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Facebook Tests Real-Time Ads

posted on March 24, 2011

It’s been cold and rainy here in Southern California. I sure could use some soup for lunch!

If I was part of Facebook’s new test group, the next ad I’d see shortly after posting that status update might be the one you see here. And by shortly, I don’t mean later that day, but within seconds.

The test Facebook is conducting is to see if they can deliver targeted ads in real-time based on wall posts and status updates. Right now, ads are targeted based on a number of criteria including posts, interests and other information in a person’s profile. But those ads, relevant though they may be (and they aren’t always relevant) take time to show up on site.

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Yahoo Search Predicted to Decline Further

posted on March 24, 2011

Well, that didn’t take long. Yesterday we get news that Yahoo is really looking to improve its search experience. Good news, right? Well, eMarketer isn’t going to let Yahoo get off that easily as it released numbers predicting a continued decline in Yahoo search ad revenue share (mainly due to Bing’s gains). Those gains by Bing are slowly happening but perhaps the bigger surprise is the predicted rise in Google search ad revenue share. Here it is.

Are you agreement with these numbers? Will Google become even more dominant as Yahoo fades off in to the sunset and Bing picks up the pieces? How will this play out? Let’s hear your predictions in the comments.

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From The Writer’s Garage: A Closed Loop Marketing Overview

posted on March 24, 2011

This post is the first from the Marketing Pilgrim Writer’s Garage to be posted on the main Marketing Pilgrim blog. The garage is now just a few weeks old and we are seeing some great content start to come in. We encourage anyone who has commentary on an Internet marketing issue, instruction or news to contribute to the Writer’s Garage and hopefully yours will be chosen to appear like today’s post. Look for more soon as we get more entries.

This post comes to us from Kathleen Colan, director of marketing and content for Mongoose Metrics. Thanks, Kathleen! Enjoy!

HOW CLOSED LOOP CONVERSION TRACKING CAN IMPROVE MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Closed-loop marketing is the process of tracking website visitors from the time they arrive at your website, to when they convert into a lead, and through to becoming a customer.

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Bing Upgrades Their Mobile Browsing Experience

posted on March 23, 2011

Bing has just released an upgrade to their mobile browser that takes the best of apps and combines it with the best of the browser for a faster, easier user experience.

SHOPPING

Like the Bing app, the Bing mobile browser offers a scrolling list of categories to help narrow down your choices from the moment you start to search. From there, you can jump to the updated shopping helper which uses more graphics than text to guide you through the next steps. Each category drills down at least twice until you’re presented with a list of pre-selected items, which, unless you’re gift shopping for someone you don’t know, is fairly useless.

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Jobs Made for a Pilgrim (JOB LISTINGS)

posted on March 23, 2011

Our job board has been very busy lately. I hope it’s an indication of the economy as a whole on the positive side. In reality it could even mean the economy is still on the fritz but the Internet is where investment and growth is happening because of cost efficiency etc. Heck, I don’t know, I’m not an economist but I do know a choice job opportunity when I see one. Here’s a few to consider.

Online Marketing / Social Media Manager for Easton-Bell Sports in Scotts Valley, CA (as a baseball fan this one is VERY cool)

Social Media Specialist / Startup Business Group for Microsoft in Redmond, WA (as a business fan this one is hard to not get a bit jacked up about)

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Honest to Goodness, Yahoo Is Still In the Search Game

posted on March 23, 2011

I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to write a little something about Yahoo that didn’t involve the word boatloads, layoffs or a product’s demise.

Today, Yahoo has announced (hold on to your hats) a search improvement called Yahoo Search Direct. Ok, cue the cool video to behold this strange wonder called a Yahoo search announcement.

I took the beta which can be found at search.yahoo.com out for a spin and it’s nifty in that it is a different search experience. Is it a better one? We’ll see.

It worked well on direct terms and more widely searched terms. Where is falls down a bit is at the local search level but that may be something that will evolve with time.

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AOL Cuts Continue as They Close the Door on 30 Sites

posted on March 23, 2011

AOL is closing the doors on nearly half of the 70 niche sites they maintain under the parent company umbrella. The news hit the web after a memo went out to the staff about the reorganization and though it’s bad news for employees, it’s good news for the AOL brand.

The graphic at the right is only a portion of the sites currently being operated by AOL and that’s before the acquisition of the Huffington Post. There was already quite a bit of redundancy across the sites, so streamlining only makes sense from both a financial and a brand standpoint. AOL Jobs. AOL Health. Fine. But FleaFlicker? ShelterPop? UserPlane? Oh, wait, those are the sites that are staying. The ones that are going away? According to Forbes, they include well-known TV news site TV Squad which will be rolled into the generic AOL TV. Financial site WalletPop will become part of Daily Finance, Politics Daily will roll into Huffington Post Politics.