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Online > Print in 2010
Spending on online advertising and marketing will surpass print for the first time in 2010, according to Outsell Inc. More...

E-Mail Marketers Focus on Recipients’ Interests, Behaviors
Small- and medium-sized businesses are taking up their arms to battle against the self-defeating clutter plaguing inboxes in 2009. Personalization and targeting are the names of the game in 2010. More...

US Users Watched 32 Billion Videos in January
According to comScore, 32.4 billion videos were watched by 173.4 million unique U.S. Internet viewers in January, with the usual suspects leading the way. More...

Mobile Facebook and Twitter Booms, MySpace…Not so Much
Social networking sites are being accessed more and more via mobile browsers, but not all the big dogs have loud barks. While Facebook and Twitter are thriving in the mobile realm, MySpace seems to be foundering. More...

Headlines from the Industry
A review of headlines from the industry. More...

Videos and Social Media to be Big in E-Mail Campaigns
According to a recent GetResponse survey, small and medium business (SMB) marketers are increasing their use of video e-mail, social media and personalization or targeting. More...

Small Businesses Dive into Social Media
Social media usage among small businesses has doubled from 12 percent last year to 24 percent this year, partly helped by the weak economy, according to Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. More...

Oscar Buzz:: 'Avatar,' Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock Lead the Way
If online buzz determined the Academy Awards, "Avatar" would have no trouble winning for Best Picture, according to Nielsen. More...

Android Gains in Smartphone Ad Requests
According to recent figures released by AdMob, smartphones running on the Android operating system are accounting for a growing share of smartphone ad requests. More...

Twitter Ad Platform Very Close to Launch
Will ads in Twitter streams turn off the social networking giant's users? This is a question that the company seems ready to face as Twitter seems set to unveil an ad platform in early March. More...

Week in Review
Review of headlines in the industry More...

Mobile Network Operators Rule Display Ads, Yahoo! Leads in Impressions
According to comScore, mobile phone network operators got the most impressions from online display ads in the U.S. in 2009. More...

Digital Coupons Boost Coupon Use
The use of coupons increased in 2009, thanks partly to the surge of digital coupons, according to Coupons.com. More...

Bing Boosts its Market Share in January
According to three major reports, Microsoft's Bing was the search engine that had the strongest January, while Google and Yahoo! struggled. More...

5 Billion Mobile Subscriptions in 2010
There will be 5 billion mobile cellular subscriptions around the world in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). More...

Life Insurance Searches Soar in 2009
The Internet is increasingly becoming a go-to source of information for life insurance, according to comScore. More...

Google + iPad = Mobile Advertising Boom in 2010?
If you yawn when you read another headline about mobile advertising and its ever-pending explosion, you’re surely not alone. It seems that year after year, experts are touting the mobile platform as the next big thing that needs to be on top of every marketer’s mind. More...

Facebook Adds 5 Million Users in January
How does the biggest social networking site kick off a new year? By adding 5 million new users. More...

Worldwide Search Market Grew 46% in 2009, Bing Boost Microsoft
According to recent figures released by comScore, more than 131 billion searches were conducted by users around the globe in December, marking a huge year-over-year increase. The Russian Federation in particular saw enormous gains in the number of searches conducted during the year. More...

More Time Being Spent on Social Media Sites, Twitter Users Grow Fast, Get More Involved
Social networking site users located around the world spent 5:35:05 (hh:mm:ss) on sites like Facebook and Twitter in December, up 82 percent from 3:03:54 in December 2008. In December 2007, 2:10:27 was spent on social networking sites by the average user, according to Nielsen. More...

More Spending on Mobile Apps Expected
Social apps are old news. Mobile apps are where it'll be at in 2010. More...

The problem with online continuity
The problem with online continuity rests not confused consumers who don't understand how to read, but rather with the horde of marketers tripping over themselves to push the next guy out of business by doing things that invite trouble for everyone. More...

Employers Using Social Networking Sites to Research Candidates in UK and US
According to a recent survey conducted by CareerBuilder.co.uk, 53 percent of employers in the U.K. are using social networking sites to screen potential employees. More...

Emerging Markets More Tech Savvy Than Mature Markets
Consumers in the U.S. are utilizing more advanced technologies now than they were two years ago, but they may be lagging behind their counterparts in emerging markets. More...

More Consumers Shopping Via Smartphones
According to two recent studies conducted by Compete and Motorola, respectively, point to the clear trend of consumers utilizing their mobile phones for shopping-related activities. More...

Internet to Play Major Role in Money-Saving New Year's Resolutions
Performics recently revealed the findings from its 2009 Online Buyer Economic Trend Study' which includes a widespread emphasis on saving money in the New Year. Consumers seem set to utilize the Internet to help them toward keeping to this goal. More...

Google, Facebook are Top Web Sites at the Start of 2010
According to data recently released by Experian Hitwise, Google and Facebook are topping quite a few different lists at the start of 2010. More...

Angelina Jolie, Barack Obama are Top Celebrities in 2009 Spam
Celebrities are great spam bait, McAfee notes in its "January 2010 Spam Report." Though they're "often treated in a less than dignified manner," the company decided to take a simple look at the top male and female celebrities who appeared in spam subject lines in 2009. More...

Online Ad Spending to Decline for First Time Since 2002
According to eMarketer, U.S. online advertising spending is expected to drop this year for the first time since 2002. The good news is that an upswing is expected early in 2010. More...

Nearly $20 Billion in E-Commerce Spending, ‘Green Monday’ Expected to be Huge
According to recent figures released by comScore, nearly $20 billion in e-commerce spending was recorded during the first 41 days of the November to December 2009 holiday season, with Monday expected to be a record-breaking spending day. More...

32% of Americans Might be OK with Behaviorally-Targeted Ads
Market research company Synovate recently published the findings of a recent global advertising study and found that nearly a third of Americans are at least open to the idea of behaviorally-targeted advertising. More...

Internet Ad Revenues Creep Up in Q3 2009
The latest report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) show that Internet advertising revenues increased in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, a "hopeful" sign. More...

Black Friday Online Sales, Searches Up, Average Spending Down
Despite the lingering cloud of economic turmoil covering most of the U.S., the realm of e-commerce seems to be doing just fine, thank you. According to comScore, Black Friday saw a big boost compared to the same day last year. More...

Ad Impressions Rise 21% in October
Overall ad impressions in the U.S. rose 21 percent in October, with financial services, travel and retail leading the way, according to Nielsen Online. More...

Blog outreach and why it is important to affiliate networks.
Affiliate networks engage in blog outreach to communicate their message to the audience in the affiliate community. More...

Social Networks to Play Big Role in Holiday Shopping
We all know that the Internet is a huge part of online shopping, especially during the holiday season, but according to a recent survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation and Yesmail, online shoppers will lean heavily on social networks during this year's spree of online holiday shopping. More...

Android Users More Likely to Use Data Features than iPhone Users
There may be a lot of things iPhone users have that Android users don't, and vice versa, but according to recent figures released by Nielsen, more Android users are using their phones for data and Web usage purposes than other smartphone users. More...

80% of Consumers Won't Pay for Online News Content
According to a recent report titled "Publishers Need Multichannel Subscription Models", released by Forrester Research and written by Sarah Rotman Epps, 80 percent of consumers say they wouldn't bother with newspaper or magazine content online if they had to pay for it. More...

Small Businesses Shifting More Toward Social Media, E-Mail, Search
Less than half of small businesses are expecting higher revenues by the end of the year, according to a report conducted by Hurwitz & Associates and sponsored by Campaigner. More...

Microsoft Takes Up a Lot of Time
In September, Microsoft Sites took up almost 15 percent of the time spent online around the globe, according to comScore's World Metrix service. More...

Internet is Top Source for Sports News and Information
According to a recent survey conducted by Burst Media, the Internet is the top source for sports news and information for both men and women. More...

YouTube, Hulu Attract Record Audiences in September
Google Sites kept above the online video fray yet again in September, finishing the month with more than 40 percent of online videos watched by U.S. viewers, according to comScore. More...

Online Retail Sales Set to Grow 8%, But US Consumers Plan on Spending Less Overall
The holiday shopping season looks to be a mixed bag, as Forrester Research expects online retail sales to grow and the National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasts a decline in U.S. consumer spending. More...

Twitter and Social Networks Cost UK Businesses $2.25 Billion
Morse, an IT services and technology company based in the U.K., recently found that the use of Twitter and other social networks by employees while at work is costing businesses in the country a pretty penny to the tune of £1.38 billion, or $2.25 billion, each year in lost productivity. More...

Retailers Meet Consumers in Social Realm, Holiday Spending Buzz is Down
Online retailers are flocking to the place on the Internet where a lot of attractive consumers already are: social networks and shopping sites. More...

Online Marketing Works Well in the UK
According to the AT Internet Institute, more than half of the visits to Web sites in the U.K. using online marketing campaigns come from these very campaigns. More...

Facebook Traffic Increases 194% in September
According to recent figures released by Experian Hitwise, the number of visits to Facebook in September increased nearly threefold from a year ago. More...

86% of All E-Mails were Spam Messages in September
Symantec's October "State of Spam" report notes an increasing number of e-mails containing malware, new popular spam subject lines and that the vast majority of e-mail messages were spam in September. More...

10% of Online Display Ads Are Locally Targeted
Of all display ads in four major U.S. markets (Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.), 10 percent are locally targeted, according to a recent study conducted by comScore. More...

First Half of 2009: $10.9 Billion in Online Ad Revenues, Down 5.3%
According to a recent report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. during the first half of 2009 were $10.9 billion, reflecting a 5.3 percent decline from the same time span last year. More...

SEO and Multilingual Marketing
As useful as a single marketing strategy covering every industry and every consumer demographic would be, the chances of success with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach are close to zilch. More...

The Big, Bad World of Online Pharmacies
According to a recent report released by MarkMonitor, an enterprise brand protection company, the vast majority of online pharmacies is uncertified and offer suspiciously low prices. More...

Social Networking Sites Gobble Up More Time, Ad Dollars, Lead to More E-Mail Use
Nielsen has recently unveiled loads of information related to online social networking sites, including reports on increased time and ad dollar spent on them, users' demographic information and a surprising finding that increased use of these sites leads to increased use of e-mail. More...

More Than 10 Billion Videos Viewed on Google Sites in August
According to a recent report released by comScore, a record number of online videos were viewed in August as Google Sites accounted for nearly 40 percent of them. More...

Idaho is Most-Spammed State, Halloween and Christmas Spam Beginning
According to recent reports released by MessageLabs and its parent company, Symantec, Idaho is the most-spammed state in the U.S., while holiday spam has begun honing in on Halloween and Christmas. More...

