According to a report from retargeting firm Adroll and third-party research company Qualtrics, 71 percent of the 1,000 U.S. marketers surveyed said that 10 to 50 percent of their digital marketing budgets goes toward retargeting, up from 53 percent in 2013. And they’re pretty happy with the results: The State of the Industry report found that more than 90 percent of respondents attest that retargeting performs equal to or better than search, email and other displays.

“Today’s marketers are becoming more like analysts, using technology to understand and react to always-on consumers in real time,” the report said. “It’s only natural that they’ve begun to demand tools that support their vision for a full-funnel, multi-platform, data-driven marketing strategy.”

Mobile Retargeting

With multi-device consumers increasingly accessing media on mobile devices, it is only fitting that retargeting capabilities be expanded to mobile. Ad fraud has been a concerning issue in the past year, but there are still companies paving the way.

Using Twitter’s expanded audiences retargeting program, companies could already target consumers based on website visits and customer databases; a recent expansion allows for retargeting based on app activity.

As TechCrunch reported, the move makes it easier for developers and publishers to ensure “their ads aren’t shown to people who’ve already installed the app, or they could target ads specifically to those who have installed their app but never made a purchase.”

The changes come on the heels of Twitter’s acquisition of tech start-up TapCommerce last June. The young company helps mobile businesses retarget ads based on previous user activity.

Attribution

The next phase in retargeting ads may be through attribution management, which allows marketers to better justify spending, prove results, and create more impactful campaigns. The Adroll white paper found that 91 percent of marketers recognize the importance of attribution and 35 percent consider it a critical component of their plans.

AOL purchased attribution modeling company Convertro for approximately $101 million, reaching into the bank to try out this trend. Convertro’s capabilities, as Ad Age reported in May, integrate into AOL’s Adlearn Open Platform by ingesting data and shifting budgets to the most effective media. The desktop-to-mobile bridging technology allows marketers to track consumers along their journey and adjust accordingly—and that’s what makes the future of attribution so appealing.

This article originally appeared on Skyword.

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SearchEngineLand.com recently reported that Google is testing a new “non-mobile-friendly” icon in mobile search results. The icon, which depicts a mobile phone with a slash through it, symbolizes a search result that links to a page that’s not optimized for use with mobile devices. Google previously tested a mobile-friendly icon, similar to the current one, which highlighted more user-friendly sites instead.

In a statement to SearchEngineLand.com, Google shared its sentiments on the recent strong focus on mobile, saying it’s “making a big push to ensure the search results” reflect the idea that the mobile experience should be as seamless and user-focused as possible. “Because at Google we are aiming to provide a great user experience on any device, we want users to be able to enjoy the Web wherever they are,” a Google representative told the site. “Mobile-friendly websites provide a much better user experience for the mobile users.”

The spokesperson went on to cite statistics, specifically that 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a site they had trouble accessing from their phone: “Mobile is a very important area; the mobile device penetration is over 50 percent in the USA.”

Google hasn’t officially confirmed the move, yet with major additions to its mobile ad units, the freedom of Googlebot to see exactly what users see, and the very recent purchase of mobile database start-up Firebase, it’s clear there is a strategic effort to improve the management and experience of mobile—both for end users and advertisers.

Commenting on the purchase of Firebase, a Google spokesperson told SearchEngineLand.com that the company’s expertise would allow Google to “build the best end-to-end platform for mobile application development” and make it “even easier to create great mobile and Web apps.” This goes beyond monitoring website quality; ensuring a quality experience as consumers engage with mobile content is something Google has shown to have a significant investment in.

The Content Standard previously reported that mobile now accounts for 25 percent of all global Web usage, and 42 percent of companies are using mobile for marketing purposes. It makes sense for Google to invest in the user experience on sites—better experiences encourage more activity, and more activity benefits not only Google, but also the marketers looking to use mobile for their marketing efforts.

This article originally appeared on Skyword.

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According to MarketingProfs’ 2015 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends for North America study, 94 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute their content. Twitter and Facebook followed with 88 percent and 84 percent, respectively. The least-used social media platforms were Flickr, Tumblr, and Vine, which less than 20 percent of B2B marketers used.

LinkedIn, which boasts more than 250 million active users, is also reportedly the most effective social media platform in terms of content creation and distribution. The report shows that 63 percent of marketers voted LinkedIn’s effectiveness as a 4 or 5 on a five-point scale, with 5 representing “very effective.” Word of LinkedIn’s recent acquisition of Bizo, a marketing platform for B2B marketers, and changes to its own sales tools may have contributed to the increase of marketers that are using LinkedIn as a content distribution network.

Up to 86 percent of B2B marketers are using content marketing as a strategy; in fact, MarketingProfs now defines it as a formal business discipline that is able to garner profitable customer action. The majority of respondents are creating more content than they did one year ago, and many are tapping the distributive power of social and strategizing how to get their content out.

Intel’s digital technology publication, iQ, is a recent example of this—it harnesses the power of social and statistical analysis to distribute and promote stories more efficiently, which in turn stretches Intel’s content marketing ad spend through branded content.

In January 2014, Intel partnered with tech and design publication PSFK to produce 40 stories about wearable tech over 10 weeks. Reporting on the test, Digiday’s John McDermott wrote that each post published within the first two weeks would be promoted through Facebook, Twitter, and content-recommendation widgets. Intel also tapped SimpleReach for real-time analytics regarding how Intel’s posts and referral traffic were performing.

Luke Kintigh, Intel’s global content and media strategist, says the test resulted in a 10/90 rule, with 10 percent of iQ’s posts generating 90 percent of the site’s traffic. It brought about a larger content strategy where Intel would publish stories without any initial spend and then promote only those that were gaining traction within hours of going live. Using this tactic, Intel has managed to double the amount of monthly uniques.

The proliferation of social media has gone beyond just sharing and liking, with marketers and publishers both taking hard looks at available channels and weaving social into their content and distribution strategies.

This article originally appeared on Skyword.

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