Laura Ramos says, “Phoenix in the summer. To say it’s “hot” is an understatement. Weather reports predict a rather balmy 92 degrees F for Thursday of this week. Mild compared to the last time I attended the Marketing Technology Summit, co-sponsored by the Phoenix chapter of the BMA and the Arizona Technology Council. This year’s hot topic is big data — one of the four market imperatives Forrester believes will help companies to thrive in this digital age where buyers, business-to-business included, control most aspects of the purchase process. I’m... [...]

Clement Teo says, “Every business must transform into a digital business. Digital businesses continuously exploit digital technologies to create new sources of value for their customers and increase their operational agility to serve those customers. In Asia Pacific, CIOs have had limited success in driving digital business transformation. Organizations taking an early lead in transforming their business include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, China’s Ping An Insurance Group, and DBS Bank in Singapore. A true digital business needs to integrate two sides of a digital strategy: digital... [...]

Kurt Wagner says, “Twitter knows best — at least it hopes it does. The social network started surfacing tweets this weekend that users never actually said they wanted to see, a strategy intended to introduce users to new content they wouldn’t otherwise discover. Twitter is showing users tweets that have been favorited by those they follow — meaning you may soon see tweets others didn’t consciously elect to pass along. Twitter is also surfacing tweets from accounts you may not follow, but others in your network do”. Twitter Tinkers With Feeds to Find New Users Re/code  [...]

Melissa Mackey says, “If you’re a small business owner or manager, you already know that your time is valuable. You’re probably on the lookout for time-saving tips that will let you focus on the most important parts of running your business. If you’re managing a PPC campaign, you also probably know that it can be a full-time job. Even those of us who manage PPC campaigns for a living need time-saving tips. Here are 5 tips for saving time in PPC management”. 5 Tips For Saving Time In PPC Management Web Marketing Today  [...]

Michael O’Grady says, “With 44% of all retail sales in Europe set to be offline sales that are influenced by the Web in 2018, it’s not surprising that online display advertising spend in Europe will grow more than three times faster than total advertising spend over the next five years. Forrester’s Online Display Advertising Forecast  shows that online display advertising will continue to cannibalize advertising spend via other channels. Firms are increasingly using video and rich media to engage, entertain, and attract the attention of online users and to enrich their... [...]

Kurt Wagner says, “With an endless barrage of attention, however do celebs separate signal from noise on Twitter? Consider this example last year when one celeb sparked a tweetstorm after being left off a Yahoo list of the top 18 celebrities of 2013. Poor Heidi Klum, who was name-checked multiple times on the thread, probably had no idea this was going on”. Twitter to Verified Users: Talk Amongst Yourselves! Re/code  [...]

Melih Oztalay says, “Google has introduced an important new advertising option. As part of Google’s AdWords features of ad extensions, dynamic sitelinks are now available to all businesses at no additional charge. Sitelinks help people reach a page on your site by clicking to the very page directly from your ad, with a single click. I addressed ad extensions in March, in “Understanding Ad Extensions in Google AdWords.”Ad extensions are advertising features to visually improve your text ads for people searching on a specific topic related to your business. Using ad extensions, you can... [...]

Pamella Neely says, “Headlines make or break a piece of content. They are so critical to the success of a piece that it is common for master copywriters to spend as much time on their headline and opening paragraph as they do on the rest of their copy. Why do they do this? Because if the headline doesn’t grab your audience, nothing else about your content ever will. Without a strong headline, your readers will never see the rest of your content. No matter how good it is. The news and culture site Upworthy.com has reported swings of up to 500 percent in traffic based on tweaking the words... [...]

Re/Code team says, “Google’s search engine is displaying Frankenstein-esque characteristics. Like the fictional scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who created a monster more powerful than its master, Google’s algorithm designed to rid the Internet of spammy links is proving difficult, if not impossible, to control. In June, CNBC.com reported on a Google algorithm called Panda that crawls the Web to periodically push what the search provider considers lower-quality sites down in the rankings while elevating better pages”. Has Google Lost Control of Its Anti-Spam Algorithm? Re/code  [...]

Peter Kafka says, “AOL beat Wall Street’s Q2 revenue and profit numbers. And, like the last few quarters, the company says that its content business — sites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch — was profitable, if you’re willing to accept a fuzzy definition of profit. But as always, the most amazing thing about AOL’s business is the thing that drives AOL’s business: Millions of people, who started paying the company a monthly fee for Internet access more than a decade ago, who continue to pay the company a monthly fee for Internet access, even though they likely aren’t getting... [...]