This article has a fairly light overview of the issues facing the digital industry in terms of privacy. There is going to be some amount of backlash coming, and in many ways we deserve it because we have failed to educate and inform about how the web generates revenue. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Make sure your brand is being transparent if you want to make sure you don’t creep out your customers.
Are you using data-driven marketing?
If not, you should be. The era of big data is here, and companies that have figured out how to use it are benefiting.
Smartphones and email
“A smartphone is not smart in and of itself” This is a great point to remember because what makes it smart is the personalization and data potential of mobile. The rapid adoption of smartphones is going to create a lot of opportunity for segmentation and persona targeting for emails by those smart enough to take advantage of it.
Attribution based marketing optimization
Here’s a short and sweet article emphasising the point that if you’re planning on optimizing your marketing campaigns as you go along, make sure your attribution model isn’t too basic.
What works best for video ads?
Here’s a great infographic covering video advertising. The percentages of where mobile video is watched is the best part I think, however there is also information on completion rates and click through rates for different types of video ads. Caveat – As averages they’re pretty much meaningless except as trend info. Success depends mostly on your actual goal and creative, not on clicks.
The future of email is mobile
And the future is almost here. In fact it may be here in the next few months. That will be the point when the majority of email is read on mobile devices. So the question is, are you ready?
Clicks don’t matter
They really, really don’t. “this metric showing virtually zero correlation with total conversions”
Too much data
We’re now in the age of Big Data. The problem with that is most of us and our organizations aren’t capable of managing that much data. And even if we are capable, sometimes too much data is just too much data. Don’t be distracted by chasing everything you can gather, when usually concentrating your efforts works best.
Top digital challenges for marketers
Here’s a good overview opinion article on the challenges facing marketers today. Do you agree with these issues or are other ones more important? Make sure you at least are aware of what your issues are so you can start addressing them.

