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Andrew spoke with Digital 180 about podcasting and what he sees as an evolution in podcasting.  “I think podcasting as a whole has kind off fallen off the radar screen.  It was something big two years ago.  But what changed I think was the expectation from the user.”
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However throughout 2009, HTC has not only offered more phones at the major carriers under its own brand but has also refocused its website to position HTC as a leading brand offering user-friendly smartphones that focus on the individual’s needs, both business and personal. (more…)

Call it shameless self-promotion, but as far as I’m concerned, no online marketer can live without Keyword Destination, which sheds light on where people go downstream after searching for specific keywords. (more…)

I think Macgyver is the ultimate handyman.  The way he is able to fix, create, or build whatever it is he needs  under nearly any circumstances is amazing.

Most Americans don’t have Macgyver’s knowledge, capabilities, or writers- but what many of us do have is access to the Internet.  And when it comes to fixing, creating, or building, people are using it in record numbers. (more…)

This past week, we witnessed a Ford display campaign that to us represented a noteworthy waypoint in the development of online ads designed for branding objectives: ads that reject the click.  (more…)

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As it turns out, Boost had the right idea.  Not only has its traffic increased significantly over the last year, but the prepaid market as a whole is experiencing a boom.  Based on Compete’s clickstream data, overall Prepaid Prospect Traffic (non-Customer traffic to Boost, GoPhone, VZW Prepaid, ToGo, Tracfone, Virgin Mobile USA) has increased 12% Y-o-Y. (more…)

It’s well known that Microsoft’s ten year old Internet Explorer 6 is still widely used by late (late, late) adopters and those that are held at the mercy of lethargic Corporate IT departments.

Until now, Microsoft hasn’t really prioritized encouraging users to upgrade. (more…)

In late September Microsoft launched its new Zune HD media player.  Rather than simply upgrade and refine the original Zune concept, Microsoft seemingly followed the lead of the iPod Touch, building the device around a 3.3 inch touchscreen, internet browsing capability and games/application downloads via the Zune Marketplace.  (more…)

According to the Google Keyword Tool,there were 7.5 million broad match searches on the term ‘soap’ in September.  Granted that some of the searches are related to “soap operas” rather than cleansing soaps, there are still quite a few people searching for the term.  CPG companies are fueling this growth in search with increased investment in online advertising.  In fact, according to TNS, one of the leading soap brands Dove spent nearly $5MM on online display advertising during the first half of this year.  This investment is significantly greater than that of rival brands Softsoap and Olay.  Due in part to their investment in online advertising, Compete’s data shows that site traffic to Dove.com are multiples greater than its competitors.

Over one million consumers visited Dove’s website in August.  This volume is comparable to the number of consumers visiting sites like Bravo TV, The New Yorker and Morningstar.  So how does Dove maintain its online visitor volume using display advertising?  Many of you have probably seen a Dove ad online recently.  We went back a few months and examined two campaigns that Dove ran on both Yahoo! and AOL in late July.  We isolated exposed consumers who saw the Dove ad and compared their behavior to a group of control consumers who did not see the ad but were otherwise similar in behavior and composition.  Take a look at the search results below.

On Yahoo!, exposed consumers were nearly twice as likely to search for the Dove brand as control consumers who did not see the ad up to a week after the campaign ended.  The ad on AOL resulted in an even greater shift in consumer behavior prompting exposed consumers to search at nearly twice the rate than those on Yahoo.  The incremental search activity for Dove is not just a sign of online success, it is also a sign of brand strength and consumer recollection. So it is no wonder that according to the Google Keyword Tool, there were 2.2 MM searches for Dove in September compared to 823K searches for Olay and 60K searches for Softsoap.  The ads did drive direct traffic to Dove’s site, but Dove got even greater value from the incremental searches and the resulting “indirect” traffic.  Here is another great example that shows that online advertising indeed works!

September marked the beginning of the school year and the end of the Back to School Season for office supply retailers. Q3 sales figures have yet to be released, but if site volume is any indicator, online office supply retailers saw a year over year boom. Industry leaders, staples.com and officedepot.com, each saw huge gains – staples.com up 59% YOY to 23.7MM unique visitors (UVs) and officedepot.com up 21% YOY to 13.3MM UVs in Q3.

Traffic from the search engines contributed greatly to these gains – staples.com up 45% YOY and officedepot.com up 22% YOY in total search referrals. (more…)

All that sugar truly made me happy. It also got me thinking: What if I could give every Compete customer a regular dose of sweetness each time they logged into their PRO account? Well, with today’s new launch, I think we’ve done just that. (more…)