Mobile Marketing

New York -- Instagram is making itself more advertising-friendly, adding a new suite of business tools for its advertisers that will help the brands better control their campaigns and will allow them to gauge the success of their efforts.

The roll-out of the new features, which include an “account insights” tool that will allow marketers to track the performance of their ads in real-time using typical brand metrics such as impressions, reach, and engagement, will occur over the coming weeks and months, the photo-sharing giant said.

By Andrew Schneide, ZOG Digital

Shopping site Shopsavvy announced an update to its mobile app this week that adds functionality for users who are looking for the right price on the product they want.

The update increased the number of participating retail outlets from fewer than 40,000 to about 500,000. Additionally, products can be tracked by their barcodes using the app’s built-in scanner.

Shopping site Shopsavvy announced an update to its mobile app this week that adds functionality for users who are looking for the right price on the product they want.  

The update increased the number of participating retail outlets from fewer than 40,000 to about 500,000. Additionally, products can be tracked by their barcodes using the app’s built-in scanner.

Head & Shoulders and brand ambassador Sofia Vergara are leveraging social media for the shampoo’s latest contest. And the winner gets to meet Vergara.

“I’m excited to give one of my fans the chance to become part of my family for a day,” said Vergara. “Everyone knows eight out of nine Vergaras use Head & Shoulders, now we’re looking for the 10th! We’re looking for someone who flaunts their beautiful, flake-free hair with a little Vergara attitude!”

Social media is slowly but surely moving from a promotional channel to a channel for direct transactions, as evidenced by the recent news that Facebook is testing a “buy” button of its own. Twitter has become a favored means of running time- and location-sensitive retail promotions, such as Twitter-based food truck promotions run by Ben & Jerry’s and Taco Bell, but so far has not presented itself as an effective means of exchanging goods for currency.

All laundry detergent’s most recent ad campaign, called “Summer Play,” encourages consumers to turn their mobile devices into a movie-making machine, thanks to Magisto’s cloud-based smart technology.

Research Triangle Park, N.C. – Nine-in-10 retailers report selling on online marketplaces, and 64% use digital marketing. Results of a survey of more than 200 U.S. and U.K. online retailers from e-commerce provider Channel Advisor also indicated the following: