Business and Marketing

Urban Airship solution will free in-app marketers to move beyond the standard options of "open" or "ignore."

Urban Airship has introduced what it claims is the first cross-platform support for interactive communications via push notifications. The system, which also can embed widgets, is able to operate in iOS 8 and Android operating systems 4.3 and higher.

Urban Airship's pre-packaged solution offers up 13 button-enabled options for interactions within push messages. These include “shop now,” “remind me later,” “share,” and “download.” Users, however, can develop other options of their own.

“Up till now, when app users received push notifications, they had only one of two choices: swipe and open it or ignore it. If they ignored it because they were involved with something else, they often wouldn't remember it later,” says Corey Gault, Urban Airship's director of communications.

For marketers, Gault says the development opens up vast new possibilities for customer engagement. “This not only extends more control to the user, but it creates greater connectivity and intelligence to the marketer,” he says. “It will be easy to generate paths to engage users with the brand and learn more what individual customers care about. It's the next generation of direct response marketing through apps.”

Urban Airship's solution not so much takes advantage of proprietary technology as it does of evolving mobile technology. The introduction of interactive push comes just ahead of the expected September release of Apple's iOS 8 operating system, which will be able to handle the added capabilities and make the innovation instantly scalable for marketers.

Because Android owners use varying versions of the phone's operating system, interactive push won't be instantly scalable on the format. It can only run on the KitKat and latest generation Jelly Bean systems, which currently account for about 29% of Android devices in the marketplace, according to Google.

Urban Airship describes itself as a mobile relationship management company that delivers billions of push messages each month.

Business Breaking News: 5 Leadership Weaknesses and How to Fix Them

Gaining a leadership position generally means that someone has done something right. He or she has demonstrated the ability to remain graceful under pressure, inspire colleagues and execute plans to move the company forward. But leaders are far from perfect, and like anyone else, many of them need to work on certain things. Here are five common leadership weaknesses and how you can work to improve them.

Accomplishing goals without providing a vision

A recent leadership survey by business coaching service provider The Alternative Board (TAB) found that 46 percent of business owners feel a leader's most important function is "accomplishing goals," followed closely by "setting a vision" (38 percent). TAB vice president David Scarola said that the two actually go hand in hand.

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Business Breaking News: Problems at Work: Are They All in Your Head?

Every day in every workplace, there's bound to be differences of opinion, disagreements or even full-blown arguments. Most offices have a standard HR procedure for dealing with serious conflicts, and may even seek to change their policies if something simply "isn't working" as it stands.

The problem is that in most cases, leaders and HR professionals take workplace issues at face value, and their demands for behavioral changes often provide only a temporary fix. Looking beyond the surface and getting to the psychological root of a problem may actually be more helpful in solving it for good.

"What goes on in the workplace is intensely psychological," said Shelley Reciniello, psychologist and author of "The Conscious Leader: Nine Principles and Practices to Create a Wide-Awake and Productive Workplace" (LID Publishing, 2014). "We focus on behaviors and try to change them instead of looking at why [we exhibit those behaviors]. If we understood why, we wouldn't have to have these big change initiatives that don't really work."

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Business Breaking News: Abusive Bosses Make Everyone Mean

When bosses are mean to one employee, all their workers suffer, new research finds.

Supervisors who belittle and ridicule individual employees not only negatively affect those workers' attitudes and behaviors, but also cause their other staff members to act in a similarly hostile manner toward one another, according to a study led by a Michigan State University (MSU) business scholar.

"That's the most disturbing finding, because it's not just about individual victims now, it's about creating a context where everybody suffers, regardless of whether you were individually abused or not," Crystal Farh, the study's lead investigator and an assistant professor of management in MSU's Broad College of Business, said in a statement.

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Statistics expert Edo Airoldi says data must be paired with predictive analytics before marketers can truly forecast customer behavior.

Airoldi in his Nanigans team picture.

Marketers need to get more clinical to fully realize the benefits of their investments in data and technology, says Harvard statistics professor Edo Airoldi, one of the developers of the Nanigans ad automation platform that allows companies to do their media buying in-house. Brands that use social graph marketing to track people's social media behavior and inform their future campaigns can have some luck in predicting their future behavior, he says, but luck it may well be.

“It's making predictions based on correlations and not causal effects. Drug companies could never get away with that. They have to undergo clinical trials,” Airoldi says. “For instance, a baby products marketer can observe a huge stork migration and assume that a lot of babies will be born. But one day the stork becomes extinct and there are still babies. It's the same thing with the circle of correlations on Facebook. You can use them to predict forward, but it's problematic.”

