As is easy to see from yesterday’s Q3 Facebook financial report that was quickly mentioned all around the web, the company has been doing significantly better with their marketing efforts since this time last year or even earlier this year. Everybody who saw the company’s Q3 report was shocked at the huge numbers it threw out, and essentially it caused a lot of excitement. However, today I have found another reporting based upon Facebook, that may also bring up the spirits of those advertisers who find they are using Facebook quite a bit. Just as Facebook’s Q3 report did, this new report also contains some substantially huge numbers.

The report comes from Adobe, and it is entitled, “Q3 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update.” The report covers a lot of ground, but I would like to focus on Facebook’s results in particular, as Facebook is one of the more widely used marketing platforms in the social media realm.

Now, most brands that are on Facebook have a single reason for their creation of a page, and that is to get everyday Facebook users to engage with them. However, there have been some brands lately that find they are becoming skeptical of the success that Facebook can bring. Well, according to Adobe’s report, Facebook is doing better than ever.

Brands continued to invest in Facebook to drive fan growth, and Facebook continued to show significant increases in engagement. Engagement, which is defined as likes, comments, and shares, grew 896% YOY,[ as shown in Figure 9]. We surmise that increased engagement rates result from platform changes (Timeline) made in the last three quarters, use of new acquisition and engagement metrics, and more effective social marketing by brands. Increases in engagement levels in future quarters would indicate that Facebook is becoming a more valuable advertising marketing channel than in the past.

I thought it was a typo at first, too, but upon a second look I was shocked to find that 896% was the real number that Adobe found. For any advertising company to show such incredible results for just one year’s time is a feat. That number is impressive no matter how you look at it. However, in their explanation above, Adobe leaves out one of the main contributors that have been leading to Facebook’s exploding success these days, which is mobile.

In the Q3 Facebook report, we see that mobile accounted for 14% of Facebook’s total revenue. Now, with Adobe’s report we see that mobile users make up almost one quarter of Facebook’s total engagement. That number is, “up four-fold from the period prior to the Timeline format change.”

Day after day we see continued success from Facebook’s marketing. They have come a long way since their unbalanced footing not long ago, but it seems they are becoming much stronger, gaining much more trust from their advertising customers. Marketers have accepted Facebook as a viable marketing source, and because of that we will continue to see growth in numbers from the company.

Smiley Media, once one of the top lead generating companies in the industry, has announced via a mass email that they are leaving the business. Smiley, which describes itself as an “internet advertising network” that generates “high quality” leads made this announcement to their partners out of nowhere; giving everyone 30 days notice that they were leaving the industry, and that all programs and advertisement would be stopped.

The termination notices were sent first thing in the morning, leaving many people scratching their heads. In the notice, they assured everyone that people would be paid in full, but that the owner was leaving his core lead business behind and would start focusing a “new social discovery site.”

It seems that more than a few people have been laid off from the company, so some people assumed something was going off. In fact, typing in “Smiley Media” in Google, the search suggests “Smiley Media Layoffs” pointing that more than a few people had noticed something going on with the company.

We were unable to reach anyone at the company for comment.

Update: 10/24:  Rhonda Allen, a representative from the company told us:

Smiley Media is a global company that operates multiple businesses.  This week we notified existing customers that we will exit the co-registration business over the next 30 days and will no longer operate our advertising network. We are focusing our resources on a social discovery site that we think will change the way people connect on the web.

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Sponsored by AxonMedia Group
Unique Offers for Unique Affiliates

According to sources within the FTC and public reports, Google may soon become a target of the FTC. Obviously Google is always a target for lawsuits, and always involved with something, but with the FTC possibly investigating Google in coming months, we are sure their attorneys are paying more attention than normal. This lawsuit seems to be a bit more important, and more and more people are speculating about it this week,.

It seems that the FTC has been looking into possibly suing Google for misuse of its well-known dominance of it’s search. According to reports, a memo has been circulating at the FTC headquarters questioning if the FTC should be involved with suing Google based on two things.

First, the FTC is considering that Google dominance in search has prevented competitors from entering the market, and that companies like Yelp have seen serious damage from what is seen to be anti-competitive behavior. The second reason for a possible lawsuit is more complex: Google has been using patents to try to block competitors smart phones from entering the marketplace, creating what is often called a “dirty pool.”

