Marketing Google

We knew this day was coming, and Microsoft has decided today that it’s time for Internet Explorer to step down. Despite what many of us were thinking (or maybe even hoping), Microsoft’s new browser isn’t called Spartan, but Microsoft Edge. The latest version of Internet Explorer comes with a lot of new features and improvements, but it seems that Microsoft is very serious about burying the Internet Explorer name.The new browser comes with web extensions, so, for example, Chrome extensions can be modified with little code to be used on Edge. Developers will probably know why Microsoft opted fir the Edge brand as Microsoft has used the same for the new rendering engine (EdgeHTML) that is present in its Windows 10 browser.Microsoft said it will keep its Internet Explorer browser for enterprise customers, but a new browser could be another reason for many to make the jump to Windows 10. The new browser comes with such features like digital ink annotation, Cortana integration, and also a b…

Twitter had a tough day on the earnings beat Tuesday. Not only were the company’s first quarter financial results disappointing, they were released prematurely — before the market closed — a glitch that might have exacerbated the 18% plunge Twitter shares took in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange.But beyond the headlines of leaked results and below-expectations revenue, a fair bit of interesting news emerged during the investors call with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and CFO Anthony Noto.Here are some of the biggest takeaways for marketers:Lower Click-Through Rates On Higher-Quality AdsTwitter said it is sacrificing short term revenue in an effort to improve the quality of ads. That’s playing out because Twitter has changed how it charges advertisers for direct response ads. Starting in August, Twitter started offering the ability to pay for specific types of engagement — clicks, conversions or app installs for instance — instead of being charged for overall engagement.Called ob…

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the most common jobs in the country are “retail sales clerk” and “cashier.” The latter category employs roughly 3.4 million people.Over time a large percentage of those cashiers will likely be replaced by in-store self-service checkout and mobile payments. Though it will take some time — most retailers are notoriously slow to adopt new technology — this development is inevitable.A meaningful segment of Millennials (20 percent) would prefer not to interact with cashiers at all in retail environments. That’s according to a survey of 1,000 US adults by local shopping data aggregator Retale.The survey found that 85 percent of respondents have used an in-store self-service kiosk to checkout. That number goes up for Millennials, to 91 percent.Reasons for using self-service checkout:“I have a limited number of items” (72 percent)“there was no line” (55 percent)“I prefer to keep my transactions and financial information private” (13 percent)“I do…

Google’s test to bring visual pop to email has come to an end.Launched in March 2014, the Gmail grid view on users’ promotions tab gave marketers the ability to lead with images rather than mere text headlines. Users were given the option of viewing promotions tab content in grid view or list view. Apparently most preferred the traditional subject line list format.A Google spokesperson confirmed the had ended and said, “We are constantly experimenting with new features and promotion formats.”Presumably the Gmail team is working on other ways to present marketing emails. For now, great subject lines are back at the top of the priority list, as Tom Sather, Return Path’s senior director of email research, discussses in his latest column on writing text-only subject lines that perform.The post Google Pulls Plug On Gmail Grid View appeared first on Marketing Land.

via Marketing Land

Hello from San Francisco and Build 2015. Build is Microsoft’s big yearly gathering for developers. It kicks off today with an opening keynote that will outline major new products and features that Microsoft will launch in the coming months. Chief among these will be Windows 10 both for desktop and phones. HoloLens should get some attention, as will likely Cortana. With the keynote running for nearly three hours, there’s also plenty of time for surprises.You can watch the livestream via this page. Below is our live blog of the event. It begins at 8:30am PT and runs through 11:00am. The post Live Blog: Opening Keynote At Build 2015, Microsoft’s Annual Developer Event appeared first on Marketing Land.

