Marketing Day: May 16, 2012

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From Marketing Land:

1. Is Mother Nature Causing Stormy Sales? Weather Underground Shows How Weather Impacts Your Bottom Line

Is bad weather good for business? Or is good weather a pain in the bottom line? Weather Underground has launched what may be the first of its kind — a tool that lets marketers track sales against local weather conditions. It’s called “Sales Tracker,” and it’s part of a new (and still in beta) Business […]

1. “Optimizing” Pre-Image Optimization

The harsh truth on email image blocking comes as one of the earliest lessons in email design. It’s hardly a new one, though, and we have a standard best practices short list to “optimize for images-off” — use live text for copy, include alternative text on images, make buttons bulletproof and so forth. The list […]

1. Report: Google+ Engagement Down, 30% of Users Publicly Post Won’t Post Again

Yes, Google+ has 170 million users, but just how active are they? A recent report from RJ Metrics suggests that based on public posts from 40,000 Google Plus accounts, engagement is poor. The average public Google+ post is seeing less than one +1, less than one reply and less than one re-share. The article cites the fact […]

1. Ahead Of IPO, GM Drops Facebook Ads; Forrester Warns Other Companies May Follow

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Facebook, which has its initial public offering of stock later this week. General Motors has decided to stop advertising on the social networking giant, citing concerns about the site’s effectiveness. Meanwhile, a Forrester analyst says other companies are having doubts The GM news comes from a Wall […]

Recent Headlines From Search Engine Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Search News & Information:

1. Google Launches Knowledge Graph To Provide Answers, Not Just Links

2. With Fix In Place, Wolfram Alpha Explains How Siri “Recommended” The Lumia By Mistake

3. 3 Guidelines To Scale Your SEM Team

4. Did Google Drop 100+ Small Directories

5. Do Search & Display Really Belong Together?

6. Early Stage Landing Pages At The Top Of The Funnel

7. Bing’s New Social-Friendly Search Interface Now Live

8. How To Use The Keyword Funnel To Understand Searcher Intent

Online Marketing News From Around The Web:

Affiliate Marketing

1. Performance Marketing Awards – Winners & Highly Commended 2012, www.affiliates4u.com

2. How to Build Targeted Traffic without Google: Part 2, www.marketingwords.com

Analytics

1. So What If Google Previews Count As Active Pages In Google Analytics Real-Time?, www.localseoguide.com

Blogs & Blogging

1. The Balancing Act Between Writing For Yourself Versus Writing For Your Readers, www.mackcollier.com

2. Why Your Branded Blog Has Zero Readership, contently.com

3. What Would Your Blog Wear to a Party?, contently.com

Business Issues

1. Facebook’s business model, cdixon.org

2. Bitly Kinda Says It’s Not Raising $20M, But Sorta Hints That It Is, TechCrunch

3. Bitly readies real-time viral search engine, raises $20 million in new funding, www.theverge.com

4. Facebook’s IPO Largest VC Backed IPO Ever By 4X, www.businessinsider.com

5. Google Knowledge Graph: This is why they changed their privacy policy, www.zdnet.com

6. Internet M&A Deals Down 55% Year-Over-Year, Thanks To Tech IPO Boom, TechCrunch

7. Yell Acquires Moonfruit To Drive Local eMarketplace, blog.kelseygroup.com

Content Marketing

1. A Guide To Developing Your Content Marketing Strategy, www.seo.com

2. 9 Things Wikipedia Can Teach You About Content Marketing, socialfresh.com

3. Successful content marketing doesn’t require a zoo, econsultancy.com

Conversion Optimization

1. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics [Infographic], www.invesp.com

Copywriting, Design & Usability

1. 5 Website Design Mistakes That Are Killing Your Social Media, socialfresh.com

2. What Does it Take to Write a Billion-Dollar Marketing Story?, www.copyblogger.com

Display & Contextual Advertising

1. 7 Quick Thoughts About GM Pulling All Their Facebook Ads, socialfresh.com

2. Thanks GM, That Leaves More Facebook Ads Impressions For Me, AIM Clear Blog

Domaining

1. In New gTLDs, The Only Certainty is Change, domainnamesales.com

Email Marketing

1. Everything You Know About Email Content Filtering is Wrong, www.returnpath.net

Mobile Marketing

1. Android Fragmentation Chart From OpenSignalMaps, www.businessinsider.com

2. Mobile Phone Shoppers Show Growing Preference for Text Marketing, www.emarketer.com

3. New figures by category — how many downloads does it take to reach the top of the free and paid iOS charts?, www.insidemobileapps.com

Other Items

1. 42% of Consumers Pay for Products or Services After Trying Them, Marketing Pilgrim

Reputation Management

1. Reputation Management and Politics, www.trackur.com

Search Marketing

1. 10 Reasons Why Law Firm Marketing Is Doomed From The Start, www.jonrognerud.com

2. 17 Types of Link Spam to Avoid, www.seomoz.org

Social Media

1. 5 Killer Social Media Campaigns to Learn From, www.poweredbysearch.com

2. 5 reasons that Twitter’s new email matters for marketers, socialfresh.com

3. Keynote: Three Future Trends of Social Business (Slides), www.web-strategist.com

4. Peering Into a Pinterest Scam Toolkit, blogs.mcafee.com

5. Twitter Is Still An Amazing Marketing Channel, www.dreamsystemsmedia.com