Two years ago Airoldi teamed with brothers Ian and Jeremi Karnell to found Offergraph, a company that provides marketers with a predictive analytics tool to inform future campaigns by accounting for cause and effect. Offergraph was acquired today by social media data company Polygraph Media, and Airoldi, who will serve as the merged entity's technical adviser, thinks that such combinations of data and predictive analytics platforms will make machine learning accessible to all marketers.

“We're at the early stages of helping marketers become truly data-driven,” Airoldi says. “There are a lot of tools out there that help marketers do things—like text mining—to analyze social media feedback, but these tools are immature relative to what is possible.”

Business Breaking News: HTC One M8 for Windows vs. Nokia Lumia Icon: Which is Better for Business?

Looking for a premium Windows Phone device? Buyers in the United States have two primary options: HTC's new One M8 for Windows, and Nokia's flagship Lumia Icon smartphone. Both phones sport premium metal designs, fast processors and large, sharp displays. And they're both solid business phones that run the latest version of Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft's mobile operating system. But there are a few notable differences between these two juggernaut smartphones. So which one is better for business? Read on for a feature-for-feature comparison of the HTC One M8 for Windows and the Nokia Lumia Icon.

HTC One M8 for Windows: The awkwardly named HTC One M8 for Windows is physically identical to the original HTC One M8, an Android smartphone that launched this summer. That's a good thing: the original One M8 might be the sexiest Android phone ever made, and it's certainly one of the best-looking Windows Phone devices yet. Its sleek shell is 90 percent metal, which gives it a premium look and feel when stacked up against the colorful plastic Windows Phone devices from Nokia that dominate the platform. And the One M8's rounded corners and subtle accent lines add an extra touch of sophistication.

Nokia Lumia Icon: It's not as flashy as the One M8, but the Lumia Icon has plenty of appeal. The phone comes in black or white, with a soft-touch polycarbonate rear panel that's easy to grip compared with Nokia's other plastic phones. An aluminum band around the sides of the device adds a premium look and feel that's similar to Apple's iPhone 5s. The front display's curved slides wrap smoothly around the surrounding bezel, eliminating some of the device's sharp edges, but overall the Lumia Icon is much squarer than the One M8.

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UPS contends that the Postal Service is using the exigent increase to fund low-ball shipping rates and make a grab for e-commerce's growing delivery business.

Price cuts are "dramatic," contends FedEx.

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) approved a USPS proposal to decrease business rates on Priority Mail, a development that could result in significantly raising the Postal Service's profile in the shipping business. While retail rates for Priority Mail increased an average of 1.7% this year, Commercial Plus and Commercial Base rates for volume shippers will decline 2.3% and 0.9%, respectively. In its decision, the PRC noted that the decreases are designed to improve the Postal Service's market share for ground package volume weighing between six and 20 pounds.

Both UPS and FedEx vehemently opposed the rate decreases in comments filed with the PRC after the Postal Service filed its request for the change on July 1. UPS maintained that the Postal Service is trying to “squeeze” as much revenue as it can from market dominant mailers to fund a grab for additional market share in shipping. The shipper also alleged that, because the data supporting the request was filed under seal, it cannot be known if the decrease falls in line with the Postal Accountability and Enforcement Act.

FedEx complained that, by proposing price decreases ranging between 30 and 50% in weight categories most used by Internet retailers, USPS was making a major play in the “fiercely competitive market for e-commerce distribution services.” FedEx told the PRC that the rate cuts were “dramatic” and unheard of in the private sector.

The Postal Service has been openly touting its shipping services to e-coms as a low-cost alternative, especially since UPS and FedEx announced “dimensional pricing” plans that will charge premiums for larger-sized packages, no matter the weight. The new rates will take effect at year's end.

The Postal Service already accounts for nearly two fifths of the total volume shipping in the U.S., but less than one fifth of revenues, according to a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service. That's because the Post Office has focused on lightweight packages that return a revenue-per-piece of $3.37 as compared to $9.70 for FedEx and $9.39 for UPS. Apparently, the decreased rates for heavier packages are designed to remedy that disparity.

The package business has been one of the few bright lights at the Post Office in recent years, posting regular increases over the last several quarters. During USPS's recently concluded Fiscal 2014 third quarter, shipping and package volume increased 7.7% and added $196 million in revenue.

Business Breaking News: Social E-Commerce App Drives Traffic to Your Online Store

Need more traffic to your online store? A new social e-commerce Web and mobile app can help.

