Image source: Instagram
Instagram Adds Gifs to Stories and, Yes, It's a Direct Shot at Snapchat. Instagram announced users can now add GIF stickers to all photos and videos uploaded to Stories with more than 100,000 moving stickers to choose from, as well as see which movable images are trending. Does this remind anyone of the annoying days of Angelfire and MySpace? AdAge
App Spending Topped $86 Billion In 2017. Around the world, smartphone-carrying consumers downloaded more than 175 billion apps last year, on which they spent over $86 billion according to the latest annual report from App Annie. MediaPost
Google and Salesforce unveil first elements of partnership. At Dreamforce in 2017 Google and Salesforce announced a partnership and are now revealing the first part including Google Analytics 360 users being able to import data from the Salesforce CRM tool such as leads and opportunities. This allows companies using Google's analytics products to mix and match data between the two systems. TechCrunch
Google Pitches AI Image-Detection Tool to Lure Cloud Clients. Google is introducing a new product called Cloud AutoML that enables data-center customers to automatically generate machine-learning models — computing systems that can crunch and parse huge swaths of information. Google is starting with vision, allowing companies to classify images more effectively, but plans to release the tool for analyzing text, speech and video. Bloomberg
The Google Speed Update: Page speed will become a ranking factor in mobile search. Starting in July 2018, Google will finally use mobile page speed as a ranking in their mobile search results. Google today announced a new ranking algorithm called the "Speed Update" that is designed for mobile search. It will only impact a small percentage of queries involving pages that "deliver the slowest experience to users". Search Engine Land
Amazon's ad business is growing faster than Google's and Facebook's, although the duopoly still dominates. Google and Facebook combined still represent more than half of the U.S. advertising market, but Amazon's ad business, while just 2.5 percent, is growing faster than both of them. Digiday
Google Giveth and Google Taketh Away: Winners & Losers of 2017. What do Netflix, ebates.com and thesun.co.uk have in common? They're among the top 100 domains that enjoyed rich rewards in 2017. Which domains took the biggest hits in search Visibility? Find out in this new report from Searchmetrics
More than 90,000 sites now use ads.txt, up from 3,500 in September. Launched by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Tech Lab in May, ads.txt is a text file that publishers host on their web servers that lists all the companies authorized to sell their inventory. Because ads.txt allows buyers to check the validity of the sellers they purchase from, it should help buyers avoid spoofed domains and arbitraged inventory. Digiday
On the Lighter Side:
Old Spice's 'Sweat Mop Boys' Are Here to Deodorize College Basketball. AdWeek
Cheetos Invents 'Dance Craze' To Promote USA Curling, New Cheddar Curls. MediaPost
TopRank Marketing (And Clients) In the News:
Rishi Dave (client) the CMO of Dun & Bradstreet, talks marketing technology in this podcast – Echo Junction
Jason Miller of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions on Marketing Smarts [Podcast] Create a Content Strategy That Rocks – MarketingProfs
Lee Odden to keynote Pubcon Florida – Pubcon Blog
Lee Odden – How to recruit influencers – Inventis
Lee Odden – What is content intelligence? How data-driven marketers will dominate – Hawkeye
What was the top digital marketing news story for you this week?