This is based on a 19-month-long investigation that looked at where Google made it impossible for anyone trying to compete with their search and review productions to enter the marketplace. Already Google has sat down with FTC investigators and attorneys to talk about preventing this lawsuit, but that these talks seem to have not helped at all.

Some people not only think that the FTC should sue Google, but that as a company it needs to be regulated. IN fact, Dr. Robert Epstein recently wrote on HuffPost that he thinks the company has shown a pattern of abuse and that it needs to be regulated, and lays down an entire bunch of reasons. He says:

But as good as the company is at providing information, it should not and must not be allowed to conduct business as usual. It must and will eventually be regulated, just as the phone companies and credit bureaus are regulated. Fundamental civil liberties issues are at stake.

Whatever may happen, Google does not want to be the target of any FTC lawsuit. It completely undermines their “Do No Evil” claim, and more importantly, will put in question many of their patents and general business strategy. For years people have claimed Google is anti-competitive, and they have claimed the opposite. A government lawsuit will bring to light many of these issues, and worse, make it harder for them to defend themselves against possible civil claims by those supposedly affected by these actions. This is something we all need to pay attention to in the coming months, because it could change the face of the industry.

A saying that still holds true today, “It’s so hard to find good help these days.” There are plenty of marketing analytics companies available around the country today, but there are only a choice few that actually offer good and honest services to marketing professionals. According to a Mobile Marketing Watch article, TapIt!, an independent mobile advertising provider, has realized the issue that marketers have with their analytics, especially in mobile advertising. Unlike many companies in the advertising world, TapIt! is concerned about more than serving ads, but they care to see entire campaigns through to the end result, whenever the results come in.

Because of this consideration that TapIt has showed over the years, they have recently added global conversion tracking to their list of offered services. This will allow mobile performance marketers to get a precise measure of the results from their ad spend on mobile.

This is nothing new, an advertising provider also providing marketing analytics. However, there are far less analytics platforms for mobile marketers, and even less that are actually precise and affordable. Every new analytics company is potentially good news to performance marketers, and a new mobile marketing analytics platform is exciting with the strong growth in mobile marketing happening day after day.

From Mobile Marketing Watch;

“It’s too easy in mobile to spend money on campaigns that produce no usable data to optimize against,” explained TapIt’s co-founder Justin Barr.  ”Tracking conversions shows advertisers which creatives, platforms, sites and more are converting and the advertiser can immediately stop spending where they’re getting little or no return.”

TapIt! is a considerably well-known advertising provider, and maybe with this new offering could start a trend with other mobile marketing providers. It’s almost confusing when thinking about why more advertising providers are not providing analytics services, which could very well instill more confidence in their marketing and advertising customers.

So, what exactly is TapIt! offering to marketers with its new analytics platform? Well, the new conversion tracking feature will help its advertisers in understanding post-click success. It will also expose channels with lower performance levels, which can substantially help marketers in their plans for ad spending in the future. Using a “cookie-less method of ‘postback’ tracking,” and without a need for UDID and IMEI, the company can track iOS and Android downloads, conversions, lead generation, sales, and a lot of other things. So, not only has TapIt! begun offering a new analytics feature for conversion tracking, but they are offering one that marketers can really use.

Even if you have not heard of TapIt!, their new conversion tracking feature isn’t really the point. The point is that there are advertising providers who actually care about their marketing customers, enough to offer services that they really can use. If more companies were to offer mobile analytics features, there would be a far small amount of marketing mistakes in the mobile world, which would be greatly helpful. TapIt!, if anything has set an example for other mobile ad providers, one that hopefully they will follow.

Essentially, the performance of Facebook marketing relies heavily on the performance of Facebook itself. The company has recently released their Q3 financial report, and things are looking good for advertisers. Obviously, with Facebook we are always dealing with large numbers, and it can sometimes seem a bit overwhelming. However, with their new numbers, marketers can rejoice knowing that Facebook advertising is only growing. For the entire quarter, the total revenue was around $1.26 billion, which no matter what is a pretty exciting number to see for any given company.

It’s easy to understand how Facebook has managed to reach such significant numbers, being that it has been at the forefront of many marketers’ campaign planning for quite a while now. So, though it is exciting, this $1.26 billion revenue mark for Facebook, which is a 32 percent from Q3 of 2011, is really no surprise. Ad revenue accounted for $1.09 billion of the total, which is a 36 percent increase from this time last year. So, if you do a bit of simple math, this means that advertising is now representing 86 percent of Facebook’s total revenue. Facebook must be doing something right for its advertisers, because a lot of them are hopping aboard.

