Social Media Is Second Biggest Impact on Lead Generation for B2B Marketers
Daily deal giant Groupon is seeing its stock drop for the 12th day, while social media platforms Twitter and Facebook are making new moves and showing promising click-through rates on ads, respectively. For B2B marketers, social media has surpassed PPC to become second biggest impact on lead generation, with SEO ranking number one. Delve into the following articles to see more happenings in the industry.
Twitter Introduces Interest Targeting and One-Cent Bids
Twitter has introduced an interest-targeting feature for Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts campaigns. This enables them to target based on people’s topical interests, which means an audience that is more likely to engage with those tweets. Twitter is also lowering the minimum bid to one cent for all its auctions. (Twitter Advertising)
CTRs on Facebook Sponsored Results Surpassing 3%
It’s early, but Nanigans has found that click-through rates (CTRs) on Facebook’s new Sponsored Results search ads have sometime exceeded 3 percent, and that they’ve been 23 times higher than regular Marketplace Ads. The 3 percent CTRs match the average for online ads back in the ’90s. (TechCrunch)
Google and Apple Talk About Settling Patent Disputes
The CEOs of Apple and Google have had at least one conversation aiming to resolve the outstanding intellectual-property and patent disputes between the two companies. The Samsung decision seems to be playing a role here. (CNET News)
Brands Are Consumers
On Facebook and Twitter, brands look a lot like people. Brands have gotten to this point by passing through three stages: 1) consumers are in control, 2) consumers are the medium and 3) brands are consumers. (AdAge.com)
PPC Is Losing Its Ability to Generate Leads
According to a survey from Webmarketing123, 59 percent of B2B marketers said SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation, followed by 21 percent who said social media and 20 percent who said PPC. For B2C marketers, the splits are 49/25/26. Both B2B and B2C marketers deem PPC less effective than it was a year ago. (Search Engine Land)
Daily Deals:
Delta Apparel Boosts Email Engagement With Daily Deals
Delta Apparel has seen its email conversion rate surge 200 percent over the normal rates for other email marketing campaigns, thanks to its daily-deals email alerts. The company expanded this effort by offering an option to receive daily deals via SMS messages. (Internet Retailer)
Groupon Offers Controversial Deal for Firearms Classes
Groupon and a firearms-safety training center in Seattle are getting heat for running a deal on firearms classes that would open the door for students to be able to carry concealed weapons in multiple states. (Inforwars)
Groupon’s Stock Has Plunged But Still Isn’t a Deal
Just because Groupon’s stock has dropped for 12 straight days doesn’t mean it’s a good deal, according to a finance professor at New York University. GRPN finished Thursday at $4.19 a share, but the professor thinks the stock is worth $4.07 a share. (Bloomberg)
‘Demand Generation’ Advertising
Groupon, Yahoo and Facebook all try to monetize their users via “demand generation” advertising. “Demand generation, as the name implies, is when the advertiser pushes a product or a service offering at the user in order to create demand.” This is their common problem. (PandoDaily)
Zulily Hires a New CFO
Seattle-based daily-deals provider Zulily has hired a new CFO. Is the company preparing for an IPO? (GeekWire)
Networks and the Enterprise
USV invests in networks, which has meant investing in networks of individuals connecting with each other. But over the past four years, about a third of its investments have been in networks where enterprises participate. “When an enterprise plugs into a network of developers and tools built in this way they get more than functionality. They get a platform that a lot of engineers know how to use and is becoming a standard in the market. There is tremendous value to the enterprise in these networks over time.” (A VC)
