Online ad firm Vibrant was able to build a healthy ad business by delivering contextually relevant text ads when users mouse over specific words within news articles and other content on the Web. Now, the company wants to bring the same contextual relevance to display ads.

Vibrant has rolled out VIA Dynamic, a display ad product that takes into account the subject matter of a particular Web page when deciding which creative placement to serve at a given moment. According to Vibrant, VIA Dynamic can instantly assess a Web page’s content using a combination of semantic analysis, word frequency, demographic information and other factors—and it can then serve whatever creative placement is deemed most appropriate.

We Updated Search. You Commented. We Listened.

 

A few weeks ago, we updated the home shopping search experience on Zillow with the intent to give our users better shopping tools to find the home of their dreams. We added a more usable map area, added keyword search to the list of filters, and also changed the format of the list so that the map stays in view when you scroll through the homes.

No one has ever accused us of being complacent; we are constantly working to improve the Zillow site, and we’re certainly willing to take risks and learn from our mistakes.

For all the talk among among policymakers and the press about online privacy, it still isn’t clear how much average consumers are even aware of online ad tracking. Firefox, the browser of choice for a third of all internet users, is apparently looking to change that. The beta of the latest version of Firefox trumpets the new “Do Not Track” feature prominently—listing it, in large font, as the very first item on the “What’s New in Firefox 4” page. The move could increase the pressure on other browser companies as well as advertisers to beef up their own privacy options. 

Mozilla announced months ago that it would put a Do Not Track option in the new version of Firefox—so in that sense, the release of the beta version isn’t a surprise. But what is unexpected is the headline “Opt Out of Ad Tracking” splashed across the company’s upgrade page.

Nine in 10 (91%) US email users have subscribed to a company’s email and later decided they don’t want to receive it, according to [pdf] a new report from Exact Target and CoTweet. Data from “The Social Break-up” also indicates 18% of email users say they never open email from companies, and 77% of all US online consumers say they have become more cautious in the past year about giving their email addresses to companies.

Email Still Popular

Despite the above statistics, email use in general remains extremely popular with US online consumers. A full 95% use email, and 93% subscribe to at least one permission-based email per day. Forty-two percent of those subscribers say they are more likely to buy a company’s products once they have signed up for its permission-based email.

Unsubscribe Most Common Negative Email Reaction

Study data indicates that when online consumers are no longer interested in a company’s permission-based emails, they get right to the point. Two-thirds (67%) simply unsubscribe. Another 17% delete the emails when they arrive, and 8% click a spam or junk button.

More passively, 6% simply do nothing. Two percent take the action of setting up a filter.

Frequency Biggest Email Turnoff

The most common complaint given by consumers as a reason they unsubscribe from a company’s permission-based emails is that they come too frequently (54%). Another 49% (more than one answer permitted to this question) cite the content becoming boring or repetitive over time. Receiving too many emails closely follows, being cited by 47% of respondents.

After these three reasons, the percentages drop significantly. Twenty-five percent of respondents say they unsubscribe because the content wasn’t relevant from the start, and 24% prefer to seek out information rather than have it pushed by companies. Another 22% only signed up for a one-time offer, with smaller percentages citing changing circumstances, switching to another company, and finding another way of getting the information.

Email Segmentation, Blasts Most Common

Four in 10 global marketers (43%) use email segmentation to personalize messages by audience, according to a recent survey from Alterian. Another 44% are still employing email blasts of some kind, although 26% use basic personalization and 18% blast out on a mass basis.

- summarize your text documents in minutes

Topicmarks summarizes text documents for you electronically.
Get a smart synopsis in minutes instead of reading everything yourself.