The Week in Review

Google+ is Google’s New Social Project

Google finally introduced its big social project to the world – its name is Google+. Instead of taking a blunt bat to Facebook, Google is choosing to make its social networking weapon a bit more nuanced by highlighting users’ different circles of friends. Google+ is made up of different subservices: Circles, Hangouts, Sparks, Huddle and Instant Upload. (VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Wired.com)

Amazon Launches an Ad Network

Amazon is set to start selling ads on websites. The e-commerce giant will buy Web advertising inventory and resell it to marketers at a premium. “This is the first time it has branched out into ads on third-party sites, and that could be a big deal: It could be a serious revenue stream for the company, and it could also raise a privacy fuss.” (AllThingsD)

21 Resources for New Online Marketers

If you’re a new online marketer, this list will do you good. Here are 21 resources you should bookmark. Among the resources listed are Business Link’s Ecommerce Guide, Rank Tracker, Google Trends, Spyfu and Pingdom. (Search Engine Watch)

Zynga Plans IPO

Zynga is reportedly close to filing its S-1 for an IPO – it could happen as early as today. The company would be valued at $15 billion to $20 billion, and would raise between $1.5 billion to $2 billion. (TechCrunch, CNET)

AdKeeper Goes Against the Ad-Blocking Current

Adblock Plus allows Web users to filter out online advertising. It averages about 13 million daily users on Firefox alone. But a new startup, AdKeeper, is doing the opposite, “arguing that consumers like to see ads and will want to save favorites in one central location.” Advertisers who participate will place a small button on ads with the AdKeeper logo. When a consumer clicks the button, the ad will be stored on a page on AdKeeper.com, along with other ads the user has saved. (NYTimes.com)

Bre.ad is Spammy

A new link-shortening service called Bre.ad enables users to upload graphics and text to create a “digital billboard.” Visitors who click on a Bre.ad link are shown the graphic and message for five seconds before being taken to the Web address that was shortened. This smells pretty spammy, if you ask this writer. (Social Media Explorer)

12 Key Messaging Strategies for Email Lifecycle Marketing

What specific messages will resonate with the various segments of your audience throughout the customer lifecycle? As (most) marketers seek to avoid the “one message fits all” approach, how can they make sure that “every touchpoint with each customer conveys relevance and builds a solid relationship?” This multidimensional infographic should help with this. (Convince & Convert)

Top 3 Takeaways for SEOs From Google’s ‘Inside Search’ Event

Google’s “Inside Search” event on June 14 highlighted the mobile realm. The three notable takeaways from the event for SEOs were: 1) the mobile user experience is one of Google’s top priorities, 2) mobile is changing desktop search results, and 3) local search opportunities are reinforced and increased. (Search Engine Land)

Facebook Tests Fixed-Position Ads and Navigation

Facebook’s next big update to its interface may be on its way. The social networking site is testing a design that implements a “Most Recent” news stream and fixed positioning for both ads and navigation. Here’s a breakdown of what this means for advertisers, businesses, developers, users and Facebook. (Search Engine Watch)

5 Tips for Boosting Your AdWords Quality Score

Google assigns a Quality Score to each keyword in an AdWords campaign. These scores can have big effects on campaign performance. Three factors in Quality Score are: click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page. Among the five tips for increasing your Quality Score are to structure your campaigns into smaller, targeted ad groups; targeting your landing pages; and decreasing your landing page load times. (ClickZ)

Facebook Set to Unveil Crowdsourced Ad Format

Facebook is set to launch “Comment” ads this week. They will be formatted like conversations, with brands making statements or posing questions, and users posting comments underneath. “If the user does enter a response, the conversation then appears in the user’s News Feed, where the brand starts to reap “earned” impressions among that user’s friends. And if some of the user’s friends comment themselves, those comments can be turned into Sponsored Stories.” The company says it crowdsourced the idea. (Fast Company)

Twitter Ads in Timelines?