Online Ad Spending Stays Above Water, Verizon Top Ad Spender
Advertising in general is suffering in 2009, as everyone knows. However, further supporting indicators from earlier this year, it appears that the Internet is faring relatively well in these rough economic waters, and is set to continue its success in the coming years. More...

Signs of Security Boost Sales Conversions
According to a recent white paper published by security firm McAfee, sales conversions see significant increases when a visible indication of security is seen. More...

Social Networking Sites Have Little Influence on Women's Purchase Decisions
Are women swayed to make purchase decisions based on their social networking experiences? The answer seems to vary depending on who you ask. More...

Video Gamers Depend on Word of Mouth, Hands-On Play
According to a series of reports released by The NPD Group 41 percent of gamers look to word of mouth to get their information about video games, while nearly a third relies on hands-on play at a friend or family member's house. More...

Non-Delivery Reports, Newsletters Used in Recent Spam Attacks
According to a recent report released by PandaLabs, non-delivery reports (NDR) are being exploited by tricky spammers. More...

Twitter Makes Us Dumber, Facebook Makes Us Smarter?
According to a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland, Facebook may be good for working memory in the same way that war games and Sudoku are, while Twitter may actually harm it. More...

iPhone Leads the Way for Mobile Ad Impressions
According to a recent report released by Millennial Media, a mobile ad network based in Baltimore, Apple’s iPhone served the most mobile ad impressions in July. More...

Gmail Users Most Engaged With Marketing E-Mails
Gmail users appear to be more engaged with the marketing e-mails they receive in their inboxes than their Hotmail, Yahoo! and AOL counterparts, according to a recent look into stats by e-mail marketing service provider MailChimp. More...

Coupon Users Are Plagued by Expiration Dates and Invalidity
A survey commissioned by Coupon Craze and conducted by Harris Interactive reveals that though online shoppers are well-educated and relatively wealthy, many are prevented from taking advantage of savings offered through coupons because of expiration dates and other reasons for invalidity. More...

US Advertising Fell 15% in First Half of 2009
The Nielsen Company reported earlier this week that ad spending in the U.S. dropped 15.4 percent in the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008, with Cable Television the only media category to see an increase. More...

Floating Ads Have Big Dwell Rates
Click-through rates just got some competition - dwell rates are the new kids on the block and they appear to be packing some enticing stuff. More...

Feature Phones Still Beating Smartphones
A recent report released by The NPD Group, a market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y., shows that while smartphones get most of the buzz, their inferior regular cell phone counterparts still rule the landscape. More...

Fortune 100 Companies Using Twitter Most Despite Babble and Spam
More than half of Fortune 100 companies are using Twitter to establish a presence on the Internet, while less than a third are using Facebook fan pages. More...

Market ahead of the pack
Finding new marketing strategies, ideas and offers will allow you stay ahead of the competition, grab your consumers attention, and in the end, give you a much bigger ROI. More...

One-Fifth of E-Mails Don't Reach Inboxes
According to a recent report released by Return Path, titled "Return Path Deliverability Benchmark Report", more than 20 percent of commercial, permissioned e-mails do not reach the inboxes of their intended recipients in North America. More...

Mobile Technologies Mostly Improve Productivity
Do the Internet and mobile technologies enhance or hinder work productivity? More...

56% of Americans Accessed Internet Wirelessly
A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project in April found that 56 percent of Americans said they had accessed the Internet with laptops, cell phones, game consoles and other wireless devices. More...

Twitter Linked to the Most in E-Mail Marketing Campaigns
According to New York-based e-mail marketing analysis company Email Data Source, Twitter is the most linked-to site in e-mail marketing in 2009, followed closely by Facebook. More...

Spam = 92% of All E-Mail
According to McAfee’s Q2 Threats Report, spam and botnets are at all-time highs, with the quarter’s boost in spam volume marking the longest streak of increasing spam volumes ever. More...

Social Network Sites Used to Keep in Touch, Have Fun
According to a study conducted by Anderson Analytics, all age groups in the U.S. use social networking sites more to keep in touch with friends than anything else, while big portions of older age groups are using Facebook and MySpace. More...

Economy Dampens Back-to-School Spending
The National Retail Federation’s most recent back-to-school shopping survey, “2009 Back to School Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey,” shows that the economy will put some downward pressure on back-to-school and back-to-college spending this year. More...

Puppy Arbitrage
If we step back and take a longer-term view of the world, the business landscape is dotted with companies and services that did well for a while but ultimately ceased without evolving. More...

The Friend Test
In some ways we lament the recent decision by Yahoo to ban all ads that either directly or indirectly point to non-branded diet and teeth continuity programs, which means this could be the beginning of the end for the various Rachel Ray's diet blogs and Mom's Teeth Journal. More...

Getting to know your Traffic
When you are working in the online marketing world it is important to understand your traffic completely. So many online marketers get busy and forget to really dig in and get to know the traffic they are marketing to. More...

The Psychology of Mailing
Email marketing is very much an exercise in human psychology, at least effective email marketing. More...

Mobile, Online Video Ads to Buck the Downward Trend in 2009
Google was both the top parent company and the top Web brand in June, according to Nielsen Online. More...

Career Sites Grow in Recession
According to recent figures released by comScore, career services and development Web sites saw their audience grow 10 percent in June compared to the same month last year. More...

22% of Marketing E-Mails are Opened, 6 percent Are Clicked
According to a recent report released by Epsilon, 94.1 percent of marketing e-mails were delivered in Q1 2009. Additionally, the quarter saw an open rate of 22.1 percent and a click-through rate of 6.1 percent. More...

Dangers of working Direct
As affiliates start promoting offers and get their presence known in the affiliate world they may be contacted by an advertiser to work directly. At first glance this may seem to be a great opportunity but if examined closely there are warning signs to watch for. Too many times affiliates find out the hard way that working direct opens the door for greater risks to them. Let's examine some of the top risks and also see how affiliate networks can offer that added level of protection for the affiliate. More...

US is the Biggest Spam Offender
A recent report released by IT security and data protection firm Sophos shows that the U.S. is the most flagrant offender on the worldwide spam stage. More...

France, US Mobile Phone Users Make Voice Calls Most Frequently
The "phone" in "mobile phone" might be a bit misleading, according to a recent study published by London-based Lightspeed Research. More...

Effective Use of Promo Codes in Affiliate Marketing
One of the most exciting things about being in the affiliate marketing industry is the way it constantly changes. More...

Will email marketing get defined standards?
If you talk to anyone who works in email marketing, they will tell you that deliverability is a moving target and that standards and best practices are always changing. More...

US Ad Spending Recovery Will Lag Behind World's
Recent figures released by ZenithOptimedia show that 2009 will be worse than expected, and while a worldwide recovery will begin in 2010, the U.S. won't see black again until 2011. More...

Social Network Ad Spending to Increase Slowly
According to recent figures released by eMarketer, worldwide online social network advertising spending is set to grow 9 percent in 2009. More...

Facebook is the Most Valuable Social Network Site
According to a recent study released by Anderson Analytics, Facebook is the most popular and valued social networking site. More...

The Presence of Kids Online
According to a recent report released by Nielsen, the active online universe included 16 million children between the ages of 2 to 11 in May, which accounts for 9.5 percent of the total. More...

Online Video Viewership Rises in UK
The number of online videos viewed in the U.K. in April rose 47 percent compared to the same month in 2008, according to comScore Video Metrix. More...

Internet Explorer Losing More Ground
While Microsoft may be making headway with its new Bing search engine, its Internet Explorer Web browser is seeing a marked decline in use. More...

E-Mail Marketing Open Rates Declining
Worldwide e-mail marketing open rates sagged to 12.52 percent in the second half of 2008, according to a recent report released by MailerMailer. More...

Let the Holidays Work for You
What does a holiday weekend mean to most working people? Well, for most it means time off of work, however, not for affiliate marketers. If planned correctly, holidays can be some of the most profitable times for affiliate marketers. More...

Retail Ads Up, Software Ads Down
According to recent figures released by Nielsen Online, total ad impressions dropped 5 percent in May compared to April, with retail goods and services seeing the largest increase and software seeing the largest decline. More...

Recovery in Global Advertising Near?
GroupM, a unit of WPP, recently forecast a decline in global advertising spending in 2009, followed by a modest recovery in 2010. More...

Personalized Ads Viewed Favorably, With Limits
What is the impact of personalized advertisements on the advertisers that deliver them? More...

Mobile Data Plans Most Vulnerable to Financial Hardships
According to a recent study conducted by Strategy Analytics, mobile data plans are the most vulnerable to being dropped by U.S. consumers, while home broadband subscriptions are the most guarded. More...

The Low Down on Media Buys
When it comes to Media Buys, the road to success can take many twists and turns, but should always consist of a strategic plan, proper execution, detailed optimization, scalability, and the testing of new offers. More...

Word-Of-Mouth: Real vs. Virtual
Despite the buzz surrounding online word-of-mouth initiatives, particularly on blogs, it appears that recommendations from close family and friends are far more influential than those found on the Internet, according to Mintel. More...

Google Wins May Without Bing in the Mix
Google unsurprisingly took the lion’s share of the U.S. search market in May, but will Bing’s popularity take a bit out of the search giant’s piece of the pie in June? More...

France is the Biggest Illegal Video Downloading Offender
According to a recent study released by Futuresource Consulting, 8 percent of consumers in the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. admit to downloading content illegally from file-sharing sites. More...

Facebook Leapfrogs MySpace, But Not Completely
The word is out: MySpace has finally lost its crown as the king of social networking sites to Facebook. More...

What Can You Do to Prevent a Rogue Employee from Destroying Your Business?
By Sticking Together. Help the Internet Marketing Industry Police Itself. More...

Marketing for Father's Day
Along with the arrival of Father's Day weekend comes the anticipation of the first day of summer, family barbecues, and vacation planning. More...

Grocery Purchases Most Influenced by Product Placement
According to recent figures released by Myers Publishing, product placement is among the few advertising channels to see growth in the U.S. this year. More...

E-Mail Marketing to Reach $2 Billion by 2014
According to a recent forecast made by Forrester Research, e-mail marketing spending in the U.S. will reach $2 billion by 2014, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 11 percent from $1.2 billion in 2009. More...

Word-of-Mouth Influences Eating Out the Most
People don’t trust advertisers, but they trust their friends. More...

Internet Ad Revenues Fall 5% in First Quarter
According to numbers released late last week by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, online advertising revenues in the U.S. were $5.5 billion in the first quarter of 2009, reflecting a 5 percent drop from the same period last year. More...

Why not go International?
A question that arises when affiliates become successful, or even comfortable with affiliate marketing, is “What is the next step?” More...