Social shopping community Bestie launched today (Aug. 19), offering merchants a consumer-driven e-commerce platform to list products and bring customers to their online stores. Using an Instagram-like newsfeed, Bestie allows retailers to grow their businesses by letting users find, follow and favorite products and sellers. Instead of directly buying on Bestie, however, listed products link back to a merchant's own online store where buyers can complete their purchases.

To further drive sales for merchants, Bestie also gives users product recommendations based on their favorites, accounts they follow, browsing histories and user preferences. The service also functions as a deal-finding platform that automatically showcases and updates merchant promos in real-time. [15 E-Commerce Solutions for Small Businesses]

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A survey of 525 chief marketers finds them voyaging between digital discovery and digital deliverance as they ride out turbulent trends to positions of newfound respect.

It's the best of times, it's the worst of times for CMOs. They have more budget, they don't have enough. They're making strides in digital, they're too far behind. They can meet senior management's expectations, they're barely halfway there. They're fairly compensated, they are not respected the same as C-level peers.

The CMO's lot is rife with contradictions during a volatile period for the profession. The more that digital technology enables them to do, the more performance that senior management demands from them. So, what at first glance appear to be contradictory findings in the “State of Marketing 2014” report--released today by the CMO Council--is at second glance hardly surprising in a time of technology-infused transition.

“Chief marketers are still trying to get their arms around a lot of stuff,” says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “They talk a good game when it comes to digital, but they're still hiring and firing agencies and developers at a high rate. They know all their data has to be unified and integrated, but it's probably not as yet. It's a big job.”

The CMO Council surveys some 525 chief marketers globally each year to provide its 7,000 members with an up-to-date resource and reference guide. This year's survey appears to tell marketers that if they're well-funded and well-compensated, but still knee deep in muck, then they're about where they should be.

Four-fifths of CMOs said senior management's goals for them were realistic, yet 43% said they'd just started trying to achieve them and 26% reported being only halfway there. Asked to name their top accomplishments in 2013, 54% named improved digital marketing. Yet further probing reveals their digital programs to be nascent. Only 15% of them reported spending a third or more of their budgets on digital channels, and 59% related that digital marketing makeovers led their to-do lists for 2014. New products and corporate branding, meanwhile, are the top two items in their budgets.

The good news is that budgets are growing. More than half (54%) of those surveyed said their budgets were upped for 2014, with 19% seeing increases of 11% or more. But the news is fraught with Dickensian disappointment: Asked to name their biggest areas of frustration, 41% said “insufficient budget.”

“The thing about digital budget allocation is that you can't make an informed analysis without knowing what business a company's in and how quickly the customer's buying behavior is transforming to digital means,” says Sheryl Pattek, VP and principal analyst in Forrester Research's CMO practice. Marketing leaders surveyed by the CMO Council clearly are all over the board. Two fifths represent B2B operations, 23% hail from B2C companies, and the remainder work at companies serving both areas. Twenty-three percent run marketing at $5 billion plus enterprises, while 20% toil at companies of $50 million or less.

No matter the size of their companies, all CMOs have to confront the same wide and ever-expanding universe of vendors. “All companies are struggling with digital data. There are more than a thousand tech vendors out there and it's difficult for CMOs to get a handle on,” Pattek says. “They don't know what to do first, second, or third, and they have to learn how to architect platforms that all vendors can merge on.”

Vetting and managing third-party vendors has come to command a growing portion of the chief marketer's time. According to “State of Marketing 2014,” only 7% of companies use a single global agency to meet all their marketing needs. Three fifths of survey respondents said they used two to five agencies (including marketing services, social, mobile, and research/analytics), and 21% reported employing 10 to 20. (A small, but telling, 1% said they'd “lost count.”)

“I must get 10 unsolicited phone calls and emails a day from vendors. You have to sift through them to learn what's real and what's not real,” says LegalZoom CMO Laura Goldberg, whose digital pedigree includes postings as GM of NFL Online and COO of Napster. LegalZoom employs a staffer with a background at marketing services companies to focus full-time on Web optimization and convergence of digital tools.

For the first in the seven-year history of the CMO Council report, Neale-May says, senior management's number-one mandate for marketing is to “drive top-line growth,” and Goldberg thinks that development points at the source of marketing's metamorphosis-in-progress. “It's the shift toward measurement,” she says. “If I can measure that something's working, then there's a lot of budget for it. But if it's harder to measure, the budget feels tight. That contradiction is a reflection of the current marketing mix. As we move to more measurable channels, the purse strings will feel less tight.”

