The Search Agency released search engine marketing stats Thursday ahead of Google's earnings that found among its clients clicks rose 36%; spend, 22%; and click-through rates, 58% in Q2 2014, compared with the prior year's quarter. The cost per click (CPC) fell 10%, respectively. Overall mobile budgets for smartphones and tablets reached 29%, up from 22.8% in Q2 2013, per findings released in its quarterly State of Paid Search Report, Q2 2014. Here's where the agency's clients put their search dollars in Q2 2014.

Hidden in Yahoo's earnings call, CEO Marissa Mayer told analysts that for the first time since 2010, the company's serving its own mobile search ads in the United States. It's one of several insights search marketers will learn this earnings season. Quarterly reports began surfacing this week. Many highlight interesting trends in mobile.

Best friends for life. What brand wouldn't want that distinction? Morality might become the stepping stone into the inner circle, but relevance and trust keep the fire burning. Personalized emails play a major role in building relationships, even when it comes to search engine marketing and personalization.

Swore I wouldn't get wrapped up in the news that reporters kept rehashing about the Google executive's heroin overdose. The industry often discusses the morality of company executives who allow the collection of consumer information, but what about the responsibility of these employees to act as role models for today's youth?

Timing is everything. Build a loyalty program now, and by the time the holidays roll around opt-ins should provide a solid based for location-based services. Some 58% of retailers participating in a recent survey believe loyalty campaigns have a positive impact on sales, but only 34% plan to run one during the back-to-school shopping season. With the holiday shopping season approaching, marketers should start thinking about how to integrate search campaigns with check-ins over location-based technology like Apple's iBeacon to improve the entire online and offline experience.

In recently published research, Stone Temple Consulting found less than 1.5 billion Twitter pages indexed in Google across two queries, although the social site reported back in October 2013 that it processed about 500 million tweets daily, per its Initial Public Offering (IPO) filing.

Direct response or branding goals can determine how search marketers set up advertising budgets, but all should think about integrating processes, data and campaigns no matter what the intended key performance indicators or intended outcome. It may be difficult to believe, but data fragmentation caused partly by the massive growth in silo marketing applications remains the No. 1 data concern among marketers.

Would you watch regularly scheduled programming from what could very well become prime-time shows running across the YouTube Broadcast Network, if one existed? What YouTube lacks in organization, it makes up for in content. The Music Vault Deal provides a start.

I received some interesting mobile stats in my email inbox this morning about sex and mobile devices that reminded me of something a Rabbi recently said: "I'm going to remind everyone to turn their cell phones off before the ceremony," referring to my wedding in less than two weeks.

Yieldbot analyzed 2 billion page views across its network of premium publishers to find the most popular foods with consumers. Here's what they found.