However, while these ad revenue numbers are all well in good, the real focus should be on another of today’s newest marketing trends, mobile. Facebook’s mobile advertising efforts have been growing steadily for a while now, and it shows in their Q3 report. A total of 14 percent of the company’s ad revenue came from its mobile platform. While Facebook has certainly struggled with their mobile marketing efforts, it seems that growth is still happening, and it is happening with success.

As proud as I am that a billion people use Facebook each month, I’m also really happy that over 600 million people now share and connect on Facebook every month using mobile devices,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “People who use our mobile products are more engaged, and we believe we can increase engagement even further as we continue to introduce new products and improve our platform. At the same time, we are deeply integrating monetization into our product teams in order to build a stronger, more valuable company.”

There is not much to report in the way of bad news for those who are marketing with Facebook. Everything seems to be on the up and up, and most analysts were proven wrong with this report. People often doubt Facebook, saying that a company’s whose sole purpose was initially a place for people to connect socially could never have what it takes to become a successful advertising outlet. Well, with these numbers it is kind of hard to say that anymore. Facebook advertising is doing substantially well, and sits amongst the top, at least in the way of social media marketing. Since the reporting of these Q3 results, stock in Facebook has gone up about 8 percent, as those who lost faith in the company had it restored.

We don’t hear much from LinkedIn, in terms of their marketing efforts. However, they remain a prominent name in social marketing, probably due to their relatively large user base as well as their self-service ad platform. Now though, LinkedIn is announcing a new feature that will be available to marketers that do use the professionally focused social network. The new feature will allow advertisers to place 300×250 videos in place of their current text ads. However, they are not much like the usual video ads that can be found on other platforms. These video ads depend upon a user’s physical clicking of a link.

They work quite simply, and they are not an entirely new form of video ads. When a user clicks on a video ad, which is labeled by a shot of the video with the large play button across it, the video will open up and fill the whole 300×250 unit.  After the video has played and finished, it is easy for users to click through to other content as they have always been able to on the current ad platform. Whether this is an effective decision for LinkedIn is something that we will just have to wait and find out.

As one argument, LinkedIn has stepped it up, bringing more functionality of their marketing options. Video ads are still doing quite well today, and any company, especially one as popular as LinkedIn, can benefit from including them in their advertising features. However, the video ads that have seen arguably the best results are those that play automatically. I suppose, though, that with video ads, users that would have clicked on an ad anyway will become more engaged with what they are interested in within an ad. So, no matter what, it is probably a step in the right direction for LinkedIn, and their advertising customers will probably jump at the new feature.

The new ads are available to marketers in a few types, whether they be pay per click or pay per view. The video ads will also utilize the targeting options that LinkedIn already offers, making the new video ads even more effective. With images and videos being the most popular ad content amongst consumers these days, videos were definitely the right choice.

Video ads are making their way across the web, being offered by most companies that offer advertising today. Soon, they will be seen almost everywhere, and their effectiveness will be through the roof.

LinkedIn has already gone to work trying to make the option simpler, by working towards the integration of Youtube videos into their video ad service. Along with the videos, the company also wants Youtube’s analytics functions involved with their video ads. Chances are, we will see good results from these new video ads on LinkedIn, provided that marketer’s use them effectively. Video ads rarely prove to be a bad decision, but we will simply have to wait for the next report from LinkedIn, detailing how good of a decision this actually is.

Award-winning digital media agency 7thingsmedia has been selected to manage the affiliate marketing programme for leading villa tour operator, James Villa Holidays.

Joining the likes of Ideal World, Liberty London and MARS; James Villa Holidays have appointed London & New York-based 7thingsmedia to scale the UK programme whilst applying their vast global affiliate marketing experience to the campaign activity. 7thingsmedia will provide James Villa Holidays with strategic insights into the greater potential of performance-based marketing whilst building relationships with key travel publishers & travel aggregators.
James Villa Holidays selected the integrated media agency to manage its affiliate programme, after a formal pitch process, to replace incumbent agency Starcom MediaVest.