“Half the channels marketers have to work with today didn't exist three years ago,” Forrester's Pattek says. “The good CMOs understand that they have a learning curve. Their profession is evolving and it will continue to evolve.”

Evolution appears to be moving slowly for CMOs in the front office, however. Asked whether they felt that they carried the same level of respect in their organizations as their C-level peers, only 30% said yes. Forty-five percent said they felt equal to some, but below others, and 20% said flat-out that they were not equal to their fellow chiefs. Chief marketers do feel they're ascendant, however, with nearly 70% of those surveyed saying that they were trusted members of the C-suite's “inner circle” and that they felt a part of the leadership discussion. Moreover, 75% reported getting raises last year, and 89% received bonuses.

Goldberg's follow-the-money-to-respect perspective resonates, too, with Neale-May. He points to the survey finding that the C-suite cohort with whom most CMOs (58%) have formed alliances was the CFO. “If you can show you're making the company money, if you can provide senior management with more validation,” he says, “then CMOs can find themselves in positions as thought leaders and contribute on a more strategic level.”

Business Breaking News: Bring Your Own Network: Is Your Business Data Secure?

With the widespread adoption of BYOD (bring your own device) policies and remote work arrangements, employees are able to access company data from anywhere there's an Internet connection. Certain files and access points may only be available through a corporate connection, but in many cases, "bring your own network" (BYON) has become the new normal for today's workforce.

The benefits of being able to work without being tethered to one's desk are obvious, which is why employers have been increasingly supportive of BYOD and BYON in recent years.

"Individual users can easily set up their own access points with pretty standard technology and cheaper data plans," said Carlos Montero-Luque, chief technology officer of enterprise mobility management platform Apperian. "The convenience, lower cost and ease to set up one's personal network anywhere, anytime is very appealing to road warriors, even without deep technical expertise. Companies also benefit from the increased availability of their workforce, which is why they want to support and secure remote connection, rather than prohibit it."

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The online wine retailer's strategy incorporates different flavors and depths.

Business Breaking News: Yahoo Launches New Online Stores

Yahoo is trying to make it easier for small businesses to take their operations online.

This week, Yahoo unveiled Yahoo Stores, the next generation of the company's e-commerce platform, which is designed to help anyone start and grow a business online.

"For most retailers, an online store is crucial, but getting it started is an arduous task that can take weeks," Amit Kumar, head of Yahoo Small Business, wrote on the company's blog. "With Yahoo Stores, you can have an online store up and running and accepting orders in less than a couple of minutes."

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The grocery chain believes payment card account numbers, owners' names, and expiration dates may have been hacked via POS systems at 180 stores.

Cub Foods stores were among those breached.

Supervalu, a grocery chain comprising 3,000-plus stores, began notifying customers yesterday that hackers may have obtained their payment card account numbers and expiration dates, as well as their names, through point-of-sale systems at 180 Supervalu stores and 29 stand-alone liquor stores. The breach occurred between June 22 and July 17. An ongoing investigation by a third-party forensics firm is still assessing its scope.

The breaches occurred at stores operated under Supervalu's Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher's, Shop ‘n Save, and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy banners. Upon learning of the breach, the company notified federal law enforcement authorities and the major payment card companies.

To date, Supervalu and its investigators have uncovered no evidence that any cardholder data was stolen by hackers, nor have they discovered any misuse of such data. The chain believes the breach has been contained and is telling customers they can safely use their credit and debit cards in Supervalu stores. A call center has been set up by the company to address customer concerns about the breach and it is offering 12 months of free identity protection services to customers who may have been affected.

“The intrusion was identified by our internal team, it was quickly contained, and we have had no evidence of any misuse of any customer data,” said President and CEO Sam Duncan in a press release revealing the breach.

By contrast, the Target holiday data breach that may have affected more than 100 million consumers was discovered by federal agents, who notified the retailer.

Business Breaking News: Are You Protecting This Important Digital Business Asset?

When it comes to data security, most businesses focus heavily on protecting sensitive corporate information and personal details about employees and customers. But there's another digital asset that companies should guard just as carefully, and most organizations don't realize it until after a breach has occurred.

That asset is a business's social media presence. In today's highly connected world, a large percentage of a company's branding efforts happen on social networks. All the time and effort you've spent creating a positive brand image can be undone in a matter of seconds if the wrong person gains access to your accounts.

