Amid all the recent discussion about ad-blocking and worries that advertising based business models may fail, one bit of good news shines through.

According to Vogue UK, a new survey shows that over 82% of their readers actively pay attention to ads on their sites, and many value ads as much as the content! more»

Facebook is one of the biggest technology success stories of the past decade – transforming from a social network with no apparent revenue model to a highly profitable, global phenomena.

In its last quarterly report, Facebook reported almost 1.5 billion monthly users, generating over $4 billion in revenue!

The amazing fact is that most of that revenue growth results from mobile advertising. more»

Social media marketing has been around for quite some time, and most companies have some appreciation of the benefits of connecting to customers through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Major brands often put significant resources into developing and fine tuning their social network marketing.

This post looks specifically at how the world’s Top 100 Brands use Twitter for marketing – something that many other companies may want to learn from.
more»

Over the past couple of years, there have been a number of companies who thought that delivering targeted information to mobile users based on their current location could be a very lucrative business, e.g. companies such FourSquare or Yelp.

Now Facebook has also entered this business with a new service called Place Tips.

The service will initially be based on bluetooth “Beacons” and is being trialled in New York. more»

When Marissa Mayer took over the CEO spot at Yahoo!, she publicly stated that “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company.”

“We’re late” she said, “We’re behind.”

Now, over two years later, there are signs that Yahoo! is making inroads in the mobile space.


According to new projections from eMarketer, in 2015 Yahoo! should overtake Twitter to become the third largest mobile advertising platform in the US.
more»

“Retargeting” is a very effective, rapidly growing technique to improve the conversion rate from digital advertising. Only recently have advertisers been able to use the mobile channel for retargeting.

A new study from AdRoll looked at the performance of retargeting ads on Facebook, and found that mobile was not only more effective, it was also less expensive. Check out the full study here, as well as a whitepaper on Facebook advertising. more»

Last week, Facebook announced it’s testing a new advertising unit in its Marketplace that will feature a “buy now” button in the ad.

It’s no secret that Facebook is a digital advertising behemoth. eMarketer predicts Facebook will serve over 21% of all mobile ads this year, which earns Facebook the number two spot in all digital ad sales, second only to Google.

That being said, Facebook “buy now” ads simply won’t work. Here’s why.
Industry Opinion by David Rekuc, Ripen eCommerce more»

The pace of technology change and consumer behavior change is so rapid these days that it is very difficult to keep up to date with all developments in the market.

If you only look at one report this year on developments in the market, we highly recommend that you look at this one – Mary Meeker‘s annual presentation about the key trends in the internet and mobile world.

The presentation covers a wide variety of topics including mobile advertising, wearables, apps, content distribution, IPO’s, healthcare technology, and lots more, and not only provides thought provoking insights, but also detailed numbers to back them up.
more»

Details of Facebook‘s new mobile advertising network are now starting to come out, and it appears that this could have a major impact for the industry.

Called Facebook Audience Network, this new service has the potential to increase ad revenues for publishers, while increasing ad effectiveness for brands.
more»

Facebook has announced a new set of targeting options for advertisers wishing to engage with Facebook’s users.

The options are designed to allow more flexibility for advertisers wanting to target by location, demographic, interest or behaviour. more»

World Cup 2014 will soon be here, so Coca-Cola has launched a special series of bottles to celebrate the event. These collectible mini-bottles are decorated with special national colors, and are interactive so that fans around the world can connect over the “Copa del Mundo”. more»

A study released late last year by Nanigans has revealed that mobile Facebook ads on iOS generate up to 1,790% higher ROI than similar ads run on Android!

Nanigans is one of the biggest buyers of Facebook ads, and this conclusion was reached based on a study of more than 200 billion mobile Facebook ads. more»

Two things have become very clear recently:
• Facebook is serious about providing many advertising opportunities
• Consumers love to use Facebook over mobile

This excellent whitepaper looks at recent trends in Facebook advertising, and recommends specific strategies for maximizing returns from Facebook campaigns.
more»

Twitter is certainly one of the hottest topics in the past week, having just completed a very successful IPO that valued the company at almost $25 billion on the first day of trading.

So we thought it would be a good time to review Twitter’s activities in the area of mobile advertising, where much of its revenue is expected to come from.

This article also takes a look at Amplify, a special advertising program that Twitter has created to monetize the second screen TV experience. Amplify has recently been adopted by the major brands such as NFL, Verizon, and McDonalds. more»

Facebook surprised the mobile industry last quarter by announcing that mobile revenue represented 41% of total Q2 ad revenues.

Now third quarter figures have shown a further increase, with mobile representing almost half of Facebook’s rapidly growing advertising revenue. more»

Now, for the first time, they’ve reported a net income of $64 million – citing their increased focus on mobile platforms for the turnaround.
more»

For most mobile and internet shopping sites, the first step in using social media was to add a “Like” or “Follow Us” button to certain pages.

Not a bad start, but now there are much more powerful ways to use social media to drive mobile and online sales. This infographic looks at two key strategies for building commerce through social media. more»

Over the past year, the mobile industry has followed with great interest the progress of mobile advertising on social media site Facebook.

