Just wanted to update everyone on the recent happenings with Yahoo and Bing. Last year Yahoo and Bing formed an alliance which is now coming to fruition. Starting now until late September, Yahoo will be combining its paid search platform with Bing’s paid search platform, Microsoft AdCenter.  For those of you that we run PPC campaigns for, we’ve begun to migrate your Yahoo PPC accounts over to Bing where applicable and working with representatives from both Yahoo and Bing to ensure a seamless transition.

Another feature of this alliance, is the fact that Bing’s organic search results will now make up 30% of Yahoo’s organic search results. Given that this form of exposure is available to websites, for those clients we perform universal search engine optimization for, Ycwe have been optimizing your websites for the best possible organic results in Bing.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about this alliance, or our universal SEO services, simply contact us.

The popularity of smartphones, 3G devices and other advanced mobile applications surged in the US during 2009, according to comScore mobiLens data.

Between December 2008 and December 2009, the percentage of US mobile phone subscribers with unlimited data plans increased from 16% to 21%, with several phones now requiring an unlimited data plan subscription at the time of purchase. During the same period, smartphone ownership increased from 11% to 17%, while 3G phone ownership increased from 32% to 43%. (via MarketingCharts).

Smartphone Penetration Rises in 2009

Smartphone penetration continued to climb in 2009 as consumers were presented with a growing number of smartphone handset options. Among the high-profile smartphone introductions in 2009 were the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid, Motorola Cliq and others.

In December 2009, smartphones were owned by 17% of US mobile phone subscribers, up nearly six percentage points from December 2008. Among smartphone operating system (OS) platforms, RIM retained its lead with 41.6% market share, followed by Apple at 25.3% (up 8.5 percentage points from the previous year) and Microsoft at 17.9%. Google’s OS share (5.2%) gained considerably in the final months of 2009 and is poised for continued growth in 2010 with the introduction of new devices featuring the Android platform.

Verizon Tops Among U.S. Mobile Network Providers

The largest four mobile network providers, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, combined to account for 80% of the entire US mobile subscriber market in December 2009. Verizon led as the largest service provider in the US with a market share of 31.2% in December, followed by AT&T with 25% share. Sprint and T-Mobile each captured 12.1% of the market.

Motorola Continues to Lead OEM Market in 2009

Motorola led the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) market in December 2009 with 23.5% of devices owned by mobile subscribers. While many of these handsets are legacy devices, Motorola has also made a more recent splash in the market with the introduction of the Droid and the Cliq. LG captured the second largest share of the handset market with 21.9%, up two percentage points from the previous year, followed closely by Samsung with 21.2%, up 2.7 percentage points. Apple captured 4.3% of the OEM market, up from just 1.9% share in December 2008, as the iPhone continued to gain traction last year.

Symbian Leads Global Smartphone OS Vendors

Symbian was the most popular smartphone OS by shipment volume in 2009, according to findings from technology market research firm Canalys. Although Symbian’s share of the global smartphone market dropped from 52.4% in 2008 to 47.2% in 2009, Symbian’s shipment volume grew 4.8%, from 74.9 million units to 78.5 million units.

Other findings on smartphone OS 2009 shipment volume from Canalys include:

• Although the Google Android OS only shipped 7.8 million units in 2009, this represented 1073.5% growth from 663,500 units in 2008. Global market share grew from 0.5% to 4.7%.
• Microsoft, the third-most popular smartphone OS by global shipment volume in 2008, lost 26.4% of its volume in 2009, dropping from 19.9 million units to 14.7 million units. Market share declined from 13.9% to 8.8%, and Microsoft slipped to fourth place in smartphone global shipment volume.
• Apple, the fourth-most popular smartphone OS by global shipment volume in 2008, traded places with Microsoft to become third-most-popular in 2009. Apple OS shipped 25.1 million units globally last year, up 82.9% from 13.7 million units in 2008. Market share grew from 9.6% to 15.1%.

About the Survey: Data is taken from the comScore 2009 Digital US Year in Review.

But don’t get too friendly! src: www.eMarketer.com

The top characteristic US consumers want from brands they like is to improve their knowledge—and the least desirable one is for a brand to “only be visible in store”—according to the “Global Web Index” from Lightspeed Research.

Helping consumers keep up to date on topics that were important to them was also key, followed by being entertaining, becoming part of a daily routine, and informing consumers about the product and the company. Consumers were relatively uninterested in brands that tried to act like their friends.

Unsurprisingly in a difficult economy, consumers said the most relevant thing a brand could do for them was offer discounts. That topped various social and creative efforts such as online communities and brand-created video or TV programs.

Word-of-mouth was the No. 1 purchase driver according to the surveyed consumers. Face-to-face recommendations had significantly more weight with respondents than TV ads, advice from online friends, e-mails or Websites.

And the most trusted source of brand information was family members, followed by friends and experts.

Interestingly, US consumers found social network contacts and bloggers that they read regularly more trustworthy than major journalists, television news readers and radio presenters. Celebrities and TV show presenters were tied with politicians for the dishonor of being considered least trustworthy.

Compared with Americans, consumers surveyed in the UK were more likely to value brands that helped them connect with people, and were more responsive to competitions and TV advertising.

Keep up on the latest digital trends. Learn more about an eMarketer Total Access subscription, today.

What CMOs Are Saying: Part III - Marketing dollars get tight, but don’t disappear. 
(eMarketer.com)

A number of reports, and many media articles, say the sky is falling on marketers—and ad dollars are evaporating.

The annual “Marketing Outlook” study, from the CMO Council, doesn’t agree.

Following What Are CMOs Thinking? and More About What CMOs Are Thinking, this, a third survey of CMOs, found that, despite the economy, marketers see budgets holding up fairly well and tightly controlled dollars going to growing and retaining market share.

But isn’t that where marketing dollars always go?

Yes, but as the report states: “Marketing, we are happy to report, is not running scared from the economy by slashing budgets and headcount. Instead, marketing is getting back to our key function: driving business and opportunity to sales and owning the customer experience.”

The pressure is on, however, for marketers to contribute to the bottom line. Management is demanding that marketers grow market share and improve operational efficiencies. Read: more accountability.

That is probably why Website development and digital marketing topped the list of agency changes for 2009.

“Digital marketing has moved well beyond search as social media and experiential marketing continue to grow and evolve,” said Dave Couture of Deloitte Consulting LLP, one of the sponsors of the report. “Savvy marketers are applying collaboration marketing methods as a central component of their efforts to maximize customer lifetime value in the digital economy.”

One-half of the global marketers surveyed claimed they were either holding firm on budgets or anticipating increases. Nearly one-third planned small budget increases, and 8% expected increases of more than 10%.

On the other hand, nearly one-half said they would decrease spending, with 19% expecting cuts of more than 15%.

In fact, when asked pointedly how economic conditions were influencing their budgets, 34% of the marketers said they were sharpening focus and reducing spending.

As noted above, however, not everyone shares the relatively rosy outlook of the marketers surveyed by the CMO Council.

In an article in Brandweek, Marc Babej of the marketing consultancy Reason inc. said, “Marketing budgets in many, if not most categories, are subject to cuts and in many cases they are deep cuts. That’s just the reality. Marketing positions are being cut too, absolutely.”

He believes that many marketers are simply “putting on a brave face.”