You don't have to look very far to find examples of corporate PR disasters due to a compromised social media account. Burger King and Jeep were victims of highly publicized Twitter hackings last year; the Associated Press suffered a hack, too, and a fake tweet about a White House explosion went out to nearly 2 million followers. While social media teams were able to get the situation under control quickly in each of these cases, it's easy to see how damaging a social hack can be to a brand. [5 Surefire Ways to Get Your Passwords Stolen]

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Half the Senate wants to block Phase 2 of USPS's Network Rationlization plan. Are they serious, or merely posturing?

Fifty vacationing Senators attached their names to a letter sent today to the chairwoman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, asking them to block Phase 2 of the U.S. Postal Service's Network Rationalization plan. They want a one-year moratorium on the closure of 82 processing facilities and the elimination of 15,000 jobs, as well as a ban on delivery cuts.

“This one-year moratorium will give Congress the time it needs to enact the comprehensive postal reforms that are necessary for the Postal Service to function effectively into the future,” the senators wrote in a letter to Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Richard Shelby (R-LA). The letter, which was drafted by Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)—who has emerged as a staunch defender of the direct mail industry—also was sent to Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Mike Johanns (R-NE), leaders of a subcommittee on Postal Service finances.

A similar letter was sent to Appropriations leaders last week, but with only 22 signees. The new version carries the signatures of 43 Democrats who, one Washington insider speculated, were persuaded by postal unions to join the effort. The Senate is in summer recess until September 8.

On the face of it, the effort appears largely symbolic. In announcing the implementation of Phase 2 in January 2015, USPS made clear that it would continue to trim its workforce through attrition and that the 15,000 affected workers would be reassigned to other facilities. The Postal Service also released a study showing that the change would cause only minor changes in service, moving the average delivery time of First Class Mail from 2.14 days to 2.25.

Bulk mailers generally support consolidation for operational efficiencies that could help keep rates stable. After the first phase of consolidation was completed in 2013, complaints were few. “Service levels actually improved in the year following the implementation of Phase 1,” noted America Catalog Mailers Association President Hamilton Davison when Phase 2 was announced.

Asked to comment on the Senators' action, the Postal Service responded with a written statement saying, “In 2012 and 2013 the Postal Service consolidated 141 mail processing facilities. This rationalization of our network was highly successful, resulted in negligible service impact, required no employee layoffs, and generates annual cost savings of approximately $865 million. The Postal Service expects the completion of network rationalization will generate an additional $750 million in annual savings.”

Should Mikulski and Shelby choose to act on their colleagues' recommendation, they will be forced to weigh the fact that the Network Revitalization plan has already been approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Phase 2 consolidations were originally scheduled to commence in January 2014 and, hence, have already been delayed a year.

With political pundits giving Republicans a good chance to recapture the Senate this fall, sending the letter may have simply served as a last-chance vehicle for Senate Democrats to go on record on the subject of job cuts.

Business Breaking News: Your Business's Biggest Mistake: Not Being on Facebook

As a small business, you may have ignored Facebook. Who cares about teenage selfies and vacation photos, right? But it turns out that by not having a presence on Facebook, you could be missing out on a huge business opportunity.

The social networking site has a huge influence on what products and services people buy, according to a study from digital marketing solutions firm G/O Digital. More specifically, Facebook significantly influences millennial shoppers' opinions of small businesses, including their decisions to purchase items not just online, but in-store as well.

Nearly 60 percent of consumers ages 18 to 29 engage with Facebook ads at least once per week before buying an item in-store from a small business. Additionally, 62 percent believe Facebook is the most useful social media outlet for researching small businesses before visiting a store in person. That's considerably higher than the 11 percent who feel the same about Twitter and the 12 percent who believe Pinterest is the best site for researching small businesses.

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Pursway puts its Israeli anti-terrorism technology to work in the customer acquisition wars.

Pursway takes capturing customers literally.

Like many of his counterparts back in Silicon Wadi, Israel's coastal Mediterranean technology center, Ran Shaul is a former Israeli Defense Forces officer who now deploys military intelligence-based software in the marketing wars. The company he works for, Massachusetts-based Pursway, has for several years used anti-terrorism technology to optimize CRM databases for marketers.Today, with the introduction of Pursway Connect, it is moving into the business of customer acquisition, using its algorithms to root out friends of valued customers instead of cohorts of dangerous combatants.

“Our clients were using our PIVO technology to figure out why to go after Customer A instead of Customer B, and they came to us and said, ‘Why won't you give us net new names? If I tell you who my best customers are, can you tell me who their friends are?'” says Shaul, Pursway's chief client officer.

Pursway Connect uses PIVO—which stands for Pursway Influence Value Order—to root out a good customer's 10 to 25 closest contacts via its 150 million-person U.S. database. It then applies what it calls its “social graph,” a predictive analytical tool with its origins in the IDF, to pinpoint the 8 to 15% of customers who are purchase influencers—bases from which clients can acquire new customers.