via Marketing Land

This is a story of my experience during the past 2 weeks when I have mostly stayed away from the Internet, allowing me to realize the things I was missing when connected.  When I was a child, my parents used to say the words “Don’t overdo it” to me. While in retrospect this was excellent advice, I was a […]Disconnect To Connect: How I’m Fixing My Addiction To The Internet is a post from ShoutMeLoud - Shouters Who Inspires

from ShoutMeLoud

With a traditionally young and on-the-go population, it may come as little surprise that big cities drive more mobile device usage than suburban areas. Yet, at least in the case of Massachusetts and Boston, the differences are particularly extreme.Despite a population roughly half of some suburban counties, Boston-area users drive nearly the highest amount of mobile activity among any county in the state, with per capita mobile usage substantially higher compared with suburban areas. The city’s substantial commuter workforce may compound this disparity.For marketers, these differences are critical to informing a campaign strategy that understands the usage variances between urban and suburban areas.A Close Look At Mobile Activity LevelsWhile Chitika Insights has conducted a number of state-oriented studies in the past, the nature of the studies limits the degree of granularity that can be derived from the data. With this latest study, the Chitika Insights team wanted to look at Chiti…

With Google’s recent mobile algorithm update, businesses of all sizes are clamoring to remain relevant in Google mobile search. The Mobile Search Survival Guide will not only help you survive the mobilepocalypse, but dominate it.

via Home - SearchEngineWatch

The purpose of “categories,” says author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, is to empower one to seem like a well-prepared mind reader and be able to provide what people need, sometimes before they even realize they need it, thereby “delighting” customers.Buyer personas are one such example of categories. Marketers use them to gain a deeper understanding of buyers and their buying behaviors — and by using them strategically, you can both delight your customers and increase sales.Buyer personas provide a detailed picture of a specific type of buyer’s problems, motivators, goals, and how they purchase. Companies typically have more than one persona to understand their different types of buyers (for example, Data Dan, Marketing Ops Matt, and Custom Acquisition Catie).As buyer personas guru Tony Zambito explains on his site:
Buyer personas are research-based archetypal (modeled) representations of buyers, including what they are trying to accomplish, what goals drive their behavior, how they thi…

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but with Gmail’s latest decision to kill Grid View, we’re back to writing subject lines the old-fashioned way: with textual approaches founded on tried-and-true copywriting methods.What’s the best length for a subject line? Which headlines are better at driving opens? I recently conducted this research study across thousands of brands to find out the optimal formula.The Perfect Length For A Subject Line Is…When it comes to how long a subject line should be, keep a few things in mind.One, look at the most popular devices and email clients that your subscribers are using to read your messages. This will tell you where your subject line will get truncated.The number of characters in your subject line in and of itself has relatively little to do with whether or not your email is opened. In fact, research shows that there’s nearly no correlation whatsoever.Out of the nearly 3 million subject lines looked at, a quarter of them were between 41 and 50 …

I’m writing this from my OnePlus One 1 in an under appreciated Markdown editor called iA Writer. On Monday, SwiftKey announced a new experimental software hub called Greenhouse. Their first product is called Clarity. It’s an experimental keyboard aiming to correct multiple words (phrases) at once. On the same day I discovered Fleksy had updated their app with extensions. I’ve been playing with both keyboards alternatively and this is their story.They’re opposites, really. Clarity is as simple as a keyboard can be on the surface. There are no special options, prediction bar or gesture typing. Clarity’s dedication to simplicity is almost to a fault. You have very little control over the typing process. It’s very hard to go back and correct a spelling mistake. And these little things leave you frustrated.Fleksy ($1.99, free 30 days trial available) on the other hand is immensely opinionated when it comes to typing on Android. It’s filled with gestures I can’t remember and now a whole new…

At last year’s F8, Facebook announced that in a year apps would not longer be able to access data from friends. That change will be effective tomorrow, April 30th when all developers are required to upgrade to API v2.0. So apps that rely on a friend’s location, relationship, status or work history will be out of luck. One casualty, JobFusion, is shutting the Facebook doors for finding employment through friends as the new API v2 simply won’t allow it.According to TechCrunch, there is a new slogan floating around internally at Facebook: “People First”. While there is some interesting applications to friend data, the ability for an app to gather information wasn’t well known. The new change will allow users to control their own privacy without unknowingly sharing data through a friend.In addition to the friend change, developers will now be required to use a new version of Facebook Login in v2.0. This will give more control to users who download the app by allowing them to provide optio…

