Signal raises $30m to fuel people-based marketing growth

(c)iStock.com/shirnosov

People based marketing – where advertisers work to more accurately reach consumers whatever their audience or device - is big news at the moment. 

In May the technology was called “the marketing strategy of the future” in a report from Signal and Econsultancy which said the technique was being more adopted more strongly than ever thanks to high conversion and click through rates.

Now Signal looks to be further capitalising...

Brexit could see loss of £70m in UK adspend a year

(c)iStock.com/Peter Hermus

As the Brexit debate rumbles on, one media agency has warned that leaving the EU could cost the UK £70m in adspend growth each year – a figure that would equate to £1bn by 2030.

The figures have been put together by media agency Zenith, which has used the Treasury’s conclusion that UK GDP would drop by 6.2% if the UK left the EU to judge the impact on adspend.

Zenith said in its report that it had tracked a clear...

Google tops BrandZ list with record brand value

(c)iStock.com/Martin Prescott

Google has once again stolen a lead as the top brand in the 2016 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking, pushing Apple back into second place.

The analysis, by WPP and Millward Brown, shows that Google has achieved a brand value of $229.2bn – up by nearly a third (32%) on last year. Apple meanwhile fell 8% from its 2015 brand value to $228.2bn.

Google’s success is said to be largely thanks to a focus on continual...

IBM launches AI online advertising offering with Watson Ads

Marketers will be able to rethink their strategies and use the power of cognition and machine learning to improve their advertising with the announcement of Watson Ads, it’s claimed.

Launched in conjunction with IBM business The Weather Company, Watson Ads is claimed to be an industry first capability in which consumers will be able to use the power of IBM’s Watson cognitive technology through advertising.

The move also marks the first consumer use of IBM Watson...

Businesses need to look again at online video platforms, Forrester says

Businesses need to be doing much more to embrace the opportunities offered by video, according to a new report from Forrester.

It suggests that businesses who think that having a YouTube channel is enough for a brand are wrong and that companies must adopt online video platforms (OVPs) to help deliver engaging, interactive and personalised experiences to their customers.

In the report, Forrester’s Vendor Landscape: Online Video Platforms for Sales and Marketing, the...

CRM market continues to flourish but Salesforce still leads

(c)iStock.com/maxsattana

The use of customer relationship management (CRM) software continued to grow in 2015, with spend worldwide up by 12.3% to $26.3 billion, according to the latest figures from Gartner released this week.

The top five software vendors accounted for nearly half (45%) of the market, with little change on their 2014 rankings apart from Adobe taking IBM’s fifth place ranking. Salesforce dominated with a near one-fifth market share (19.7%).

SAP...

ABC launches report examining content verification tools for online ads

ABC has launched the latest edition of its Content Verification (CV) Certification report, designed to provide unbiased results on the ability of tools to block or report online ads "defined as inappropriate to a campaign".

This is especially important given the increased risks for brands advertising online thanks to the growth of programmatic advertising.

Content verification remains a key focus for buyers and sellers in today's quickly evolving digital ecosystem

The...

Snapchat introduces 3V advertising measurement

Snapchat has for the first time partnered with an independent provider to help measure its campaigns ratings in the UK. The company is working with Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings to measure the audiences of its 3V advertising on mobile devices.

Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings is the industry standard for measuring digital advertising – reporting a campaign’s total digital audience across devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones using metrics similar to TV.

The 3V...

Adobe launches new visual story tool for small businesses

Adobe has launched a new free service, Adobe Spark, which it claims is the only integrated web and mobile solution for creating and sharing visual stories. It has been aimed to appeal to anyone from small businesses to social marketers and students.

The new service is part of Creative Cloud and includes a number of rebranded associated apps from Adobe that allow users to create, edit and share their story from wherever they are.

They include the Adobe Spark web app, a...

Slow delivery leads to online basket abandonment in 60% of cases

For retailers desperate to control their whole online customer journey, the issue of delivery has always been a stumbling block where retailers face basket abandonment and potential damage to their brand.  

But a new survey shows that 60% of consumers in the US said they had abandoned their shopping cart because the retailer offered slow delivery options.

The study, of 650 respondents in the US and carried out by same-day delivery firm Dropoff, showed that 97% of...