Pursway's social graph “allows us to reach prospects with real-life relationships with our customers,” commented Sony Corporation of America SVP Marketing Steven Fuld in a press release announcing Connect. “In a world where people are more likely to buy what their friends buy, Sony becomes smarter and more relevant in its marketing outreach.”

Surprisingly, social media sites are not on the itinerary of Pursway's social outreach program. “We're not using social media data. We're not aggregating an existing collection of contacts. We don't see value in someone being friends with 5,000 other people on Facebook,” Shaul says. Instead, Pursway analyzes billions of pieces of data from thousands of open data sources against its database and connects the dots.

Pursway Connect is initially available for direct mail and social media targeting, though the company says it will soon be integrated for online and mobile advertising. Pursway is offering a 60-day trial of the platform using up to 100,000 names.

“We know marketers are under a ton of pressure to increase response rates and help drive sales, but they are already bogged down in too much data and a mess of disparate, complex analytics,” says Pursway CEO David Ellenberger. “The ability to extend their audience and target prospects that are friends of current customers should not be limited to the likes of Facebook.”

Business Breaking News: Attention Freelancers! 10 Great Websites for Finding Work

From writing and graphic design to IT and coding, there seems to be freelance work available in just about every conceivable field. Today's technological capabilities combined with a growing need for part-time and temporary labor means that more and more members of the workforce are taking their skillsets and launching careers as professional freelancers. No matter your area of expertise, you're bound to find great freelance openings on these 10 websites.

99designs

99designs welcomes freelance designers of all sorts, whether they specialize in advertising, merchandise, packaging, graphic work or illustration. Companies seeking freelance workers build a design brief, which 99designs launches as a prize-based contest open to their global network of designers in that category. Although only one freelancer will ultimately win, entering these contests is great practice and can help you build up your portfolio.

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The revenue surge was a global one, with mobile advertising up 92% worldwide, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Spurred by smartphone proliferation and the expansion of low-cost cellular data plans, dollars spent on mobile ads increased by 122% to $8.1 billion in North America last year, compared to only $3.6 billion in 2012. Regionally, Latin America posted the biggest growth at 215%, while spending in Europe rose 90%, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Global Mobile Advertising Revenue study.

Growth rates are typically high for new media working up from a small base, but an IAB official believes mobile spending will continue on a steady upward trend for some time. “In the early days of the Internet, the business was not built on a strong foundation,” says Joe Laszlo, senior director of the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. “Mobile is different. It's growing with the benefit of all the experience gained from the PC-based Internet.”

Among ad types, mobile display showed the highest growth worldwide at 123%, followed by search at 92%. T-Mobile might be able to take a lot of the credit for such drastic changes in social behavior—not so much for selling more Androids and iPhones as for introducing liberal call and data plans for as low as $30 a month. “As we see cheaper and flat rate data plans emerge, consumers don't ration their mobile usage,” Laszlo notes.

Search accounted for more than half of mobile ad revenues in Europe (54%) and North America (53%), while display made up about 40% of the rest in those two regions. Ads run through SMS and MMS messaging in those regions accounted for but 6%, declining with the growth of messaging through branded apps. “Search took off as a mobile platform earlier than display,” Laszlo says. “It's a little easier for somebody like Google or Bing to adapt their model to the mobile world.”

The situation was the reverse, however, in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa, where the mobile phenomenon remains in more nascent stages, and where feature phones are still prominent. In each of these regions, ads placed via SMS and MMS accounted for almost half of mobile revenues and search and display both represented about a quarter.

Shannon McBride, VP of marketing and sales for the mobile ad network UpSnap, says mobile's dramatic growth is not surprising, but that it will soon begin to level out. “We've see some huge increases,” she says. “It's going to hit a point of mass penetration.”

At the same time, McBride feels that marketers have room to grow into the developing medium. “Agencies and brands have a comfort level with traditional media they don't yet have with mobile,” she observes. “They know that they need to be on mobile, but they're not sure what the right strategy is. Once they have some kind of confidence level and track record, they can easily see what's working well for them and go where the best response rates are.”

Ali Callahan, director of sales solutions at UpSnap, which counts Home Depot and Sears among its clients, sees room for expansion through SMBs. “What's special about mobile is that it's not just for national, big box brands,” she says. “We are starting to work with a lot of smaller, local businesses.”

