I-COM worldmeasurementnews

Google Search Plus Your World: Monitoring Your Reputation Just Became Even More Important

Janet Driscoll Miller [pictured], President and CEO of Search Mojo writes for MediaPost: GSPYW offers both opportunities and challenges to search marketers.  While you may not have monitored your brand closely on Twitter or Facebook, they haven’t had the immediate impact on search results to date that Google+ has.

Just doing brand searches on Google won’t be enough; you have to see inside the social circles to understand what is being said about your brand that “may” rank for your brand keywords. More...

In US, Extole Secures $10 Million in Series C Funding Led by Shasta Ventures

Following Record Growth in 2011, Leading Social Marketing Platform Closes Round with Participation from New and Existing Investors

San Francisco, CA, Feb. 8, 2012 – Extole (www.extole.com), the leading Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) Social Marketing Platform, today announced it has closed a $10 million Series C round of funding, bringing the company’s total financing to $22 million. The round was led by Shasta Ventures with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Trident Capital. Extole marks the first Shasta investment for Jim Barnett, who joined Shasta Ventures as a partner in November 2011 and has served as Extole’s Chairman of the Board since 2009.

“Brands have a massive opportunity to tap into an entirely new, high-value marketing channel by harnessing the power and reach of their social advocates with C2C Social Marketing. At the same time, our platform also improves the performance of existing marketing channels, such as SEO and display,” said Brad Klaus [pictured, left], CEO of Extole. “The market opportunity is validated by our incredible growth trajectory. We’re thrilled by the vote of confidence from Shasta and our existing investors.”

“C2C Social Marketing will revolutionize how marketers interact with their customers. The market opportunity is enormous,” said Jim Barnett [pictured, right], Partner of Shasta Ventures and Chairman of the Board of Extole.  “Extole has established itself as a leader based on its C2C focus, strong leadership team, and comprehensive platform, making it an easy choice to be my first investment at Shasta Ventures.”  More...

In APAC, XM appoints Lawrence Chua as Analytics Director

SINGAPORE - Digital marketing agency XM Asia Pacific has announced the appointment of Lawrence Chua [pictured] as analytics director for its strategy practice.

Chua will primarily be responsible for helping government, technology, airline and financial services clients get the best returns and performance across different digital touch points, such as web sites, social networks, search and blogs, for marketing activities that cater to both consumer and business audiences.  More...

Embracing Data Structure Is the Future of SEO

Eddie Choi [pictured], Executive Director, Milton Exhibits Group writes at ClickZ.Asia: While many SEOs still optimize tags and links, search engines today are emphasizing more and more in content structure. In fact, everything is content whether it is text, link, or the user-generated comment in social media.

Start embracing data structure in your future SEO plan.  More...

Unlock The Flock And Nix The Demographics

Amit Avner [pictured], Co-Founder and CEO of Taykey writes at MediaPost: Online behavior is very similar to flock behavior -- people flock to topics and quickly forget about them. This flock mentality renders demographic targeting virtually useless.

You need the tools to tell you who to target right now, based on what is interesting for your demographics -- not based on the demographics themselves. More...

In US, Kenshoo Social Announces Global Product Adoption and New Management Hires

Innovative software solutions and experienced talent to drive continued market leadership for social advertising campaign management platform

San Francisco (December 15, 2011) – Kenshoo (www.kenshoo.com), a global leader in digital marketing software, today announced accelerated product growth and key management hires for Kenshoo Social.

“Max (Polisar as Kenshoo Social VP, Sales) and Chris (Knoch as Kenshoo Social VP, Client Services) are great additions to the growing Kenshoo Social team,” said Sivan Metzger [pictured], general manager of Kenshoo Social. “With their unique backgrounds and proven leadership, we look forward to building on our momentum in the marketplace and partnering with the most innovative advertisers and agencies around the globe to drive deep brand engagement.” More…

Laurie Sullivan of Media Post writes: Kenshoo will move to integrate data from Covario Organic Search Insight and other SEO platforms to enable keyword-level analysis and optimization. It's part of the company's product road map for 2012, along with plans to bring check-in data into Kenshoo's platform to view alongside search and social, and compare online advertising with in-store traffic. More…

In US, Adobe to Acquire Efficient Frontier, Leading Digital Ad Buying and Optimization Platform

Acquisition Enhances Ad Optimization Capability for Social, Search and Display Campaigns

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nov. 30, 2011 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Efficient Frontier, a leader in multi-channel ad buying and optimization. Adobe solutions are central to how digital marketing and advertising is created, managed, executed, measured and optimized. Adobe currently captures approximately five trillion digital transactions per year for more than 5,000 customers, including many of the world’s largest advertisers, publishers and advertising agencies.

“With the explosion in global Internet advertising, our customers need to know where, when and how to spend their digital marketing dollars to get the greatest return,” said Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business. “The addition of Efficient Frontier will give our Digital Marketing Suite customers a leading platform for turning ad spend into business impact.”

“Adobe’s vision of digital marketing is perfectly aligned with the Efficient Frontier approach — use data and intelligence to manage risk and drive ROI across a growing number of digital channels,” said David Karnstedt [pictured], president and CEO, Efficient Frontier. “Adobe customers will have greater insight into how their social, search and display spend impact one another and how to optimize their cross-channel campaigns.”  More...

In US, BrightEdge Announces Adobe Genesis Accredited Integration with Adobe Digital Marketing Suite

BrightEdge and Adobe Genesis collaboration delivers seamless integration between BrightEdge SEO and Adobe SiteCatalyst and Adobe SearchCenter+ 

San Mateo, Calif – November 28, 2011 – BrightEdge, the leading site, search and social management platform for global enterprises, today announced release of its BrightEdge Adobe® Genesis™ integration with the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite. Through Adobe Genesis integration with BrightEdge, customers will now get side-by-side views and deeper insights into critical marketing information including BrightEdge SEO performance metrics, Adobe web analytics, and both organic and paid search results across both companies. The solution is Adobe Genesis Accredited on the latest Adobe Genesis 3.0 release. 

“Digital marketers can seamlessly integrate site traffic, conversion and paid search marketing data with organic search marketing tools,” says Christopher Parkin [pictured], Strategic Alliances and Genesis Solutions at Adobe. “By combining the comprehensive search engine coverage and international support BrightEdge S3 offers with the Adobe SiteCatalyst, marketers can easily align organic search traffic data with other key business metrics. This value is further amplified for search marketers using the integration between the BrightEdge S3 platform and Adobe SearchCenter+, as they can now easily create bid strategies based on both paid and organic keyword activity as well as deliver unified reports and rich keyword expansion opportunities. More…

Product Ads and the CPA model: the future of search?

Sri Sharma [pictured], Founder and Managing Director of Net Media Planet writes at Econsultancy Digital Marketing Blog: With its new Product Ads format, which could potentially be offered on a cost per action (CPA) model as well as cost-per-click (CPC) next year, Google is offering brands an entirely new way to engage in and measure search advertising.

The Product Ads format comes with an automated element that does away with the need for advertisers to bid on specific keywords and write ad copy.

The CPA model effectively enables brands to only pay for actions their adverts result in, for example a lead or a conversion on site. More...

Making Brand Advertising Measurable Along the Last Mile

Ari Jacoby [pictured], Co-Founder and  CEO of Solve Media writes at MediaPost: There is no single remedy to address the attribution challenge for brand advertising, but there are steps marketers can take to make it both more measurable and more effective in moving people down the sales funnel. At the very least, there are participatory, engaging ad experiences that will guarantee message comprehension and eliminate some of the guesswork.

It is important to focus on serving brand ads where people are most likely to be engaged by them.  More...