On today's episode, we discuss the most interesting takeaways from Amazon's Q3 earnings, why the online store's sales hit the brakes, and how Amazon's ad business is coming along. We then talk about Walmart testing an SMS-assisted ecommerce tool called “Walmart Text to Shop,” how new brick-and-mortar stores might look different, and Pinterest's new shoppable live series called Pinterest TV. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Andrew Lipsman.

The pandemic has brought an influx of new users for subscription OTT, live videos, and video games in 2020, but other activities such as social networking, mobile messaging, and digital video haven’t seen the same bump.

Livestreaming is a small but growing part of creator culture. Much like Stories, livestreaming is a way for creators and other influential figures on social media to present content that is often less polished than photos or recorded video. Livestreams also give influencers a way to interact with their audience in real time through live chat.

The same audiences for live shows in the pre-pandemic world are now congregating online for virtual shows. They still like to buy artists’ merchandise, and they’re interested in the brands artists wear and consume. Viktrs is a social commerce platform that helps musical talent monetize their video content through commerce.

During a virtual event for the higher education sector, Questex had over 20,000 live attendees. “We set up 15 different chat areas where attendees could jump in and have conversations with each other. The chat was visible to everyone and took on a life of its own. There were still people in the chat talking hours after the event ended,” Spellman said.

Live Shopping. Facebook officially debuted live in-app shopping on its core platform in November, partnering with retailer Anne Klein for a series of holiday shopping livestreaming events. The launch has been a long time coming—Facebook first teased the feature during its Facebook Shop rollout in May. (In August, it also launched live shopping on Instagram.).

Runner-up CIBC rose to second by offering live chat—exceptionally in demand, and offered by no other FI in the study. Key Insight: Live chat is the way to go for digital-first servicing—but six of the seven FIs still need to fill that gap. Texting with a human agent via in-app chat provides customers with immediate and flexible assistance.

That includes things like email, SMS, messaging apps, social media, live chat, branded apps, customer portals, push notifications, the point-of-sale (POS) checkout experience, interactive voice response (IVR) systems, phone support, returns, on-site experience, appointment schedulers, loyalty programs, and more.

As a live chat substitute: Email marketing could have been used to develop a two-way conversation between brands and audiences but didn’t. SMS is conversational and facilitates an ongoing dialog between brands and consumers.

Live means live. The nature of live video means that content cannot exactly be approved in advance or edited after the fact. For these reasons, brands are at the mercy of the talent and technology once the stream goes live. Audience interactions can be harmful. Live chats are an essential part of livestreaming.

Current uses live chat as its primary customer support channel and uses a simple bot for triage. Current is the only of the four neobanks to offer live chat—a reliable way to reach a customer service representative when the alternative might be an automated phone system or inflexible computer-driven help.