Andy Smith, Marketing Director of James Villa Holidays said: “James Villa Holidays needs an agency to develop our affiliate programme and meet our growth plans; throughout the pitch process we have been extremely impressed with 7thingsmedia’s passion, insights and the experience they have within their affiliate team. We are confident that 7thingsmedia are the best agency to meet our online objectives.”
Chris Bishop, Founder & Managing Director of 7thingsmedia said: “The team are delighted to win the James Villa Holidays account. We are looking forward to developing the programme activity and strategy whilst introducing the brand to market-leading innovations.”

ENDS

About 7thingsmedia 7thingsmedia is a global digital media agency with a proven track record of delivering hugely impressive returns for clients such as Agent Provocateur, boohoo.com, Liberty London, and Ted Baker.

With offices in both London and New York; 7thingsmedia’s services span the digital marketing mix; affiliates, display, lead generation, mobile, PPC, SEO and social media.

Client list includes: Agent Provocateur, boohoo.com, Liberty London, MARS, Ted Baker, UNICEF & USC.

7thingsmedia – http://www.7thingsmedia.com Twitter – @7thingsmedia

Contact: Rhi Davies, Marketing & PR Assistant, 7thingsmedia, rhi.davies@7thingsmedia.com , +44207 017 3190

If you are planning on booking for Affiliate Summit, it is highly, highly recommended that you book now, as prices are about to go up this week substantially. For those who are just looking to book tickets for the floor, and walk around it’s right now at $99.00 but will go up to $249.00 in just three days. You can book here now.

“This is one of the best conferences I have ever attended. The energy of the group is inspiring and contagious. This is one of the most organized events – all of the details being covered makes it even more enjoyable to attend!” – Shannon Vogel, The Be-Scene, Owner

Affiliate Summit is the premiere affiliate marketing conference in the US and is a place that everyone needs to go to. Additionally, its being held in fabulous Las Vegas and it’s a great additional vacation for those looking to have a great time. If this is your first time, the $99.00 package is great, but no reason to miss out on all the sessions.

Additionally, people have been asking me about hotel recommendations. Personally, I am a huge fan of the Palazzo, and they are offering a special package for the winter that includes a luxury suite, and over $1k worth of free stuff starting at $149.00 a night. Highly recommended, since some of the best restaurants are in the Palazzo and its sister hotel the Venetian.

Please, again, don’t forget to book Affiliate Summit today. You have three more days until the prices go up.

We all remember the fake likes, the fake followers, the fake video views, and pretty much fake everything involved with a social media following. The phonies seem endless, and they have all existed for a sole reason. That reason is that the brands and companies using these fake fans want to appear as if they have a larger fan base. It is as simple as that. In theory, a larger fan base means more user engagement, and overall it makes the company or brand look better. These brands and companies are those that believe the key to social media success lies solely in the quantity of their fans, assuming that if someone sees that they have a huge amount of fans that they too will want to be the company’s fan. However, what these companies usually fail to take into consideration is the quality of these fans.

A recent ClickZ article details the results of a study performed by Napkin Labs, a Facebook app developer. The study tells us that the amount of fans that any one company has does not necessarily affect the amount of user engagement for the better. The study was of 52 Facebook brand pages, pinpointing those with between 200,000 and 1 million fans over eight weeks. From the study, Napkin Labs found a different relationship between quantity of fans and user engagement than most would expect.

The numbers were actually very surprising, showing that almost everyone’s idea of how Facebook fans worked was wrong. It found that brand pages with 900,000 fans to 1 million fans saw 60 percent less engagement than did those with 500,000 to 600,000 fans. As if that were not enough of a shock, the study also found that only about 6 percent of a brand’s fans will actually engage with said page.

Now, these results are definitely a surprise, and they go against most of the common ideas of social media marketing that are followed by most marketers. However, Napkin Labs suggests that brands and marketers should focus more on the quality of their fans, mentioning the ever-famous “superfan.”

These Superfans are those fans that are in the top 20 of page engagement, and the company says that these may be the key to social media marketing. By reaching these fans, and giving them ways to more effectively engage with the brand’s page, brands can potentially reach more users in a more effective way.

So, there were those who had their arguments in defense of fake fans on various social media platforms, but now the facts are right in front of us. These fake fans will lead almost nowhere, because even though they show in numbers, they cannot engage and real users will notice. It is the superfans that engage the most that will bring more user engagement, and finding these superfans is what should be priority number one for any brand on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social platform.