Marketing Day: January 10, 2014

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

From Marketing Land:

• Facebook Faces More Legal Action From Sponsored Stories: This Time For False Endorsements
  Yesterday, Facebook announced it is scrapping parts of its Sponsored Stories ad product — the ads that show what other users “Like.” It turns out, the same day a Colorado man filed a class action suit claiming the ads were used for false endorsement. The suit alleges Facebook began showing ads that said “Tony DiTirro […]
• New Brand Dependence Index Finds Consumers “Can’t Live Without” Samsung Electronics [Report]
  Brand management firm UTA teamed up with technology firm uSamp to launch a new brand index report at this week’s CES Conference in Las Vegas . Ranking the top ten most recognized consumer electronic brands, UTA’s first-ever Brand Dependence Index revealed Samsung scored the highest when measuring Brand Dependence Intensity within the consumer electronics market, […]
• Use Google Analytics To Create Campaigns, Not Just Track Them
  We all know that analytics are good for understanding how a visitor behaved on your website — what pages they looked at, what buttons they clicked or what keywords they used to find you. You can also use analytics to track campaigns like email blasts and paid advertising. That’s pretty basic stuff. What many beginning […]
• Growth Hacking Is Bull
  Doing SEO, SEM or social media marketing isn’t “growth hacking.” It’s just marketing. Problem is some marketers & start-ups don’t get that. — Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 4, 2014 The phrase “growth hacking” upsets me more than I should let it. Why? Because it takes me back to 2007, when I was about to graduate […]
• Latest Twitter Experiment, @AchievementBird, Shares Analytics Via Direct Message
  Twitter’s latest experimental account uses direct messages to send users updates on milestones such as how many times you’ve been retweeted and favorited. It’s called @AchievementBird, and it appears to work in much the same way as other Twitter experiments like @MagicRecs and @EventParrot. If you’re following @AchievementBird, Twitter will send direct messages with statistics […]
• FAQ: How The New Gmail “Send To Anyone On Google+” Feature Works
  Google has announced that soon, anyone with both a Gmail account and a Google+ account will be able to message anyone else with a Gmail account and Google+ account, even if they don’t know their email address. Spam city! Potentially, but Google has some safeguards built in that it hopes will keep this as a […]

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

• Google Apologizes For Berlin Street Being Renamed “Adolf Hitler Platz” On Google Maps
• DuckDuckGo Has Biggest Day Ever In 2014 With More Than 4 Million Queries On January 7th
• Search In Pics: Speedy Delivery, Pinterest & Matt Cutts On TIME Magazine
• Google’s Latest Official Stance On Links Within Widgets
• Secrets Of Successful Enterprise SEO Part 2: Building A Winning Team
• WMT: Google Gets Personal With SEOs?

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Affiliate Marketing

• How Rogue Affiliates Use Fiverr To Swindle Pay-Per-Lead Programs, Affiliate Marketing Blog
• Five Fascinating Affiliate Marketing Forecasts for 2014, performancein.com

Blogs & Blogging

• Blogging: Make 2014 Your Breakthrough Year, Heidi Cohen
• How To Market A Blog From Scratch And Get Massive Growth, bloggingwizard.com
• Improve Your Blog Writing Skills Through 7 Steps, tweakyourbiz.com
• What We Learned From 52 Weeks Of Consistent Corporate Blogging, Cypress North

Business Issues

• Apple did not violate Google patent, says U.S. appeals court, Reuters
• Exclusive: LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy to step down, www.bizjournals.com
• Google X Staff Meet With FDA Pointing Toward New Device, Bloomberg
• India’s election regulator drops plan to partner Google after spying fears, Reuters
• Planning for a Delicious future, Delicious Blog
• Source: Yahoo Bought Aviate For $80M, TechCrunch
• US court rules against Bazaarvoice’s acquisition of PowerReviews, Reuters
• We should be worrying about Google’s assimilation and consolidation, and here’s why, GigaOM

Content Marketing

• Why You Should Discuss Content Marketing Strategy Before Tactics, Content Marketing Institute

Conversion Optimization

• 4 Advanced Techniques to Boost Form Fills, sitetuners.com
• Removing social sharing buttons increases conversions. Yes, you heard that right!, visualwebsiteoptimizer.com

Display & Contextual Advertising

• AdWords for Video Workaround – How to Analyze Targeting, 3Q Digital
• Talking Directly To Your Customers Using Twitter Tailored Audiences, Search Engine People

Domaining

• New TLDs come out with a whimper, Domain Name Wire

Ecommerce

• Why Presentation and Context Are Crucial to Ecommerce Product Photos, KISS Metrics

Email Marketing

• Canadian Anti-Spam Law update, www.experian.com

General Internet Marketing

• The Importance of Gathering Implicit Preferences, Silverpop

Internet Marketing Industry

• MediaMath Announces Appointment of Co-Founder Erich Wasserman as Global Chief Revenue Officer, www.marketwired.com

Mobile/Local Marketing

• Three graphs to stop smartphone fans fretting about ‘market share’, www.theguardian.com

Other Items

• If Google Built Cars, www.leverable.com

Social Media

• TOP 50 The Most Engaging Christmas Posts on Facebook, blog.zoomsphere.com
• Did Google Just Kill Email?, www.twistimage.com
• Facebook Testing Q&As For Pages?, All Facebook
• Facebook tests different fonts for News Feed, Inside Facebook