Sometimes Less Can Be More
Cheap email sends, endless campaigns that just made money, and the little thinking that went into email marketing, made it a shining star compared to other marketing mediums in its infancy More...

McAfee: High Click Rates on Fewer Spam Messages to Continue
In McAfee’s latest research report, “June 2009 Spam Report,” the antivirus software and network security company reviewed the spam world during President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office and explained why it expects a troubling trend to continue. More...

Marketers Not in Tune With Text Messaging Madness
Mobile users, especially younger ones, are sending and receiving text messages at a frenetic pace, according to various sources. More...

Most Industries See Decline in Total Ad Impressions in April
According to data from Nielsen Online, total ad impressions in April declined 11 percent from the previous month. More...

Mobile Games are Popular
A survey recently conducted by Information Solutions Group and sponsored by game developer PopCap Games reveals that 57 percent of AT&T mobile subscribers in North America have ever played a mobile game. More...

Interactive Marketing Has Increasing Support of Marketers
The fact that marketers have placed a bigger emphasis on ROI during the recession is nothing new, but new data published by PROMO magazine offers a unique peek into this trend. More...

What is Data Management?
Each day advertisers in our industry are generating leads/sales with their offers. More...

UK Internet Audience Makes a Comeback
According to Nielsen Online, of the 10 countries it tracks, the U.K. experienced the biggest month-to-month boost in its Internet audience in March, while Australia experienced the only decline. More...

More than Half of Mobile Users Access Content Each Week
According to a recent study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, a consulting company, 51 percent of mobile phone users access content with their mobile devices on a weekly basis More...

Efficiency is Key Draw for Ad Networks
Ad networks, which eMarketer defines as brokers who are the middlemen in between Web site publishers and advertisers, are used primarily because of efficiency, reach and targeting benefits, according to a study conducted by Collective Media. More...

Maximizing Potential of Twitter
Twitter is showing up in many headlines lately. Good, bad or indifferent the micro-blogging service is being talked about and thousands of people are continuing to sign up daily. More...

E-Commerce Satisfaction Drops
According to a recent report released by ForeSee Results and FGI Research, consumer satisfaction with the top 100 e-commerce sites declined 2.7 percent in Spring 2009 compared to Spring 2008. More...

Mobile Advertising to Rise 36%
According to a recent report released by Magna, a unit of Interpublic Group, mobile advertising will increase at a brisk, but slower-than-originally-forecast pace this year and will almost double by 2011. More...

Hulu Rises, Hurts YouTube with ABC Deal
Last week Hulu scored a big win when The Walt Disney Company announced its plan to claim a 30 percent stake in the successful online video destination. More...

BlackBerry Curve Trumps iPhone
Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Curve was the best-selling smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009, taking over the ever-popular Apple iPhone 3G, according to The NPD Group. More...

Successful Email Lists: Do you have one?
You've done the hard part. A list of 2 million email addresses is now in your possession and the money is soon to roll in. More...

Ad Spending Dropped 9.2% in 4Q 2008
According to a report released earlier this week by TNS Media Intelligence, total advertising spending dropped 4.1 percent in 2008 to $141.7 billion compared to the prior year. More...

Vertical Ad Networks: Growing Phenomenon
According to a report released earlier this week by comScore, vertical ad networks are quickly emerging as an effective tool to reach a wider, more engaged audience. More...

Swine Flu Generated More Buzz Than Susan Boyle
Swine flu madness took hold of the U.S. last week as reports of the illness trickled from Mexico into the states. More...

Online Sales Rise in Q1 2009
According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research and Shop.org, online retail sales in the U.S. rose 11 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter in the previous year. More...

Mother's Day Spending Expected to be Lower
Mothers in the U.S. can expect more frugal gift-giving this Mother's Day, May 10. More...

A new twist to choosing top campaigns
In the early years of affiliate marketing, picking an offer was as easy as finding the highest payout for the offer you wanted. There was no need to look into an offer any further. More...

Energy Used for Spam Could Power 2.4 Million Homes
A study recently released by McAfee asserts that the annual amount of energy used for spam-related activities around the world could be a lot more productive if used otherwise. More...

YouTube Still Top Online Video Brand, Hulu Grows
According to recent figures released by Nielsen Online's VideoCensus, online video usage grew across the board, with YouTube continuing its dominance in the market. More...

US Internet Population Jumps in January
Nielsen Online recently released its figures for the number of active Internet home users in 10 countries for the month of January. The U.S. saw the biggest month-to-month increase in its Internet population. More...

Is your offer really exclusive?
As our industry continues to evolve and change, we are seeing more exclusivity between advertisers and the networks that serve them. Exclusive is defined as something that is not divided or shared with others. More...

Mobile Advertising to Grow, Mobile Spam to Decrease
Mobile advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to grow relatively modestly in 2009, according to eMarketer. However, the medium is expected to see more rapid growth beyond this year. More...

Easter Bunny Not as Lucrative This Year
Not even the Easter Bunny can stay above the recession’s rough waters. More...

China is More Into Mobile Web Than US
A recent report released by Netpop Research, a market research firm, found that users of Web-enabled mobile devices in China are much more likely to use them to connect to the Web than their American counterparts. More...

18% of E-Mail Marketers Do Not Track Results
Digital marketing agency eROI recently released the results of its e-mail survey, titled, “Use of Analytics in E-Mail Marketing Campaigns” and found that more than 18 percent of respondents said they do not track their e-mail campaigns. More...

Google Chrome is the Fastest, But Does it Matter?
Safety tests and market share are nice, but everybody loves a good race. More...

Google Launches Free Music Service in China to Gain on Baidu
Earlier this week, Google unveiled a post-beta music service that allows Internet users in China to stream or download music at no cost, thanks to the ad-supported model it is based upon. More...

Internet Fraud Complaints Cost $265 Million in 2008
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that in 2008, the organization’s Web site received 275,284 complaints of fraudulent and non-fraudulent issues on the Internet, a 33.1 percent increase from 206,884 complaints in 2007. More...

The Value of a Top Notch Affiliate Network
for the majority of publishers and advertisers, the advantages of affiliate networks have proven to be a solid foundation and should continue to out-pace the direct relationship More...

Affiliate Marketing: An Ever Changing Industry
Change. Its been a big buzz word over the last year and many people have mixed emotions over it. Whether you're an advocate for change or you wish things would just stay the way they are, one things for sure...the world is changing. More...

The Ins and Outs of Lead Caps on Campaigns
Many affiliate marketers have experienced the recent trend of lead caps on campaigns. A hot new offer is launched within a network, with a specific number of leads rationed out to affiliates per day. More...

Mobile Access to News and Information Doubles in Popularity
According to figures released earlier this week by comScore, nearly 22.4 million U.S. mobile phone users accessed news and information (excluding social networking) on a daily basis in January, reflecting a huge boost from last year. More...

Ad Spending in 2008 Down 2.6%
According to The Nielsen Company, total advertising spending in the U.S. dropped 2.6 percent in 2008, with just two out of 19 categories seeing increases from 2007. More...

Social Networking Overtakes E-Mail
A report published earlier this week by Nielsen Online indicated that social networks and blogs are now the fourth most popular online activity. More...

Direct Mail Declines for the First Time
According to recent data released by the Winterberry Group and Mintel Compermedia, direct mail spending and volume declined for the first time in 2008 since it was first tracked in 1945. More...

Safari Dominating Mobile Browser Market
While Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser still has a strong hold on its leadership position in the traditional browser market, Apple's Safari mobile browser has an even stronger grip on its top position in that market. More...

ROI is King
According to iMedia Connections, marketers in the U.S. appear to be eyeing strategies that offer more measurable results. More...

Career Sites See Gains in January Traffic
The implications of the precipitous downturn in the U.S. economy for the Internet are many, and include a general boost in traffic for online career development Web sites, according to recent figures released by Nielsen Online. More...

73.3% of All E-Mails Were Spam in February
The most recent MessageLabs Intelligence report showed that the e-mail spam rate declined slightly in February compared to the previous month, while the phishing rate saw a small increase. More...

How does an Email Marketer cut through inbox clutter?
Email marketing has had so much success that we are now starting to see more restrictions on deliverability and lists are becoming less responsive due to the increasing amount of competition. More...

Optimize your way to PPC success
If you ask the top pay per click marketers what is one of the factors that have allowed them to achieve their success it’s their ability to optimize campaigns. Being able to adapt to the changing demands of the market can determine whether a PPC campaign will be successful or just a drain on your budget. More...

Spam Landscape Shifts a Bit
Symantec recently released its “The State of Spam” monthly report for February 2009, which showed that the U.S. is losing a bit of ground to other countries in terms of being a region of origin for spam. More...

Online Video Ad Spending Still Growing ... Slower
According to the expectations of AccuStream iMedia Research, online video ad spending will grow 22.5 percent in 2009. More...

comScore on 2008 and 2009
On Monday, comScore released its "The comScore 2008 Digital Year in Review" report, which highlighted important online marketing trends in the U.S. and gave some general expectations for 2009. More...

Huge Opportunities Exist in The Online Dating Space
I have spent the last few weeks digesting my thoughts and analyzing where I believe the online dating space is headed this year. More...

Retailers Look to Expand Video, Cut Podcasts
Tight times call for drastic measures for online retailers. To many, this will mean cutting less necessary marketing tools and spending more on ones that are worthy of investment. More...

Spam Resurrection in 2008
If you received 45,000 spam messages in 2008, you’re an average unprotected user, according to Google, which drew its data from the Postini Message Security network. More...

Display Ad Prices Plummet: Huge Opportunity To Buy!
Remnant display prices for a long time have just been totally out of hand. Fortunately the recession has brought these prices down back to more of a realistic level, half of what it was in Q4 of 2007 compared to what it is was in Q4 2008. More...

May I Interest You in Dessert?
You've just launched your product's first Affiliate Marketing program. Congratulations! More...

Lessons Learned From The Frontlines of eCommerce
It is hard to escape the platitudes and suggestions that accompany a New Year. The tendency is to look back and try and learn from what has occurred in the past and apply that wisdom towards creating a more fulfilling future. More...

Finding Balance in Search Advertising for 2009
Corporate budget cuts during recessionary environments are often felt first by advertising initiatives, leading to an increased scrutiny on performance-based metrics such as return-on-advertising-spend (ROAS). More...

Macro Economics of Search Advertising
Scenario: Supply of your product/services is still going strong, but demand has begun to decline as consumers reduce discretionary spending. When the terms ‘recession’ and ‘depression’ are being debated as to which one best describes the economy, good advertisers know it is time to change focus. More...

China > US
There are now more than 1 billion users in the worldwide Internet audience, according to comScore’s latest World Metrix report. More...

Google, Electronic Arts Win December
According to the most recent figures released by Nielsen Online, Google was the top parent company while Electronic Arts Online was the stickiest brand online in December 2008. More...

