Research
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released the 2023 Internet Crime Report, which is based on internet crimes reported to the IC3. In 2023, as in 2022, phishing/spoofing was the top crime reported, and investment scams were the most financially damaging. The IC3 received a record 880,418 complaints with associated record losses of more than $12.5 billion, up 10% and 22% respectively from 2022. Keep in mind that these are only reported numbers and just from the American public. 2023 Internet Crime Overview Business Email Compromise: There were 21,489 BEC reports with over $2.9 billion in losses. The IC3 notes a trend of criminals using financial custodial accounts for crypto exchanges, third-party processors and phishing. Investment Fraud: The losses from investment scams increased from $3.31 billion in 2022 to $4.57 billion in 2023. With this 38% increase, investment fraud became the crime with the heaviest reported losses. Cryptocurrency
The world of work is constantly adapting to new technology and ways of communicating. Digital communication tools can impact workplaces in several ways, but not always positively. Sometimes work-related communications can make us more productive, with Grammarly reporting that 72% of business leaders noticed increased productivity due to effective communication. But in other instances, workplace communication can make us feel stressed and under pressure. To understand how communication tools are used in workplaces and how they affect productivity and work-related stress, we’ve collated all the statistics you need, alongside new and up-to-date figures from our survey of over 1,000 U.S. workers. Key statistics Email is the most commonly used workplace communication tool, with 52.2% of employees using emails at least once a week. The majority of workers (77.3%) say that digital communication tools improve their productivity. Most workers prefer to communicate via email compared to other methods, with workers from
When we as consumers interact with businesses online, you can be sure that its marketers will throw every trick in the book to try and convert a sale. But what tactics will companies use to keep a customer once they’ve made that sale? According to Deloitte, the average company spends around 58% of its marketing budget on digital activities, which will include ways of manipulating a user into not canceling a subscription. Sometimes these practices can verge on illegality. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) dished out a record $245m fine for video game developer, Epic Games, as part of a wider settlement over “dark patterns” — manipulative marketing practices designed to trick Fortnite players into unwanted purchases. The FTC also filed a lawsuit against Amazon for implementing similar tactics on its website. But just how widespread are these practices today? To find out, we have analyzed the marketing
With many businesses using email as the main form of communication between employees, customers and suppliers, communication etiquette can be a contentious issue, particularly when it comes to what different generations feel is acceptable and not. To understand how often office communication faux-pas are committed in the workplace, we surveyed 1,043 American workers to find out more. Key findings More than one in six (16.8%) have forwarded an email chain deliberately to get a colleague in trouble, with millennial men aged 25-34 the most likely to do so. Almost one in five (19.1%) workers have accidentally emailed everyone in their department, with 16.1% admitting to sending an email chain to a person who is unfavorably mentioned in the previous message. Almost one in five (18%) admit to using their work technology, such as phones or laptops, to look at x-rated content. Nearly one in four (23.7%) of workers admit to
Online spam is a problem we’re all familiar with, whether it’s emails, texts, or social media DMs, most of us receive some sort of spam every day. But just how big is the problem, and how much has spam exploded in recent years? Could AI have had an impact on the growing levels of online spam? We’ve put together some of the most intriguing spam statistics for 2023, alongside data from our own survey to investigate where the most spam comes from and just how much money spammers can make. Key statistics The majority of people (96.8%) have received spam messages in some form. The U.S. sends the most spam emails, with 8 billion per day on average, but Greece sends the highest proportion of spam emails, with 95% of emails sent containing spam. The most common topic of spam emails is prizes and giveaways, followed by job opportunities, and
Email deliverability is a big deal if you’re into email marketing; it’s basically a measure of how many of your sent emails actually make it to the inbox and not the spam folder, (your deliverability rate is that number as a percentage of all the emails you sent out). Why is this important for email marketers? Well, no matter how awesome your email content is, if it’s landing in the spam folder (or going missing altogether), it’s pretty much going unread. That means lower engagement, fewer conversions, and ultimately, less ROI from your email campaigns. So, understanding email deliverability statistics is crucial for making the most out of your email marketing efforts. At EmailTooltester, we’ve always recognized the importance of measuring deliverability, which is why we’ve been running deliverability tests on all the major email marketing services for the past 6 years. Below, you’ll find the most important email deliverability
AI may sound like a new tech trend, but it’s actually been around in the lives of business owners, marketers, and consumers for years. So, how has the perception of AI changed over time? To answer this question, we looked at the data HubSpot collected in the 2017 survey we conducted of 1,400+ consumers worldwide. We then compared that data to our 2023 State of AI Survey, in which we surveyed 1,350+ business professionals. How People Felt About AI in 2017 How People Perceive AI in 2023 How AI’s Perception Could Change How People Felt About AI in 2017 In 2017, 86% of people wanted to try out AI tools. We also suggested businesses tap into that interest early on to differentiate themselves from competitors, especially regarding customer service. Speaking of service, our 2017 report also found that 57% of consumers were interested in getting real-time answers from bots on
How many hours of work have been put into Big Tech companies by their employees and how has this contributed to their growth? Big Tech companies all had to start somewhere. There is no such thing as overnight success and to make it big requires a lot of time and effort from both founders and employees. The latter is what our ‘Human Hours’ project focuses on: how many hours of work did it take to build big tech and help them achieve big financial milestones? We think it’s important for all entrepreneurs to recognize that success comes from a team, and want to put into context the amount of effort that has gone into making some of the most aspirational names in tech. This study reviews salaries, revenue, and employee information across some of the largest Big Tech companies in the world to calculate the human power required to succeed.
Investment Scams Costliest The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released the 2022 Internet Crime Report, which is based on internet crimes reported to the IC3. Phishing continues to be the top crime reported, and investment scams were the most financially damaging. Though the IC3 received five percent fewer complaints in 2022 the total loss ballooned from $6.9 billion in 2021 to over $10.2 billion in 2022. By the Numbers – 2022 FBI Internet Crime Report Internet Crime Overview BEC: There were 21,832 BEC complaints with a loss of over $2.7 billion. BEC exploits target organizations and individuals in an effort to redirect funds to fraudulent accounts. Investment Scams: For the first time since the FBI has issued the Internet Crime Report, investment fraud was the costliest crime with losses coming in at $3.31 billion; in 2021, losses were $1.45 billion. There was an unprecedented increase in crypto-investment extortion
In June 2021 we published research on DMARC adoption among the top 100 companies in Canada. Twenty months later, we evaluated the DMARC adoption rate and are excited to share those rosy results. Here’s the DMARC adoption rate comparison for Canada’s top 100 countries, measured in percentage increase or decrease, from June 2021 to February 2023: 154% increase of DMARC policies set to p=reject 114% increase of DMARC policies set to p=quarantine 18% decrease of DMARC policies set to p=none 57% decrease of companies lacking a DMARC policy Above all, a fifth of the top Canadian companies advanced their DMARC policies to the ultimate goal of a p=reject DMARC policy. With a p=reject policy in place, emails failing DMARC authentication aren’t delivered to the destined inbox. Another fifth took the initial step in securing their domains by establishing DMARC records. People typically begin their road to DMARC compliance by employing