When entering into a new client/agency relationship, setting expectations and agreeing on "what good looks like" are the keys to having a healthy relationship.

via Home - SearchEngineWatch

Google has pushed out an updated version of its iOS app — 1.2.0 is available now in the iTunes App Store. According to the release notes, this update includes the following new or changed features:Compare data with previous date ranges.Configure your favorite views.Redesigned view selector with search feature.Redesigned date selector.Several UI and performance improvements.The Google Analytics app is free.The post Google Analytics Updates iOS App, Version 1.2 Out Now appeared first on Marketing Land.

via Marketing Land

Bigcommerce this week announced its acquisition of the mobile retail tech company Zing in a move that will expand the former’s omnichannel offerings for retailers.The acquisition combines Zing’s team and intellectual property with Bigcommerce’s e-commerce platform, and will expand Bigcommerce’s relationships in the point-of-sale space.Through the acquisition, Bigcommerce will make available to point of sale partners a set of robust APIs and foundational technologies to enable the development of best-in-class omnichannel solutions for retailers, such as the ability to enable real-time inventory sync between online and physical stores, in-store pickup, and dynamic order management as well as integrated customer data and reporting spanning ecommerce and brick-and-mortar operations.Bigcommerce says more than 30 percent of its 85,000 e-commerce clients also operate at least one brick-and-mortar retail store.The post Bigcommerce Acquires Zing To Expand Omnichannel Retail Capabilities appear…

Opera isn’t as popular as Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox, but their team is always busy developing new features. Back in the middle of the previous month, they announced that the bookmark syncing feature is going to be available for Opera users. Now the Norwegian company has released the final 29 version of the browsers and it comes with some useful new options.The major new feature of Opera 29 FINAL is the ability to browse across a range of devices and be able to sync tabs between mobile and desktop platforms. Furthermore, version 29 also comes with support for customizable keyboard shortcuts and it also brings a new indicator tool to show which browser tab audio is being played from. This last is particularly useful for those moments when you have a lot of tabs and you just can’t find where the sound is coming from.Opera 29 today, works both for computers and for Android users, but chances are that this new features will be made available to iOS users, as well. So, in order t…

The Mi 4i may have been officially unveiled only last week by Hugo Barra but it was leaked very thoroughly well before its launch. And although most predictions about its spec sheet were on the spot, the ones that claimed that the device was a stripped down version of the Mi 4 were perhaps a bit off the mark. For, make no mistake about it, the Mi 4i is a very contrary animal from the Mi 4 in terms of appearance at least, and looks like nothing we have seen from Xiaomi in India so far.Whereas the Mi 4 rested on a steel frame (the company even made a film on it called The Journey of a Piece of Steel to drive home the point), the Mi 4i is unabashedly all plastic. And well, it looks a whole lot smarter to be honest. It has a slightly more boxy look and the back is much flatter than the one on the Mi 4. And while it too is white and smooth, it is not glossy like that on the Mi 4. The front too looks, well, for want of a better word, blacker than the Mi 4. There are steel buttons for the vo…

It’s no secret that Microsoft’s Windows Phone mobile operating system has an “app-gap” problem. The stark difference in the app count in Windows Phone Store when compared to Android’s Google Play, and Apple’s App Store is so wide that even the ‘universal app’ support — which the Redmond-based company announced at last year’s Build conference — has been unable to fill it. But it seems the company is finally ready to tread on a controversial path to solve this age-old problem.As a long time Microsoft beat journalist Paul Thurrott reports, the company will be announcing support for Android apps on Windows Phone platform sometime later this week — I would put my money on the company’s own developer Build 2015 conference which commences later today. If true, this will enable Windows Phone users to try out most of their favorite Android apps — not so sure about Google Mobile Services such as Gmail etc yet — on their Windows-powered smartphone.As crazy as this may sound — and we understand t…

Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.From Marketing Land:Twitter Q1 Revs Miss At $436 Million, Leaked Early By Company That Did Same To Microsoft
Twitter was compelled to release its Q1 earnings early because financial data aggregator Selerity captured and released the company’s earnings numbers early.Shocking! Clickbait Headlines May Be Ruining Your Email Marketing
Study finds that consumers are less likely to open emails with words like “shocking” and “secret of” in the Subject line.Placed Brings Offline Attribution To More Programmatic Players
It’s well documented that more than 9 out of 10 retail conversions happen offline. That’s why measuring offline sales lift and store visits is becoming increasingly important, even critical, to brands and marketers.NewFronts 2015: Yahoo Brings The Stars With Everyone From Simon Cowell To Naomi Campbell Taking The Stage
The focus of this year’s Yahoo presenta…

Twitter tucked some advertising news into its lackluster earnings report today, announcing a partnership and acquisition both aimed at improving the way it measures advertising performance and attribution.Twitter is teaming up with Google’s DoubleClick platform and give Twitter advertisers the ability to track conversions that result from views and other actions on Twitter. Advertisers will also be able to purchase Promoted Tweets using the DoubleClick Bid Manager platform.The move, which will be implemented later this year, will give Twitter better data to show direct marketers how advertising on Twitter pays off. Twitter senior director of product management Ameet Ranadive explained in a blog post:Consumers now move fluidly between apps, devices and platforms, and we need measurement models that take this behavior into account. For marketers to truly understand the consumer path to conversion across multiple devices and platforms, measurement systems have to move beyond traditional …

Twitter was compelled to release its Q1 earnings early because financial data aggregator Selerity captured and released the company’s earnings numbers early. The firm reported that Twitter had missed analyst consensus estimates ahead of the market’s close forcing a halt to trading of Twitter shares.Shares are off 18 percent in after-hours trading.Total revenue was $436 million, which was up 74 percent year-over-year (Y/Y). However financial analysts had anticipated earnings of roughly $456. Ad revenues were $388 million (up 72 percent), 89 percent of which were attributed to mobile.The company reported 302 million users worldwide, 78 percent of which are outside the US.Along with earnings Twitter announced that it was buying TellApart, a cross-device retargeting platform. The company also said it had entered into a partnership with Google’s DoubleClick platform “to improve advertising performance measurement and attribution for Twitter direct response marketers.”Selerity similarly dis…

You won’t believe it! (Actually, I think you will.) Clickbait headlines often work on social networks and across the web, but they’re not a good idea for your marketing emails.That’s according to “The Art and Science of Effective Subject Lines,” a new study out today from Return Path. The company looked at more than nine million emails sent by “prominent global brands” to more than two million consumers between January 1 and February 28 of this year.Return Path found that emails with clickbait-like words in the Subject line had lower read rates when compared to similar emails sent with less clickbait-like subject lines. For example, emails using the phrase “secret of” performed well below average (almost nine percent) and the word “shocking” led to a 1.22 percent drop in read rate. On the other hand, when the wording used more tame language like “get rid of” and “what you need to know,” read rates performed a little above average.The study also found that subject lines with language s…

It’s well documented that more than 9 out of 10 retail conversions happen offline. That’s why measuring offline sales lift and store visits is becoming increasingly important, even critical, to brands and marketers.Only by capturing offline activity can marketers get a complete picture of how their digital media are performing. Offline visits and activity also yield new audience insights that can be factored back into targeting.Google, for example, is placing more emphasis on store visits and offline analytics. Recently, mobile ad platform NinthDecimal and agency ZenithOptimedia announced a partnership to make offline visits a new measurement standard for clients. Before that Facebook introduced Conversion Lift Measurement, which tracks in-store sales impacted by online ads.These are just a short list of examples of how offline/mobile data and ad exposures are being connected in the real world. Indeed, digital-influenced in-store sales are growing quite a bit faster than pure e-commer…