First impressions are a big deal, especially in email. Most subscribers will only ask to join an email program once. As senders, though, we have schedules to keep… emails going out the door every month, week, every day. With those operational demands, it’s easy to consider triggered or transactional messages to be necessary evils compared to the “real” program. In reality, they’re among the most important messages we send: the messages customers specifically expect, even look forward to receiving. Welcome emails are my favorite piece of an email program. They’re an introducti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing Column

While Mark Zuckerberg only owns 28% of Facebook, he still maintains 57% of voting rights.  Zuckerberg flexed this power freely during the Facebook-Instagram deal, reaching a deal in just 3 days without consulting outside sources.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram, worked out the deal over three days of negotiating in Zuck's 7 million dollar home in Palo Alto.  Absent from the deal were lawyers, bankers, and the Facebook board. [caption id="attachment_10194" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO - Photo C [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Acquisitions | Facebook: Instagram

Here's our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Facebook Passes Google As Most-Visited Site In BrazilGoogle’s dominance outside the U.S. is taking a slight hit with news today that Facebook has overtaken it five times this month as the most-visited website in Brazil. The news comes from Serasa Experian (link in Portuguese), the Brazilian version of Experian Hitwise. The company reports that Facebook first beat out Google for most visits [...] Google Could Face ‘Cookiega [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

Google's dominance outside the U.S. is taking a slight hit with news today that Facebook has overtaken it five times this month as the most-visited website in Brazil. The news comes from Serasa Experian (link in Portuguese), the Brazilian version of Experian Hitwise. The company reports that Facebook first beat out Google for most visits back on April 1st, then again on April 6th and April 8th. It happened for the fourth and fifth times this past weekend, when Facebook was the most popular site in Brazil on both April 14th and 15th. On the 14th, Facebook received 10.86 percent of all we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: International | Facebook: Statistics | Google | Google: International | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media

The FTC could move quickly to fine Google for bypassing the default privacy settings in Apple's Safari web browser. An article in today's San Jose Mercury News confirms an earlier Wall Street Journal report that the FTC is investigating Google's actions, and added that a fine could be levied within the next 30 days. At issue is whether Google violated its Google Buzz privacy settlement, part of which included Google promising not to misrepresent its privacy practices to consumers. Because the FTC is investigating the Safari cookie issue as part of a previous agreement, the Mercury News s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

Mobile payments is one of the most competitive and dynamic segments right now. Mobile carriers, credit card companies, Google, eBay/PayPal, Square, Intuit and various other startups are offering a range of tools, platforms and apps for local business owners, retailers and consumers. The question is how long will it take for mobile payments to take hold? Google Wallet, for example, is moving at a glacial pace in terms of consumer adoption. Earlier this year mobile industry consultant Chetan Sharma conducted a 2012 predictions survey among "executives, developers, and insiders (n=150) from [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Popularity & Usage

Despite its reputation as a female-dominated social network -- or perhaps because of that? -- every team in Major League Baseball is now actively using Pinterest. All 30 MLB teams also have official pages on Google+ and officials blogs on Tumblr. And the league itself also has an official presence on all three social networks. The league and all of its teams have already been active on Facebook and Twitter for some time now, but only recently expanded its collective social media footprint to Pinterest, Google+ and Tumblr. The league has created a "social media clubhouse" at MLB.com/co [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Pinterest | Pinterest: Business Use & Advertising | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Tumblr

A cold harsh inevitability of your career in digital marketing is that you will come across a disproportionate number of people who know a lot less than they should about subject matter that falls into their responsibility. Search is one of those subjects about which many people are less-than-informed and you’ll need to learn how to deal with those folks. You’ll need to deal with less-than-ideal client scenarios and really bad ones. To be aptly equipped you’ll need to know the difference between good, bad and train wreck. To be clear, this is not a discourse on whose tactical objec [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Search Marketing Column

As I've mentioned in earlier articles, the biggest threat to effective improvement on a regular continuous basis is looking at too much data. The more metrics you're looking at, the less likely you are to follow through on any of the signals they're telling you. Less is always more. If you hear about a million people starving in the Sudan, you mind can't encompass the number; if you see a single homeless vet in a wheelchair asking for quarters, you're much more likely to feel pity and act to help him out. Similarly when you are looking at too many metrics from your analytics data stream, [...]