A new report from Facebook now confirms that mobile advertising is becoming a major source of revenue for the company.
more»

Many people expected that social networks and mobile would be a natural combination, but now the numbers are in.

According to recent statistics from comScore, in the US during September, over 50% of Facebook’s and Twitter’s unique users logged on via their mobile device! more»

It has been a challenging year for Facebook, with a disappointing IPO and second quarter results.

But finally Facebook has some good news, with their third quarter results showing that they are starting to figure out how to make money from Mobile. more»

Yesterday Facebook‘s IPO valued the company at over $100 billion, the third largest IPO is US history.

Now that Facebook is a publicly traded company, there has been a lot of analysis about Facebook’s business prospects. With an increasing percentage of people accessing Facebook over mobile, and with advertising being the majority of Facebook’s revenues, clearly the topic of how Facebook will fare in mobile advertising is worth examining.

Kevin Fitchard has posted an interesting article on GigaOm which argues that Facebook cannot simply build a mobile ad business, it must actually help develop and change the overall industry if it is to be successful. more»

Facebook has announced the introduction of a series of new ad products, including for the previously advert-free mobile platform.

The announcement came as little surprise, following the company’s IPO filing a few weeks ago in which they conceded that didn’t “generate meaningful revenue” from mobile users. more»

Facebook has announced that their Deals service is to be launched in the UK and across Europe.

The service, which was launched last November in the US, allows users of Facebook’s mobile services to check in to stores and get discounts from selected outlets.
more»

Two trends have been very clear over the past year:
1) Facebook is becoming extremely popular on mobile, and
2) Facebook is focusing a lot of energy on building up their advertising capabilities and revenues.

So really it should come as no surprise that Facebook has recently acquired a mobile advertising company to help them advance both these efforts. more»

Sometimes it seems that digital advertising has evolved into an overly complex eco-system with so many interconnected players that it is difficult to keep track of them all.

Take a look at this incredible chart which attempts to provide an overall context and put all the key players into perspective.
more»

Facebook has taken another step towards promoting mobile marketing with the launch of Facebook Deals.

This new service allows brands and merchants to offer money off vouchers and coupons to users of Facebook Places who check in to merchants’ locations. more»

Recent research published by Digital Consultancy firm Beyond points towards the end of Brand Websites in favor of branded pages on social media sites such as Facebook.

And as social media is becoming increasingly linked with mobile, this will have implications for branded mobile sites as well. more»

For many years, the mobile industry has been anxiously anticipating the success of Location Based Services. And the world of mobile advertising has looked forward to highly relevant location-based advertising becoming an important new revenue stream.

But until recently, the promise of LBS always seemed to be just one or two more years in the future.

Now social network giant Facebook has launched their mobile location service “Places”, and the future of LBS might never be the same. more»

Facebook has announced the launch of a new mobile site (0.facebook.com) that includes all the key features of Facebook but that is optimised for speed on mobile devices.

In addition, Facebook has made agreements with selected mobile operators so that the site will be available to browse for free in certain regions. more»

more»

In the past week there has been a lot of discussion on the internet about “Facebook Lite”, the new version of Facebook that has recently been released for beta testing.

Facebook Lite is apparently intended for users who have slower internet connections, for example on mobile. This may open up new opportunities for mobile marketing. more»

Have you ever wished that you could really understand how people used the internet today, how they interact with various media, and what impact the trends we see today will have in the future?

For the past 15 years, the Center for the Digital Future at USC has been studying exactly these issues. In this interview, we talk with Jeffrey Cole, Director of the Center on a range of topics, including the evolving media habits of teenagers and the emerging “new rules” for advertising and marketing. more»

Bringing easy-to-use and effective email to the billions of mobile phone users with “mass-market” phones (i.e. not smart phones) seems to be an idea whose time has come. We’re seeing quite a few announcements in this area, the latest being that email provider Blue Whale has selected Smaato’s Mobile Advertising Platform to enable them to provide free email and Facebook services. more»

Customers of Virgin Mobile’s Sugar Mama program now have a new way to earn airtime. Normally, the service provides free airtime when a customer listens to ads on their phone. But now, using a new Facebook application, users can have their Facebook Friends earn free minutes for them by listening to the advertisements on their PC. more»

An interview with Pascal Thomas, mobile visionary and VP of Orange NExT (the mobile media division of France Telecom Orange)

France-Telecom Orange is one of the world’s leading tier-one mobile operators, and also one of the first true “multiplay” companies – offering not only mobile service, but also fixed line telephone, internet, and television (IPTV) to their customers.

Understanding the customer benefits of a “multiplay” offer and the evolving impact of social networks on advertising and revenue generation is one of the roles of Pascal Thomas. Pascal is one of the leading innovators in the European telecom industry, and was the lead initiator of Orange’s pioneering mobile television services. He now heads up Orange’s NExT group, which is responsible for “audience and advertising” as well as all things Web 2.0. more»

An article on PaidContent.Org reveals that Nokia and Facebook are in advanced discussions on a wide ranging strategic agreement between the two companies. more»

Facebook Platform for Mobile, which was launched in late October, allows developers to build mobile web applications for the fast-growing social community. This announcement from AdMob will allow developers to monetize their applications using advertising from AdMob. Social networks are widely expected to become one of the prime targets for mobile advertising. more»