Google Reaches 78 Percent of Americans
The most recent numbers released by comScore Media Metrix show that Google reaches 78 percent of Americans using the Internet and that online retail sites saw growth despite poor holiday sales. More...

Americans Spend 30 Percent of Leisure Time Online
Internet users in the U.S. spent about 30 percent of their leisure time online in 2008, according to a study conducted by TNS Global. More...

In the Midst of Massive Layoffs, Some Still Hiring
The tech industry has not been immune from the massive number of layoffs during the past year. More...

Italy Sees Dramatic Decline in Internet Users
Nielsen Online recently released its monthly count of active Internet users around the globe for October. More...

US Online Video Viewers Watch 34 Percent More Videos
In November 2008, U.S. Internet users saw nearly 12.7 billion online videos, reflecting a 34 percent increase compared to the same month during the previous year, according to comScore Video Metrix. More...

Xbox 360 Gets a Lot of Buzz
According to the latest figures released by Nielsen Online, the Xbox 360 is getting a lot of online buzz this holiday season. More...

Internet is Better than Sex
A recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive and Intel found that 65 percent of U.S. adults don’t think they could live without the Internet. More...

US Web Users Are Confident
Americans have always carried themselves with a particular dignity - one that sometimes errs on the side of arrogance. More...

Diversify Today
The old saying: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” may be a cliché but has withstood the test of time for good reason. Risk management techniques of diversification are an important strategy for savvy business people to implement in any industry. More...

Black Friday Online Shoppers Slept in
According to figures released by comScore, online shoppers spent $534 million on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving. This reflected a 1 percent increase from last year’s $531 million figure. More...

Improving Deliverability
List managers are constantly on the search for ways to improve deliverability. I continually get asked, “how do I inbox AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail...?” More...

Networking: The Invaluable ROI
EPC’s, CTR’s and eCPM’s are all crucial numbers that make the online marketer’s day go round. It is through these numbers that our ROI and the key to our financial success in the online media space will ultimately be determined. More...

The Art to Compliant Emails and Offers
As I sit and go through my email on a daily basis, I am amazed at the emails I get which are not compliant. More...

Christmas Comes Around Once a Year - Even in A Recession
The holidays have arrived! There's that crisp chill in the air, the fresh smell of Christmas trees, the burning candles of the menorah, and of course the snowmen and hot cocoa. More...

Spam Down, Trojans Up?
McColo was shut down last week. If that makes no sense to you, you’re probably not alone, though you’ve probably benefited from its meaning. More...

the end of
After patching up 11 vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.0, 12 vulnerabilities for Firefox 2.0 and announcing the end of "end of life" plan for Firefox 2.0, Mozilla has capped a busy couple weeks with the unveiling of "tear away" tabs. More...

Hulu Gaining on YouTube
YouTube is better known than Hulu, it's been around longer and it boasts almost 14 times more users, but Hulu is on track to rake in just as much revenue as its forerunner in 2009. More...

Fewer E-mails Being Opened
A study recently conducted by MailerMailer showed that the average marketing e-mail open rate fell to 13.20 percent in the first six months of 2008. More...

Online Sales Shrinking
According to comScore, e-commerce sales have been sliding down a steep hill this year. While growth is still happening, figures are declining closer and closer to no growth at all. More...

Spam Profit Margin sux0rs?
A team of seven researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego got into the Storm botnet to get a closer look at how much money spammers might be making. More...

The State of the Browser Wars
The dust from Google Chrome's arrival has long since settled, so it's time to refocus for a bit on the two current big boys in the browser wars: Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. More...

US Loses More Than 2.5 Million Internet Users
Half of the 10 countries followed each month by Nielsen Online saw their active Internet home user populations drop in September compared to August. The U.S. lost the most users, while Switzerland lost the largest percentage of its users. More...

Employees Like Social Networks and Personal E-mail
A survey released on Monday by 8e6 Technologies, an Internet security company, showed that a majority of employees in the U.S. and the U.K. visit social networking sites at work and feel they should have full access to them. More...

Even the Rich Are Watching Their Spending
According to recent surveys released by Unity Marketing and Ipsos Mendelsohn, affluent households are spending less of their money on luxuries and are choosing instead to focus on improving their homes. More...

Mobile Ads Get Lots of Memorable Exposure
Limbo, a mobile social network, partnered with GfK Technology, a market research company, to release their Mobile Advertising Report for the third quarter of 2008 on Monday. More...

Top Sites do not translate well on mobile phones
In hopes of promoting a new product, Bango, a mobile Web technology firm, reported that half of the 20 most visited Web sites according to Nielsen Online did not translate well on mobile phones. More...

Blogs Have Power to Influence Purchases
A study titled “Harnessing the Power of Blogs” sponsored by BuzzLogic and conducted by JupiterResearch asserts that blogs have important influence over consumers’ purchasing decisions. More...

E-mail More Influential Than Social Networks
For marketers trying to reach the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, e-mail may actually trump those trendy social networks in terms of effectiveness. More...

Spam Gets Worse
According to the latest figures released by IT security and control firm Sophos, eight times more malicious e-mail attachments were sent out in the third quarter of 2008 than in the previous quarter. More...

Will the Real Spam King Please Sit Down?
As I was checking my email this morning, an article on MSN caught my eye: “Will the Real Spam King Please Stand Up?” It was written by Dan Tynan of PC World. More...

To Click or Not to Click
When it comes to display ads, every creative requires a call-to-action. As user awareness of banner ads decrease, techniques must evolve to increase Click Thru Rates (CTR’s). More...

The Facebook App Landscape
It seems that Facebook has officially cemented its new interface recently, taking away the little bar at the top introducing the new look to users and asking them for feedback. More...

Obama Campaign Geeks Out
Sen. Barack Obama has broke a new barrier last week: he became the first presidential candidate to place campaign ads in online video games. More...

Mobile Phones Are Not so Safe Anymore
Though viruses and spam are nothing short of ubiquitous on the Web, the Georgia Institute of Technology Information and Security Center (GTISC) recently reminded consumers of the inevitable overflow of these troubles into the mobile realm. More...

Your Trade Show Survival Guide
The industry is buzzing with meeting requests, party invites and last minute travel plans. Yes, it’s that time of year again for Ad:Tech NY. While it’s easy to get swept away with the excitement of the show, it's important to establish a plan to make the most out of each and every trade show. More...

Fear Decreases Illegal Downloading in the UK
In what might be seen as a sign of encouragement to those concerned with the issue in the U.S., illegal downloads have declined in the U.K. because of fears that connections to the Internet might be cut off. More...

Consumers Research Products and Services Online
A recent study released by Universal McCann highlights the importance of online research to active adult Web users around the globe. More...

Platform-A Tops Yahoo, Google
Recent figures released by comScore indicate that AOL’s Platform-A advertising network retained its top spot on the list of the top 50 ad networks in the U.S. by unique visitor in August. More...

Conversion Mastery: How Professionals Get Top Conversions
Testing is the mantra of our industry. Most people recognize its importance in creating more conversions. More...

Rich Households Disappear
In the midst of a dreadful year for financial markets, it comes as no surprise that TNS, a market research company, is claiming in a recent report that the number of wealthy households is on the decline. More...

Regular Text Ads: A Good Bet
A recent report released by analytics firm iPerceptions Inc. notes that good old text ads are most likely to attract clicks, followed by display ads. More...

Charlie Rose Knows
While he may not be the youngest journalist on the block, Charlie Rose, 66, along with his staff, are showing an understanding of the power that can be harnessed on the Web. More...

Why has it Become so Difficult to Earn Top Network Admittance?
Which network(s) represent the best opportunity for maximum returns? More...

The Economic Sky is Falling
With the shocking performance of Wall Street on Monday that jolted the world of so many Americans, it is easy to begin to feel like Chicken Little with images of the sky falling. More...

Bloggers and Ads
Technorati ask full-time and part-time bloggers about their advertising habits and found that more than half of them ran ads on their blogs, according to the blog search company's "State of the Blogosphere" report. More...

MySpace Still King, Facebook Growing Faster
Though MySpace still maintains a healthy lead over Facebook in the U.S., there are more indications that point to a shift in favor, according to a recent report released by Hitwise. More...

Online Shoppers Have Higher Expectations
Google and Facebook have set the bar high, even for online shopping sites, according to a survey released by Allurent. More...

Online Video Viewership Grows as CPM Rates Could Decline
ABI Research, a market research firm, recently noted that the number of people watching online video by way of a Web browser nearly doubled from last year's figure. More...

The Coming eRevolution in Online Marketing
Change is something we all seek to better understand. In the marketplace, thousands of minute innovations occur daily. More...

WSJ.com Going Social
Paying subscribers to The Wall Street Journal's Web site (WSJ.com) will see a little more value-added to their Web experience on Tuesday. More...

IMDB Adds Video
On Monday, IMDB.com added video content to its movie database Web site. The Amazon-owned online destination will offer over 6,000 videos, including movies and television shows, at no cost to users. More...

E-mail Marketing: Increase your ROI
Here's a fact: E-mail marketing has the highest ROI of all online traffic generation methods. With a return of $57.25 for every dollar spent, the ROI for e-mail marketing is more than 150 percent greater than that for non e-mail online marketing More...

What Makes Customers Buy?
One of the amazing fascinations of consultants is the age old Question, "What is it that makes customers buy?" More...

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 Launched for Developers
In the dust trailing behind the big news of Google’s Chrome browser stood the unveiling of Mozilla’s Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 for developers. More...

Google Chrome Market Share Hovers Around 1%
There were various updates concerning Google Chrome’s market share in the browser realm late last week following its September 2nd release date More...

Obama Trumps McCain in Online Buzz
Recent figures released by Nielsen Online showed that despite all the recent buzz surrounding Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the online buzz was still focused largely on the presidential candidates: Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. More...

Smartphone Sales Slow Down, RIM Looks Strong
While Gartner recently indicated that 32.2 million smartphones were sold in the second quarter of 2008, a 15.7% increase compared to the second quarter of 2007, it showed a slower pace than what the 60% growth rate observed earlier in the year. More...

Common Denominator
The concept of common denominators is something we all learned about in elementary school, and like many elementary school lessons - cursive handwriting, long division by hand and finger painting - some of us may require a quick refresher course. More...

Are Email Submits Dying Offers?
Everyone somewhere or another has come across this email subject, "Click Here to receive your Free Macbook Air" or some other latest and greatest product. More...

Advertisers Discover a New, Innovative Key to Reaching the Masses
So try to picture this - you are creating an ad campaign for a new product or service and you want to reach a mass audience. More...

The Biggest Misconception about Marketing Online!
There is a great story I recently heard that reminded me about what it takes to be successful in marketing your business. More...

