The games performance advertising specialist, TrafficCaptain, is expanding its portfolio of search engine marketing (SEM) services. TrafficCaptain supports games providers in the development and ongoing optimization of worldwide SEM campaigns. A number of customers are already using this service, which TrafficCaptain is now expanding.

Cloudwords, a cloud-based marketing globalization platform, announced new product enhancements to its Enterprise Edition, delivering enterprise-level project management capabilities and features to further address the localization demands of global companies. Cloudwords was designed for business users to manage localization projects faster and expand into global markets more easily. Enabling power users to customize highly complex localization workflows, lead to shorter localization turnaround times and faster go-to-market timelines.

Sitecore, a provider of customer experience management software, released its first-ever mobile applications to provide marketers with anywhere, anytime access to Sitecore's experience platform. Developed using Sitecore's Mobile SDK, the Sitecore Executive Insight Dashboard application for Windows 8.1 tablets and Apple iPad gathers customer engagement analytics and insights across touchpoints and presents them in a simple mobile view.

iSocket, a provider of programmatic direct and sales automation, announced that it has launched iSocket for Advertisers (iFA), an automated way to buy premium, guaranteed inventory that saves both buyers and sellers time and expense while reducing the chance of errors. In 2013, $14 billion was spent on directly sold digital media, and almost all of it was executed manually through spreadsheet proposals, paper contracts, IOs, emails, and faxes.

Are You a Human, a Detroit startup that specializes in creating alternative ways for brands to interact with users, announced that it has launched PlayThru for Video. PlayThru for Video is an add-on to existing pre-roll campaigns by rewarding them for engaging with the brand. By interacting with the advertiser-for example, by dragging a "Sold" sign to a home in an ad for Quicken Loans-users can conclude the ad and get straight to the video they originally wanted to watch.

Sporting events are one of the television events that networks and advertisers can still count on Americans to watch live. According to a Burst Media survey 54.2% of men will watch the Super Bowl as will 42.3% of women. Most of those viewers (79.7%) will watch the game live. Just 7.4% overall will watch it recorded-however more than one-quarter (27.0%) of 18-34 year-old men will watch it recorded. But in 2014, the Super Bowl isn't the only sporting event. The Winter Olympics are approaching fast. These are two seemingly very different events with potentially huge audiences-and digital marketers may need to adjust their approaches accordingly.

Mobile advertising has long been the toughest nut to crack for some of the country's most significant media companies. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have all, in their own ways, wrestled with the challenge of effectively implementing -- let alone monetizing -- advertising on mobile devices, with mixed results at best. As media consumers have migrated increasingly toward the consumption of content via their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, every industry with a stake in online publishing has been striving to untangle the thorny issue of how to effectively generate advertising dollars when readers consume content on-the-go. Business-to-business publishers have been awaiting their piece of the mobile advertising pie as much as any industry, and the wait has often been frustrating. The tide, however, may very well be turning.

The Average Joe may have already forgotten the "Great Gmail Tabs Panic of 2013," but if you're a digital marketer the lingering effects are still impacting the way you get your job done-or don't get the job done, in this case. The introduction of the tabbed email inbox threw the marketing world into a tizzy, but Silverpop-an email and marketing automation company--decided to dig deeper. In its report, "Gmail Tabs: Impact on Email Marketing and Strategies to Respond" looks at how people are actually interacting with the tabs and how marketers can work around this new obstacle.

Selling ebooks the old fashioned way-offering a fixed price for one digital tome that the reader owns for eternity-is the tried-and-true approach most publishers take. But just as some consumers prefer to lease a car, prepay for a set amount of mobile minutes, or sign up for movies streamed monthly, there is a niche audience that's interested in an unconventional approach to the conventional acquisition of electronic books-and an array of providers capable of catering to this demand.

When you want to construct a home, you need a carefully planned blueprint in place before you purchase and assemble the lumber and other essential components. The same is true of an effective advertising campaign, which requires setting specific goals before creating the content and buying space. Yet, many advertisers today are doing the opposite-building their campaign in reverse without any end goal or vision of what their finished advertising "house" should look like, experts say.

The issues that have dogged digital advertising in the past have been a lack of trust and weaker customer engagement than in traditional media. Digital ads-more than print, radio, or TV-were mere ephemera in the busy lives of their intended audience, and they were easily filtered or ignored. Yet, over the past year, digital advertising started to get better results. In 2013, new forms of digital advertising got much, much better results and sprung a new source of revenue in the guise of native advertising.

It's a question that's been posed since the dawn of the commercial web: Is the internet, long a stronghold for direct marketing, any good for brand advertising?"The question has always been whether brand advertising really works online and whether that money has ever really migrated online," observes Steve Smith, columnist and digital media editor for Media Industry Newsletter (min), and a consultant to web publishers and interactive ad agencies.

If "knowledge is power," as the saying goes, then content analytics is a game-changer for any digital publisher concerned with harnessing the power of content. Today, content providers know more about their audiences than ever before. All the data in the world isn't worth much unless you know how to make sense of it and, more importantly, can put a plan into action that capitalizes on what you know.

Customers are one of a company's most valued assets. At the same time, customer data is one of the most valuable assets a company can acquire and use. Knowing how and why a customer is drawn to a company's products and services provides insights organizations can use to deepen that customer engagement into a very profitable relationship. Fortunately for organizations--and especially their marketers--there are many customer data tools that can help a company most effectively and efficiently collect and analyze that customer data.

If you're considering adding online display advertising to your media mix, your first impressions may be one of confusing three-letter acronyms and an overwhelming number of vendors and technologies. So how do you make sense of this complex market and identify the right approach for your marketing goals?

You may have heard a rumor that Facebook is dying. Millennials are supposedly ditching the platform. Because grandparents are flocking to the service others are leaving in droves. Don't believe the hype. To misquote Mark Twain, the rumors of Facebook's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Your goal, like many content creators is clicks, right? Attention, time, trust, affinity. Right? Look no further than Facebook. But (caveat coming) bring your wallet.

While no one may be waiting for the business version of West Side Story with the Sharks played by the marketing department and IT as the Jets, it's definitely no secret that these two groups are often at odds. Artists and engineers are at opposite ends of the spectrum. These business divisions will never see eye-to-eye. But are they really that different? At this year's Gilbane Conference in Boston, Massachusetts one of the prominent ideas raised was the concept of a marketing technologist. This hybrid individual is on the rise in organizations big and small. But is your company ready for someone to bridge the digital divide? And are companies really ready for this shift in business? Basically, do we need a marketing technologist?

I have previously reviewed basic business practices required to anticipate and manage inevitable social media crises affecting brands. Even the best business practices can only mitigate social public relations (PR) disasters. And it is expensive, and of dubious value, to do as the Department of State is reported recently to have done: spend $630,000 on Facebook likes. That's probably, at best, a one-off solution.

Email marketing is on everyone's mind these days. But when it comes to open rates, it isn't so much of a content discussion as it is a context discussion. From corporate marketers to internet gurus, the term "email marketing" appears in articles and podcasts about as often as the term "content marketing."

Content is a conversation. Social media gives us the opportunity to share in that conversation. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other similar channels are so popular because they give us a chance to talk. Did you ever think you'd spend hours reading and commenting about your friend's cousin's trip to Mexico? When you do, doesn't it make you feel connected? Being part of a community is fun, energizing, and comforting. It also creates what we need most in marketing-trust.