Greg Sterling says, “In August last year, Adobe and PageFair reported that the global number of ad-blocking users had grown from 21 million in 2009 to just under 200 million in mid-2015. Earlier today, PageFair (and Priori Data) released a new mobile ad-blocking report that asserts there are now roughly 419 million mobile ad blockers around the globe. In other words, the numbers have doubled in about a year. Approximately 22 percent of smartphone users worldwide are blocking ads. Asia is where ad blocking is most widely practiced. It’s “less developed” in North America and Europe, according... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “It’s all too common for marketers to equate scaling content with simply producing more content, regardless of quality. But that approach is flawed, as it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve more visibility when your content isn’t all that great. How can you scale your content marketing while keeping up with the evolving standards for quality? Well, we’d be doing you a disservice if we told you it was going to be easy. The truth is, you’ll likely run into a handful of challenges. To learn more about some of the common mistakes marketers... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “No one really knows how many people actually had a chance to see one of their Instagram posts. They know the potential audience based on how many people follow their Instagram account, but they have no idea how many people are checking their feeds soon after that photo or video is posted or how many other people might come across it when checking a profile page or the Explore tab. That’s starting to change, at least for brands. Instagram is finally opening up about new tools it’s adding for businesses, which include business-specific profiles and a way for brands using... [...]

Steve Olenski says, “This particular post is a bit of an anomaly. See, I am writing this with just two percent of CMOs/marketers in mind. That may sound odd—why would I write something aimed at only two percent of anything? I get that. I understand why you would question that logic. I questioned it myself before deciding to take this approach for this particular piece. I did so because I felt compelled to direct this squarely at you: the two percent of marketers who don’t think that offline and online marketing are merging. And just where do these two-percenters come from? They come from... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “For the past couple of weeks, Google has been testing a major change to the width of the left-hand column, expanding containers from 512 pixels to 600 (a 17% increase). Along with this change, Google has increased the available length of result titles: This naturally begs the question — how many characters can we fit into a display title now? When Google redesigned SERPs in 2014, I recommended a limit of 55 characters. Does a 17% bigger container mean we’ve got 9 more characters to work with?”. Title Tag Length Guidelines: 2016 Edition MOZ  [...]

Rusty Warner says, “I am pleased to announce TWO new Forrester Wave™ reports for B2C marketers. Today we published the Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Q2 2016 and the Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Marketing Software Suites, Q2 2016. The former will help you compare the 15 leading campaign management vendors, while the latter will help you evaluate 9 vendors that have assembled broader enterprise marketing technology portfolios. Cross-Channel Campaign Management (CCCM) Three of the four leading vendors – Adobe, Salesforce, and Oracle – base their CCCM solutions... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “You all know the Old Spice guy, right? The years-old “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign was memorable for many reasons, but one of them was that it gave Old Spice a voice — voice that came through in every video, commercial, tagline, Facebook update, tweet … you name it. And do you know who is behind all of that marketing collateral? Copywriters. The ability to find the exact right words to tell your company’s story isn’t an easy feat, and it’s even harder to do so consistently. New Call-to-action So when we come... [...]

Brian Kolb says, “Earned media is that one component of content marketing that is MIA for too many marketers. If you are just hoping that people will publish or share your great content, well, that’s like stepping up to the plate without a bat. Generating earned media today must be the clean-up hitter in your content marketing strategy lineup. Earned, owned, and paid media To understand earned media’s role in your content marketing strategy, we first need to look at the three types of media – owned, paid, and earned”. 3 Earned Media Strategies to Incorporate Into Your Content... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “How would you feel if your favourite brand called you bae? Personally, I cringe whenever someone I know dares utter the term – even if they’re doing it ironically. For companies, words are a really useful weapon, and many have cottoned on to the fact that talking like a real person is far more engaging than using dry, corporate and jargon-filled language. But when does conversational language go too far? Can brands use colloquialisms and abbreviations? What about text-speak and swear words? It’s a huge topic, so with just a few examples of brands getting... [...]

Dan Steiner says, “Brands have discovered the value of using video to engage customers and stand out in social media feeds. However, when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), videos can be lacking. You can include important information in your description, but that won’t cover everything described in your video. Investing in a transcription for each video can help you generate valuable text-based content without having something written. Here are several reasons a video transcription is a good idea for your company websites. Boost Search Engine Visibility The most important reason... [...]