As another week rolls to a close, marked by unusual lunar activity, PerformanceIN sheds some light on the latest stories to emerge in the world of performance marketing.
Monday’s masterclass this week gave our readers five ways to master retail site sales, with the news that consumers are increasingly swapping out search engines and embarking on their browsing sessions straight from the retailer’s homepage.
Industry pitfalls
Affiliate Window’s Kevin Edwards caught our readers’ attention with his report on Google’s new ‘mobile friendliness test’ which, he believes, could be costly to a weighty chunk of affiliates. Many of those studied fall foul of criteria Google will be taking into consideration when ranking sites on smartphones, including the size of content and proximity of links.
Voucher code site RetailMeNot came under fire this week from cosmetics group Mary Kay over alleged ‘unauthorised use of branding’. The company filed to sue RetailMeNot after seeing discount codes for its products listed on the site, which in many cases cannot be obtained, according to Mary Kay.
And as corners of the ad industry attempt to address its billion-dollar problem with fraud, there is evidence that some are choosing not to confront the truth, according to Forensiq’s Erol Soyer in an exclusive video interview with PerformanceIN.
Muscle flexing
Rakuten Marketing has announced the purchase of a mobile marketing solutions company Deep Forest, adding yet another string to their polymathic bow with the silicon valley firm’s proprietary tracking and optimisation tech.
In an acquisition worth approximately $100 million AppNexus merged with rival company Yieldex, putting the New York ad tech firm in position to create an open marketplace for the direct, programmatic sale of online inventory and, according to AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelly, puts them in good stead to lead on programmatic direct.
Lessons from best
A must-read to anyone remotely involved in content production, and a taster for his session at at the Chief Digital Officer Forum in London, PerformanceIN explored the “art of storytelling” with Martin Trickey, group head of digital at Warner Bros.
What are your plans for the weekend? Wrong… you’re celebrating Twitter’s ninth Birthday, and to mark the occasion Marin Software’s Jon Myers looked at the growth of the social platform and the impact it’s had on advertising.