If you're an experienced marketer, you probably have some tried and true techniques for getting more email subscribers. But you may be leaving many potential new subscribers on the table. How can you ensure you're accomplishing everything that's possible? Go beyond the tried and true and test new approaches. Split testing helps you figure out which factors of your online sign-up form are drawing subscribers and what changes you can make to draw more. There are many split tests you can run on your web form: using inline forms vs pop-ups, including a description of your emails vs disp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing Column

Following last week's launch of loyalty marketing program "Local Updates," Foursquare is introducing a new paid-advertising program -- its first formal effort at generating revenue -- called "Promoted Updates." Foursquare calls it a pilot program and is working with roughly 20 companies initially, in an effort to gather data and feedback. It launches tomorrow. Foursquare is calling Promoted Updates "search ads for the real world." The participating group of pilot advertisers includes Gap/Old Navy, Hilton, JCPenney, Best Buy, Hertz and Walgreens among others. Promoted updates will appear [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Foursquare | Top News

Twitter and NBC have announced a new partnership around the 2012 Summer Olympics, which begin this week in London. The partnership centers on Twitter's third "hashtag page," which will go live later this week at twitter.com/#Olympics. Twitter will have staff monitoring Olympic-related tweets from athletes, coaches, Olympics officials, NBC personalities and others and curating the best content surrounding the #Olympics hashtag on a single page. NBC will promote the page and the hashtag during its on-air coverage across each of the networks that is providing coverage, including in primeti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Marketing

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: Apple’s Q3: $35 Billion Revenue, $8.8 Billion Profit — Both Down From Q2Apple has just released its corporate earnings for Q3 of this year and the numbers are down. Apple is reporting $35 billion in revenue during the quarter, down from $39.2 billion in Q2. That’s a decline of 10.7 percent. Third quarter profit was $8.8 billion, which is a 24.1 percent drop from $11.6 billion profit [...] Links: The Broken “Bal [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

Apple has just released its corporate earnings for Q3 of this year and the numbers are down. Apple is reporting $35 billion in revenue during the quarter, down from $39.2 billion in Q2. That's a decline of 10.7 percent. Third quarter profit was $8.8 billion, which is a 24.1 percent drop from $11.6 billion profit in Q2. Apple says it sold 26 million iPhones in Q3, which is up 28 percent over a year ago. It also sold 17 million iPads, an 84 percent increase over last year. The four million Macs sold in Q3 is a two percent gain over a year ago, while the 6.8 million iPods sold repres [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Top News

In 1998, Google launched a search engine based on a good idea: counting links as votes for good content. Google, as well as its rival Bing, still largely operates the same way today. Unfortunately, using 1998 voting technology makes little sense in the world of 2012 -- and the cracks are showing. The cracks aren't showing when it comes to search quality. Both Google and Bing still leverage links as a way to provide relevant answers to millions of people each day. Sure, there's always examples of odd outliers where relevancy fails, examples that especially get seized upon by those upset over [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Search Marketing Column

Content drives your business. All great businesses constantly create valuable content, whether they know it or not. It’s through the content you create that your voice is most often heard. Content is what you use to sell to your customers, to differentiate your brand, and to help guide and educate employees. In the online world, your content also becomes your legacy -- a digital history that traces the growth and evolution of your brand. In my last column, I talked about the importance of getting content marketing buy-in and touched on how a content strategy can benefit all teams wit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Content Marketing | Content Marketing Column

There is no denying that mobile marketing is one of the hottest topics in 2012. If you are a marketer in the United States, more than likely you have at least one article in your inbox describing and outlining the benefits of mobile marketing. According to eMarketer, there will be more than 106 million smartphone users in the U.S by the end of this year, and that number is projected to top 148 million by 2015. With the growing population of mobile device users combined with the up and coming generation of super texting teens, we can all understand the need to have a solid mobile experi [...]

Related Topics: Analytics & Marketing Column | Channel: Analytics

Google and Facebook both increased their spending trying to educate (read: influence) Congress in the second quarter, according to filings made under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. Companies that employ lobbyists must file these reports on a quarterly basis. The disclosures show that Facebook spent just under $1 million ($960,000) on lobbying in Q2, up from $650,000 in Q1 2012. That compares with $320,000 spent trying to influence lawmakers in Q2, 2011. A wide range of bills and issues were cited on Facebook's disclosures. Among them privacy, intellectual property reform, corporate [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Legal | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal

A new Facebook Pages Graph API was released yesterday and a few surprising additions were present. The API now ties in the official scheduled page posts released last month as well as an "unpublished" post that simply won't show in your timeline. Additionally, the new roles released last month are also addressed for 3rd party tools with page admin permissions in the API. Unpublished Page Posts This new feature allows admins to create posts that are not formally published to a timeline and newsfeed, but rather on the right hand side of the page. In the official developer blog post Facebook st [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Pages | Social Media Marketing

