Three years after iCrossing's acquisition by Hearst for $325 million, the digital marketing firm's CEO Don Scales is leaving his post. iCrossing's current president of North America Brian Powley will succeed Scales as iCrossing's global president. Scales joined iCrossing in 2006 as COO and became CEO in 2008 when he replaced former CEO and founder Jeff Herzog. According to AdAge.com, Scales decision to leave marks the end of iCrossing's three-year buy-out by Hearst. AdWeek reports that iCrossing grew from a few hundred to 900 employees during Scales tenure as CEO, and moved from being pr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Content Marketing | Display Advertising | Internet Marketing Industry | Search Marketing | Social Media Marketing

One of the first reactions many advertisers had to Google's enhanced campaigns announcement in February was that CPCs would rise -- more advertisers would enter mobile auctions, pushing mobile CPCs up, and tablet CPCs would rise as a result of being tethered to desktop bids. Early reports from Adobe and iProspect seem to show the higher CPC theory bearing out. Adobe found CPCs rose 6 percent across devices in the past three months. Based on last quarter's performance, Adobe now predicts Google CPCs will start rising for the first time in two years. iProspect also reported CPC in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Google | Google: Business Issues | Google: Mobile | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Mobile Marketing | Top News

Hey marketers: a few of the words you and I use in our common speech are now official words. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has just announced its June 2013 update, and it includes several marketing/tech words that folks like us have been using for years. Here they are, in alphabetical order: big data crowdsourcing e-reader mouseover redirect stream (the verb, as in streaming content online) tweet John Simpson, Chief Editor of the OED, points out that the dictionary is breaking its own rule by adding "tweet" to the dictionary: The noun and verb tweet (in the social- [...]

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Elevate your Internet marketing skills. Attend one of six comprehensive workshops being held in conjunction with Search Marketing Expo - SMX East. These workshops provide: comprehensive instruction on a search marketing topic critical to business success; an intimate learning experience with a small group of your peers; access to expert presenters, each a rock star in his/her field. This year’s topics: NEW! Social Media Distribution for SEO: The New Link Building: With search engines using social signals in organic results, and social media networks charging for comprehensiv [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX | SMX & DMD Alerts

If you run a standalone digital agency or an agency that specializes in a specific vertical like social media, your days are numbered. That's the conclusion of a recent study of more than 2,000 European marketing students -- in the UK, France, Spain and Belgium, to be more specific. The study, "Next Generation of Marcoms," asked a variety of questions to students between 20 and 25 years old that are studying Advertising, Marketing Communications, Design, PR and Events. (Note for those who may not know: "Marcoms" is short for marketing communications and is commonly used to describe a hol [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Statistics: General | Top News

Marketing insiders had much to say about yesterday's announcement that Salesforce.com will be acquiring ExactTarget for nearly $2.5 billion. Commentaries were offered on everything from the future of marketing automation to the role of email marketing and its continued significance in an organization's overall marketing strategy. Many feel the deal only reinforces the need for CMOs to become more technology-focused. Salesforce Deal Moves Marketing Closer To the IT Department "On the heels of Marketo's recent IPO and Oracle's purchase of Eloqua, Salesforce's bold move into this space has b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Email Marketing | Features & Analysis | Internet Marketing Industry | Marketing Tools | Marketing Tools: General | Marketing Tools: Social Media | Social Media Marketing

The newly-rebranded Moz, an online marketing software provider, has filed a petition to cancel a trademark of the similarly named online marketing company known as Doz. Moz filed the petition against Doz on April 9, 2013. According to the petition, Moz believes there is a likelihood of confusion between Moz and Doz because of the similarity of names in conjunction with the similarity of each company’s respective services. While Moz's petition was filed nearly two months ago, news of the trademark battle has come to light  just days after Moz announced its rebranding efforts, changing its [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Marketing Tools: General

In an announcement released today from Salesforce.com, the popular CRM platform has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire cloud-based marketing services provider ExactTarget for approximately $2.5 billion. Unanimously approved by the boards of directors for both companies, Salesforce will pay $33.75 per share in cash for all outstanding shares of ExactTarget. According to a report on NYT's Dealbook, the offer is 53 percent more than ExactTarget's closing price yesterday. This deal is Salesforce's largest acquisition yet, and falls in line with the company's previous acquisitions [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Email Marketing | Internet Marketing Industry | Internet Marketing Industry: Acquisitions | Marketing Tools: General

The world's largest online seller generated nearly $610 million in ad revenues last year according to a new report from eMarketer. The e-commerce giant is making a play for more digital ad business with substantial efforts to build out its in-house ad tech capabilities and expand its offerings on mobile through the Kindle and apps. Last year's revenue jumped 45.5 percent from 2011, and the company's ad revenue growth is expected to increase nearly 37 percent this year to $835 million after traffic acquisition costs (TAC). eMarketer assumes that, unlike competitors like Google, Amazon does n [...]

Related Topics: Amazon | Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising: Programmatic Media Buying | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Statistics: Online Advertising

The surgeon leans over the patient, whose abdomen has been surgically opened. “Forceps,” the doctor barks. The nurse hands the doctor a stainless steel instrument. Again the doctor demands, “scalpel!”  The nurse dutifully hands the doctor the necessary tool. We’ve all seen the drill in countless films and television shows. But, the process of a nurse serving as a surgeon’s assistant as a sort of operation room caddy was only developed in the early 20th century, purportedly by efficiency expert Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. In those years, the efficiency movement swept [...]

