Tracking Talk The Blog of ReferDigital. How Marketing Works Now.
Instagram is helping save the indie bookstore
Stores like Books Are Magic and the Last Bookstore are benefiting from love on #bookstagram.
When a Sponsored Facebook Post Doesn’t Pay Off
The agency Speakr set influencers up with brands for lucrative campaigns—and then stiffed them.
Turning Off Facebook Location Tracking Doesn’t Stop It From Tracking Your Location
Even with location tracking turned off, Facebook uses IP addresses, check-ins, and cities on profiles to approximate user locations for ads and other services.
Dirty dealing in the $175 billion Amazon Marketplace
Sellers are more worried about a case being opened on Amazon than in actual court, says Dave Bryant, an Amazon seller and blogger. Amazon’s judgment is swifter and less predictable, and now that the...
India finds a new way to tax Google, Facebook
Facebook has 294 million users in India as of October, says data site Statista, while its messaging platform WhatsApp in February said it had 200 million users in the country, making it the largest...
Samsung Overtakes P&G As World’s Largest Advertiser
The South Korean consumer electronics and appliance marketer pumped $11.2 billion into advertising and sales promotion in 2017, a 13 percent increase. That moved it ahead of packaged-goods powerhouse P&G, which spent an estimated...
Marijuana and CBD companies can’t advertise on Facebook and Google, so they’re getting creative
The companies are looking to events, sponsorships and other ways to connect with customers… “So you can’t advertise on Facebook or Google – it’s not the end of the world,” said Wirth. “There are...
Dear tech companies, I don’t want to see pregnancy ads after my child was stillborn
And then, after all that, Experian swoops in with the lowest tracking blow of them all: a spam email encouraging me to “finish registering your baby” with them (I never “started,” but sure) to...
EU scrutinizes tech giants’ online advertising profits
Online ads are already a focus for several smaller antitrust agencies in Europe, often prompted by complaints from media companies as advertising spend shifts to the web.
The annual PornHub year in review tells us what we’re really looking at online
PornHub, a popular site that features people in various stages of undress, saw 33.5 billion visits in 2018. There are currently 7.53 billion people on Earth.
Verizon Takes $4.6B Loss on Online Advertising
The wireless company spent more than $4 billion to buy AOL and nearly $5 billion to buy Yahoo as part of an effort to compete with Facebook and Google in a growing market for...
Facebook relaunches search ads to offset slowing revenue
Facebook is starting to test search ads in its search results and Marketplace, directly competing with Google’s AdWords. Facebook first tried Sponsored Results back in 2012 but eventually shut down the product in 2013.
How Uber will become an ad company, starting with Eats Pool
Where there is discovery in an app, there is paid discovery. Google helped you choose between links, then sold ads that promote a few. Facebook helped you choose between pieces of content, then sold...
Youtube Creators Blindsided By Major Network’s Collapse
More than 80 employees were allegedly laid off, and hundreds of thousands of dollars are still missing after Defy Media collapsed.
Firefly Nets $21.5 Million Seed Round To Boost Ride-Hail Driver Revenues With On-Car Ads
Today, San Francisco-based Firefly announces it is officially launching its car-based outdoor advertising platform out of beta… Over the last year, the company said it has executed over 50 advertising campaigns and racked up...
Multimillion-Dollar Oops! Google Will Pay Publishers For ‘The Night Of The Yellow Ad’
From 7 pm to 7:45 pm on Tuesday, publishers saw mysterious yellow 300×250 ads blanket their sites. Paying CPMs north of $20, the yellow square ad elbowed out other buyers with its big spending....
Google Removed Two Popular Cheetah Mobile And Kika Tech Apps After An Investigation Sparked By BuzzFeed News
Google said an internal investigation found that CM File Manager and the Kika Keyboard contain code used to execute ad fraud techniques known as click injection and/or click flooding.
SEVEN-year-old boy earns a phenomenal $22 MILLION in just one year by reviewing toys on his YouTube channel
The little boy, whose last name and city of residence within the US haven’t been made public to protect his privacy, began creating the videos in 2015. His most-watched video, which sees Ryan opening...
FTC Commissioners Find that 1-800 Contacts Unlawfully Harmed Competition in Online Search Advertising Auctions
The Federal Trade Commission has held that 1-800 Contacts, the nation’s largest online retailer of contact lenses, unlawfully entered into a web of anticompetitive agreements with rival online contact lens sellers.