Spam Correlation with First Letters
Richard Clayton, a researcher and security expert from Cambridge University, conducted a study that found a link between the first letters of e-mail addresses with their likelihood of receiving large amounts of spam. More...

Lots of Mobile Gamers in the U.S.
An estimate by eMarketer suspects that there are 31 million mobile gamers in the U.S. in 2008, compared to 23 million in 2007 More...

European Internet Audience Grows 8 Percent
According to recent figures released by comScore World Metrix, the Internet audience in Europe grew from 223.9 million visitors in June 2007 to 241.8 million in June 2008, a growth of 8%. More...

Spam Success Rate: 29%
What’s the biggest problem with spam? It’s not that people get away with it and profit from it; it’s that an ungodly number of recipients actually open them up and act on the offers they see in those spam messages. More...

Newegg Bites Thumb at NY
Late last week, word got out that Newegg, an online computer hardware and software retailer, was going to stop charging residents of the state of New York sales tax on their purchases. More...

Competing with the Big Dogs in Social Media Buying
The buzz surrounding Social Networking sites may cause media buyers to shy away from allocating budget to the social networking platforms. More...

TESTING: The Golden Formula for True SUCCESS
How many people or companies do you know that get it right the very first time? More...

YouTube Mobile Sees Ads
While the traditional YouTube site hasn’t exactly reached monster status in its advertising rakes, Google seems to think it’s about time to dip their toes into the water in the mobile advertising realm for its wildly popular online video site. More...

U.S. Tops World with Malware
Malware has wrecked havoc on many computers around the globe, but according to recent figures released by Trend Micro, nowhere has its effect been as harsh as the United States of America. More...

Pre-Roll Video Ads Get Good Responses
A recent study conducted by Break Media in conjunction with advertising technology provider Panache shows that pre-roll and overlay video ads shown online are engaging viewers quite well. More...

Firefox Users vs. Internet Explorer Users
So, what’s the main difference between Firefox users and Internet Explorer Users? Many people would point to the tech savviness of their respective users, and they might be right. More...

Choosing Wisely for Your Ideal CPA Network
Okay, so you’ve done your research and are interested in promoting campaigns through a CPA Network. Smart move - the right CPA network is like hiring an in-house sales team - but ten times more profitable. More...

Traffic Generation Alternatives
The language of the internet is slowly moving to audio and video. Will you resist the change or embrace it? More...

Where does my company go from here? Part 3 of 4
If you have an accountant in your company, the conversation about spending money to go to a trade show might go something like this: the sales department needs to go the XYZ trade show in any town, USA and the bill is going to be around $20,000. More...

Mobile Phones Defy Economic Gravity
Yes, the U.S. economy has been in the dumps lately, but that seems to have absolutely nothing to dampen the mobile phone market. More...

Where does my company go from here? Part 2 of 4
It is time to run your business as a business rather than a hobby. You are making money, and have the merchants who trust you and are giving you the payouts that you deserve for traffic you send to them. More...

American Apparel Tops Retailers in Terms of Advertising
Figures released by the comScore Ad Metrix service show that American Apparel, LLC displayed 483.4 million ads during the month of April in the U.S., making it the top apparel retailer in terms of total display ad views. More...

Linux Will Overtake Windows in Mobile Realm
ABI Research recently predicted that Mobile Linux will outdo Microsoft Windows Mobile in the mobile Internet device (MID) market by 2013. More...

E-Mail Suffering Because of Social Networking, Text Messaging
It comes as no surprise that e-mail marketing has been suffering because of the increasing popularity of online social networks and text messaging. More...

Internet Important for Travelers
Destination Analysts recently released findings that point to the fact that the Web is an important tool for leisure travelers More...

Illinois is the Most Spammed State
A recent report released by MessageLabs Intelligence lists the top 10 most spammed states in the U.S. The top 10 list is: More...

Top Facebook Applications
According to recent figures noted by Justin Smith at Inside Facebook (and supported by very similar figures posted at Adonomics), Slide, RockYou, and LinkedIn own the top four Facebook applications. More...

Facebook Applications Continue to Lose Their Luster
Facebook has outgrown its small-guy appeal, and is no longer the “David†to MySpace’s “Goliath,†as both social networks now have about the same number of unique monthly visitors. More...

Spam Comments, Cybersquatting Remain Big Problems
A live "Spam Zeitgeist" meter on Akismet.com shows that a whopping 89% of all blog comments are spam. More...

Online Banking Users: Older, Richer
Ever wonder what the typical online banking user looks like? If you envision an older female with an income in the six-digit range, then you've pretty much hit the mark. More...

ABC.com Edges Out NBC.com, CBS.com
During the 2007-08 broadcast television season, ABC.com attracted the most visits in the U.S., barely beating NBC.com, according to Hitwise. More...

Monetizing Lead Generation Exit Traffic
If you're capturing leads, there are ways to further monetize the information after the consumer has completed your lead form and even much later. I will cover some of the most obvious methods to make more money from the web traffic and leads you're already getting. More...

BlackBerry, Not iPhone Tops 1Q08
A recent International Data Corporation (IDC) report indicated that Research in Motion sold the most smartphones in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2008. More...

Protecting Your Business from Internet Attack
Internet attacks happen more often then you may think. Let me illustrate my point: You get a call from an affiliate or publisher notifying you that your tracking or website appears to be down. More...

Competitive Intelligence and Online Marketing
There are many online tools readily available that can be easily utilized for competitive intelligence gathering. More...

U.S. Broadband is Unimpressive
While the U.S. is generally regarded as one of the more technologically advanced countries in the world, there may be a lot of room for improvement for its broadband connections. More...

Subject Lines Should be 50 or 80 Characters Long, Nowhere in Between
Make sure that your e-mail subject lines are around 50 characters long, or 80 characters long, but not 60 or 70 characters long. More...

Consumers Foresee E-Mail’s Continued Significance
A study conducted by market research company, Ipsos, for online reputation management service, Habeas, found that e-mail is the preferred means of communication, and is likely to remain so for the near future More...

2013: More Than One Billion Online Video Viewers
A recent report released by ABI Research expects the number of viewers who watch videos on the Web to reach at least one billion in 2013, which would entail the current population of online video viewers to nearly quadruple. More...

Online Satisfaction Increases
The most recent annual report released by ForeSee Results shows that online consumer satisfaction has increased over the past year, despite the weakening economy. More...

Nielsen and Hitwise Agree on the Obvious
According to the latest figures released by both Nielsen Online and Hitwise, Google held on to its spot atop the search mountain. More...

iPhone Users Are Promiscuous
When one thinks about iPhone owners, many adjectives might come to mind. Is “promiscuous” one of them? Well, according to a recent survey conducted by Rubicon Consulting, it should be. More...

Part 4: Legal Considerations When Capturing Leads.
I’m not a lawyer and not attempting to give legal advice. But, as a provider of one of the most used lead capture and tracking platforms, LinkTrust, I have seen lead generation campaigns go through dispute resolutions and negotiations. More...

Competitive Intelligence and Online Marketing
There are many tools online readily available that can be easily utilized for competitive intelligence gathering. More...

Breaking the Lead Gen Barrier: 3rd in a 4 part series
To start, I must issue the following notice: Because I co-founded the LinkTrust tracking platform, I'm both very excited to cover the topic of technology and aware that I must speak objectively about platform technology in general. More...

Social Networking Ad Spending to Reach $2.6 Billion
According to revised estimates by eMarketer, $1.4 billion is the expected amount to be spent on advertising on social networking sites in 2008 in the U.S., a 55% increase from 2007's $920 million figure. More...

Social Networking: Mobile and PC
Social networking has already made its mark on the traditional, PC-based Web. MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo have taken leadership positions in global markets and there is little reason to believe that the landscape will change anytime soon. More...

Breaking the Lead Gen Barrier: 2nd in a 4 part series
I probably peaked your interest with part 1 when I shared with you the main benefits of getting into the lead generation business. More...

Mobile Marketing Relatively Unexplored
A recent study conducted by JupiterResearch points to the relatively unexplored nature of mobile marketing. About 20% of online advertisers are testing the mobile marketing waters. More...

Coldplay.com Sees Huge Boost in Traffic
Taking a page from Radiohead's playbook, Coldplay decided to release a single, off of their upcoming album, online for free. More...

Beijing Olympics Sparks Online Attacks
Recent figures released by MessageLabs shows that spam (which turned 30 on May 3rd) was found in 1 of every 1.36 e-mails, or at a rate of 73.5% in April, a 0.3% decline from March. More...

Africa is Far Behind in Internet Progress
Pingdom, which monitors Web sites' uptime, recently posted figures shedding some light on the state of Internet connections in Africa on its blog. Traffic and penetration were focused on. More...

Breaking the Lead Gen Barrier: Part 1 in a 4 Part Series
As the cofounder of Burstabit Media and the LinkTrust tracking and lead management platform, I come across companies all the time who are eager to start brokering leads and co-registration data rather than just sending traffic from their affiliates to their merchant's websites. More...

Obama Wins in Online Video
According to recent figures released by Nielsen Online, presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has a healthy lead in the battle taking place in the realm of online video. More...

Nielsen Online: Google Stagnant
The latest figures released by Nielsen Online show that while more queries were conducted in March 2008 compared to February, Google’s share of the search pie remained the same, while Yahoo! and MSN/Windows Live grabbed bigger shares. More...

Google Leads Online Video Market
According to the most recent figures released by comScore Video Metrix, more than 10 billion online videos were viewed in the U.S. during February 2008, a 3% increase compared to January. More...

Confirmed Opt-In Liked by Consumers, Sparsely Used by Marketers
A recent online survey of 523 e-mail marketers conducted by eROI, an e-mail marketing agency, found that just 30% of the respondents indicated that they use confirmed (or double) opt-in for signing up consumers. More...

China > U.S.
While China’s economy is experiencing some form of a slowdown, it does not seem to be slowing down the growth of the country’s Internet population, which was declared to have surpassed the size of the online population in the U.S. More...

Platform-A Leads All Ad Networks in March
Recent figures released by comScore regarding online advertising networks showed that AOL’s Platform-A ad network (which includes Advertising.com, Quigo, and Tacoda) led the pack, reaching 90.7% of the total number of Internet users in the U.S. during March 2008. More...

Only 1% Say They Have Clicked on a Mobile Banner Ad
A recent study conducted by Forrester Research revealed that the mobile advertising market still has a ways to go before marketers can depend on it the way they have come to depend upon traditional Web marketing. More...

Google is Not Done Dominating the Search World
While Google remains a virtual equivalent to anything related to the word or idea of “search,” it might be easy to overlook its current moves to ratchet up its dominance both in the states and overseas. More...

