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Phishing Hit New All-Time High
According to a report by the Anti-Phishing Working Group, 2024 saw phishing incidents surpass the annual record set in 2023, making 2024 the highest number ever recorded. One reason for this increase is the growing recognition of the working group, leading to more people reporting incidents. Another factor is the continued expansion of Internet use…
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Be Careful About Reusing Passwords
A lot of people find passwords annoying. Honestly, most people probably feel that way. One of our friends once set the admin password for a blog site she created to “000000,” and three months after launch, the site was hacked, completely destroying her important work. When I heard her story it turned out that, as…
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Forcing Password Changes is Counterproductive
We came across an interesting, somewhat paradoxical story about this a while ago (unfortunately, we can’t find the original article anymore…). The idea is that when users are forced to change their passwords frequently, it becomes a hassle, and they start rotating and reusing the same few passwords. Eventually, as security requirements tighten and previously…
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Why is LinkedIn Not Popular in Japan
We often get asked by overseas clients why LinkedIn, so widely used by professionals in the West, isn’t as popular in Japan. There are a few likely reasons: Japan’s Unique Business Culture Japan has a strong tradition of lifetime employment, where people place a high value on building connections within their own companies rather than…
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The Various Effects of Digital Advertising
When running paid digital ads, like Google search ads, you can track various metrics that reflect the campaign’s performance. One major advantage of digital advertising is the visibility of results—something much harder to achieve with traditional, non-digital ads. There are numerous metrics to monitor, such as: Impressions Clicks Click-through rate (CTR: clicks / impressions) Cost…
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Declining Ad Click-through Rates
While there’s no exact stats, it’s generally believed that click-through rates on internet ads have been declining, similar to open rates for email newsletters. Twenty years ago, when people were new to the Internet, many would click on ads at the top of Google and other search results without much hesitation. But as people became…
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Using Personal SNS for B2B Business
This continues the previous article, where we shared examples of B2B companies successfully using official Facebook and Twitter (now X) accounts. Today, let’s look at how social media—typically seen as a personal space—can also be leveraged for business. Even Facebook, often viewed as a platform for personal interests, can be surprisingly effective for work. Firstly,…
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Is Social Media Not Suitable for Japanese B2B Business?
In Japan, social media—especially Facebook—has traditionally been viewed as a platform mainly for personal hobbies, not for work or B2B business. It was generally thought to be effective for promoting consumer products but less suitable for marketing large-scale services or industrial equipment for companies. However, the reality is that many B2B companies in Japan are…
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Three Points About Video Avertising
According to Facebook’s guidebook for advertising agencies, there are a few key strategies for creating effective videos. First, it’s essential to use a 9:16 aspect ratio for videos to fit smartphone screens. Since most people use their phones in portrait mode, a vertical layout prevents blank spaces at the top and the bottom, or the…
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Request for Unified Image
When working in marketing for large Western companies, there’s often a strong emphasis on maintaining a unified brand image. This is especially true for high-end fashion brands, but it also applies to B2B IT companies. In these companies, there are strict rules about logo usage, color schemes, photos, and layouts. For instance, when a European…
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Marketing Business Problems
In the early days of the Internet, many businesses offered performance-based SEO for Google and Yahoo, charging only based on results, like ranking in the top 10 or top 3. However, as Google and Yahoo evolved and their ranking criteria changed frequently, it became increasingly difficult to achieve those results, making performance-based models unsustainable. Looking…
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The Mystery of Downtime Due to Heavy Access
Recently, I tried to access a popular ticket reservation site right when bookings opened, only to encounter a screen stating, “We are currently experiencing high traffic and have difficulty connecting. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please wait a while and try again.” Despite repeatedly refreshing the page, clearing the cache, trying different browsers, and waiting…
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Direct Naming of Products
One of the coffee shops near our office has a morning-only menu called “Quick Serve Coffee” As the name suggests, they pour the coffee into a cup and serve it right away, making it perfect for those busy mornings when you’re short on time. The name is straightforward —it requires no explanation and is easy…
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The Key to an App is its Ease of Use
It’s the same deal with apps and websites. How easy they are to understand and use really impacts their quality. Lately, a lot of people have mentioned being pretty disappointed with the memo app on their phone that they’ve used for years. It used to be a simple way to jot down notes. One would…
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The Purpose of an EC Site is Not Just Sales
The main goal of an e-commerce site is obviously to get customers to buy stuff. If it can’t do that, then what’s the point? But there’s actually another purpose: using the site to drive traffic to a physical store by showcasing a wide range of products. It’s pretty rare for a typical store website to…
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WordPress Takes a Long Time to Load
This is a pretty common experience with WordPress. WordPress is a free tool for building websites, and it’s great for keeping corporate pages or personal blogs up to date. However, one downside is that it can be slow. The quickest fix is to use a paid plugin. There are tons of options out there, so…
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“Merchandise Never Arrived” E-mail Scam
One of our customers, who operates an online store in English, received an email from an overseas user stating, “I paid for my order but haven’t received it. Please investigate.” Upon reading it, the message described completing the purchase process on the online shop and reaching the confirmation screen, but no further communication was received,…
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Services Unable to Keep up With Rapid Growth
We heard a conversation like this: “I signed a contract with that company that does TV commercials because their sales are enthusiastic, but their support afterward is terrible!” and it really hit home. Over a decade ago, a service from the United States made a huge splash in Japan and grew rapidly. We had a…
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International and Domestic Image
Japanese companies often tout their “international” status by prominently featuring images of blondes and white people, much like the example above. We see this approach used frequently, especially by firms involved in international trade, across their clients’ websites, brochures, and even in pre-Internet era TV commercials. On the other hand, how do Western companies approach…
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Is it Advantageous to Use .jp?
Sometimes, overseas clients ask us whether it’s beneficial to use a .jp domain when creating a Japanese website. They also inquire if hosting the website on a server in Japan is necessary for a .jp domain. Firstly, using a .jp domain doesn’t provide any advantage or disadvantage in terms of search engine rankings in Japan.…
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For Some Reason The Number of Input Fields on Forms Keep Increasing
It’s widely acknowledged in web development that the fewer input fields a contact form has, the more inquiries it tends to receive. We learned this early on and always emphasize it to my clients. We know people often give up on forms with an excessive number of input fields the moment they encounter them. Sometimes…
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An Era in Which AI Will Read Explanations Written by AI
Recently, major online auction sites have implemented systems where sellers can upload product photos, enter the product name, choose a category, and AI automatically generates a suitable product description. Some platforms even employ AI to craft attention-grabbing product names. Even in our operations, though not fully automated, we utilize AI to draft advertising copy, create…
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Excluding Your Rival’s Brand Name
This gets a bit technical. When you search on Google, the links labeled “sponsored” at the top are paid ads that we pay Google to show. It works like this: you choose a keyword when placing an ad, and your ad appears when someone searches for that keyword. You get charged when someone clicks on…
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Mail Magazine Common Knowledge and Not So Common Knowledge
Sending Frequency Doesn’t Affect Unsubscribe Rates You might think that sending an email newsletter every day would annoy recipients and lead them to unsubscribe. However, according to a survey*, the unsubscribe rate remains the same whether you send emails once a month or 30 times. Even the open and click rates don’t change significantly. This…
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