At Retail Conference, Google Dangles Shiny New Visual Ad Format
The visual-first ads are here. Google announced at the retail conference Shoptalk on Wednesday that it is launching shoppable ads in image search, propelling the search giant into the center of the visual zeitgeist that has made Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat hot targets for advertisers.
Marin Q4 Advertising Report Shows eCommerce Ads Skyrocketing, Instagram and Search Growth Strong
Digital marketing software firm Marin Software has released its Q4 advertising report, which points to major trends in social, search, and e-commerce. Instagram is taking on an increasingly central role in Facebook’s main business, e-commerce ads are booming YOY, and search remains fundamental to digital advertising, the report shows.
Facebook to Integrate Technical Infrastructure of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
While the move indeed indicates that Facebook’s chief executives are looking to centralize acquired properties that once operated with relative autonomy, the integration also marks a response to growing concerns over user privacy. Under this new technical configuration, all the messaging platforms will be endowed with end-to-end encryption, warding off the possibility that people other than those taking part in conversations will ever read messages sent on the platforms.
How Brands Will Select Key Partners in 2019: 5 Key Takeaways from Affiliate Summit West
Robert Glazer: This year’s Affiliate Summit West conference took place earlier this month in Las Vegas. And just like every year, performance marketing experts gathered to see some of the potential challenges and opportunities the space is likely to see in 2019. This year’s conference gave them plenty to chew on. There were five topics, in particular, that I found to be most important. Here’s a closer look at them.
5 Hot Retail Strategies in Play This Thanksgiving Weekend
Top retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. In one of the biggest pushes we’ve seen in years, retailers around the country are embracing interactive technology and social channels in a play to capture a greater share of consumer holiday spending. Read on to learn about five innovative strategies.
New Hires at TripAdvisor, Rio SEO, Snap
Every two or three weeks, guest columnist Geoff Michener rounds up some of the latest hires and openings in local and digital marketing. This week’s roundup also includes openings at Instagram, ThriveHive, and LoopMe.
Local News Gets New Resource Center With Special Focus on Social Media
A Local News Resource Center to give publishers direct expertise on the “challenges and opportunities” of social media and other issues that confront the embattled industry has been set up at the Local Media Association.
The Rise of the Micro-Influencer and How Brands Can Deploy Them
Today, many brands are choosing to work with influencers with a significantly smaller follower count: micro-influencers. Read on for tips on how to tap micro-influencers for your next marketing campaign.
Street Fight Daily: Instagram Prototypes Giving User Location History to Facebook; Ideal Ad Time—6 Seconds?
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Instagram Prototypes Handing Your Location History to Facebook… Street Culture: Vendasta’s Intention Behind Job Perks and Fun at Work… Six-Second Ads: It’s All About Context…
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Lands Series F, AppLift Shifts Focus from Mobile Installs to Engagement
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Foursquare Picks Up $33 Million Series F Investment… Behind Applift’s Rebrand, a Shift Toward Engagement… Google’s Top Ad Exec to Leave for VC Firm…
Street Fight Daily: Unstructured Data A Big Local Opportunity; Small Businesses Need Cybersecurity Help
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Not All Burrito Eaters Are the Same: Why Advertisers Need to Think Local… Report: Half of Very Small Businesses Suffer Financial Losses from Website Hacks… Why I Love First-Party Reviews…
Street Fight Daily: Google Maps Gets Social, The Hot New Ad Trend Is … Billboards?
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Google Maps Gets Social, Enabling Users to Collaborate on Choosing Local Options… Billboards—Yes, Billboards—Are Having a Heyday in the Digital World… Three Takeaways From DMEXCO 2018: Top Concerns in Digital Marketing…
Street Fight Daily: Brands Reveal Most Effective Local Marketing Tactics, Google Embraces Discovery & Stories
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Survey: Multi-Location Brands’ Most Effective Local Marketing Tactics… Google Search Gets an Update to the Tunes of Discovery and Stories… Customer Data Platforms Compete to Define the Evolution of the Category…
Street Fight Daily: Adobe Reportedly in Talks to Buy Marketo, Walmart Rebrands E-Commerce Effort
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Adobe in Talks to Buy Marketing Software Firm Marketo… Boosted by Fresh Funding, PebblePost Gives Snail Mail a Programmatic Upgrade… Walmart Goes After City Folk with Rebrand of Jet.com…
Street Fight Daily: How to Manage Google’s Local Services Ads, Instagram Building Standalone Commerce App
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA… Social’s Hottest Platform Is Building a Standalone App for Commerce… 3 Tips for Managing Local Services Ads… Ad Tech Needs a Shared ID Solution ASAP…
Street Fight Daily: The (Walmart) Empire Strikes Back, How Brands Forge Emotional Connections
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Inside Walmart’s Rise as a Legitimate E-Commerce Player… Motista Report Indicates What Brands Can Do to Spark Emotional Engagement… Did Ad Blocking Just Flip from Protection Racket to Mobile Marketing Savior…
Street Fight Daily: Agencies Adapt to Amazon, Local News Sites Awash With Ad Fraud
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Hacking Amazon: Agencies Create Workarounds for an Emerging Ad Giant… Local News Publishers Still Mired in Ad Fraud, New Pixalate Data Shows… More than 1,000 U.S. News Sites Are Still Unavailable in Europe Post-GDPR…
Street Fight Daily: Square Opens Its Platform to Developers, Google Pursues the Gamification Route
TODAY IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Square Announces SDK, Opening Its Platform Directly to Developers for First Time… Google Hooks Up With Unity to Entice Advertisers with Game Supply… After Downgrading Publishers, Facebook Explores New Ways to Boost Them…
If We Only Opened Facebook’s App for ‘Time Well Spent,’ Would We Use It Much At All?
If Facebook’s advertisers’ most coveted users are opening its app mainly to scroll through News Feed while waiting for lattés or click on the stray cat video, and if the company truly wants time spent on its app to be “time well spent,” does its core mission even have a viable future?
Human Judgment, Automation, and the Future of Ad Tech
For now, I propose two major concerns—two challenges, even, for further thought—surrounding AI for the ad tech industry. The first is that the datafication of human experience that has allowed for precise ad targeting needs to be radically reconsidered, not just in terms of what can be done to obtain the consent of consumers for data collection, as the rising privacy movement has called tech companies to consider, but also in terms of what is lost and what is truly gained when the attributes of real people are transformed into consumer data. The second is that the human-machine hybrid decision-making model, while surely the best available in a hypothetical set that also includes human-only and machine-only models, will have to grapple with the bias and poor decisions of the humans who program the machines that will take on the task of regulating large platforms at scale.