Bird’s Eye View of the Web in March
Nielsen Online and comScore Media Metrix offered various rankings and data concerning the Internet, from a broader perspective More...

Online Privacy: The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) And The FTC
Online privacy concerns seem to be a very active topic in recent weeks, particularly the practice of Behavioral Targeting (BT). More...

Introducing the LinkConnector Widget, a Powerful Web 2.0 Tool for Affiliates
LinkConnector's new widget technology brings the latest developments in the online world to Affiliate Marketing. More...

iPhone, Internet Explorer Lead Browser Markets
Ireland-based StatCounter recently released browser market share figures. The iPhone (and iPod Touch) is the most popular mobile browser used for Web access in the U.S., increasing its market share by 64%, from 0.14% to 0.23% between December and March More...

Affiliate Due Diligence - You Can’t Automate Common Sense
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking on a panel at the first LeadsCon meeting in Las Vegas. Our panel topic was the “Proper Role of Affiliate Marketing in Lead Generation.” More...

Engagement and Conversational Advertising On Social Networks
I came across an article on CCNMoney.com earlier this week relating to slide.com which was founded by Max Levchin. More...

U.S. Online Advertising Spending Grows Almost 19% in 2007
Recent figures released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus reveal that while U.S. Advertising Spending grew just 0.6% in 2007, Internet ad spending grew 18.9%, making it the strongest category for the year. More...

Coverage Matters Less, Lower Costs Matter More
The end of 2006 seems like a long time ago, and it is fairly obvious that the typical cell phone consumer has had a dramatic shift in expectations and tastes regarding their mobile experiences. This is reflected in the most recent “comScore Wireless Report,” which reported its findings based on the responses of more than 2,000 U.S. wireless cell phone users. More...

After Wikipedia
It should come as no surprise that the majority of Wikipedia’s traffic comes from Google, followed far behind by Yahoo!. This might beg the question: where do these users go afterwards? More...

Active Internet Users Disappear in February
Are people not using the Internet anymore? More...

China Blocks Google News and YouTube
China is no stranger to blocking online content, and it has had a history of fickle attitudes towards Google and its various Web services in particular. More...

Online Video Cools Off in January
The latest figures released by the comScore Video Metrix service shows that while online video in general cooled off in January from its record setting December numbers, Google video sites still held onto its commanding lead in the U.S. market. More...

ValueClick Smacked with CAN-SPAM
Picture this: you receive an email, or see a banner ad, that congratulates you for somehow being eligible to receive a free plasma TV or a free Nintendo Wii, if you would just take a few minutes to complete a survey, with no visible indication of any conditions. More...

When Are Unsolicited Mobile Messages Considered Spam?
The best and simplest answer to the title is actually quite obvious: when the recipient has no interest in the offer at hand. More...

The Future of Online Video Advertising - CPA
With the advent of companies offering video advertising, how do you determine one company from the next? If you are a Direct Response (DR) advertiser they seem to be all the same. More...

Google Wins Handily in February
According to the latest numbers released by Hitwise, Google gobbled up 66.44% of all U.S. search queries in February 2008. More...

Spyware Trickster Forced to Cough up Dollars, Information
Timothy P. Taylor was asked to pay up $4,595.36 by a U.S. District Court for the District Of Nevada, formally ending a lawsuit filed by the FTC in November 2006. More...

The Text Message Spam Problem
In excess of 1 billion text message are sent in the U.S. every day. This figure is expected to rise in the near future, which also means that the issue of text message spam will rise in prevalence. More...

Internet Audience in the U.S. is on Upward Path
There were 188.1 million Internet users in the U.S. during 2007, according to eMarketer. This reflected a growth of 3.4%. In 2008, the audience is expected to grow another 3.1% to 193.9 million, which is approximately two-thirds of the country’s total population. More...

YouTube Upgrading to Higher Resolution
While other video sharing sites, including Vimeo, Dailymotion, and the recently shuttered Stage6, have offered high quality videos, YouTube has not made any visible headway towards that end until recently. The popular online video destination was recently found to be tinkering with the quality of some of its videos. More...

Frustration With Online Sales Reps
Now that I am back from Affiliate Summit and am somewhat getting caught up on work, it’s all about follow-ups. When I was in sales, one of my first priorities would be to follow-up with as many new viable business opportunities as I could. More...

More People File Taxes Online, But Hurdles Remain
The Consumer Internet Barometer, produced by The Conference Board, recently surveyed 10,000 households (with about 70% responding) and found that 40% of respondents plan to file their taxes online this year, compared to 34% three years ago. More...

Taxes and Politics Attract Attention in January
According to recent data released by comScore Media Metrix, it seems that (as expected), last month saw Web users turning their attention to two of the sexiest online categories available: taxes and politics. More...

Mobile Phones Become Likelier Targets for Viruses
Though instances of viruses and hacking on mobile phones are rare, there is evidence and good reason to expect these attacks to rise in the future as users become more dependent on mobile phones for access to the Web, social interaction, and entertainment. More...

LeadsCon Conference April 2nd through 4th
As a multi-billion dollar subset of online advertising, lead generation is perhaps the largest and only such subset to not have its own venue. That changes six weeks from now on April 2 with LeadsCon.com. It is important for the sector to have a dedicated venue for networking, learning, and the promotion of a common agenda. More...

Writer’s Strike Helps Record Month for Online Video
The silver lining to the cloud that the recent writer’s strike has cast upon Hollywood might be the surging consumption of online video content. More...

Spam: Asia and Europe Overtake North America
The most recent figures released by enterprise IT security and control firm Sophos indicate that the U.S. remains the top spamming country in the world, followed by Russia, China (including Hong Kong), Brazil, and South Korea. More...

Online Purchases Reduce Offline Purchases
The majority of online buyers in the U.S. indicate that their online spending reduces their offline spending, according to a recent study conducted by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future. More...

MySpace and Facebook Cool Off in January
According to the most recent figures released by comScore, both MySpace and Facebook saw slight declines in their unique audience from December 2007 to January 2008, although both saw growth from January 2007. More...

Podcasts Get Sexier
Recent estimates made by eMarketer peg the U.S. podcasting audience at 18.5 million in 2007. This number is expected to grow to 28.0 million in 2008, 38.0 million in 2009, 47.0 million in 2010, 56.0 million in 2011, and 65.0 million in 2012. More...

Top Online Advertisers in October
TNS Media Intelligence recently released its list of the top 50 Internet advertisers for the month of October 2007. More...

Mobile Entertainment Has a Bright Future
Worldwide revenues from mobile entertainment are expected to reach $64.8 billion by 2012, an impressive increase from 2007’s $20.7 billion figure. More...

WSJ.com Gives a Free Peek
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has publicly expressed the possibility that the online version of The Wall Street Journal could offer the online public its content for free. As it stands, a year’s subscription to WSJ.com costs $79, while a dual subscription to both the site and the print version costs $99 for a year. More...

The Eyes Still Have It
Whenever there’s an old standard, there are always new ones that try to take its place. The same can be said about marketing and the old standard of reach. The up-and-coming concept of “engagement” has been gaining speed, but it appears that the number of eyeballs that a campaign will reach still trumps every other draw when it comes to alluring media buyers. More...

Online Video Matures
According to a recent study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of U.S. online users who watch videos online increased 45% from late 2006 to late 2007. In 2006, about 33% of Web users said they visited a video sharing site, compared to 48% who said the same in late 2007. More...

Mobile Search: The New Frontier
Recent figures released by The Kelsey Group expect U.S. mobile search revenues to reach $1.4 billion by 2012. In 2007 this figure was $33.2 million, and 2008 is expected to see a figure of around $102.3 million. More...

Online TV Viewers Are More Attentive
A recent study conducted by Simmons, a division of Experian Research Services, indicates that consumers who watch television content online are more attentive than their traditional TV set counterparts. More...

Landlines Disappearing
A recent survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics confirms what everyone already knew: landline telephones are slowly becoming a vestige of the past. More...

E-Mail Marketing: $2.1 Billion in 2012
According to a recent JupiterResearch report, e-mail marketing spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012. More...

U.S. Internet Audience Grows in November
Of the 10 countries that Nielsen Online tracked in November, eight saw increases in their active Internet home user audience. More...

More Americans Use Cell Phones for Entertainment
About 50% more Americans are using their cell phones as entertainment devices now than they did about eight months ago. More...

Social Networks Are Sexy
A couple years ago there was widespread ambivalence concerning the real potential that online video held for financial viability. More...

Out With the Old, In With the New?
Starbucks has relied upon the tried-and-true marketing method called word-of-mouth marketing, and until recently it seemed that that was all the coffee giant needed. More...

Online Ad Spending in Canada Plays Catch Up
Superior currency strength is not Canada’s only boasting point when it comes to comparing themselves with the U.S More...

Healthy Black Friday for Online Retailers
According to recent comScore figures, consumers spent $531 million on online non-travel purchases on Black Friday, a 22% increase from last year’s figure. More...

Rainbows Are Freer For Americans
Radiohead released its latest album, “In Rainbows,” to a great deal of buzz. It was made available online for download at whatever price the consumer desired, including “0.” More...

Online Comparison Shopping Grows in Popularity
Traffic to online comparison shopping Web sites increased during the week ending November 3, 2007, compared to the week ending November 4, 2006, according to Hitwise. More...

Online Advertising to Reach $42 Billion
According to a recent report released by eMarketer, online advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to grow at a rapid pace, reaching an expected $42.0 billion by 2011, which would be equivalent to 13.3% of total media advertising spending. More...

Subject and From Lines Important for Open/Click Rates
Personalization in e-mail marketing efforts is key. Though this is logical, it might behoove marketers to remind themselves of this fact and to check to see if their e-mails appear too shady for the typical consumer’s tastes. More...

Top U.S. Local Markets
Recent figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings show a glimpse into the top U.S. local markets both in terms of total unique visitors and time spent online per visitor. More...

Managing and Minimizing Campaign Tracking Discrepancies
A common trend has emerged in recent years among campaign tracking platforms where the number of successful actions reported by the Network is typically lower than Advertiser data. We all know this difference as the... More...

Old Media Spends Big Money Online
Though print media is far from dead, there is no doubt that the Internet has taken away a good portion of its thunder. More...

Hulu Finally Creeps Out of the Shadows
NBC and News Corporation have been talking for months about a joint venture into the realm of online video. More...

Google’s SearchMash Uses Flash and Snap
For those who are unfamiliar with SearchMash, it is Google’s small, relatively unknown alternative search engine. More...

E-Mail ROI is Falling
Though the return on investment garnered from e-mail marketing operations is still healthy, there has been a downward trend in recent years More...

