DIGITAL - Complete Guide to Instagram Advertising

Instagram is fast becoming a top platform for advertising with users two and half times more likely to click on ads than other social media channels.

As of last week, monthly active users jumped up to 500 million with 300 million active every day.

With this massive potential audience in mind, businesses are looking for ways to create meaningful, quality experiences through Instagram's ad solutions.

To help businesses succeed, HubSpot teamed up with Iconosquare to bring you The Essential Guide to Instagram Advertising.

The guide includes:

• Integrating Instagram ads into your current advertising strategy
• Setting clear campaign objectives focused on improving your business
• Creating an optimized Instagram ad with our step by step guide
• Monitoring performance metrics and moderating engagement with your Ads
• Insights and takeaways from exclusive experimentation
• Bonus: Cheat sheet “The Perfect Instagram Ad.”

Start your Instagram advertising campaign - Download your free ebook.

BC SPCA applauds ban of private pet sales on classifieds website

Buy, Sell & Trade, a classifieds website servicing several British Columbia regions has decided to remove all postings of private pet ads. 

This move towards responsible breeding and retailing of pets has been met with gratitude by the BC SPCA who view it as a giant leap in the battle against puppy mills and other unscrupulous animal breeders. 

"One of the most direct ways that puppy mill operators stay in business is through newspaper and online ads," said Lorie Chortyk, general manager of community relations for the BC SPCA. "We are thrilled that the team at Buy, Sell & Trade has taken such a strong stand against this exploitation of animals."

The decision to remove the ads came when Buy, Sell & Trade staffers noticed a significant increase in the number of postings of suspicious pet sale ads. After months of planning and discussion with the BC SPCA, the private pet ads were removed entirely and BC SPCA adoptable animals were listed in their place.  

"We believe this is the first major online classified site in B.C. to take such a strong stand against animal neglect and cruelty," said Nanimo SPCA manager Leon Davis. "We hope other newspapers and online sites will follow their lead so that we can put an end to puppy mills and other unscrupulous breeders in our province." 

BC SPCA

BUY, SELL & TRADE

comScore Report Shows Canada Leads the World

The 2012 Canada Digital Future in Focus report from comScore was released last week and examines how the prevailing trends in general web usage and demographics, social media, online video, digital advertising, mobile and search are defining the current Canadian marketplace. This annual report provides insight into what these trends mean for the year ahead.

Key insights include:

• Canada continues to lead the world in online engagement, with visitors spending an average 45 hours per month online, representing a fertile ground for digital marketers and advertisers.
• While Facebook is nearing a point of visitor saturation in Canada, other social networks’ visitor bases are posting strong growth, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. 
• Engagement on many social sites is trending upward, with Facebook driving the large majority of the increase in total minutes and page views for the overall category.
• Online video is becoming an increasingly popular channel, with total videos viewed up 58 percent. 
• YouTube continues to dominate the marketplace, representing nearly 1 in every 2 videos viewed in Canada.
• Display advertising is evolving to be more social, not only with the rise of “socially-published ads” (i.e. those published on social networking sites), but also the increase of “socially-enabled” ads running across the web that direct click-throughs to the brand’s Facebook fan page.
• Smartphone penetration has reached 45 percent in Canada, with daily mobile content usage growing more than 50 percent in several key content categories.

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comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics.

IAB CANADA RELEASES NEW ONLINE AD STANDARDS

If you advertise online you need to read this!


The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Canada has released its new Online, Mobile + Tablet Ad Standards and Creative Specs for 2012. In coordination with IAB USA, IAB Canada worked to ensure the new standards align as much as possible with North American Standards + Guidelines, while still providing for Canadian-specific differences where needed. 


IAB Canada has also announced a new partnership with ADOPS Garage that will provide IAB Canada members with free access to ADOPS Garage’s new AdOps AdVisor Tool application that allows agencies and their design partners to pre-test online display ads for compliance with IAB Canada Standards. 

Google controls 46% of all online advertising

An interesting piece of data from digital marketing guy/VC Darren Herman: Just five companies control 64% of all online spending. (Incredibly, Google controls 46% of all online spending.)

One thing to note, says Herman: "With Facebook only now starting to monetize their platform, you can start to see how big an impact they could have on the dominance of the digital advertising landscape."

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