Pete Prestipino says, “Search engine marketing software WordStream has launched a performance grader for Bing Ads advertisers. The tool allows Bing advertisers to evaluate the relative strength and weakness of their search advertising accounts across several important metrics including click-through rate, wasted spend, negative keywords, landing page and text ad optimization, and well as what Wordstream considers best practices for the search advertising network”. Did Bing Ads Bring the Holiday Cheer? Website Magazine  [...]

The NYTimes Media team has posted an article on Pinterest advertising. Mike Isaac says, “A quick glance at the digital scrapbook Pinterest makes it seem like the anti-Facebook. It has no stream filled with friends’ faces and baby pictures, but rather a sprawling, colorful grid of recipes, photographs of clothes and a shopping list of presents to buy for loved ones. Yet Pinterest wants to be like Facebook in one notable way: Soon some of the slick-looking photos on its site may be advertisements from the world’s biggest consumer brands — ads, Pinterest hopes, users actually want to... [...]

Emma Snider says, “Who doesn’t love a good countdown? Almost everybody does. And if you don’t, you might want to hide out for a bit. It’s certainly the season for them. Before you count down the ball dropping to mark the beginning of 2015, take some time to reflect on the highlights of 2014: a particularly large or significant deal you closed, the month you blew quota out of the water, your president’s club trip. It’s only by looking back and celebrating your accomplishments that you’ll be mentally prepared to move forward and crush another year. As for... [...]

Chow says, “Unless you’re getting paid a decent salary to run a company blog, most of us bloggers could use some extra cash. Most of the time we’re doing all this blogging for kicks or as a way to promote a scrappy up and coming business. In short, any sort of additional income would be a welcome perk. While there are many ways to raise some quick cash, one of the more lucrative and intriguing options is earnings per click. If you’ve never heard of the term, it’s simple and powerful metric that’s used by affiliate networks to determine your earning potential. So, whenever a company... [...]

Baer says, “Social media has had as much impact on companies and their customers as any technological advance ever, because social fundamentally changes the relationship between those parties from its historical norm – which is “master” and “servant” – to something closer to a relationship among peers. Social has given customers a voice, and business will never be the same. Customers can punish or praise companies within seconds from the palms of their hands, and those communications can (at times) result in meaningful changes to company policy and behavior. This fundamental disruption... [...]

James Temple says, “Pinterest* will unveil early results from one of its first formal brand advertising efforts on Sunday evening, as the San Francisco company looks to roll out the product widely starting on Jan. 1. The popular site, which has raised more than a half billion dollars in funding, allows users to post, or “pin,” images of clothing, food and other products they like. As the company looked to start ramping up revenue, it began testing a Promoted Pins program that invited brands to pay for pins that appear on the search and category pages. Participants during the... [...]

Robert Phillips has teamed up with Anthony Hayes, Todd Gross, and Craig Crawford to create new software to get your business on the upswing. They call it IFTTT Backlink Commando, and it is a “set and forget”, hands free SEO tool with 6 built-in unique SEO strategies, including automated web 2.0 syndication for backlinks and YouTube video embeds. The creators say their testing shows IFTTT Backlink Commando can: • Secure multiple listings on the first page for any keyword you choose • Drive floods of laser-targeted, hungry buyers directly to your site • Generate instant authority,... [...]

Dave McLaughlin says, “Here are three trends I see in the sales world, paired with predictions on where those trends will take us. I welcome any feedback in the comments. TREND #1: Content Fatigue / Focus We’ve learned our lesson that so-called snackable content does not create any value, and all those empty content calories are killing the platforms that previously served as places to identify compelling new ideas. Twitter used to be rich with rewarding content, but now I have to scroll for several minutes before I find anything worth dipping into. And LinkedIn blogging went from sharp and... [...]

Pamella Neely says, “If you could only have two things in an email, they would the subject line and the call to action. I wrote about subject lines a few months back, in “7 Ways to Improve Email Subject Lines (and a Sneaky Way to Test).” But the call to action has been left unexamined until now. So here are seven of the best ways to nail the call to action in your next email campaign, and in all your email campaigns to come. 1. Make the Call to Action Short This is the most common and damaging mistake with email calls to action, or any call to action. The marketer or the writer does... [...]

Tim Ash says, “Each year, digital marketers find themselves trying to do more with less. With mobile technologies maturing, analytics entering a decade of being democratized, and personalization technologies enjoying increasing adoption, online marketers have never needed to learn more and do more just to keep up. While new advancements and opportunities arise constantly, the beginning of a new year always seems to be a good time for planning and goal setting. If you share responsibility for the success of a website, here’s a list of seven ideas you may want to include in your 2015 resolutions. 1.... [...]