Spam is Huge in Q3 07
Commtouch, a company that "is dedicated to protecting the integrity of the world's most widespread form of communication, e-mail," released a report last week that indicates that spam reached a new record in the third quarter of this year. More...

NBC Dumps YouTube
During a lull, on my Monday afternoon at work, I decided to check out the latest goodies posted on YouTube by NBC. To my surprise, NBC’s YouTube channel was nowhere to be found. More...

Word of Mouth is Valued
Yes, the title of this article is obvious, but it is the focus of a recent Nielsen study. The main finding from the study was that 78% of Web users around the globe think that consumer opinions are the most effective mode of advertising. More...

Facebook Eyes the Rest of the World
Though it has been no secret that Facebook has had hopes of expanding its territory into international markets, there has been renewed buzz lately thanks to The Financial Times reiterating this on Sunday, and a comment made by Facebook to MSN. More...

Social Networking Sites Being Blocked More Often
According to online security firm ScanSafe, a third of employers are now blocking access to popular social networking sites. This is a 17% increase from last year. More...

Online Shopping Has Grown, Influenced by Social Media
A study titled “How America Searches: Online Retail” released by iCrossing on Monday is similar to a study conducted by the marketing firm in 2005, and discusses U.S. adult shopping habits. More...

Microsoft, FullTiltPoker.com Top Brands in August
Nielsen//NetRatings recently released the top brands in terms of unique visitors and time spent on the sites. Microsoft topped the list of parent companies in terms of total unique visitors in August, while FullTiltPoker.com topped the list of stickiest brands for the month. More...

Google Ready and Willing to Comply With Canada
In August, Privacy Commissioner in Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, expressed major concern over Google’s Street View venture in major Canadian cities. More...

E-Mail Ad Spending Will Lag
E-mail advertising is expected to grow from $338 million in 2006 to $616 million by 2011, reflecting growth of 82%, according to eMarketer. This sounds great until you also see that total online ad spending is expected to grow twice as fast in that time frame. More...

Ringtone Shakeup - Part 1
If asked what an unknown article in the DMConfidential might cover, longtime readers as well as significant others to writers of this publication might guess any of the following - a) Google, b) search arbitrage, or c) the ringtone... More...

Behavioral is Better Than Contextual
According to a recent study done by Forrester for RevenueScience, behavioral targeting advertising efforts are better for reaching online consumers than contextual advertising. More...

B2B Search Marketers’ Budgets Unaffected by Competition
B2B search marketers keep close watch of their competition’s activities. That, of course, is obvious. But a new study released by Business.com takes a closer look into the details and finds that though these search marketers... More...

E-Mail Sites Generate Big Revenue
According to a recent study conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings, e-mail sites are tops in terms of advertising revenue-generating Web site categories in the U.S. In July 2007, e-mail sites generated $260.4 million in ad revenue. More...

Are Your Tracking Links P3P Compliant? They should be.
To understand if you should have P3P enabled for your tracking links, first you need to know what it is. The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) enables websites and tracking... More...

Web Users are Promiscuous
Are Web users faithful to the sites they use? This is the question that Nielsen//NetRatings offers an answer to in their most recent month-over-month data for search, career development, and travel Web sites. The leaders... More...

Complete Mobile Phone Penetration by 2013
In a recent study published by SNL Kagan, the information and research firm indicates that 84% of the U.S. population will have a mobile phone by the end of 2007. This includes consumer, business, and double users. This figure is... More...

E-Commerce Going Strong in 2Q07
The most recent numbers released by the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce show that retail e-commerce in the U.S. had a strong second quarter this year. On a not-adjusted basis, sales totaled $31.82 billion, which... More...

Online Back-to-School Shopping
As August nears its end, swarms of college students are thinking of what they "need" to buy for the upcoming school year. The most popular items and the places where they intend to purchase them are not surprising, but this time of... More...

Strangers Are More Trustworthy Than Religious Leaders
Advertisers are trusted less than anybody besides telemarketers, so it is imperative that they find others to spread the good news about their products and services for them. This is where word-of-mouth kicks in. According to... More...

Mobile E-Mail Users Not Ideal Target for Marketers
Marketing initiatives through e-mail may be an appealing and potentially rewarding venture, but shifting over to targeting mobile e-mail users may not hold nearly as much bang for the buck. This is because of the current limits to... More...

Video Game Industry Will be a Lucrative Channel
Though there are many varying opinions of the current consoles out there, there seems to be no doubting that the gaming console industry will continue to be a financial boon for whoever can muster the courage to fight their way into... More...

Mobile Gaming Revenues on the Rise
Though North America has quite a ways to go to catch up to Asia and Europe in terms of the widespread mobile network availability, Gartner still expects big numbers for the mobile gaming sector in North America. More...

Irresponsible Marketing Hurts Trust
There are many factors that cause U.S. consumers from completing online purchases, and unwanted marketing is a big part of it. Though identity theft is the primary concern, spam and uninvited phone calls and mail are also big... More...

The Way Men Would Do It
Maxim Magazine is hardly a revered source of statistics and information for online marketers, but that didn't stop them from commissioning a study analyzing men's media tendencies. Hall & Partners conducted the study... More...

MySpace Will Enter E-Commerce Game With eBay?
CEO and cofounder of the social networking giant MySpace, Chris DeWolfe, said firmly that "We will at some point offer user-generated e-commerce transactions. So if you're on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have... More...

Hooray for Online Video Ads
According to a report titled "Frames of Reference: Online Video Advertising, Content and Consumer Behavior," online video ads seem to be making good on its promise of good returns. More...

Online Advertising in U.K. Is Expensive
According to a recent study titled "Pan-European Online Advertising Spend" conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, $10.08 billion was spent in online advertising in the 13 countries included in the IAB Europe... More...

Overlapping Pays Off For Advertisers
Atlas Institute, a unit of aQuantive, Inc. released a study on Monday titled "How Overlap Impacts Reach, Frequency and Conversions" which examined the impact of advertising across Web portals such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and... More...

Microsoft Top Parent Company in April
Although Microsoft can’t seem to lay a finger on Google when it comes to search market share, it can claim a bigger unique audience as a parent company than the search giant. In April, Microsoft led the list of the top 25... More...

Google Looking To Profile Online Gamers?
Google has shaken many boots in the past whenever the media picked up on a possible privacy-infringing venture the search giant was looking to take, and there may be another on the horizon. Or maybe not. More...

Broadband Users Spend A Lot of Time Online
According to Media-Screen’s "Netpop|Play" report, broadband users in the U.S. spend almost half of their spare time in an ordinary weekday online. This means that a broadband user spends about an hour and 40 minutes of their... More...

Spam Hurts: Limit Complaints to Improve Results
One of the top challenges of any coordinated e-mail marketing program is maintaining a "clean" reputation with ISPs. Indeed this task can consume so much time and energy that many companies choose to abandon e-mail... More...

Strengthen Your Subscriber Base
More important than what you communicate through your e-marketing efforts, is to whom you choose to send it. Your list of email subscribers or recipients does much more than represent a core group of current or potential... More...

Males Are Hardcore, Females Are Casual
Popcap.com, a Web site that makes various online games available to users, noticed that the vast majority of its worldwide users were female. The precise split was 76% female and 24% male. Apparently, this is not an aberration, but... More...

E-mail Lists Could Benefit From Segmentation
Recent Internet Retailer figures studied by survey software firm Vovici seem to indicate that online retailers who reach their customers through e-mail efforts could benefit from more targeted e-mail lists. More...

Intrusive Advertising = Effective Advertising
There is a myth that exists that advertising needs to be intrusive in order to be effective. While this is not an entirely true statement, in most conditions it is correct. There are two types of products advertised in our market: products in... More...

Online Video Viewers Are Mature
Most people would expect younger Internet users to make up the majority of the online video viewing audience, and most people would be wrong. Recent figures point to an online video audience that has an average age of a little... More...

Google Is The Number One Brand
In another display of their worldwide domination, and in yet another Microsoft upset, Google has been found to be the most valuable brand in terms of dollar value for 2007 by research firm Millard Brown and the Financial Times. It... More...

Are You Measuring Your Business Accurately?
Back in the late 1800’s John D Rockefeller knew a lot about how Standard Oil operated. Rockefeller was trained as a bookkeeper, so monitoring numbers came easily to him. One of the more famous stories from Rockefeller is about... More...

Ad:Tech SF Party Map 2007
It's that time of year again. Time to wear your shoes out, lose your voice, and fill your head full of information. Sessions? Exhibit Hall? No, it's P-A-R-T-"Why" because it's Ad:Tech time. When it comes to parties, San Francisco rarely... More...

Video Game Ad Spend to Reach $1.9 Billion by 2011
According to a recent study released by eMarketer, worldwide video game advertising spending will grow at a compound annual growth rate of almost 23% to reach $1.938 billion by 2011. This figure was $692 million in 2006, and... More...

E-Commerce Conversions Stagnant
Besides a few stellar exceptions, online merchants are seeing very few conversions. According to two studies, conversions for retail e-commerce sites mostly fall in between 2% to 3%. More...

How to make more money with your list using behavioral targeting
For years, we’ve all heard about behavioral targeting for the web and how its going to work... but never quite does... Well, some of the techniques being used in this kind of targeting for web inventory can also.. More...

Lessons from one of the most competitive markets on the Internet
One of the most competitive markets on the Internet for a low cost, general interest product is the government grants information market. It’s filled with people looking for free money from the government, and the level of marketing... More...

Online Video Viewed More by Males
In 2007, the online audience in the U.S. will be made up of 97 million females and 91 million males. This female-dominated ratio does not hold, however, for the total online video audience. More...

Online Ads Channel Malicious Code
Finjan, an online security firm based in San Jose, California, released findings from a study of live Internet traffic in the U.K. earlier this week. The analysis, which included over 10 million unique URLs, found that about 80% of all malicious code is hosted on online advertising. More...

Google Heads into the Tube
The time has finally come for Google to fulfill all the buzz about its entrance into the television advertising game. According to sources, the search king has been testing out trial ads with a few partners and advertisers in Concord... More...

Game Console Ownership Growing
A new report released by Nielsen titled “The State of the Console” reaffirms that gaming consoles are continuing to get a firm grip on American households. This is hardly surprising given the recent buzz surrounding new... More...

Third World Countries Most Keen to Mobile Content
As strange as it sounds, a new report released by the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME), and sponsored by Palm, indicates that mobile device users in developing countries are more eager to access content and... More...

Quality Score Released and Publisher Quality Thoughts
For the first time since the introduction of the Quality Score in August of 2005, advertisers now have a glimpse into their Ad Group’s score. Advertisers learned last week that they could enable a Quality Score column as part of a... More...

