Among a variety of holiday specials and shopping tactics, store coupons and free-shipping offers were the two incentives most used by shoppers during the fourth-quarter 2009 holiday-shopping season, according to a survey from MARC Research. more

Once you have your page set up, how do you maximize your fan base and get the most out of your page? Some social-media gurus think that "old-school" marketing techniques have gone the way of the dinosaur and won't work on Facebook or other similar platforms. I disagree. more

Ten leading location-based digital video networks delivered a total of 237 million video ads per month to consumers age 18+ during the last four months of 2009, according to The Nielsen Company's inaugural Fourth Screen Network Audience Report. more

Still wondering how people are really using your website? The answer may be closer than you think, reports Jared Spool in a post at the User Interface Engineering blog. Though the search log may not be a part of a site's regular analytics package, its contents provide a window into ... more

Mobile campaigns are emerging as powerful ad channel for marketers, outperforming online advertising by nearly five times across a variety of metrics, including unaided awareness, message association, and brand favorability, according to a study by InsightExpress. more

Ask increased its market share for the fourth consecutive month, accounting for 3.44% of US searches in the four weeks ended March 27, 2010, up 21% from February, according to Experian Hitwise data. more

Though US Internet ad revenues were down 3.4% in 2009—to $22.7 billion from $23.4 billion in 2008—there are signs of an emergent recovery, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) reported. more

How much does a new pack of razors cost you per month? Eight dollars? Ten? More than those little blades are worth? Well, Pierre de Nayer recently decided people should be able to get good shaves without being scalped, and he did something creative (and market-based) about it. Enter Raz*War, ... more

Despite the buzz surrounding the iPhone and latest Android devices, the BlackBerry still leads in the smartphone content-download race: RIM's BlackBerry accounted for 63% of smartphone visits to Myxer's mobile content site in March 2010, up 5 percentage points from the 58% recorded a year earlier and outpacing Windows, Palm, ... more

A brand's presence on a social media site not only engenders consumer loyalty but also affects consumers' likelihood to buy, according to a study conducted by Psychster Inc. for Allrecipes.com. Branded profiles on social sites tend to increase intent to purchase, especially when consumers can become fans of brands and add ... more

Over the weekend of Apple's April 3 release of the iPad, 73% of circulated tweets were favorable toward the iPad, but 26% expressed disappointment that the iPad could not replace the iPhone, according to a study from Attensity. more

The next time you dine out, take a close look at the menu—even if you already know what you want to order. The reason? Restaurants have learned a thing or two about convincing their customers to spend more money on certain dishes. "The use of menu engineers and consultants is exploding in ... more

Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports often collates valuable information that we might otherwise miss. Most recently, he reported on the successful test results achieved by various email campaign tweaks. If you need some inspiration for your own efforts, consider findings like these: Adding an extra ... more

The recession continues to ravage retailers: The downward trend of fewer shopping trips by consumers hit a new low in February 2010 with a 4% year-over-year decline in monthly all-outlet shopping trips, according to the Nielsen Company. more

Creating your visual brand mosaic requires a toolkit different from the one used by earlier corporate ID practitioners––one based more on shared thinking and approaches and less around rules, one that allows you to tune communications for different initiatives and constituencies, and one that can be taught and shared. more

Consumer-based word-of-mouth (WOM) information is viewed as the most reliable source of information about brands on social networking sites: 38% of social networking users say posts from other consumers are most credible, followed by posts from brands themselves (32%), according to a survey from InSites Consulting. more

Do you find the thought of seeking useful information from your analytics package an astronomically daunting one? If so, you're not alone. In a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog, Thomas McMahon notes that small-business owners often can't find the time to make sense of vast reams of analytics ... more

Last time, we explained how podcasts present a great opportunity to bring brand awareness to on-the-go users. But how can the average marketer produce a winner in the podcast-sphere? Here are a few tips to help you get it right: Stick to a schedule. A good podcast creates the impression that ... more

US Internet users who watch TV content online tolerate 6-7 minutes of online advertising per hour, substantially higher than the roughly four minutes of ads per hour currently delivered online as part of TV content, according to a comScore study of cross-platform TV content viewers. more

Most marketing executives cite email or search marketing as their company's top-performing advertising channel in 2009—39.4% and 23.6%, respectively—and over nine in ten (93.6%) say they plan to increase their budget allocation to digital marketing in the next five years, according to the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey from ... more

Big insight: Content creation, pumped exclusively and relentlessly out by You, Inc., isn't the only way to leverage the power of social media. These days, you don't have to go it alone! Sometimes a strategic partnership with a site with a built-in, enthusiastic user base can take half the legwork out ... more

Marking the beginning of a moderate recovery, worldwide advertising expenditure is forecast to grow 2.9% this year, an upward revision of nearly 2 percentage points from the 1% forecast issued in October 2009, according to Carat. more

In the face if a weak economy and declining readership in the print space, the US newspaper industry generated an estimated $27.6 billion in total ad revenue in 2009, down 27.2% from the $37.8 billion recorded a year earlier, according to data issued by the Newspaper Association of America. more

How can you articulate your ideas, qualities, and capabilities in ways that connect to, and engage, your communities? Messaging, or communicating with a rigorous focus on a system of key ideas, is a fundamental activity of strategic brand development and management. Disciplined messaging helps organizations engage in productive dialogues, especially ... more

At a lot of marketing conferences, over-excited pitch people talk a lot about The New Thing that will Change Every Paradigm Forever. So much over-enthusiasm can jade just about anyone, so it was a relief to attend the Advertising Research Federation's (ARF) re:Think 2010 conference taking place in New York ... more