Marketing Land’s Rachel Lindteigen has shared some useful tips for expanding a content marketing program. The advice features the importance of understanding the budgetaly limites, setting a content markeitng goal and understanding the CM metrics. Lindteigen says, “While you understand the importance of content marketing and the potential it has to drive business, do those above you? If you’re struggling to secure buy-in from your management or executive team to expand your content marketing program, here are a few tips that can help. Understand their position Most executives are... [...]

Brad O’Brien says, “I remember the days when you could only run Page Like campaigns within Facebook advertising. Brands and advertisers poured tens, often hundreds, of thousands of dollars collecting Likes, and Facebook had us convinced there was value in doing so. Today, there are various advertising opportunities and objectives, but Likes are still widely considered an indicator of brand loyalty and growth opportunity. The question remains, however: What is the value of these Likes? This is the million-dollar question, and it’s one that few marketers dare to dive into. We’ve been... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google parent Alphabet Inc. announced revenues of $24.75 billion for the first quarter of this year, a 22 percent increase year over year. That’s above analyst expectations, and the stock is up in after-hours trading. Ad revenues were $21.4 billion, a 19 percent increase over Q1 2015. Google site revenues were $17.4 billion (up 21 percent), and network revenues were $4 billion (up 9 percent). Paid clicks were up on Google sites and network properties, 53 percent and 10 percent respectively. The trend of lower YoY CPCs continued, with Google site CPCs down 21 percent... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Quora, the Q&A platform that’s been around since 2009, has quietly grown into a business now valued at nearly $1.8 billion. In the past week, the company announced an injection of $85 million in funding and said monthly active users grew from 100 million to 195 million in the past year. It’s also prepped to put a lot more investment into its fledgling ad business that’s still in beta. As far as scale and reach go, the major ad-supported platforms — Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn — are significantly bigger than Quora is now.... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Audience growth is no longer a problem for Twitter. That’s great, especially since Twitter has plenty of new problems. In the first quarter of 2017, Twitter’s overall revenue declined year over year for the first time ever, and its advertising revenue declined for the second straight quarter. That’s bad, right? Apparently not to Wall Street investors. Despite the revenue declines, Twitter’s stock price was up by more than 10 percent after the company released its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday. What gives? For starters, Wall Street analysts expected Twitter... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Mobile is now the dominant vehicle for digital ad spend. Mobile ad revenues jumped 77 percent year over year in 2016 to account for more than half (51 percent) of all digital ad revenues for the first time, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for Q4 and FY 2016. In Q4, mobile ad revenues drove 53 percent of all digital revenue. For the year, total US digital ad revenues rose to $72.5 billion in 2016, up 22 percent from $59.6 billion. Mobile was the key growth driver across all digital formats, including search, banner, video, social, and even digital... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google is expanding the scope of AdSense’s hate-speech policy and also announcing a more granular approach to dealing with content online that violates the policy. Today’s updates come on the heels of announcements last month that Google would launch more brand safety controls to placate advertisers that stopped some advertising when their ads showed up next to extremist and inappropriate content. In addition to updating the wording of its so-called hate-speech policy, Google says the new policy can now be applied at a page level, instead of the site level. It’s... [...]

AJ Wilcox says, “This week, LinkedIn released a fantastic new feature to their ads product that is an absolute game-changer for business-to-business companies. It’s called Account Targeting, and it allows you to upload a list of up to 300,000 company names and target ads to only those companies. Here’s a story to illustrate the power of this new functionality: I walked into a marketing team meeting and immediately knew there was a problem. The team was close to hitting their goal, but trending behind the curve, and it looked like we might miss it. The CMO made the decision to dump more... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Social media has not only revolutionized the way that people communicate and stay in touch; it has completely transformed business and marketing practices as a whole. Over the past five years, social media websites have become some of the largest and most meaningful pieces of the digital marketing puzzle. While many still maintain that social platforms are for communicating and not slinging products, others would vehemently disagree; just look at Facebook, Instagram and other networks’ efforts to integrate e-commerce options. Generating revenue is, by many standards,... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “Facebook has announced a new test for the Related Articles feature in its News Feed. That feature, launched in 2013, would show related stories right below an article after you read the article and returned to News Feed. In the new test, Facebook will show related stories before you click to read an article. Based on trending stories — that is, topics that many people are already discussing on Facebook — Facebook will show additional articles from publishers about the same topic, giving readers the ability to read about alternative perspectives and third-party fact-checkers”. Facebook... [...]