Marketing Day: March 22, 2013

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:

• Yahoo Toolbar Serving Up Questionable Affiliate Links As Coupons
  Yahoo’s partnership with a toolbar provider has led to questionable affiliate links showing up in the latest version of the Yahoo Toolbar for both Firefox and IE. How questionable? In one case, an affiliate was redirecting traffic from Ticketmaster.com to a competing online ticket seller. In other cases, it’s unclear if the websites that a […]
• Marin Software Officially IPOs: Stock Up 20%
  Marin Software, one of the leading search and social marketing platform providers, has officially IPO’ed this morning at The New York Stock Exchange. The IPO looked to be a hit, with their stock price currently up over 20%. The IPO price was $14.00 per share with 7,500,000 shares. The high went to $19.95 per share, […]
• Google Opens Universal Analytics To All Users
  Google’s Universal Analytics product is now available to all. Universal Analytics launched last October as a beta product that was primarily intended for enterprise-level GA users. It offers APIs that make it possible to integrate offline data into Google Analytics to combing online/offline tracking. Google’s blog post offers some specifics on how to add Universal […]
• Marketing Biz: Spreadsheets On Steroids, Color-Coded Optimization & Trust
  This week in marketing was a strange mix of partnerships and acquisitions along with new tools and companies that could help marketers become more effective and efficient. This is … Marketing Biz. Yahoo in Talks to Buy Stake in Video Site Dailymotion, which is similar to Google’s YouTube site but is smaller in scale, would immediately […]
• Quantcast “Compare Sites” Feature Disappears, Company Says Will Return
  One of my favorite features of Quantcast is the ability to compare metrics like traffic for two different sites against each other. Make that “was” one of my favorite features. It disappeared earlier this week, but the company says it’ll make a comeback. Quantcast launched the feature in December 2006. One thing I loved about […]
• Filter Feature Allows For Photo-Only Google+ Searches
  Looking for a specific image on Google+ just got a whole lot easier. A new “Photos” filter is now available on the filter dropdown and will limit the results to images that have been posted on Google+. Results will display items that are shared with you and also public photos posted to Google+. In the […]
• Firefox & Blocking 3rd-Party Cookies: What It Means For Affiliate Marketing
  There’s been quite a stir lately about a new release of Firefox due out this summer. Here’s the deal: a patch in version 22 is expected to automatically block third-party cookies by default. According to the latest reports, users who install this version of Firefox will no longer see targeted advertising unless they change their […]
• YouTube Eclipses The One Billion Unique Users A Month Mark
  Eight years ago, Google purchased the upcoming video sharing website YouTube from Steven Chen and Chad Hurley for $1.65 billion dollars. The growth of the video sharing site has continued with the announcement that YouTube has eclipsed the one billion unique-monthly-user mark this week. What’s so impressive is that this number is unique YouTube users, not […]
• Study Finds Rich Media and Video Improves Digital Ad Engagement [DG MediaMind]
  DG MediaMind released the 2012 Global Benchmarks Report, an analysis of more than 600 billion display ad impressions in 2012 from standard banners, rich media and video. The study showed that engagement improved with the inclusion of rich media and interactive video elements in ads. Globally in-stream video ads grew, and video ads met the […]
• Calendar Live Enables Twitter Ad Targeting During TV Shows And Events
  A new Twitter ad-buying platform aims to take Social TV advertising to the next level. As Adweek and other outlets have reported, TBG Digital’s Calendar Live lets marketers choose TV shows and schedule targeted promoted tweets to run when those shows air. Calendar Live is one of the first tools released that uses the new […]
• Facebook Loosens Their Belt On Page Cover Image Guidelines
  When Facebook cover pages were launched last February, a slew of restrictions were bundled in, as well. Yesterday, Mari Smith reported that the majority of these guidelines quietly vanished. Some of the items that were revoked include: ii. Price or purchase information, such as “40 percent off,” or, “Download it on socialmusic.com.” iii. Contact information such […]
• Twitter Turns Seven Years Old Today #HappyBirthday #Twitter7
  Today marks seven years since Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s creator, sent the very first tweet, kicking-off a social media phenomenon that has grown to 200 million active users sending more than 400 million tweets daily. Dorsey served as Twitter’s CEO until 2008 when he became the company’s chairman, and Evan Williams took over the role. In […]

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

• Search In Pics: Google Wonder Girls, Fish, Cylon & Seniors Workshop
• Microsoft Shows Off Coming Improvements To Bing App’s Voice Search
• Google Pushes Google Search App With Commercials
• How To Determine Your Mobile & Geo Bid Multipliers For Enhanced Campaigns
• Google Says No To Phone Numbers In PPC Ads, Forcing The Use Of Call Extensions
• Google Webmaster Tools Improves Verification Reporting & Process

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Analytics

• 13 of the Best Heatmap Articles on the Internet, blog.crazyegg.com
• Website Analytics Advice for B&B’s (and SMB’s), localu.org

Blogs & Blogging

• How List.ly Can Blow Up Blog Traffic, Social Media Today
• Why corporate blogging is on the rebound, www.theglobeandmail.com

Business Issues

• Google’s Android unit reportedly building a smart watch, The Verge
• Twitter Sued for $50M in France for Withholding the Identities of Anti-Semitic Users, WebProNews
• PeopleLinx Receives US$ 3.2M in Funding for LinkedIn Analytics Tool, www.cmswire.com
• What is Google doing?, Reuters
• Yandex’s online payment division announces Twym, enabling instant rubles transfers between Twitter users, thenextweb.com

Content Marketing

• Promoting Your Content Across Owned, Earned, and Paid Media, www.buzzstream.com

Conversion Optimization

• 6 test ideas to optimize the value of testimonials on your site, www.marketingexperiments.com
• Do bigger images mean improved conversion rates? Three case studies, eConsultancy

Copywriting, Design & Usability

• 10 ways the role of web designer is changing, www.creativebloq.com

Display & Contextual Advertising

• What You Need to Know About Enhanced Display Campaigns, www.ppchero.com
• Give Your Remarketing Campaign the Love It Deserves, www.swellpath.com

Domaining

• 27 new TLDs have passed their initial evaluation, Domain Name Wire
• Initial Evaluation Results Released for First Set of Applications, www.icann.org

Email Marketing

• Mother’s Day – Email trends and tips, www.experian.com

Mobile/Local Marketing

• Barnes & Noble offers exemplary mobile performance for four months, Internet Retailer
• Tide Adds Mobile Video Advertising to Its Campaign Load, eMarketer

Other Items

• A deeper look at Amazon Prime, Internet Retailer
• D.me: Is this the new Delicious?, paidContent.org
• Google’s Schmidt tells Myanmar a free Internet can anchor reform, Reuters
• India Defends Itself to Google’s Schmidt, Wall Street Journal
• January 2013: Top U.S. Entertainment Sites and Web Brands, nielsen.com
• Wow, Google Keep looks an awful lot like ColorNote, Pando Daily

Social Media

• Twitter Archives Now Available In 12 More Languages, Including Japanese, Portuguese, Russian And Simplified Chinese, TechCrunch
• #HashtagsIn2013: A Hashtag How-To for Businesses, Social Media Today
• 8 Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Were Making on Pinterest, Search Engine People
• Did Oreo Win Twitter Again? (Yes, They Did), www.mediabistro.com
• STUDY: If A Facebook Post Hasn’t Gone Viral In Three Hours, It Probably Won’t, All Facebook