Some 63% of companies surveyed in a recent Aberdeen Business review survey cite "new customer acquisition" as the top marketing priority. Only 39% of respondents use CRM or sales force automation tools, and 30% use marketing automation. I guarantee those numbers will rise in 2013, as marketers attempt to integrate mounds of data collected from a variety of media silos. Not only on Web sites, but from Amazon, eBay and other shopping sites like Google and Bing.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Google a patent Dec. 25, for a method for combining generic and specific search results. A quality score supports each search result. The patent, Blending mobile search results, won't help Google make as much money from Android as other operating systems such as Apple and Microsoft do -- but it will allow the company to generate revenue from Google search results or when they buy apps from the Play Store.

Highly satisfied shoppers are far more likely to return to a Web site, recommend it and remain loyal to the brand. On average, a one-point change in Web site satisfaction predicts a 14% increase in revenue generated on the Web, according to a study released Thursday.

Cloud-based marketing services continue to strengthen, and by no means do I suggest that these services are bad for online marketers. Oracle recently paid $871 million for Eloqua, which delivers cloud-marketing technology that allows marketers to build conversations with existing and potential customers. While the deal points to significant changes in online marketing, what if that cloud infrastructure fails?

comScore reported that consumer spending rose16% to $38.7 billion online compared with the year-ago days, which correspond with the first 51 days of the November-December 2012 holiday season.

eMarketer has released research identifying five top trends for 2013. Counting down backward, the No. 5 trend points to data as marketing's key currency. Many marketers recognize the need to problem-solve and better understand small patterns that combine to create a big picture. This fragmentation became amplified with the introduction of mobile marketing.

Facebook continues to build out its list of partners supporting its ad exchange. Simpli.fi will become one of the next to announce its agreement. It will bring 3,000 campaigns to Facebook Exchange (FBX) next week. The company has been testing the system with brands on the social site for about a month.

This holiday season proved that paid-search ads and a well-tuned search engine optimization strategy helped to drive up online holiday spending to $21 billion through an increase in conversions, but brands and marketers with online strategies better start communicating with customers and across internal business units prior to the end of 2013. If not, online spending will take a dive by the end of next year.

Microsoft got a big nod from Santa this holiday season. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has switched from Google Maps, which it began using in 2007, to Microsoft's Bing Maps for its annual NORAD Track Santa project. Cesium will also help to show Santa's route.

If a site visitor isn't a regular customer, who are they and how do they fit in? Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, told marketers at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit that brands should dig deeper into the funnel to find other consumer interests that might not initially sit on the surface. She explained how to integrate disparate ideas, such as vacations and pharma, to develop content and target ads.