Have search marketers begun to place too big a bet on social media's impact on search? That's a question Wil Reynolds asks. He doesn't suggest it has no impact, but rather presents data that points to social signals holding "very little weight" that directly affect search engine rankings. He takes us through the method to prove his point, and tells us that Google fails to use social as a strong signal. Aside from Twitter and Facebook, he writes that Google should have the ability to identify shares and consumption better than any other company -- but something is still missing. 

It's not impossible to manage an ecommerce paid-search account without conversion tracking, according to Kayla Kurtz. She lays out the back story and then explains how to make it work. The back story points to updates made in the client's content management system that prevented outside codes from reporting correctly. This eliminated conversion tracking in the CMS platform. So Kurtz managed to build a strategy relying on an alternative method. Much of the sucess centers around adjusting bids for average positions, tracking revenue more closely, and monitoring conversion data of top sellers even when the data isn't readily available. 

decision

Rae Hoffman-Dolan provides insight on how marketers can make "a six figure income" as an affiliate marketer. It takes a lot of hard work, she writes, but it's feasible. After putting out a call on Twitter for an affiliate marketer to tell their story, an interview with Tricia Meyer, the owner of the coupon and cash-back site SunshineRewards.com, tells all. Well, a lot. The two talk about programs through search engine optimization, paid search and social, as well as Meyer's biggest challenges in the early days. 

Advertisers will spend nearly $500 billion this year globally, with digital advertising as a "star performer," eMarketer estimates. The amount spent on mobile ads in the U.S. will reach $1.2 billion this year, surpassing spending in Japan, the current largest single-country market, by the end of 2012. Charts and data from eMarketer provide a detailed view of the global spend for mobile ads. The research firm estimates Western Europe’s share of online spend will decline as spend increases in emerging markets, such as Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe. 

UNICEF teamed up with Microsoft Tag, a QR code, to go mobile and enhance their 60-year-old Trick-or-Treat giving campaign. Each Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box will include a Microsoft Tag on the side, allowing participants to scan-to-donate to help support children worldwide. With more than $164 million raised to date, the campaign is one of the longest-running youth initiatives in America. 

After Cyrus Sharpard wrote a post about match anchor text, James Agate needed to prove the concept himself. He sets out to delve a little deeper into the effectiveness of different kinds of links and attempts to identify the most effective link type -- and to determine whether it is necessary to include a keyword in the anchor text or if Google can process non-keyword, "click here"-type links when placed close to the keyword. Here's what he found. 

Ads that serve up on the Google Display Network began showing Google's +1 button. One click allows people to recommend an ads’ landing page to friends and social contacts. Dan Friedman explains that incorporating personal recommendations in display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising and the ability to help drive incremental sales. The +1 button works as an endorcement for friends and social contact.

Google has a multiscreen ad plan. A study conducted at CBS's Television City media lab run by Nielsen measures the incremental impact of multiscreen advertising. across TV, PCs, smartphones and tablets. A 15-second video ad promoting Volvo's S60 sedan was shown to different groups of participants. Some people saw no ads, while others the ad on a different combinations of screens controlling for frequency. Johanna Werther and Ben Chung explain the results and the impact to viewers on product recall. 

The U.S. macroeconomic picture looked grim during Q3 2011 with the U.S. unemployment rate remaining above 9%, Standard & Poors' downgrading the U.S. debt, the S&P 500 falling 13.9% and the European Union facing an escalation of their own debt crisis with global ramifications. Paid search, however, remained resilient with data from Rimm Kaufman Group clients showing year-over-year growth accelerating sequentially for ad spend and revenue. Mark Ballard provides a breakdown of key paid-search stats for the quarter.