Blog

06 Mar

Posted at 17:25h in Insights by

With recent data-powered performance results trending in favor of native advertising, display ads face a questionable future. Business Insider reported that native ads will drive 74 percent of ad revenue in the U.S. by 2021. In today’s digital space, the benefits of native advertising over display are becoming increasingly apparent. It’s easy to assume that the only reason native ads currently wield power is their ability to seamlessly blend into website content. While this is certainly an advantage, there’s a broader spectrum of factors boosting native’s relevance. We took a closer look and charted out 6 critical reasons why native advertising has, and will continue to, grab display’s revenue share:   1. Ad-Blocking According to a PageFair study, adblock usage grew 30 percent in 2016, resulting in 236 million desktop devices and 380 million mobile devices adopting adblock. This trend has played a...

02 Mar

Posted at 18:57h in Spark Bites by

Welcome to this week’s edition of Spark Bites ― your one-stop-shop for the latest in social media news! While some social networks crowdsourced their housekeeping, others got in on all the Oscars buzz. Read on to find out more!   Facebook   After a major News Feed overhaul that prioritizes user-generated content over published media, Facebook is now trying to get back into publishers’ good graces. The social network launched a Local News Subscription Accelerator program which will aid U.S.-based publishers in gaining a larger audience. The program facilitates training for publishers to learn about subscriber-acquisition by Facebook’s “digital subscription experts.”   In an effort to make its advertising platform more efficient, Facebook removed 20 ad performance metrics that it deemed redundant. Furthermore, it launched “metric labels,” which will differentiate hard data from “estimated” or “in development” metrics. This feature is expected to aid...

23 Feb

Posted at 20:22h in Spark Bites by

It’s the end of another week and we’re back with the latest in social media news! Social networks teased us with mystery updates and also launched some pretty neat, proactive initiatives focused on community. Find out more in this edition of Spark Bites:   Hide And Seek GIF from Hide GIFs   Facebook   Facebook upgraded its 3D technology to support the industry-standard gITF 2.0 format. This allows developers to create and share 3D objects directly to News Feed and also display websites in 3D. Additionally, users can integrate these 3D objects into Facebook VR and AR.   Facebook announced that it will share the biggest AR/VR news in the company’s history at the upcoming F8 developer conference. F8 is scheduled for May 1-2 2018. To say our interest is piqued is an understatement!   Facebook upgraded Messenger to allow users to convert a one-on-one voice/video call...

21 Feb

Posted at 22:53h in Design by

Digital properties today face a tricky balancing act with quality and speed: users expect the utmost visual experience to consider a brand credible, regardless of industry, and they expect it to be delivered immediately. When asked what influenced their first impressions of a company, 94% of respondents indicated basing their opinion on the design elements of the company’s home page, while only 6% referenced specific content. Meanwhile, 2 seconds load time is the threshold for website acceptability, with every additional 1 second delay in page response time resulting in a 7% reduction in conversions....

16 Feb

Posted at 16:01h in Spark Bites by

Welcome to this week’s edition of Spark Bites! All our beloved social networks had a busy week and churned out quite a few significant and exciting updates. Read on to find out more!   Facebook   Facebook will now count viewable-only impressions to measure a Page’s organic reach. This means an impression will be counted only when a Page post actually appears on a user’s screen. Unfortunately, this change will lead to a decline in business pages’ reported reach numbers.    Facebook is testing a Downvoting feature for comments on public page posts. The social giant intends to learn what qualifies as valuable engagement on public page posts. Downvoting does not affect comment rank, post rank or page rank on users’ news feeds. The test is currently limited to only a few users in the U.S.   Facebook is launching a crisis-response feature on its...

09 Feb

Posted at 21:04h in Spark Bites by

We’re back with the latest in digital marketing news news! Our favorite social networks have doled out some tantalizing goodies this week. Some of the quieter social apps have also announced impactful updates. Go ahead, dive into this week’s edition of Spark Bites!   Facebook   Facebook is testing a new feature called “Your Emoji,” which allows users to overlay an emoji of their choice on their Messenger profile picture. This will be a way for the user to communicate to their friends what they’re currently up to or how they’re feeling. Much like a story, the emoji disappears in 24 hours.   Facebook is planning to expand its video platform, Watch, in order to directly compete with YouTube. The social giant will open Watch to more individual video creators who can post their content for free and monetize it through ads. It also...

02 Feb

Posted at 21:22h in Spark Bites by

Welcome to this week’s edition of Spark Bites! We have a lot to tell you - the world of social networks and paid social has been abuzz with activity. Read on to find out more!   Facebook   It’s official. Publishers have begun rethinking their Facebook marketing strategy after its major News Feed overhaul. Not only are they planning to increase their dependency on paid search and social, but also exploring other platforms. Google and Pinterest currently seem to be the top choices. Can’t say we didn’t see this coming. In fact, we expect paid advertising to see an enormous boom in the coming year. We recommend businesses, big or small, jump on the bandwagon sooner rather than later.   Facebook has banned all cryptocurrency and ICO-related ads, touting them to be “frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.” However, the platform has...