An impressive new social discovery & monitoring tool, Bottlenose, launched a public beta today. From real-time events, trending news and popular pictures, Bottlenose can help users connect with what's happening now. Simply put, Bottlenose is aiming to be the Google of real-time content. The technology behind Bottlenose is not only responsive but also extremely useful for both companies and consumers alike. Bottlenose has unique positioning, geared more towards consumers than most other professional tools while still being more enterprise level than most social options on the market. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Features & Analysis | Marketing Tools: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Top News

There are mixed messages for e-mail marketers in a new benchmark study from digital marketing software provider Silverpop: E-mail open rates are falling, but click-through rates are on the rise. The findings are included in Silverpop's 2012 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study, and include analysis of e-mails sent in 2011 and Q1 of 2012 by more than 1,100 brands in 20 countries. The exact number of e-mails studied isn't mentioned. Silverpop reports that the overall open rate for all regions was 20.1 percent, which is down from the 22.2 percent that Silverpop reported in a July 2009 st [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing | Statistics: Email Marketing | Top News

Last week a fan spotted an abnormal occurrence that was showing on our Facebook page; a "subscribe" button.  Nestled directly to the right of the Like button, the subscribe button appeared, mirroring the subscribe for users implementation.  A Facebook rep confirmed that the Subscribe for Pages was being tested. One of the issues that has arose since the switch from 'Be A Fan' to 'Like' was that many users may want to follow a brand without implicitly stating that they 'like it."  The Subscribe for Pages would let users stay engaged with page messaging without adding the page to th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Social Media Marketing | 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: Summer Brings New Traffic To Travel Industry Sites [comScore Data]Many travel-related sites saw an uptick in traffic during June, according to comScore’s Top 50 U.S. Web Properties report for June 2012. ComScore says that ground/cruise travel sites (such as Amtrak and Carnival Cruises) were the top-gaining category, with a nine percent increase to 14 million visitors overall. Hotel/resort sites were the fourth-biggest gainer with [.. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

Many travel-related sites saw an uptick in traffic during June, according to comScore's Top 50 U.S. Web Properties report for June 2012. ComScore says that ground/cruise travel sites (such as Amtrak and Carnival Cruises) were the top-gaining category, with a nine percent increase to 14 million visitors overall. Hotel/resort sites were the fourth-biggest gainer with an eight percent gain and more than 37 million visitors. Car rental, Ticket and Sports/Outdoor sites also saw gains of five percent each during June. Overall, comScore's list of the top U.S. web properties was little change [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Popularity & Usage

One advertiser is already reaping the benefits from being able to publish Promoted Tweets to specific Twitter users without first having to publish the tweet to all of its followers. The Washington Post is one of the advertisers that's been testing Twitter's new targeting options that were just formally announced last week. And, according to numbers shared with us by SocialCode, which counts the Post as a client, the newspaper's results have been promising. SocialCode examined a sampling of tweets that were linked to articles on the Washington Post Social Reader. Some Promoted Tweets wer [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Features & Analysis | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Advertising

By now, we've all heard about Twitter's little break-up with LinkedIn – and discovered the consequence in our now tweet-free LinkedIn timelines. As social media marketers, this adds a new wrinkle to our already hectic days of trying to juggle multiple social media channels. LinkedIn may not be the sexiest social network, but it's still an important one. It's part of the Big Three (behind only Facebook and Twitter in popularity) and used by 73 percent of marketers, according to a recent study. So while we wait on LinkedIn's new update, life goes on -- as do social media updates. What [...]

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

A lot of companies say they offer dynamic creative. It’s a loosely defined phrase, so it can be hard to know exactly what to expect from a company that offers it. Before choosing a dynamic ad provider, my advice is to consider two sets of criteria so you know you’re getting a truly dynamic solution: 1.) degree of interactivity; and 2.) depth of customization. Interactivity Interactivity is measured by how much ability consumers have to play with content in the ad. There are three levels of commonly seen interactivity: Highly Interactive Rich Media– Incorporates features like soc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising Column

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: Marketing Biz: Future Shock (Is Already Here)It’s one of those weeks where those digital marketing ideas that used to feel so cutting edge are now a reality. Google+ is over a year old. Twitter has a suite of advertising offerings. Foursquare is connecting loyal customers to businesses. E-signatures are poised to become ubiquitous. The future of marketing is already here if [...] A New “Rethought” Digg Will Launch Au [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Marketing Day

It's one of those weeks where those digital marketing ideas that used to feel so cutting edge are now a reality. Google+ is over a year old. Twitter has a suite of advertising offerings. Foursquare is connecting loyal customers to businesses. E-signatures are poised to become ubiquitous. The future of marketing is already here if you know where to look. Kiip Raises $11 Million To Erase Advertisers' Frowns By rethinking ads as "rewards" that show up at opportune moments in the midst of ordinary app usage—leveling up in a game, going for a run, reading a news article—Wong thinks Kiip ca [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Marketing Biz