US Internet users received a record 1.1 trillion display ads* during the first quarter of 2010, up 15% from a year earlier, with Facebook the top display-ad publisher and AT&T the top advertiser, according to comScore's Ad Metrix. more

Amid double-digit declines in traditional ad spending, the emerging category of social media sponsorships grew 13.9% to $46.0 million in 2009 and is forecast to climb 23.6% to $56.8 million in 2010, driven by higher demand among advertisers to reach social media's target audiences, according to a study by PQ ... more

Marketing campaigns that actively engage consumers online for longer periods of time—by enticing them to "Dwell"—are more likely to generate high conversion rates and are three times more effective at driving brand-related Web searches, according to a study by Eyeblaster. more

Mad Men-style advertising, based on interrupting entertainment or news, is still with us—but most marketers recognize that it's unsteady on its feet. The reality is that people are tired of being "targeted" with ads and so are inclined to take evasive action. It's time to dust off the tried-and-true customer ... more

Ad networks offer a flexible and more efficient way to reach and segment consumers. Advertisers can meet ambitious goals by leveraging the networks' mass reach, diverse targeting options, and flexible pricing platforms. more

Women consume two times more mobile content than men, accounting for 67% of downloads among unique users on Myxer's mobile content site in April 2010, and downloading on average 17% more content than men during the month, according to Myxer. more

"We are often asked how long it will take before an optimized website will start showing up in the search-engine results," writes Lauren Hobson at Five Sparrows, "but of course that's a difficult question with a complicated answer." (Deep breath, kids.) The truth is, Hobson says, it all depends on ... more

Verizon continues to lead the telecom industry in wireless service customer satisfaction: 49% of Verizon customers surveyed say they are very satisfied with their cellular service, compared with 23% of AT&T customers who say the same about their service, according to a survey from ChangeWave. more

Earlier this year, eBay invited six French fashion bloggers to engage in a crafty campaign called Wardrobe Commando. The objective: The bloggers were to select one reader each for a full-on fashion revamp. Hailing from different regions of France, each blogger created a video of herself consulting with her reader of ... more

Nearly one in five US Internet users (18%) say they have purchased a product because of something they have seen on a social networking website—such as Facebook or Twitter—yet social sites continue to receive low trust and privacy ratings from consumers of all ages, according to a survey from Vision ... more

"Recently," writes Mark Riffey at the Business is Personal blog, "you've seen a number of major car companies offer to buy your car back if you lose your job—and that's after they make several months of payments for you." In the case of one Hyundai dealership—located in an economically depressed area—the ... more

Parents who use Facebook are nearly evenly split between those who friend their kids on Facebook (48%) and those who do not (52%), according to a survey from Retrevo. Meanwhile, a plurality of surveyed parents (36%) say the appropriate age for children to have their own social media page is ... more

Even while more and more consumers are using social media to help them make purchasing decisions, most B2B marketers are not using social networking and digital marketing tools to reach their audiences, according to a study that examines marketing's evolving role in the enterprise. more

In today's consumer-goods industry, manufacturers and retailers alike are recognizing the value of developing an integrated understanding of the consumer and the shopper. Combining the voice of the shopper into brand and category plans is rapidly becoming a cost of entry for successful trading relationships. more

Analytics are especially useful in the burgeoning field of interactive ads delivered to shoppers' smartphones and other portable devices. The immediacy of those ads—their ability to spark impulse purchases—can be very powerful. But to be successful, they must be personalized—the right ad aimed at the right customer at the right ... more

Americans now have on average 2.93 TV sets per household, up from 2.86 in 2009—the largest year-over-year increase since 2006, according to Nielsen's latest Television Audience Report. Although the US total population continues to increase, the number of people per TV home has held steady at 2.5, which means there ... more

"A client called me, concerned because their analytics data showed a drop in pageviews," writes Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing. "[They] were dropping steeply, even as their rankings and traffic from organic search were going up." The client, who had just re-launched her site, believed negative visitor reaction to the new ... more

OK. Time to clear your mind and consider some findings from Tremor, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble that focuses on word-of-mouth (WOM). Tremor is populated by cognitive scientists whose job is to study the brain, then apply their knowledge to marketing. Some sample Tremor tips: The brain isn't actually wired ... more

Managing multiple marketing campaigns across channels is a complex task: 49% of marketers who use cross-channel campaign management (CCCM) applications say coordinating communications across channels is the top challenge they expect to face in the next two years, followed by 48% who cite personalizing messages based on consumer behavior, according ... more

Advertisers are warming up to online video as a means to reach targeted audiences: 56% of ad agency executives and media buyers say online video advertising is more effective or much more effective than other forms of advertising, and 83% say they are getting more value for their online video ... more

Homepage ads on Facebook that have social media context—that is, they include the names of users' friends who are already fans of the brand—are 4.0 times more likely than those that don't to increase purchase intent of a product or brand, twice as likely to increase awareness, and 1.6 times ... more

Just because something is currently labeled a best-practice doesn't mean it's written in stone, says DJ Waldow in an article at MarketingProfs. "[W]e can find and spit back best-practices for most email-marketing-related questions; however, I nearly always find marketers who 'break the rules' with tremendous success," he explains. Here are a ... more

Marketers are doing a better job contributing to an organization's bottom line, but they are still more focused on managing metrics than managing performance, and most have yet to leverage insights from metrics and dashboards, according to a survey from VisionEdge Marketing in association with Marketo. more

Despite a downward spiral in revenues at virtually every traditional media company, most industry executives are optimistic about their financial prospects—and their ability to reinvent themselves in the digital age, according to a study from Booz & Company. more

In a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog, Lee Odden explains how a better understanding of search-engine optimization can help PR and communications professionals boost their results in a digital world by making it easier for various search engines to find, index and rank their content. "If content can ... more