Cyber Monday Email Volume Increases by 87 Percent from 2014 to 2015

CHICAGO, Dec. 4, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Enterprise clients increased their email send by 87 percent on Cyber Monday and by 31 percent on Black Friday, according to Yesmail, the email solutions provider within Yes Lifecycle Marketing. This record volume for Yesmail clients, indicates brands are back in full force and just as determined as ever to bring relevant communications and valuable offers to their customers.

“Yesmail’s executional excellence continues to yield phenomenal results for our clients,” said Michael Fisher, president, Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “With a record setting Cyber Monday of nearly 200MM sent emails, we beat industry standards by sustaining a 99 percent inboxing rate.”

And consumers are responding. Email-driven revenue for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday has more than doubled from 2014 to 2015. Specifically, the number of email-driven Cyber Monday purchases grew by 129 percent and the number of email-driven Black Friday purchases grew by 162 percent. Interestingly, while reports of in-store sales were noted as bleak in 2015, this one and a half times growth in online purchases on Black Friday could indicate a trend in that brands should consider marketing, what have traditionally been their Black Friday store-busters, more strongly to online “Cyber Friday” consumers.

Additionally, 55 percent of Black Friday emails were clicked on a mobile device in 2015; this is up 18 percent from 2014. As many retailers offer similar Black Friday discounts in-store and online, consumers are becoming more likely to opt for the convenience of mobile shopping. As supported in Yesmail’s recently released benchmark report, the Email Marketing Compass: The Year of the Smartphone, consumers are purchasing more and making bigger purchases on their mobile devices.

“With zero hiccups, Yesmail demonstrates their unrelenting drive to deliver on success for their clients,” said Mike Iaccarino, CEO and Chairman of Infogroup. “As the digital solutions arm within Yes Lifecycle Marketing, they continue to exceed growing industry demands and help their clients achieve the maximum return on their investment.”

About Yesmail

Yesmail, Yes Lifecycle Marketing’s email marketing solutions provider, powers intelligent customer interactions. We define ourselves by a better caliber of technology, unmatched insights, and skilled services experts that help our clients get to ‘YES’ sooner with their customers. As a leading email services provider, we seamlessly integrate email, mobile, web, and social channels, enabling the world’s best known brands to use data-driven insights to create meaningful connections with their customers in real-time. For more information, visit www.yesmail.com.

About Yes Lifecycle Marketing

Yes Lifecycle Marketing provides solutions that orchestrate cross-channel marketing communications to drive results and revenue. This is accomplished by leveraging technology, data, analytics, creative, and strategy to activate and optimize insights-driven, real-time, relevant communications. This holistic approach gives marketers the ability to source a full-service offering of best-of-breed technology and solutions from a single vendor in order to achieve their desired outcomes across all on and offline channels. To learn more, call 1-877-937-6245, email sales@yeslifecyclemarketing.com or visit www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com.

About Infogroup

Infogroup is a marketing services and analytics provider that delivers best in class data-driven customer-centric technology solutions. Our data and software-as-a-service (DaaS & SaaS) offerings help clients of all sizes, from small companies to FORTUNE 100TM enterprises, increase their sales and customer loyalty. Infogroup provides both digital and traditional marketing channel expertise that is enhanced by access to our proprietary data on 235MM individuals and 24MM businesses, which is distributed real-time to our clients. For more information, visit: www.infogroup.com.

CONTACT: Sarah Dietze
 Phone: 312-241-1471 
 E-mail: sarah.dietze@walkersands.com

Cyber Monday Email Volume Increases by 87 Percent from 2014 to 2015

Web.com reports growing revenues in 2014, but still a net loss

Revenues were up for Web.com in 2014, but the company still reported a net loss.

The Jacksonville-based online marketing company took in revenues of almost $544 million last year, up from $492 million in 2013, according to SEC filings posted Thursday evening.

Overall, the company had a net loss of $12.4 million, which was an improvement over the loss of $65.7 million in 2013.

Web.com hasn’t reported a net profit since 2009, when it made $2.6 million with $102 million in revenue. Its net income dove over the next several years until hitting a nadir with a loss of $122 million in 2012.

The company’s revenues have risen every year since it went public as Website Pros Inc. in 2005, except for a dip between 2008 and 2009, from $117 million to $102 million.

In a conference call Thursday afternoon, CEO David L. Brown said the company has put in place a new bundled pricing model in an effort to keep customers using the website.

“We believe the steps we have taken will ultimately return retention rates to their previous levels,” Brown said in the call.

The company had almost 3.3 million subscribers on its website at the end of last year, up from 3.1 million in 2013 and slightly more than 3 million in 2012, according to SEC filings.

Its average revenue per user was $14.07 in the fourth quarter of 2014, down from $14.71 during that quarter in 2013 and $14.33 in 2012.

On Monday, Web.com added two directors to its board as part of a deal with its largest shareholder, Okumus Fund Management Ltd. The deal places limits on the shareholder’s power, such as barring it from trying to remove directors and influencing other shareholders. The deal runs out before the company’s 2016 shareholder meeting.

Okumus bought 480,000 shares in the company in November. That same month, the company bought back 10.8 million of its shares, Brown said in the conference call.

Brown also said that the company plans to modify its website developing services to allow customers to get guidance from Web.com employees through email and phone calls.

“This is an area we’ve just begun exploring,” he said.