Related Topics: Analytics & Marketing Column | Channel: Analytics

Here's our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Twitter Mobile Ads Can Now Be Targeted By PlatformTwitter has announced another incremental step in the development of its ad products: Promoted Tweets can now be targeted to users of specific mobile platforms. Twitter’s also announcing that Promoted Tweets are now showing to Blackberry users. That gives advertisers the option to target Promoted Tweets just to iOS, Android or Blackberry users if they [...] Study: Facebook CPMs I [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

Twitter has announced another incremental step in the development of its ad products: Promoted Tweets can now be targeted to users of specific mobile platforms. Twitter's also announcing that Promoted Tweets are now showing to Blackberry users. That gives advertisers the option to target Promoted Tweets just to iOS, Android or Blackberry users if they wish. Here's a screenshot from Twitter's blog post. Twitter originally expanded Promoted Tweets to mobile devices in late February, but there was no way for advertisers to target mobile users at the time. About three weeks later, the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Mobile Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Top News | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Mobile

Facebook's average CPM rates globally have increased by 41% since the first quarter of 2011, and 15% since the fourth quarter of last year. Meanwhile, CPCs have risen 23% in the top 5 markets versus Q4. That's according to new global research released by social media agency TBG Digital for the first quarter. In the U.S., average CPM has increased by 11% in the first quarter, as compared to the fourth of 2011, while, in the UK, average CPMs rose 13% during the same period. When it comes to CPCs, the largest growth (35%) was in France, but the U.S. wasn't far behind with a 20% increase. Wh [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Statistics: Online Advertising | Statistics: Social Media

Can social sharing and ecommerce get along? There are some possibilities, such as easing the registration barrier to complete a transaction, helping consumers make product decisions and increasing time spent on site. Monetate put together some stats like these into an infographic: Want the infographic for yourself? You'll find it here: How Do Social Login & Sharing Affect Ecommerce? [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | E-Commerce | Statistics: Social Media

When most people think, “search,” they automatically think Google. Well, think again. New data reveals that Google and its fellow search engines are not the only search game in town. We recently hosted a webinar with comScore focused on search data, which examined search activity happening across core search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) vs. non-search engines, such as e-commerce sites, shopping comparison engines and product review or vertically-focused sites. In December 2011, comScore discovered that nearly half (43%) of all searches occurred outside the top five core search engines. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

Reading. It’s a fundamentally solitary pastime that’s becoming increasingly more social given the baked-in functionalities of e-reading devices (Tweet this!). It’s also – surprise! – an activity on the upswing for a couple of reasons: a proliferation of e-reading devices that are plummeting in price, and consumers’ broad acceptance of reading content on phones and computers (not necessarily on Kindles and Nooks), as a new e-reading study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals. Let’s look at some of the findings from The Rise of e-Reading, then indulge in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Social Media Marketing Column

The US Federal Communications Commission has cleared Google of any legal wrong-doing over its Street View cars that intercepted wifi transmissions. That's the good news for the company. The bad news? The FCC is fining Google $25,000 for "willfully and repeatedly" not cooperating with the investigation. The StreetView Wifi Eavesdropping In 2010, it was discovered that Google's Street View cars were doing more than just taking pictures. They were also gathering information about wifi locations, meant in part as a way for Google to better locate people using services such as Android phones or s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Google: Street View | Top News

Here's our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web. From Marketing Land: Facebook Offers: Coming To A News Feed Near YouBack at the fMC conference in February, Facebook announced a new version of its offers product. The product looks (and acts) much like the coupons seen in December. The Verge reports that these upgrades are rolling out to the masses today. Yesterday a video explaining the new product was released from the official Facebook YouTube page: The [...] Marketing Biz: What Does 1 Billion Dolla [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

Back at the fMC conference in February, Facebook announced a new version of its offers product.  The product looks (and acts) much like the coupons seen in December. The Verge reports that these upgrades are rolling out to the masses a select group today.  Yesterday a video explaining the new product was released from the official Facebook YouTube page: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B60eo6HcFJg[/youtube] The new offers will show up directly within one's news feeds: Users can redeem an offer by clicking the "Get Offer" button.  Once redeemed a notification box app [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Facebook | Facebook: Offers | Social Media Marketing | Top News

The drama has subsided this week and instead we find out just how far 1 billion dollars can go in today's economy. But if you really need your feuding fix, look no further than the torrid triangle between Amazon, Apple and book publishers. Here is why Facebook bought Instagram Facebook was scared shitless and knew that for first time in its life it arguably had a competitor that could not only eat its lunch, but also destroy its future prospects. Why? Because Facebook is essentially about photos, and Instagram had found and attacked Facebook’s achilles heel — mobile photo sharing. O [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Marketing Biz

One of the overlooked factoids from Thursday's Google earnings call involves the popularity of Google Analytics, which the company says is now installed on more than 10 million websites. And that number is actually considerably lower than what others have estimated. Google's Chief Business Officer, Nikesh Arora, called Google Analytics an "unsung hero" in the company's product lineup: In sales, I want to highlight Google Analytics, which is an unsung hero. Over 10 million marketers and websites globally use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of their online presence in real ti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News