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

The Rimm-Kaufman Group has acquired Vanessa Fox's company, Nine By Blue, for an undisclosed amount consisting of 100 percent cash and stock deal. The acquisition includes hiring the talent behind Nine By Blue, including our very own Vanessa Fox, a Contributing Editor here and at Search Engine Land, as well as the Blueprint search analytics and diagnostics software. Blueprint will be integration into RKG's technology suite. As many of you know, Vanessa Fox worked at Google years ago, being credited with founding Google Webmaster Tools. “We are thrilled to have Vanessa, Blueprint and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry: Acquisitions

Yahoo followed up its acquisition of Tumblr today with a relaunch of a "better, brighter Flickr" at a press conference in New York City. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said she challenged the Flickr team to "make Flickr awesome again." The new Flickr puts photos first. Acknowledging that Flickr had become a mishmash of small thumbnails, links and words, today's launch showcases the new approach to an immersive photo experience. "We want all your photos" Adam Cahan, SVP of mobile and emerging products at Yahoo announced that all photos are full resolution and each user will have a free tera [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Internet Marketing Industry: Acquisitions | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Flickr

On a conference call to discuss Yahoo's exceptional $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer's admiration for Tumblr's achievements and culture was refreshingly transparent. Tumblr will continue to operate independently, David Karp will remain CEO, and Yahoo has promised "not to screw it up." Tumblr has more than 300 million monthly users and is signing up 120,000 new users per day. The deal is expected to increase Yahoo's total audience by 50% to more than a billion monthly users. Traffic could grow by 20%. In the press release, David Karp, CEO of Tumblr, addressed [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry: Acquisitions | Top News | Tumblr | Yahoo: Business Issues

In a positive sign of a healthy IPO market, Marketo's first day of trading on the NASDAQ was a hit.  The marketing automation company raised $79 million in its IPO, offering 6.1 million shares priced at $13. Today, shares opened at $20 and rose 77.69% to close at $23.10. Marketo CEO, Phil Fernandez rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ today. Marketo, Inc. is listed under the symbol MKTO. The firm's competition in the marketing automation market includes Eloqua, which was acquired by Oracle last December, Pardot, HubSpot, and Silverpop. The company has yet to realize a profit, but is b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Internet Marketing Industry

No women in tech? Women are invisible in tech? As part of the pushback against such problems and sometimes mistaken assumptions, Google I/O featured an end-of-day session with seven women who've been extremely successful in tech. And, the advice they shared was hardly for women only. Speaking as part of the "7 Techmakers & A Microphone" session were: Kathy Kleiman, founder of the ENIAC Programmers Project Google's ad chief Susan Wojcicki Anna Patterson, Vice President of Engineering in Artificial Intelligence for Google Johanna Wright, VP of Search & Assist for Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Internet Marketing Industry

Disclaimer:  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real businesses, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Failure is a key part of success, or at least an important step on the road to becoming successful. When the still-young search industry witnesses a failure of any kind, it seems to revel in exploiting the collapse for personal gain, personal indulgence and the ability to say, "I told you so." Without getting into names and details that will only initiate more drama and, dare I say, schadenfreude, I've noticed an overabundance of loony behavi [...]

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Microsoft has effectively renewed its search vows with Yahoo a second time, pledging once again that Yahoo will indeed earn a high "revenue per search" that was promised back when the alliance was made in 2009. That's not going to happen. When the latest extension expires in a year, the expected RPS still won't be reached. Microsoft will either renew again or Yahoo will walk away, if it can. All About RPS Yahoo Extends Microsoft Search Deal & Revenue Guarantees is our story on Search Engine Land today that covers how Microsoft is extending a part of its deal with Yahoo about "revenue pe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Features & Analysis | Internet Marketing Industry | Microsoft: Business Issues | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues

Today, native advertising company Sharethrough announced the launch of Sharethrough Mobile, a platform that allows advertisers to promote branded content through native ads across mobile devices. Sharethrough uses proprietary technology called Real Time Templating (RTT) that enables the platform to identify the style elements of any webpage and match the look of each individual ad to that environment. RTT also adapts to any future style updates publishers make to their templates so ads stay consistent with the new elements. Below are examples of how Sharethough mobile ads appear across d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Content Marketing | Display Advertising | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Mobile Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Statistics: Online Advertising | Top News

After posting higher than expected profits in 2012, Apple ranked No. 6 on today's 2013 Fortune 500 list. Not only was this Apple's first time among Fortune's top ten companies, they were the only Silicon Valley technology company to break into this year's top ten list since Hewlett-Packard fell to No. 15 after reportedly suffering the biggest loss of any Fortune 500 company. Ranking companies by total revenue for their respective fiscal years, Fortune magazine released its annual list of Fortune 500 companies today with Walmart reclaiming first place after sliding to No. 2 in 2012. Other t [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Industry | Facebook | Internet Marketing Industry

Business Insider has an interesting and in-depth article about the ongoing legal cases that could land eBay's two biggest affiliates in jail soon on charges of wire fraud. If you've been in the online marketing industry for a while, you may recognize the names Shawn Hogan and Brian Dunning. They're the two affiliates that eBay and the FBI started pursuing in 2006 after suspecting that they were earning millions while violating eBay's affiliate terms of service. According to court documents, Hogan made an astounding $28 million in affiliate commissions from eBay, and Dunning made $7 milli [...]

Related Topics: Affiliate Marketing | Channel: Content Marketing | Internet Marketing Industry | Legal | Legal: General