Category: Marketing

The ability to prove the value they’re creating for clients is contributing to agencies’ resilience in 2020 and a positive outlook for next year. No one was quite prepared for what 2020 had in store — including digital marketing agencies. When business shutdowns occurred in the spring, 66% of marketing agencies said they experienced a decrease in overall revenue. CallRail’s call data report showed a similar trend, with call volume in the advertising and marketing industry falling by 29% from pre-COVID levels. While 2021 still holds some economic uncertainty, digital marketing leaders indicate that…

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Video storytelling should be an integral part of any online marketing strategy. By following these three fundamentals, brands can build the foundation for a strong video campaign. In an increasingly digital world, video is becoming the new norm for visual storytelling. It’s no surprise, given that video is a highly visual and effective medium for communicating with a brand’s audience. Going beyond static images, videos use sound and movement to create a compelling message, making it an integral part of any brand’s online marketing strategy. According to Databox, almost 60% of…

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Mobile has become the focus of marketers worldwide because it goes with all of us, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. It seamlessly and ubiquitously is with us as we move from work to home and in between. At Salesforce Dreamforce, Stephanie Buscemi, CMO of Salesforce, and Susan Prescott, Vice President Product Marketing at Apple discussed how mobile is changing the world of marketing. In particular, how mobility is setting new standards for customer expectations and how the is impacting the customer experience. Apples VP of Product Marketing, Susan Prescott, explains:…

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BuzzFeed has acquired HuffPost from Verizon, while striking a strategic partnership that will see Verizon become a minority stakeholder in BuzzFeed. HuffPost has now come full circle as it joins the company founded by one of its original cofounders, Jonah Peretti. Peretti founded BuzzFeed a year after HuffPost, focusing on it full time after AOL purchased HuffPost. Over the years, BuzzFeed has evolved into a serious news source, making HuffPost a natural fit for Peretti’s latest company. “We’re excited about our partnership with Verizon Media, and mutual benefits that will…

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Speaking at the MarTech virtual conference, Zoe Marquardt described how the company overcame stubborn challenges. Autodesk faced a challenge with which many marketers are familiar. Teams that were expert in their various disciplines — channel marketing, regional marketing, industry marketing, etc. — had diverged into silos in the absence of a strong marketing performance management program. There was no unified view of how marketing spend affected program goals across all of these initiatives. Overcoming the pain point trifecta In short, the company faced three major challenges: Various marketing teams were…

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Microsoft, Adobe and C3.ai have joined forces to use artificial intelligence (AI) to reinvent customer relationship management (CRM). The new product, C3 AI CRM, is powered by Microsoft Dynamics and fully integrates with Adobe Experience Cloud. The goal is to deliver “the first enterprise-class, AI-first customer relationship management solution is purpose-built for industries.” Salesforce, in particular, should be worried by this development. Microsoft has been trying for years to dethrone Salesforce as the CRM king, with little success. While Dynamics 365 has certainly carved out a corner of the market,…

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IBM today announced third-quarter 2020 earnings results. Although overall revenue was slightly down again cloud revenue was up big. “The strong performance of our cloud business, led by Red Hat, underscores the growing client adoption of our open hybrid cloud platform,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chief executive officer. “Separating the managed infrastructure services business creates a market-leading standalone company and further sharpens our focus on IBM’s open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities. This will accelerate our growth strategy and better position IBM to seize the $1 trillion hybrid-cloud opportunity.”…

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Add brand logo and custom headlines to product targeting ads. Amazon has rolled out the ability for eligible advertisers to add their brand logo and customize the headline in Sponsored Display ads. The customized Sponsored Display units can run on product description pages, customer reviews, shopping results pages and under the Featured Offer. The ads render responsively to fit inventory units on the web, mobile and in-app. Advertisers can add customization to Sponsored Display ads. Sponsored Display ads can target by views, product or interest. However, when a logo and…

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But as virtual events take root in the community, attendees have clear opinions on cost and format, according to our latest Events Participation Index. Marketers’ already low expectations that they could safely attend in-person events this year have bottomed out, according to our latest Events Participation Index, which isn’t surprising as the planet passed a grim milestone of 1 million deaths tied to COVID-19 this week. But despite concerns over second and, in some cases, third waves of the virus beginning to show, many of the 350 professionals we surveyed…

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Google’s move to reduce advertisers’ visibility into search terms reporting raises big questions about data access in the age of automation. With Google’s latest decision to strip Search Terms data insights from advertisers (some agencies have reported around 25%-30% or more of data loss), the frustrated outcry has caused some to begin throwing around lawsuit language. Specifically, there seem to be three main reactions to this change: Those who believe that advertisers own the data outright, or at least the data is part of what they are paying for, and…

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