The challenge of linking intent from social ad campaigns with search engine marketing strategies has surpassed the act of tying social signals into search. The combination of social search no longer means analyzing the Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare results serving up in Google and Bing search engine queries.

Google has announced a collection of catalog apps from more than 300 brands now available on the Web -- but how and when will product listing ads, search data and its newly launched Tag Manager each play a role in a move to compete with Amazon and eBay, which have become master catalogs for shoppers?

Similar to a social graph, the infrastructure of the Internet supports a Web-effect connecting economic and job growth across the ad industry. At least that's how Harvard University Business School researchers explain it in a study commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).