Marketing Day: Hulu At NewFronts, Google Kills Gmail Grid View & Bigcommerce Acquires Zing

Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on MarTech and other places across the web.

From Marketing Land:

• Facebook Now Has 40M Active Small Business Pages
  Facebook announces “Boost Your Business” tour and live chat support for advertisers.
• NewFronts 2015: Hulu Grows Subscriber Base 50%, Adds Original Content & Picks Up Seinfeld
  “Hulu is TV,” says company’s head of sales, setting Hulu apart from line up of digital content providers at this year’s NewFronts.
• Mobile-Only Users Surpassed PC-Only Users In March — comScore
  ComScore reported today that for the US internet population, in March for the first time, “the number of mobile-only adult internet users exceeded the number of desktop-only internet users.”
• 5 Things Marketers Need To Know From Twitter’s Earnings Call
  Changes in direct response ad measurement slowed revenue growth, but are improving ROI, Twitter execs say. Google search integration coming in May; tweets in Apple Spotlight search already here.
• Survey: Millennials Want In-Store Mobile Payments, Not Human Cashiers
  According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the most common jobs in the country are “retail sales clerk” and “cashier.”
• Google Pulls Plug On Gmail Grid View
  Just over a year after introducing images to the promotions tab, Gmail reverts back to the text-only format.
• How Microsoft Plans For Windows 10 To Rule The World By Leveraging iOS & Android
  Android app? iOS app? No problem, says Microsoft — it can easily be a Windows app, a pitch it hopes will resonate with developers.
• Mobile Activity In Cities Vs. Suburbs In Massachusetts: What Marketers Can Learn
  Like many urban areas, Boston’s mobile usage far outshines that in the rest of Massachusetts. Columnist Andrew Waber explains how that patterns like this impact marketers’ mobile-focused campaigns.
• Why Using Buyer Personas Will Delight Your Customers And Improve Sales
  By knowing who your customers are, you can deliver the right message and guide your business strategy, explains columnist Mary Wallace.
• Text-Only Subject Lines That Perform, Now That Gmail Grid View Is History
  There’s “still time” to optimize your email subject lines! Contributor Tom Sather shares stats on what kind of text drives opens in today’s environment.
• The Facebook API That Provides Friend Data To Apps Will Shut Down Tomorrow
  New API changes rolling out tomorrow will put a premium on user privacy and protection, limiting the access that marketers once had in the process.
• Google Analytics Updates iOS App, Version 1.2 Out Now
  Release notes list a handful of upgrades, including date range comparisons.
• Bigcommerce Acquires Zing To Expand Omnichannel Retail Capabilities
  Ecommerce provider gains new tools for servicing retailers that have both online and brick-and-mortar stores.

Recent Headlines From Search Engine Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Search News & Information:

• Google Mobile Search Tests Colored Dots In Result Snippets
• 6 Search Tips For Travel Advertising Success
• Study: Searchers Use Question Formats 27% Of The Time
• Bing Maps Covers 3,000 Transit Agencies Across 30 Different Countries
• 3 AdWords Reports That Every Search Marketer Needs To Stay Competitive
• Twitter’s Full Google Search Integration Is Coming In May

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Analytics

• 5 Predictive Analytics Tools for SMBs, streetfightmag.com
• Sales Forecasting: Inaccuracy’s Last Refuge in the Big Data Era, www.cmswire.com
• What’s Bigger Than Big Data?, adexchanger.com

Blogs & Blogging

• 5 Best Online Interviews About Blogging You Haven’t Read, www.blogherald.com
• 5 Ways To Transform Your Blogger Outreach, www.blogherald.com
• Power to the People: How Autodesk’s 200 Blogs Are Propelling the DIY Movement, contently.com
• Tips For Managing A Company Blog, www.koozai.com
• Why I’ll Only Use Postmatic for WordPress Blog Comments, dannybrown.me

Business Issues

• Google is considering doing away with space bars, qz.com
• Secret Is Going To Shut Down, TechCrunch

Content Marketing

• 3 Steps to Solve the Production vs. Performance Conundrum, contentmarketinginstitute.com
• 5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2015, www.practicalecommerce.com
• Content Marketing Showdown: Apple vs. Samsung, contently.com
• How Content Cultivation Can Reinvigorate Your Content Marketing Efforts, blog.marketo.com
• How to Rewrite Old Content and Make It New Again, menwithpens.ca
• The Essence of Going from “Content Marketing” to “Content Culture”, www.thesaleslion.com

