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US Internet advertising revenues reached an estimated $6.4 billion in the third quarter of 2010, a record high for the online ad industry and 17% higher than the same period in 2009, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC. more
When managed well, Facebook's community of 500 million (and counting!) global users is an ideal place for brands to get the message out. But before you start developing dazzling social campaigns, start by taking a small foundational step in the right direction. If you're using Facebook to promote a brand, be ... more
National retailers are marketing via social networking channels—particularly Facebook, but also Twitter—at increasing levels, integrating their online and physical properties via those channels and using their rapidly increasing fan and follower bases to build stronger brand experiences, according to a report by Media Logic. more
There's still time to implement plans for your holiday email campaigns, writes Suzanne Norman in a recent post at the Emma blog, and you have reason to be optimistic about a profitable season: "[N]umbery types might like to know ... that email-driven sales were up 11% from 2008 during the ... more
Americans viewed more than 4.6 billion online video ads in October 2010, with Hulu delivering a record 1.1 billion video ad impressions during the month on the strength of fall TV viewership, according to comScore Video Metrix. Meanwhile, Google Sites maintained its position as the top online video property during ... more
Some of the funniest comedy skits have been spoof TV spots—and they closely follow proven DRTV principles to make their sketch more believable and more poignant: They grab your attention; they frame a problem that needs to be solved; they state their offer as the solution; they show the product ... more
"Just a few years ago, I could count on receiving a mailbox-full of direct mail nearly every day, including the crown jewel of direct marketing, the BIG direct mail piece," writes Dean Rieck at Direct Creative. "Thick #10's, fat 6×9's, and beefy 9×12's once stood atop the mountain of attention-grabbing ... more
Companies that deliver high-quality customer experiences via new media are rewarded for their efforts, often in the form of higher brand awareness and likelihood to purchase among those who engage, but that loyalty can be hard to find and hard to keep, according to a survey from Cone. more
Nearly four in ten mobile users (38%) say they're dissatisfied with most of the apps currently available from their favorite brands, and 69% agree that if a brand's mobile app isn't useful or easy to use, it contributes to a negative perception of the brand, according to a survey from ... more
Back in Mother Russia last summer, mobile phone operator MTS engaged users on a titillating mobile scavenger hunt on behalf of its 'Red Energy' branded phone plan. The game kicked off in Moscow at the Paveletskaya subway stop, where a user could scan a QR code (a two-dimensional bar code) with ... more
Fully nine in ten consumers notice digital ads in the first 10 seconds of visiting a webpage, and in that period, consumers who fixate on such ads are as emotionally engaged with ads as they are with webpage content, according to research from the Online Publishers Association (OPA), which explores ... more
Leading with price in your messaging suggests your brand has nothing else to say or show for itself. And that's not good for a host of reasons. more
The US online display advertising marketing rebounded sharply in the third quarter of 2010 with $1.284 trillion worth of display ads delivered to Internet users during the period, up 22% from $1.050 trillion a year earlier, according to data from the comScore Ad Metrix. more
"What's the hottest trend in search-engine optimization that you've never heard of (yet)?" asks Christopher S. Penn in a recent post at the Awaken Your Superhero blog. It's LDA, he reports. Penn cites a series of SEOmoz posts on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)—a context-based algorithm for determining search relevance. According to ... more
Exposure to impressions of organic search results, paid search results, and online display advertising—and specific combinations of such media—produces both a measurable lift in brand favorability and likelihood to purchase, according to a study by iProspect and comScore. more
Business professionals are more likely to click on digital ads during the weekend, but more likely to take action on such ads during the week—particularly on Wednesdays, according to a study by Bizo. However, a professional's industry is an even better indicator of when one is most likely to take ... more
We've mentioned that you can draw traffic to paid mobile applications by creating a free "lite" version. Once users deem it useful, they may be happy to pay for the full version. But what's a company to do if it can't afford to create a whole new version of an existing app—with ... more
US online retail spending reached an estimated $32.1 billion in the third quarter of 2010, up 9% from $29.6 billion a year earlier, and the fourth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates, according to data from comScore. more
In the mobile world, luxury brands must find creative ways to reach customers while maintaining a sense of hauteur. Jimmy Choo, for example, captured our imaginations by initiating @CatchaChoo, setting members of wedding social networks loose on the streets of London in a quest to win free shoes. Now it's Gucci's ... more
The forward to Harvey Mackay's bestselling Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive featured 15 solid pages of praise from VIPs like President Gerald Ford and the Reverend Billy Graham. "The kicker?" writes Hal Licino at MarketingProfs. "By the time the reader read those 15 pages, they were so ... more
"Heresy alert," writes Jason Amunwa at The Zest blog. "I've been struggling with a dark secret recently; you see, I realized that I really dislike SEO. "To me it's like health insurance: I hate dealing with it, I intensely dislike paying for it, and its benefits are difficult for most ... more
"I think Foursquare is a hugely untapped and powerful little tool for small-business marketing," writes Wendy Kenney at the 23Kazoos blog. "Especially if you own a business that requires customers to physically visit your location to make a purchase." If you're looking for cool ways to attract customers to your brick-and-mortar location, ... more
Next-generation media consumers, or "Off the Gridders," are young, educated, and affluent, and they spend less time viewing live TV but more time viewing online and time-shifted premium video content, according to a study by SAY Media. Such tech-savvy consumers are also difficult to reach via traditional broadcast media and ... more
Small-business advertisers spent on average $2,373 on search advertising in the third quarter of 2010, up 43% from the $1,658 spent in the same period a year earlier, and up 6.4% from the $2,231 spent in the second quarter of 2010, according to a WebVisible study based on its small-biz ... more
Although most online campaigns seek to drive conversion-based goals, many still use the click or CTR as the primary metric—mainly because it has been traditionally used to measure success and because it's easy to measure. But that's no excuse for making a mistake that's costing marketers $1 billion a year. more
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