Facebook will soon allow advertisers to track a wider range of post-click actions on ads including comments, “shares,” app use, and Facebook Credits spent. Until now, marketers have had little insight into how users interact with ads after the click. They cold only get information on the number of people who “Liked” a page because of the dad. According to Inside Facebook, advertisers will now see a new “actions” metric in the ad dashboard in place of what had been called “connections.” This new metrics tab will break out how many Likes, comments, and shares an ad generates after someone …

WPP, through its global strategic communications consultancy firm, Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), has acquired First Movies International, which has operations in Los Angeles and London. Founded in 2000, First Movies is a research-based strategic consultancy that serves film companies worldwide. Clients include Disney, Paramount and 20th Century Fox and a number of other studios, independent distributors and production companies. PSB, part of WPP's Y&R Brands group, was founded as a political strategic communications firm 37 years ago. The firm claims to have helped elect more than 30 presidents and prime ministers around the world, including, in the U.S., Bill Clinton. …

Internet ad spending grew 22% in 2011 to $31 billion from $26 billion in 2010, according to the latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That growth rate tops last year’s 14.5%, indicating digital advertising continues to ramp up after a recession-induced setback in 2009. For the fourth quarter of 2011, online ad spending hit nearly $9 billion, up 20.4% from a year ago, and 14.7% from the third quarter. The IAB said mobile advertising, which it only began tracking last year, was the fastest-growing category in 2011, jumping 149% to $1.6 billion from $641 million in 2010. Mobile …

NBC is starting up a massive London Summer Olympics marketing campaign – but the best marketing may come from the network who will now digitally stream all competition from the event’s 32 sports. Last time around for the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 NBC only streamed two events – hockey and curling – because it feared too much live streaming would affect traditional TV ratings. NBC has reversed its policy, according to a story in the New York Times, because executives now believe TV consumers consume video differently -- that it won’t cannibalize traditional TV viewing. In fact, it may help …

Yahoo Tuesday reported financial results for the first quarter ahead of Wall Street’s expectations but not yet showing a strong rebound for the struggling Web portal in 2012. Yahoo had net revenue of $1.07 billion, up slightly from a year ago, but down from $1.17 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. Net income was 23 cents a share, up 38% from 17 cents a share in the year-earlier period, and a penny below the prior quarter. Analysts had forecast net revenue of $1.06 billion and profit of 17 cents a share in the quarter. Display revenue, after payments …

New research from comScore and political data specialist i360 shows that left-leaning political sites like TalkingPointsMemo and DailyKos are frequented mostly by Democratic users, while right-leaning ones like DailyCaller and DrudgeReport have heavily Republican audiences. For example, Democrats accounted for 70% of total minutes spent on TalkingPointsMemo in February, while Republicans generated 65% of time spent on DailyCaller. No big surprises there.But what about non-politically focused sites? The study found Democrats accounted for nearly half (49%) the total minutes spent on NYTimes.com, while Republicans were overrepresented on business sites like Dow Jones (46%) and BusinessInsider (51%). Politico.com, by …

Yahoo said Monday that former PayPal executive Sam Shrauger and current Yahoo executive Mollie Spillman will lead the new commerce unit created as part of the company’s wider reorganization plan laid out last week. The commerce group is one of three areas that falls under the newly created consumer division that also includes media and connections. Sam Shrauger, most recently VP of global product and customer experience organization at PayPal, while Spillman previously led marketing for Yahoo's Americas region. She has also worked in media and advertising for companies including AOL, Time Warner and Meredith Corporation. Shrauger is …

In the most significant commitment yet by a major online video publisher, AOL has agreed to utilize Nielsen's Online Campaign Ratings as the basis of TV-like "gross rating point" guarantees to its online video advertisers.

Brandon Geary has joined Wunderman's Blast Radius unit as senior vice president-strategy. Geary, who reports to Blast CEO Gurval Caer, had been senior vice president-strategy for North America at Publicis' Razorfish unit.

Mike Tunnicliffe has been promoted to Chief Growth Officer of WPP's GroupM unit. GroupM said it was a new role and that Tunnicliffe would lead a new team "designed to maximize support for GroupM agencies in the areas of new business, organic growth, and collaboration initiatives."