Conversion Optimization

• 4 Tips to Improve Lading Page Conversionn, www.toprankblog.com
• 7 Tips to Get Started with Customer Journey Mapping, www.convinceandconvert.com
• Why The Customers Who Don’t Convert Are Immensely Important, blog.kissmetrics.com

Copywriting, Design & Usability

• 3 Copywriting Strategies That Increase Conversions, www.usertesting.com
• Bye-Bye to These 10 Web Design Trends, www.marketingprofs.com
• What the So-Called “Mobilegeddon” Tells Us About the State of Responsive Design, blog.movableink.com

Display & Contextual Advertising

• Digital Display Ad Fraud: Best Practices for Publishers, www.emarketer.com

Ecommerce

• Amazon is in danger of becoming a lumbering conglomerate, qz.com
• An Alibaba hiring freeze aims to control expansion and efficiency, www.internetretailer.com
• How Beacons Are Shaping The Future Of Local Digital Marketing, www.webpresence.tv

Email Marketing

• 10 Quick Design Hacks for Responsive Emails, blog.movableink.com
• 3 Emails You Should Send to Increase Customer Appointments, www.verticalresponse.com
• 4 Steps to Making a Human Connection With Welcome Messages, blog.returnpath.com
• Campaigner Launches White Label Email Marketing Platform, www.martechadvisor.com
• DMA National Client Email Report 2015, www.emailmonday.com
• How Emails Are Evolving into Mailable Microsites, www.convinceandconvert.com
• How Often Should You Email Your Customers?, blogs.constantcontact.com
• TripIt Talks Email Marketing Strategies for the Travel Industry, blog.movableink.com

General Internet Marketing

• How to Start Marketing for Millennials, www.distilled.net
• The Evolution of Digital Marketing, www.convinceandconvert.com

Internet Marketing Industry

• Innerscope Research Study Shows TV and Digital Pre-Roll Significantly Stronger Platforms for Video Advertising Than Facebook, www.marketwired.com
• Kellogg Hires Former Wendy’s CMO To Lead Morning Foods, adage.com
• R2integrated Acquires Digital Agency, Make Me Social, www.prweb.com
• Shoppers Migrate to Mobile and Tablets as Brands and Retailers Spend a Record $200B on Digital Marketing This Year, www.juniperresearch.com

MarTech

• 8 tips for marketing tech companies on pitching CMOs, chiefmartec.com
• Revolutionizing Marketing and Brand Management Technology, www.martechadvisor.com

Mobile/Local Marketing

• Harness the Power of Mobile to Capitalize on Showrooming, www.marketingprofs.com
• How are brands optimising for mobile?, econsultancy.com
• How Your App Can Improve the Return on Your Marketing Budget, www.martechadvisor.com
• Reuters’ mobile strategy: ‘If it has a screen, it’s fair game’, digiday.com
• Staples, Office Depot drive in-store traffic with omnichannel prowess on mobile, www.mobilecommercedaily.com
• The desktop is dying and mobile is winning in news, like everything else, qz.com
• Top online retailers add apps to the 3,500 available for the Apple Watch, www.internetretailer.com

Social Media

• 5 Ways Brands are Using Snapchat for Marketing, www.reelseo.com
• 8 New Social Media Tools – Q1 Report, www.razorsocial.com
• Calling all foodies: Here comes @TwitterFood, www.Twitter.com
• Facebook 1Q15 Advertising Benchmarks, www.marketingprofs.com
• Facebook is actually getting more predictable for publishers, digiday.com
• Facebook Warns European Privacy Regulators to Back Off, Wall Street Journal
• How to Acquire Customers on Social Media, www.socialbakers.com
• Instagram Launches Dedicated Music Channel @Music, www.buzzfeed.com
• LinkedIn Tips: 5 Big Mistakes You Must Stop Doing On LinkedIn, www.jeffbullas.com
• Nearly 3/4 of U.S. SMBs Use Social Media to Promote Their Business, blog.biakelsey.com
• Pinterest Marketing Tips: What We Tried & What Worked, blog.bufferapp.com
• Putting Your Best Foot Forward On Instagram, blog.business.instagram.com
• Should You Set Up a Facebook Page? 7 Things to Consider, www.adweek.com
• The 3 Kinds of Social Analysis You Need to Build a Winning Strategy, simplymeasured.com
• The retailer Instagram accounts targeting men only, digiday.com
• Tweets coming to Apple’s Spotlight search, Twitter CEO says, appleinsider.com
• Twitter is goosing its numbers by counting SMS-only users, qz.com

Video

• How to Use YouTube Cards to Promote Your Business, www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• Maker Studios wants to go beyond the MCN label, digiday.com
• YouTube tests a new video player without transparencies, allgoogletesting.blogspot.com