Digital Marketing News, Features, and Interviews

Microsoft and Salesforce.com have become corporate buddies, pledging to integrate their flagship products in what they're calling a "global, strategic partnership".

A new report on the value and uptake of marketing automation has highlighted the rising role these platforms have in cross-channel campaign management and providing personalised and targeted customer experiences.

Microsoft plans to boost its Azure cloud services with its acquisition of Capptain, whose product helps developers track and analyze usage of their Web and mobile apps and implement customer retention strategies.

UK-based retailer, John Lewis, has narrowed down the 163 start-ups that applied to be part of its JLAB business accelerator to five finalists.

Targeted advertisements are headed to smart fridges, smart thermostats and other Internet-connected devices, raising potentially new privacy issues for consumers who use those products.

Rich Narasaki is global manager, digital marketing in the GE corporate global brand marketing group and, as such, works with and supports the digital strategy efforts of the company's eight primary business divisions. While not a member of the IT team, Narasaki works with IT and marketing constantly, so Network World Editor in Chief John Dix tracked him down to get his perspective on how digital strategy plays out in such a huge operation.

It might be time to change the adage "the customer is always right" to, "the customer with the most followers is always right."

Orders taken on iPads in Burberry stores accounted for over a quarter of the high fashion brand's total digital sales this year, showing the gains the company is making in creating a seamless connection between its online and offline presence.

Facebook has announced the global availability of its Premium Video Ads and supporting video metrics for advertisers across the social media site.

Australians sure do like to ask a lot of questions. Of all the countries where the US online survey tool, SurveyMonkey, is available, it turns out Australia has the highest per capita use.

Digital menu panels designed to capture patron attention are being rolled out by Retail Food Group (RFG) subsidiary Donut King to all of its 315 franchisee-owned stores in Australia.

SAP is scooping up SeeWhy, maker of real-time targeted marketing software, in a bid to flesh out the omni-channel commerce platform it gained through last year's acquisition of Hybris.

Customer relationships are no longer linear engagements but a series of events often outside the brand’s control which they must become involved in proactively, HP’s global customer strategy leader claims.

Online advertising is continuing on its rapid growth trajectory, recording a 17.1 per cent year-on-year expenditure increase in the first quarter of the year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reports.

Nearly half of all Australian marketers plan to spend more on content marketing activities next year, but less than one in five have a dedicated content chief working in their organisation today, a new report reveals.

Mobile marketing consultancy, Mobile Embrace, and speech recognition software vendor, Nuance Communications, are claiming an Australian media first with a new voice-activated mobile advertising campaign launched for Universal Sony Home Entertainment.

While traditional retailers are often derided for their standards of customer service, they have held one advantage over their ecommerce competitors – their ability to put a live person in front of a sales prospect.

Marketers who are using measurement concerns to avoid allocating budget to mobile marketing are failing to help their organisations embrace one of the biggest changes ever to occur to consumer engagement.

Digital and technology may have already triggered bucket loads of change within our organisations and transformed our interactions as consumers, but Mars Australia’s chief digital officer claims we’re only halfway into the digital journey.

UK-based digital marketing technology firm, Crimtan, has opened an Australian office and appointed former News Limited sales executive, Tara Crosby, as its local managing director.

Loyalty New Zealand, operators of Fly Buys, are set to roll-out Kiwi mobile marketing firm VMob's platform to provide highly personalised loyalty content, offers and information directly to customer smartphones in real time.