Business Breaking News: Samsung Galaxy Alpha: Top 5 Business Features

Samsung's new smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, packs most of the handy features of Samsung's Galaxy S5 into a smaller, snazzier package. What makes the Galaxy S5 Alpha stand out are its sleek metal sides, which lend it a more premium look and feel than the standard Galaxy S5, which sports an all-plastic body with faux-metal trim. That makes the Samsung Galaxy Alpha a smartphone that business users will be proud to show off.

But how does it stand up to Samsung's flagship smartphone in other respects? Its 4.7-inch display is smaller than the Galaxy S5's 5.1-inch screen, its processor is a bit slower and it lacks the S5's expandable microSD card slot. But the device still promises good performance and tons of productivity-boosting software features in a sexier, more affordable device.

Samsung hasn't yet released details about the phone's exact pricing or availability. While we wait, here are five features that should make the Galaxy Alpha a great business phone.

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Melissa Data adds Canadian change of address processing to its cloud-based NCOA service.

Canada keeps a watchful eye on mail processing.

Melissa Data today announced it had added Canadian addresses to its SmartMover National Change of Address service. It is part of the first wave of contact data companies to have been granted a license for NCOA processing by Canada Post under new mail laws requiring in-country processing.

SmartMover now can match data against more than 10 million change of address records filed by Canadian households and businesses in the last 72 months. “Privacy issues are paramount in Canada. They license the database and the licensing practice,” says Melissa VP Marketing Greg Brown. “As part of the licensing requirements, they want to know that we have a facility in Canada and how we're going to process, keep, and destroy data.”

More than 40 million individuals move annually in the U.S., presenting an ongoing challenge to marketers to update their lists. Cloud-based solutions such as Melissa's allow list managers to update customer data automatically and in real time, as opposed to periodically sending entire lists to mail houses to be updated. Now that solution extends north of the border.

“Melissa Data is one of only 13 vendors licensed by Canada Post to provide Canadian NCOA so mailers can stay in contact with customers in both Canada and the U.S.,” says Chris Rowe, the company's VP of Data Enhancement Services.

Business Breaking News: Windows 9 Rumors: Top 5 Business Features

For plenty of businesses, Windows 8 is a tough sell. A focus on a new touch-optimized interface required users to relearn how to navigate Windows, and the removal of key interface elements left even savvy workers feeling confused.

Now, Microsoft hopes to reclaim the workspace with Windows 9, a brand-new version of Windows expected to launch sometime later this year. Microsoft hasn't confirmed many details about its next major release, but leaks and rumors have given us an idea of what to expect. That potentially includes the ability to disable Windows 8's intrusive Start screen and the addition of a voice-activated virtual assistant. While we wait for more details, here are five rumored features for Windows 9 that could make it better for work.

Return of the Start menu

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Jim Lyski will now head marketing at the used car retailer.

Used care retailer CarMax announced today the appointment of Jim Lyski as its new CMO.

Lyski, who previously served as EVP and CMO at The Scotts Miracle Grow Company, will now be responsible for managing all of CarMax's marketing functions, including advertising, brand management, consumer insights, creative, and strategic direction. Lyski held executive marketing positions at Cigna Healthcare, FedEx, and Nationwide Mutual Insurance.

Lyski has a record of stellar achievements. While at Scotts, for example, Lyski had “full P&L accountability for the three primary Global Strategic Business Units: Lawns, Gardens and Controls (each approximately $1B), achieving 108% of profit objectives in 2013,” he says in his LinkedIn profile. He cites similar success as EVP and CMO at, Nationwide Mutual Insurance: “Initiated the Customer Insights & Analytics department, which drives operational priorities across the enterprise, and includes the Center for Advanced Customer Insights at OSU; output increased 200% and costs decreased 50%,” his profile says.

“Jim's extensive marketing experience and strategic understanding of today's consumer will be a tremendous asset to CarMax,” Tom Folliard, CarMax's president and CEO, said in a statement. “CarMax is in the midst of a national expansion plan, opening 10 to15 stores in each of the next two fiscal years. We're pleased to have Jim join us at this exciting time.”

Business Breaking News: New Twitter Ads Let You Pay for Only What Works

New Twitter ad campaigns are helping small businesses get the most bang for their buck.

This week, Twitter unveiled its objective-based campaigns that are designed to make creating and optimizing successful marketing campaigns easier for businesses. Additionally, the new campaigns give small businesses the flexibility of paying only for the actions that accomplish their marketing objectives.

Christine Lee, a senior product manager for Twitter, said the new objective-based campaigns will give small businesses custom workflows that fit their goals.

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Increased productivity is the real Hook for marketing automation.

