Tim Ash says, “People abandon websites for various reasons. If you’re lucky, they’ll come back to finish what they started; but more often than not, they just forget about it.Abandoners can be hot prospects, and companies spend a lot of money trying to re-engage them so they’ll come back to the site and finish what they started.This is done both through retargeting (paid media) and remarketing (sending a series ofabandonment recovery emails) — two terms that are commonly considered interchangeable.Whether it’s remarketing or retargeting you’re using, the goal is essentially... [...]

Erik Brat says, “A former boss of mine once opined that all marketers are “technophobes” — arguing that if technology applications were not extremely simple and easy to use, then, in the words of iconic New Jersey movie gangsters, fuggedaboutit!While I think many marketers tend to be creative types, I have seen a concerted effort by marketers to better understand and leverage technology, especially measurement tools.Is it enough? With “martech” (marketing technology) all the rage and endless talk of how the CMO technology budget will soon surpass that of the CIO, marketers can... [...]

Jessica Lorenz says, ““The innovation of how the buying process works really has helped us. Not only to help our existing customers, but really gain those new customers through that process and innovation,” explained Matt Ruggle, Ecommerce Manager, Great Northern Corporation, at IRCE 2014.Linda Taddonio, Co-founder and Ecommerce Strategy Officer, Insite Software, and Matt sat down with MarketingSherpa Reporter Allison Banko to discuss a new phase of site optimization: click tracking”.Web Optimization: How to help customers help themselvesMarketingExperiments Blog [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “As more advertisers move toward buying display ads on a viewable impression basis rather than by served impression, Google looked across its display ad platforms, including DoubleClick, to find out what affects an ad’s viewability.A viewable impression occurs when at least 50 percent of an ad in view for more than one second, according to the IAB standard. Google’s study looked at display ads across web browsers on desktop and mobile devices and came away with 5 key findings.1. Viewability averages are being dragged down by a an outsized number of publishers. The... [...]

Kurt Wagner says, “Facebook expanded its video advertising offerings Tuesday, announcing that marketers can now feature autoplay video content within the service’s long-offered App Install ads.This is the first time Facebook has allowed autoplay video in this ad format, which encourages users to download the featured app directly within the News Feed. The update reiterates what Facebook has been hinting at for some time now, that video ads are going to be a major point of emphasis moving forward.And, of course — unless you’ve turned off autoplay in your settings — that you will... [...]

Carmine Lengua Jr says, “The term “selfie” entered our lexicon only recently, thanks to the ease with which they can be taken and distributed via cell phones and mobile data connections. But the practice of taking a photo of oneself is decidedly not a new phenomenon.Last week, I did something I don’t often find myself doing: I watched live TV. I landed on The Voice for a while and caught a Nissan commercial/music video featuring the contestants on the show. This reminded me of the similar ads American Idol used to produce with Ford. While my friend had a visceral reaction... [...]

Roy Rosemarin says, “The biggest misunderstanding about programmatic advertising is it’s a way to buy ads at a lower price, when it’s really about using data to determine the value of ads and pay accordingly.Recently there have been a number of large brands shifting digital budgets to programmatic advertising.However, some of these brands seem to be approaching programmatic in a similar way as offline, by focusing on buying at the lowest price.Advertisers need to be looking at programmatic differently because by using direct buying tactics they are missing an essential opportunity”.Why... [...]

Gina Broom says, “I’m going to tell you a quick story: Recently, I was loading up a YouTube video with a friend, and the usual pre-video advertising began it’s chirpy message. My friend immediately groaned audibly, “What is this!? Why don’t you have AdBlock!?”My aggressively opinionated friend then proceeded to push past me to the computer controls, and installed it on my browser. My friend reloaded the page, and the ad was gone. Not only the ad at the beginning of that video, but all ads anywhere I went”.Paid Advertising VS. Adblock Plus: Major Problem or... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “Responsive design.It’s more than just a buzzword. It’s an optimization challenge.After all, what responsive design really means is that you need more than one optimized design.It is a marketing challenge not to be overlooked. After all, it’s hard enough to discover one effective design for a website that is optimized for conversion. With responsive design, you need three, four or maybe more designs to present optimized experiences for customers on many different devices.To help you overcome this and other mobile marketing challenges, I interviewed Michael Layne,... [...]

Re/code team says, “In the spirit of Black Friday, I’m sending along my holiday wish list to Twitter. I’d like a better search feature, please. And the Direct Messages tool could use a facelift, too.But if there’s room for just one gift this year, I know what’s at the top of my list: Changing the 140-character limit.Since Twitter’s founding in 2006, all tweets have been constrained to 140 characters. It made sense in the early days. Users initially received tweets as an SMS (text message) which had a 160-character limit. No one wanted to receive three or four texts to read a tweet... [...]