Patricio Robles

Omnichannel's biggest challenge: privacy?

With consumers increasingly expecting seamless experiences across channels, brick-and-mortar retailers are recognizing they may have an advantage over online competitors which have, thus far, countered only with delivery lockers and improved shipping capabilities.

Physical stores, of course, may be an advantage, but they don't guarantee success. To seize the omnichannel advantage, retailers of all shapes and sizes will need to do more to bridge the gap between the online and offline words.

by Patricio Robles 12 February 2013 16:59pm 0 comments

Metrics: are you even looking at accurate numbers?

Thanks to the 'trackability' of digital media and the rise of Big Data, more and more companies are hoping that decisions they once made on gut instinct or educated guesstimates can and will be made on hard data.

Which, in theory, is a good thing: data-driven decisions should enable businesses to understand the dynamics in their market and use that knowledge to better serve their customers.

by Patricio Robles 11 February 2013 16:28pm 13 comments

Pay-for-performance for agencies: perfect arrangement or bad idea?

There's a long history behind how agencies are compensated for their efforts, but that doesn't mean that everybody is satisfied with agency compensation.

At one time, agencies were typically paid a commission. Clients didn't like that. Today they're generally paid by the hour, something that both agencies and clients alike find reason to complain about.

by Patricio Robles 08 February 2013 16:58pm 8 comments

The shift from the PC to mobile and tablet is real: study

For countless companies active online, the ever-increasing importance of mobile is no surprise. It's seen every day in the growing amount of traffic their websites receive from users on mobile and tablet devices.

The big question: what activities previously performed on the PC are being shifted to these devices?

by Patricio Robles 08 February 2013 16:02pm 4 comments

Yahoo turns to Google for ads: sign of a new friendship?

When Yahoo recruited Marissa Mayer from Google to replace interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, some suggested that Mayer's departure from Google was an indication that she had reached her limit for advancement at the search giant, and that her role at Google was actually not as important as it might have seemed.

Whether the rumors about Mayer's status at Google were accurate or not, one thing was certain: Yahoo was placing a huge bet on the 30-something executive, one that might have been the last such bet it could make.

by Patricio Robles 07 February 2013 14:20pm 1 comment

Word-of-mouth: focus on the steak, not the sizzle

Is social media, and the data it produces, overvalued? As companies continue to struggle the ROI from their social initiatives, some are starting to suggest that social's impact might have been overestimated.

But social media proponents say not so fast: social media is the digital channel for word-of-mouth, and although word-of-mouth has historically been hard to quantify, its importance is rarely questioned. Which raises an interesting question: instead of talking about social media, should we be talking about word-of-mouth?

by Patricio Robles 06 February 2013 20:43pm 2 comments

You (probably) don't need a rockstar engineer

If you work in the tech industry, you've probably heard somebody lament just how difficult it is to find "good" engineers these days.

Thanks to the booming internet economy and the fat wallets of companies like Google and Facebook, it's a good time to be a software engineer. There are more jobs than viable candidates, salaries and benefits are high as a result and the best engineers have no shortage of opportunities to work on interesting things.

by Patricio Robles 06 February 2013 16:29pm 3 comments

Demographic shifts: a social media marketer's worst nightmare?

For digital marketers, understanding the audience a platform offers access to is crucial. After all, if you don't know who you will be reaching, it's all but impossible to craft messages and experiences that resonate.

The good news: digital channels are generally understood far better than their offline counterparts because users can be tracked far more comprehensively and accurately. The bad news: the make-up of digital channels can change, and sometimes quite rapidly. This is particularly true in social channels, where what's hot today is not hot tomorrow.

by Patricio Robles 05 February 2013 15:00pm 0 comments

Did Twitter win the Super Bowl?

The Super Bowl is arguably the most important day in advertising, and every year, as much attention is focused on Super Bowl ads as the game itself.

With social media such a big part of brand advertising today, it's no surprise that many observers pay close attention to how social media is used by brands in conjunction with their multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads as outlined in our earlier Super Bowl post.

by Patricio Robles 04 February 2013 19:35pm 0 comments

Apple unveils AppStore.com vanity URLs during Super Bowl, land grab coming?

Super Bowl Sunday is no stranger to surprises. With brands spending countless millions on Super Bowl ad campaigns, doing the unexpected or revealing something new on America's biggest day in sport is a no-brainer.