Marketing and sales executives tend to view each other more as scallywags than shipmates, but both crews put their differences aside to find the same coveted treasure: ROI. Uncovering the booty is essential, and failing to do so can send employees straight to Davy Jones' Locker. As a result, many organizations turn to marketing automation to ensure that the journey to the loot is all smooth sailing.

Revenue is certainly a priority for many marketing mateys, but it's not the only objective. Nearly half of marketing and sales decision makers (44%) cite increased sales revenue as a top marketing automation objective, according to the “Marketing Automation Benchmark Summary Report” by demand generation company Ascend2. However, improved marketing productivity (45%), increased lead generation (42%), and better lead nurturing (41%) are also main priorities. Actually, employees are so confident in using marketing automation to achieve their objectives that 69% consider it somewhat successful and 24% deem it very successful. Only 7% of respondents consider marketing automation unsuccessful at reaching their goals.

Arming the crew with the right technology is vital for marketing automation success. Analytics and reporting (41%) is one of the most important factors in choosing a marketing automation system, according to the report, followed by ease of use (40%), all-in-one solutions (34%), and email and campaign management (33%).

But implementing the technology can be a rocky experience for marketing and sales practitioners. According to the report, 45% of employees cite lack of effective strategies as the most challenging obstacle to marketing automation success, and 44% say budget limitations blow them down. Of course, there are those who just don't have their sea legs yet: 40% of marketing and sales decision makers list lack of skilled staff members as the black spot for their marketing automation success.

Once implemented, many marketers rely on their own internal crews to captain their automated marketing campaigns. According to the report, 52% of respondents use in-house resources only, and 41% use a combination of outsource and in-house resources. In fact, just 7% of employees surveyed jump ship and completely outsource their automated campaigns to agencies or consultancies.

Whomever they trust, marketing and sales leaders have to rely on metrics to determine the success of these campaigns. Lead conversion rate is one of the most useful metric when it comes to measuring marketing automation performance (57%), according to the report, followed by revenue generated (42%), and lead generation ROI (40%).

Business Breaking News: Toshiba Satellite Click 2: Is It Good for Business?

Toshiba's Satellite Click 2 is a beefy laptop-tablet hybrid with a big screen. The Windows 8.1 machine features a 13-inch display that easily detaches from its keyboard dock, so you can use it as a humongous tablet. And when you need to get down to business, it snaps right back onto the dock, adding a full physical keyboard and touchpad for extended work sessions. But don't choose the Click 2 as your next workstation if you can't deal with its heft and mediocre keyboard. Check out a full reviewof the Toshiba Satellite Click 2 on our sister site Laptop Mag, or read on to see if it's good for business.

It's good for business because…

It's bad for business because…

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It's one of 16 new data centers the software company will open this year to meet a 39% increase in demand for cloud services.

SAP invests heavily in new data centers.

SAP, the world's fourth largest software company according to Gartner, today announced it would open its first Canadian data center to meet intensified demand for cloud-based software. Canadian government information as well as data from private sector companies will be hosted there by the end of the year.

The Canadian center will run a number of solutions from SAP's SuccessFactors unit, as well as platforms from partner Big Data companies such as PHEMI. SAP recently announced that its cloud-related business had grown 39% and that it would be widening its footprint with 16 new data centers worldwide.

"We're seeing more and more Canadian companies moving their business into the cloud as they continue to adopt innovative technology as part of their growth strategy,” says Bob Elliott, managing director of SAP Canada. "Our customers range from government agencies to healthcare and financial services, and almost all of them have strict data security requirements and need this information to reside in Canada.”

This will be the fourth new data center opened by SAP this year, following installations in Tokyo, Osaka, and Sydney.

Business Breaking News: Time to Rebrand? Follow These 3 Steps

One of the first things you must do when you launch a business is develop and market your own unique company brand. As the business evolves and grows, its present state may not accurately reflect the brand you built when you started. When this happens, you might need to rebrand.

"A rebrand is a large undertaking regardless of [company] size, so it's not for every business," said Nina Brakel-Schutt, branding expert at digital asset management company Widen Enterprises. "A small business might consider a rebrand if it changes its business model, product or service offering, or if it merges with another small business in the same industry, but now has a broader offering."

Before you make a decision about rebranding, it's important to consider the cost and ROI of such a drastic change, as well as any potential marketplace confusion that might arise because of the change, Brakel-Schutt said. If you do decide to take the plunge and rebrand your business, you'll go through three key phases: identify, articulate and act. [Rebranding Lessons from Tribe Hummus]

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