Affiliate Mudslinging - The Ringtone Flare-up
“CPA Empire and Mobile Sidewalk Team Up On Ringtone Fraud.” That headline illustrates the difference between being a company and being an affiliate. A company cannot say such things, but a one-man show whose personal branding skills might just top his abilities in search can get away with... More...

TLDs, Font Size and Your Site
It’s common sense that top-level domains (TLD) have a strong influence on domain name selections and the perceptions that are formed by consumers. Rich Brooks of flyte new media wrote an interesting, albeit "unscientific" study... More...

Datran’s 2007 E-Mail Survey Findings
Datran Media, an e-mail and online marketing solutions company based in New York City, recently released their annual e-mail marketing survey, titled "The 2007 Email Marketing Survey: Looking Forward." The survey was... More...

Super Bowl Influences Online Behavior
A recent survey conducted by comScore Networks concerning this year’s Super Bowl found that 10% of respondents said that they intended to visit Web sites of Super Bowl advertisers on game day, while 11% said that they would... More...

Mobile Marketing Sees Increased Participation
Consumers, and younger people in particular, are increasing their interest and participation in mobile marketing campaigns, according to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). More...

Mobile Gaming to Exceed $6 Billion
According to iSuppli Corp., the worldwide mobile gaming industry will surpass $6.1 billion in 2010. This is a far cry from the $1.8 billion the industry realized in 2005. More...

DMA Reports Increased Internet and Catalog Holiday Sales
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today released a white paper on holiday shopping reporting the average combined Internet and catalog holiday sales are 8.3 percent... More...

Search Marketing Gets More Expensive
According to the DoubleClick Performics 50 Search Unit Trends Report, search marketers saw their costs rise during the third quarter of 2006. The average cost to a search marketer who purchased a keyword for the quarter... More...

E-Mail Marketers Challenged by the Same Old Concerns
If you’re an e-mail marketer who is finding the same old concerns popping up again and again, don’t worry, because you are not alone. More...

Lead Quality: Finding the right mix between quality and volume
“How do other lead generation companies pro-actively improve their lead quality while still delivering on the growing volume demands of their clients?” More...

Attention Media Salespeople: Don’t Forget 2007
This quote from the brilliant movie about the salesmen and the hardships they endure, fully explains the importance in understanding media planning, which is true for both the buying and selling departments. It is easy for companies to... More...

What’s in a Follow-Up?
Now that Ad:Tech New York is over, the fun begins. We’re now one week past the show, and if you attended, it’s well past time for all of those dreadful follow-ups. It’s time to kick it in gear (especially if you haven’t yet) and really explore... More...

Lead Quality: “A Two Way Street”
A few months ago, I was talking about the state of online lead quality with the head of performance marketing for one of the top interactive agencies. I asked him to sum up his view on the type of relationship that lead sellers and buyers... More...

AD:TECH: A Collision of Marketing and Technology
Ad:tech is not the place to sell or pitch, but to inform and share the happenings of the fifteen billion dollar Interactive Marketing and Advertising Industry. The three-day conference and two-day expo in New York City was dedicated to the... More...

FTC Raises Fist Against ERG Ventures
About a week after Zango settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $3 million concerning its adware installation procedures, the FTC has its eyes set on a similar battle with ERG Ventures and Timothy P. Taylor, one of its... More...

Online Marketing Jobs: What You Can Earn, What You Can Learn
Folio, a B-to-B review about the magazine industry, held its annual conference in New York City last week. Among the workshops offered at the well-attended conference was, “Search-Engine Optimization as a Marketing Tool”, and the... More...

Lead Quality: Click Fraud vs. CPA Fraud
I picked up the recent copy of Business Week that had a cover story on click fraud and quickly scanned it last week. Now is it just me or can none of the major business magazines in this country resist doing a story on this topic without including the... More...

DigitalLife: Where the hard-core gamers and gadget geeks gather.
DigitalLife is “the ultimate consumer technology, gaming & entertainment event of the year”. The four-day event is dedicated to exposing the digital culture of tomorrow to the consumers of today. Products showcased include... More...

Video Games, Ads, and Nielsen
Sony’s PlayStation 3 is set to release in North America on November 17, in Japan on November 11, and in Europe during March of 2007. This is good news not only for gamers who are drooling over the highly anticipated gaming... More...

U.S. Lags Behind Europe in Mobile Web Access
On Monday, comScore Networks released its findings from the comScore Mobile Tracking Study. The results indicated that 29% of European Internet users access the Web through mobile devices on a regular basis, while only... More...

Out-of-Context the Way to Go for Ads?
A recent study conducted by BL Labs, the research arm of ad network BlueLithium, revealed some surprising information regarding behavioral ads and their performances in context and out of context. More...

The Plan or the Trash Can II: An Email Marketing Guide
The first installment of this email marketing walkthrough covered dividing your email master list into targeted subgroups. This week you can sit back, relax, and learn how to increase the open rates of your email campaigns through sender name optimization. More...

Pixsy and PureVideo Team Up
On Monday, a day that was owned by Google and YouTube’s big news, Pixsy, a “visual search” site that looks for images and videos across thousands of content providers on the Web, announced a partnership with new video search... More...

Microsoft, Ingenio to Deliver Pay-Per-Call Ads
The mobile advertising game got more interesting on Monday when Microsoft and Ingenio, a San Francisco-based company that specializes in delivering pay-per-call ads to mobile device users, announced a deal. More...

Search Engine Marketers to See Big Holiday Season
According to DoubleClick’s affiliate network arm, Performics, online marketers could be in for a huge holiday season. This is assuming that a general rule remains true to form. More...

Online Ad Spend Up 37% in First Half of 2006
According to the latest report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), marketers spent $7.9 billion in their Web advertising campaigns during the first half of 2006. This was a 37%... More...

Google Tinkering with Sponsored Results
Would someone who never clicks on sponsored results when searching on Google be better served if those blue ads on top of the search results were moved to the right side of the page? More...

Xanga Fined Record $1M by FTC
Late last week the FTC revealed that it had reached a $1 million settlement with Xanga.com, a social networking and blog Web site. The fine comes as a result of Xanga’s violation of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act... More...

The Plan or the Trash Can: An Email Marketing Guide
There’s no doubt that email marketing has gotten a bum rap from abusive spammers. Several thoughts, such as long prison sentences for wide scale spammers instantly come to mind in a vague jumble when this practice is... More...

Internet Ad Spend Jumps 49 Percent
According to information released by Nielsen Monitor-Plus and Nielsen//NetRatings, Internet advertising spending increased 49% during the first half of 2006, while overall advertising spending rose 5.1%. More...

Music Downloads: Do Frogs Eat Apples?
Thank goodness Hurricane Ernesto was a dud; Floridians deserve a break from hurricanes and the rest of us are certainly not starved for hurricane coverage. As this storm’s demise became obvious the cable news teams... More...

Zune to Add to Apple’s Growing Headache
Apple’s dominating iPod devices have quickly grown into the face of portable music, but with recent news about Microsoft’s impending line of Zune gadgets and with the recent unveiling of SanDisk’s 8GB Sansa e280 music player, it... More...

AOL and Userplane Have a Future Together
On Monday AOL announced that it had acquired Userplane, a provider of private chat and instant messaging software for online communities. More...

Marketing to the MySpace Generation & The Economics of Social Networking
Examine the history of online social networking and the circumstances which led to the development of MySpace and its subsequent acquisition by ... More...

Futuristic Fashion Goes Viral
No matter how good (or should I say busy?) times are for professionals in the interactive sector, we can never take any status quo in our profession for granted; I believe the old adage “if you snooze, you lose” is applicable... More...

Lead Generation: Pay-Per-Action
The June 20th cocktail party for Exchange Place could have doubled as a movie set. I was an invited guest representing ICMediaDirect.com and among some advertising professionals thoroughly enjoying views of the Manhattan... More...

Gotuit Starts Video Portal with Search and Ad Implications
Gotuit Media, a video-on-demand content provider, recently unveiled Gotuit.com, which is an ad-supported broadband video portal. It hopes to use a tagging system as well as a sleek interface to give users a pleasant... More...

U.S. Still Leads ‘Dirty Dozen’ of Spam
In its most recent “Dirty Dozen” report concerning the top twelve spam-relaying countries and continents during the second quarter of 2006, threat management solutions leader Sophos indicates that the U.S., once again, is... More...

Advertisers Eyeing Podcasts
Nielsen Analytics released a report titled “The Economics of Podcasting” last week. In the report it was indicated that podcasts are garnering an increasing audience of listeners, which has caught the eyes of advertisers... More...

Microsoft to Battle iPod with Zune
Microsoft revealed the obvious, late last week, when they announced their intentions of entering the handheld entertainment market with products under a brand named “Zune.” The Zune brand is expected to be introduced next... More...

Twisting Your Keywords in the Wind
While studying the creatives of competitors throughout my years in the paid search industry, as any self-respecting SEM should, too often have I witnessed the same thing: It seems as though countless search engine advertisers use the same... More...

I’d Like to Teach the World to Blog
The Coca-Cola jingle is one of television’s classics: “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony…” Through the years its message of togetherness hasn’t lost an iota of relevance. The songwriters were alluding to elements of... More...

Google Eyeing Radio Ads
It seems that Google’s futile meddling in print advertising hasn’t perturbed their desire to expand AdWords into areas outside of the Internet. Now Google appears set to make a run at the radio advertising market... More...

Google Making Headway into Video Ads
Last week Google announced that they would begin selling click-to-play advertisements to advertisers in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. It will be a computerized auction service that will allow marketers to place these video... More...

Now I see it
I went to the Optometrist for an eye exam and to get a new prescription for contact lenses (exciting start to an article, I know). I decided to get a six month supply from my doctor, and get a six month supply from the Internet... More...

40% of Adults in U.S. Play Electronic Games
According to the findings of an AP-AOL Games poll, 40% of adults in the U.S. play electronic games on a computer or console. As expected, men, younger adults, and minorities are more likely to play video games than... More...

Bounced E-mails Cost $5B
When a marketer sends their e-mail campaign to a list, they usually use software that takes the message and creates individual e-mails for each recipient. These individual messages are then queued up for delivery. For... More...

Advertisers Urged to Perform Due Diligence
Have advertisers become disconnected with their online ad campaigns? According to the chief of Internet Bureau in the Office of New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, Ken Dreifach, the answer is an alarming and... More...

FCC Changes Fax Advertisement Rules
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules in order to employ the conditions of the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005. The FCC said that so long as businesses have an established business relationship with... More...

Nielsen Norman Study Tracks Eyeballs
A recent study conducted by Fremont, California-based Nielsen Norman Group utilized advanced equipment that tracks the eyes of Web users in order to delve into the minds of a group of participants. The study was done to see... More...