Ginny Marvin says, “The second quarter of 2015 generated a record-setting $14.3 billion in online ad revenues in the US, up 22.5 percent year over year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). For the first half of the year, internet ad revenues in the US totaled $27.5 billion, a 19-percent increase year over year. This marks... [Read more]

Trisha Winter says, “Marketing leaders at B2B organizations communicate directly with their Sales counterparts to review quantity and quality of inbound leads, to apprise one another of upcoming promotions and sales enablement initiatives and objectives, and to strategically determine the most effective ways for their teams to work together to... [Read more]

Andrea Johnson says, “If you ask anything of a customer you must make it worth it for them to give it to you. This applies to every step in the sales process, right from the very beginning. This is the conclusion that MECLABS, the parent company of MarketingExperiments, came to after studying more than 20,000 sales paths over 15 years. Of those... [Read more]

Google is still king of the search engines. So marketers who want to do well need to keep Google in mind, whatever else they do. Showing up on the first page of the search engine results for important words and phrases related to your niche, is the most important online marketing strategy you can have. But what tactics can place you on page 1 for your... [Read more]

Tyler Rhodes says, “As you consider implementing a sponsored content offering, it’s important to remember that like any other type of ad inventory, sponsored content won’t sell itself. Rather you need to have a sales team well-equipped to sell inbound to new and existing advertisers who may be less familiar with the methodology or benefits... [Read more]

Ben Davis says, “I apologise for lumping all SEOs together in the headline, some are good and some are still bad, but as the layman or ‘content person’ knows, there are a lot of opinions out there. If you came via the blog homepage, the header image on this post showed Jupiter, Mercury and Io from Roman myth. Myth is a word that crops... [Read more]

Erica McGillivray says, “It’s October 26, 1985. The top song in the United States is Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You.” The top weekend movie at the US box office is “Jagged Edge,” starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges. And Marty McFly was about to travel back in time in “Back to the Future.” Yes,... [Read more]

Precious Ngwu is releasing new software Monday that can tell you exactly which products your audience prefers, based on A/B testing, so you promote the winner for increased sales. Ngwu reports that this has worked very well for his team in their apparel and jewelry businesses. He also has used this software to hold contests and collect leads. He has... [Read more]

Mark Traphagen says, “Recently, Google Webmaster Trends analyst Gary Illyes surprised many of us with a remark he made during his keynote Q&A with Danny Sullivan at SMX East in New York City. Illyes said that herecommended webmasters not remove the rel=author tag from their site content. Google had used rel=author as part of its Google Authorship... [Read more]

ReadWrite team says, “Though the concept of blogging has been around for years, blogging continues to grow in popularity. Personal bloggers, businesses, and marketers launch new blogs every day to express their ideas and build their audience. But not everyone who wants to start a blog knows how. That’s where StartBloggingOnline comes in. Owner... [Read more]

Sucharita Mulpuru says, “In a recent Forrester-Shop.org study, we found that 70% of online retailers are investing in “content” in the coming year. What sort of content you may ask. Usually when they say “content” retailers mean videos, blog posts and magazine-like content that is best for consumers at the top of the shopping funnel.... [Read more]

There have been a lot of good training products sold through the year, but you don't always have to spend money to get training that will show you how to build your business... [Read more]

Jack Simpson says, “Earlier this week I attended a talk by Alex Ayling, head of BBC Worldwide Digital Studios, an in-house creative team responsible for the broadcaster’s digital output. In this post I’m going to cover some key points about the BBC’s strategic approach to planning and creating online video content. Ayling, who was speaking... [Read more]

Greg Sterling says, “According to Nielsen’s “Global Trust in Advertising” report, Millennials (21–34) showed “the highest levels of trust in online and mobile formats.” Below is a comparison of ad types (digital and traditional media) and generational trust levels that reflect this finding. What’s very interesting about this data... [Read more]

Stephen Moyers says, “Each marketing strategy is unique, but every marketing strategy should include evaluation. No matter what business you are in, be certain that you aren’t throwing good money after bad by continuing a strategy that is not performing. Some companies act like digital marketing is a magic tonic with an immediate effect that just... [Read more]

Fred Barton does like coffee, but that's not the point of his new product, 'CPA Coffee Shop Method'. Barton says he has been making good money (he mentions $1000 days) working from dozens of coffee shops as he travels around the world. Anywhere he can get an Internet connection, he can earn money to finance his trips... [Read more]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Some 44% of US e-commerce shoppers say they bypass the rest of the Web and go directly to Amazon.com to search for products, according to a recent report from BloomReach and Survata. The report was based on data from two surveys, one of 2,000 consumers living in the US, and the other of 500 US retail marketers. Search engines... [Read more]

Austin McCraw says, “What comes to mind when you think about marketing? Or better yet, what comes to mind for others when they think about marketing? Can you remember the last time you told a non-marketer you were in marketing? Maybe I am making it up in my head, but often, when I share with others that I am a marketer, I sense this almost apologetic... [Read more]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “In the marketing world, like most facets of life and business, there’s a lot of pressure to come up with original ideas. Trouble is, with seemingly millions of ideas being executed on a daily basis, it can be tough to cook up something truly original — that’s okay. An idea doesn’t have to be unique... [Read more]

Mark Thompson is known for his excellent software tools that help online marketers build their businesses.  His latest tool,  Social Kickstart, is no exception... [Read more]

Greg Sterling says, “Consummating a long flirtation, Yahoo said yesterday that it had reached a search deal with Google. Here’s the official statement: In October, the Company reached an agreement with Google that provides Yahoo with additional flexibility to choose among suppliers of search results and ads. Google’s offerings complement... [Read more]

Ben Davis says, “Search for ‘Black Friday’ and related terms in Google UK and you’ll likely be returned a host of US websites in the results. Below is page one of the UK SERPs (search engine results pages). As you can see, six out of the nine results are US sites. Both Amazon US and UK rank well, as do Target, Groupon and Walmart“. Black... [Read more]

Owen Thomas says, “At Twitter’s second Flight conference for developers—its third such gathering in its history—CEO Jack Dorsey struck an apologetic tone. Why apologize? Since last year, when it unveiled Fabric, Twitter is giving away an embarrassment of riches to developers, from its free Crashlytics error-reporting and analytics suite;... [Read more]

Daniel Burstein says, “Where does social media success begin? In many cases, it begins well off of an online platform like Facebook or Twitter. It begins with a valuable product. Cambria Jacobs, Vice President of Marketing, Door to Door Organics, sat down with me to discuss the natural and organic grocery company that sells entirely through ecommerce.... [Read more]

Patrick Armitage says, “Are you noticing that you’re reading more on your phone than ever before? I’ve noticed that I’ve graduated from mindlessly scanning 140-character tweets and flipping through Instagram photos to tackling full-on #longreads during my (non-driving) commute, while standing in line at the grocery store, while eating lunch,... [Read more]

Corey Beale says, “Almost overnight, native advertising has emerged as a viable revenue stream for leading media companies like Digiday, Forbes, Business Insider—the list goes on. But what about smaller, niche publishers? Is native advertising a numbers game, or is there value in helping advertisers reach a smaller, niche audience? The answer... [Read more]

There have been a lot of good training products sold through the year, but you don’t always have to spend money to get training that will show you how to build your business. This week has been an unusually busy week for free training. Peruse the list below. Surely, some of them will be just what you need at this moment. [Free WSO] Get Crazy... [Read more]