The company’s stock price rose following the release of its earnings report, from $15.93 a share Thursday afternoon to $18.43 Friday morning.

But its shares have been in decline over the past year, dropping from $36.61 in February 2014.

Richard Webner: 904-359-4370

Web.com reports growing revenues in 2014, but still a net loss

Here Are The 10 Most Innovative Digital Ad Products of 2014

It wasn’t long ago when social media advertising just meant Facebook and digital advertising only reached desktop computers. Well, 2014 saw an explosion in the Internet ecosystem, which has become increasingly mobile with more media-rich formats than ever.

The largest players like Facebook and Google innovated and newcomers such as Snapchat offered ad space that theretofore didn’t exist. So here’s a look back at a year where fresh ad units routinely emerged onto the scene.

Google Shopping Campaigns

The search advertising giant showed that it wants to take on Amazon as much as any of its other rivals, and it developed its e-commerce platform to do just that, not only with services like home delivery but evolved search ads that more seamlessly include retail. In early 2014, Product Listing Ads, which show up in certain searches directing users to retailers online, were now rolled into campaigns. The new shopping campaigns give retailers more control over when their ads show up in searches and for what products. Google even has tools that let retailers indicate what products are available at the nearest physical store.

In September, Google also launched AdSense for Shopping, which shows product ads on third-party websites. It’s all very Amazon, and all part of Google’s one-stop shop to track everything from ad served to product delivered.

Snapchat’s Sponsored Updates

The youth-focused messaging app didn’t take long to get into advertising with sponsored snaps (“snaps” are what Snapchat legions call their momentary messages on the platform) that show up in users’ inboxes. The Universal Pictures movie Ouija was the first to buy the new mobile video format, which opens a new channel for social media marketing—especially in terms of reaching young people.

Also, its live feed, which crowdsources Snapchat messages at events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, now features commercials mixed in with the snaps from everyday users. For instance, Amazon sponsored Black Friday on Snapchat.

Instagram Sponsored Video

Now with more than 300 million users, Instagram had its first full year of advertising in 2014. Its newest ad product introduced autoplay sponsored videos, and brands from Disney to Electronic Arts to Banana Republic were the first to try them out.

The video offering comes on top of sponsored photos, which were first served in 2013. CEO Kevin Systrom is trying to cultivate a stylish advertising vibe not unlike the glossy pages of a magazine only this is digital, mobile and multimedia, and he still apparently approves all of the marketing on a case-by-case basis.

Facebook Premium VideoWhile tested in 2013, Facebook’s Premium Video Ads didn’t fully launch until March. These ads are autoplaying videos that are attracting a number of brands such as Macy’s during Christmas.

Video is the future of Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and billions of videos from users and marketers are seen everyday. Facebook is trying to compete with everyone from YouTube to Yahoo to Twitter to AOL with video that can attract brands looking for top publishers.

Twitter App-Install Ads

The app-install ad was ever important this year, especially at Twitter, where the direct-response model of advertising now offers ways from brands to do more than ever on the platform. Yes, installing an app is one variety, but the ads also direct users to apps that have been dormant on their phones, a trick that Facebook and Google now offer as well.

Also, Twitter has e-commerce ads that have Buy Now buttons and video ads with View Now, and the list of potential actions is only growing.

Tumblr Sponsored Dot

Tumblr was full of new ad ideas this year, perhaps the most intriguing was the Sponsored Dot (that period at the end of its logo). Now, brands can buy it, dressing their logo as the punctuation mark for special occasions, like Starbucks did on National Coffee Day. According to parent company Yahoo, Tumblr is looking at $100 million in ad sales during 2015, so it laid the groundwork for plenty of other new products, too, including video, sponsored trends and app-install ads.

Kik Promoted Chats
This messaging app is just starting its ad business, much like Snapchat. However, it doesn’t draw quite the same amount of attention even though it is popular with teens and consistently near the top of app charts. Kik says it has 150 million registered users, and it is attracting big brands and media/entertainment players looking to reach its young audience with Promoted Chats.

The paid chats launched this year and let properties like Funny or Die and electronics brands like Skullcandy to message one-on-one with followers who opt in. It’s a new kind of marketing built for mobile and messaging, two increasingly relevant areas.

Promoted PinsPinterest entered the realm of social media advertising with Promoted Pins, which are served when users search for specific categories and keywords. This is the pinning platform’s first ad product, which launched fully earlier this year after being tested in late 2013.

Brands like Kraft, Dell, Home Depot and Walmart are paying to boost their Pins, and there are now self-serve tools, too, for managing marketing campaigns on the platform.

Sponsored ListeningStreaming music was an important area for advertising in 2014 with Pandora, Spotify and iTunes all going after brands. Pandora introduced video ads with this Sponsored Listening product, which offers users ad-free listening for an hour in return for watching a sponsored clip. In October, Fox helped promote new shows on Pandora with the help of the format.

Google Giferator

This was a custom ad unit made for EA Sports’ Madden football video game, but it shows that Google is allowing advertisers to be more creative on the digital platform. The Giferator was generating dynamic ads in real time that could be highly targeted to select audiences.

The ad technology was developed as part of Google’s Art, Copy and Code program, where it tries to blend the creative and technical sides of digital advertising. Also, the Giferator let users create their own Gifs, a format that marketers couldn’t get enough of this year.

Here Are The 10 Most Innovative Digital Ad Products of 2014