According to people “familiar with the situation,” Twitter has plans to insert “promoted tweets” into users’ main timelines. “Twitter had tested such ads with a third-party mobile client, HootSuite. Users could also see tweets from a brand they follow appear high up in their stream even though they were posted hours previously.” (TIME.com)

Interest Categories for AdWords

Google has held interest categories for AdWords in beta mode for more than a year, but it finally released it into the public wild last week. “These categories allow advertisers to better target audiences across the display network based on their interests and demographics. You can choose from a list of categories that match the type of user you want to target, and Google will show ads to the people it thinks are interested in those categories.” Here’s a rundown on how they work and where to find them. (PPC Hero)

Google Display Ads: $20 Billion

Google is hoping to grow their display-ad sector to more than $20 billion in value, according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. The company is currently raking in $29 billion in annual revenue, but most of that comes from text ads located on its search pages. (Search Engine Watch)

FTC Investigates Google’s Business Practices

The Federal Trade Commission has begun its formal investigation of Google’s business practices. A Google fellow wrote a blog post saying the company is “unclear” about what the FTC’s concerns are. (Search Engine Land, VentureBeat)

Using PPC Advertising for Brand Exposure

"When you think of traditional PPC advertising campaigns, you may think of huge, detailed keyword lists, comprising terms highly relevant to your products and services." But what about using PPC as a brand exposure tool? This is not a new idea, as some brands have already used PPC as such a tool. Here’s a look at some that are doing it well. However, these types of campaigns should be used with caution. (Epiphany Solutions Digital Marketing Blog)

Spending on Location-Based Mobile Ads to Account for 70% of Mobile Ad Spend by 2015

According to BIA/Kelsey, spending on location-based mobile ads in the U.S. will reach $2.84 billion by 2015 — 70 percent of total mobile ad spend ($4.05 billion) that year. This rapid growth will be driven by the continued spread of smartphones and the emergence of self-service ad platforms. (ClickZ)

Foursquare and American Express Partner to Offer Deals

A partnership between Foursquare and American Express enables Foursquare users with AmEx accounts to receive discounts when checking in at stores and paying for promoted deals with their cards. The deal is Foursquare’s largest partnership to date, and is designed to help bring the company into the mainstream. (CNET)

1 Facebook Fan = 20 Additional Visits to Your Site

According to Hitwise, "for retailers, each new fan acquired on Facebook is worth 20 additional visits to your website over the course of a year." How’s that for ROI? (Hitwise)

E-Book Market: Meet Content Farms

Getting rich quickly from pumping out content may have hit a hurdle with Google, but the e-book market is open game. Private Label Rights (PLR) is a big part of the problem. The company "allows anyone to buy prewritten content in bulk that they can then make into e-books or website content." The problem, according to the founder of an e-book distributor, can be summarized as follows: "The risk of PLR is that you see 50 copies of the same book on the same shelf written by equally lazy-ass idiots who got suckered in to the scam. Then customers, trusting they’re buying a real book, purchase these books of questionable value.” The e-book market has glaring loopholes that need closing. (paidContent)

VIP Facebook Pages for Users With Adequate Klout Scores

Users with sufficient Klout scores now get special access to select brand pages on Facebook and, possibly, perks. This feature comes courtesy of Involver, which has more than 400,000 brands on its platform. Facebook users who are granted access to these pages can get a peek at a trailer, a coupon or a test drive, among other treats. (Mashable, Fast Company)

Facebook Fan Pages Don’t Get Many Views

According to data from PageLever, on average, 7.49 percent of fans of a Facebook page see the page’s posts daily. This number drops to 2.79 percent for pages with 1 million+ fans, but rises to 9.39 percent for pages with 1,000-10,000 fans. Thankfully, this post doesn’t only show this depressing data — it offers some tips. (All Facebook)

7 Questions to Ask to Make an Email Opt-in Page That Works

Email marketing is still the best online method for converting prospects into customers or clients. But before the process begins, you need to actually get people on your list. Landing pages are great for this. How do you win the trust and interest of prospective subscribers? Ask these seven questions: 1) Who do you want? 2) What do you want them to do? 3) What are the essential elements? 4) What incentive should you give? 5) How long should your copy be? 6) How much information should you ask for? 7) What works better? (Copyblogger)

5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ad Campaign

"Optimising your ad campaign once it’s been set up is incredibly important and is often something advertisers overlook, as it’s tempting to throw a couple of ads up there and let them do the work for you. This will only get you half the real results of an effective ad campaign however." Among the five ways to improve your Facebook ad campaign are to analyze your EdgeRank, target friends of connections and go for little and large. (The Next Web)

The Components of a Compelling Call-to-Action Button

The path to conversion starts with the click of a button. "Accordingly, the biggest single thing a webmaster can do to improve conversion rates is to modify the wording, appearance or behavior of a button." Thankfully, buttons are website elements that are easy to test. Here’s an overview of what makes for the most compelling call-to-action buttons. Among the points of discussion are placement, color and behavior. (Search Engine Land)