Tim Nichols says, “Online advertising has come a long way from the tacky, blinking banner ads of the 1990s. Today, sophisticated, highly targeted online ads are delivered through a plethora of digital channels, from search engines to mobile apps – and a growing number of marketers are reaping the benefits. With the right strategy, savvy tools, and smart resource allocation, even the smallest of businesses can take on the giants of the online advertising world. Here are a few small changes you can make to improve your online advertising and make your digital dollar stretch a little further: 1.... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Today, Google announced that display ads created in Flash now will be converted automatically to HTML5 to make them eligible for viewing on mobile devices and browsers that do not support Flash. The feature was originally announced last fall among a slew of updates designed to make Google’s display formats more mobile-friendly. The ads will be converted when advertisers upload Flash ads to AdWords directly or through third-party tools. Until now, Google displayed a static image backup of an ad where Flash wasn’t supported. Now the ads will display as fully interactive... [...]

Jonah Goodhart says, “Brand marketers are shifting their focus away from traditional digital metrics like the click and toward new metrics such as attention. How did we get here? Virtually every year there has been some sort of innovation: new ad sizes, formats, functionality, targeting and re-targeting techniques and programmatic buying methodologies. We have seen quite a transformation from the day the first 468×60 banner ad was put on a website and the user was encouraged to click. While the innovations in general have been tremendous, we have actually seen a surprising lack of innovation... [...]

Ian Harris says, “Find out why now is the perfect time to start programmatic display advertising. Now is a great time to start programmatic display advertising for three reasons: Few companies are doing it, so competition is nowhere near as fierce as other forms of online advertising. Those that grasp the potential are doing very well indeed. Many of those doing it are not doing it properly; some companies simply buy media through Real-Time Bidding (RTB) platforms, without taking advantage of the optimisations available. By finding an agency with transparent fee structures, you will be up... [...]

Gina Broom says, “If you have a Facebook page set up for your brand, (and let’s face it: by now, you should), then you’ll be familiar with the little “Boost Post” button. I’d like to take this opportunity to say that if you don’t have a Facebook page set up to promote your brand by now, then for goodness’ sake, get one now! Whether you’ve actually clicked that button or not, I’m going to go through it with you and let you know how to make the most of the best feature: highly targeted audience filtering. How Does the “Boost Post”... [...]

Mark Mars says, “Many businesses concentrate their social media marketing on the three most-used platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. However, if you’re one of those businesses, you may be missing some tricks by not harnessing the potential of other social networks. This article will highlight five alternative options that may help to support your marketing strategy. 1. Tumblr Often, brands dismiss blogging site Tumblr for not being corporate enough, or being under the radar. But it now contains 217 million blogs and 99 billion posts. The network is most popular with 18-29-year-olds,... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Which words in subject lines significantly increase consumer opens of marketing emails, and which words significantly decrease opens? To find out, Alchemy Worx used the Touchstone platform to analyze data from 21 billion marketing emails sent by 2,500 brands. The research included an examination of thousands of subject lines, word by word, to determine their influence on open rates. The words in subject lines that increase open rates most, on average, are upgrade (+65.7% compared with average open rate), just (+64.8%), content (+59%), go (+55.8%), and wonderful (+55.1%),... [...]

Nikhil Jain says, “With the constant changes in the SEO industry and more frequent Google updates, it is extremely important for webmasters to follow the latest changes and adapt their websites according to them. We have all heard it countless times and still I will repeat it – adapt or die. It is not a secret that since all these updates, your on-page optimization is more important than it ever was. Before even starting an offsite optimization campaign, you should make sure your website is fully prepared for it. As we move into 2015, let us have a look at 15 of most important on-page SEO... [...]

Jami Oetting says, “Website visitors are banner blind. And if they do pay attention to the display ads cluttering their online experience, they can put a stop to irrelevant messaging by installing an ad blocker. Hey, it’s tough for any brand to compete with plug-ins that can replace banner ads with pictures of puppies and kittens. But this isn’t to say banner ads are all bad. In fact, there have been some pretty creative uses of the display format. But overall, people are tired of being bombarded with ads that don’t apply to them or are ill-timed. They lost trust,... [...]

Lara O’reilly says, “Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Taboola are paying the owner of Adblock Plus of to unblock ads on their websites at a fee of “30% of the additional ad revenues” they would have made were ads unblocked, The Financial Times reports. Adblock Plus is the most popular advertising blocker browser extension and has been downloaded more than 300 million times. The free service claims on its website that it blocks “annoying” banners, pop-ups and video ads. Eyeo, the German company that owns Adblock Plus, says the add-on has more than 50 million monthly... [...]