicles could happen in Singapore when manufacturers start to ship cars with in-built 3G/4G or even LTE sim card for communications. Taking into consideration time to implement and cost factor, the mobile app solution selected by the Singapore authority seems to be a logical choice.
Conclusion
What's my verdict? I find the app extremely easy to use. The system definitely saves vehicle owners time and effort to purchase paper coupons and reduce paper waste.
Once implemented nation-wide, more data could be collected by the authority about parking situations hence useful for optimised car park lots allocation and better urban planning.
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