New article by Yahoo!'s Rob Wilk provides detailed tips for getting more clicks on your ads

You wouldn't try to climb Mt. Everest without the assistance of a sherpa. Similarly, when you're spending your precious online ad dollars, it is wise to leverage the knowledge of an expert.

We have a bunch of pros here at Yahoo! who have climbed the search marketing mountains numerous times, one of whom being Rob Wilk, senior director of search account management. Rob also knows the game from the other side of the coin, having previously served as director at Avenue A | Razorfish Search.

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This week: Facebook IPO, Super Bowl hashtags, Pinterest drives traffic, content that gets shared, and social ROI

1. Best IPO: Facebook

Why is this man smiling?The day the tech world's been waiting for with bated breath finally arrived on Wednesday: Facebook's big IPO filing. In it, Facebook reported 845 million active users and total ad revenue in 2011 of $3.15 billion. One still untapped growth area for Facebook: mobile. Facebook currently makes nothing from advertising on mobile devices because it has yet to extend ads to its mobile platforms. Despite all the amazingly strong numbers shared in the filing, Facebook directly acknowledged the "ongoing threat" it faces from competitors like Twitter, which a new report shows is attracting more and more teens. Is it just me, or are things just starting to get interesting?

2. Best Super Bowl play to watch: Twitter

I'm not much of a sporty spice, so if I watch the Super Bowl this Sunday, it'll be to cringe at what's become of Madonna's face. And, of course, check out the commercials---although many have already debuted online (Honda's is an early online favorite.) According to Twitter, viewers can expect at least half the Super Bowl commercials to feature a hashtag this year. It makes sense: Twitter has a way of bringing the world together around live televised events. To capitalize on this, Twitter is sponsoring Ad Scrimmage, a competition for ads to see which can get the most buzz in the week following the game. The system builds on previous voting programs that Twitter developed for shows like "X Factor." The winner gets a free Promoted Trend on Twitter.

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Quench your thirst for rich media with Gatorade's muscular custom pushdown video and wallpaper on the Sports front page

To promote its G series of energy drinks, Gatorade kicked off its Win from Within campaign in G-force style with a rich media custom (sporting) event front and center on Yahoo! Sports.

This ad is a triathlon of rich media athleticism: Wallpaper featuring opposing football players leaning into the 950 x 60 banner along the top while a 300 x 250 screen on the right shows one of several brief montages and taglines that Gatorade suited up for this campaign.

If you accept the banner's invitation to "view commercial," it pushes down to play a 30-second spot featuring all the athletes you could've seen in the right-hand box, while the earnest voiceover admonishes you that you only get out of it what you put into it.

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Track your traffic on mobile, tablet, TV and desktop—all in one place

We've often said that we live in a multi-screen, multi-tasking world, and now we're putting our data where our mouth is, so to speak.

New Yahoo! Web Analytics

Yesterday, Yahoo! Web Analytics announced version of its useful tracking tool, adding more advanced reporting on multiple devices. Why? Because more than ever, more and more people are interacting with your content, products and services across screens. The new version adds the ability to track, customize reports, and filter and segment based on the type of device being used, including mobile, tablet, TV and desktop.

For all the details, click over to the Yahoo! Web Analytics blog.

--The Team

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Also: Record spending projected for Valentine's Day; tablet owners love reading magazines; 5 keys to capture the right campaign data; and real-time bidding for big-time publishers

Mobile Ads Blitz the 2012 Super Bowl: More than 60% of smartphone and tablet owners text, tweet or otherwise multi-task while watching TV, so Super Bowl marketers are tackling them on multiple screens like never before, says the Washington Post. Chevy, Coca-Cola, GoDaddy, Sonic and Toyota are among the big brands that are integrating mobile and social promotions with their TV campaigns. Pepsi Max is running just such a play with Yahoo's IntoNow social TV app---when a Pepsi MAX ad runs on TV, it will trigger the audio-recognition functionality in IntoNow and unlock the user's entry to the Pepsi MAX for Life sweepstakes.

Valentine's Day spending should set records: Lovestruck Americans are expected to spend $17.6 billion on cards, candy and bling this year, the highest sum in the 10 years that the National Retail Federation has been measuring it. As usual, men will spend more on V-Day than women, according to the foundation. It projects that the typical male will spend an average of $168.74, while women will average of $85.76. Interpret those stats as you will.

Tablet users like reading magazines--especially though an app: Nearly three-quarters of tablet owners say they're interested in reading magazines on their devices, according to a survey by GfK. Males expressed more interest (77%) than females (68%), especially males 18-34 (85%). The most popular way that tablet owners read magazine content is using an app---65% of those surveyed said that's their preference. We have the perfect app for that: Livestand from Yahoo!

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Visit us as the 11^th Annual ePharma Summit

Next week will mark the 11^th year of the annual Institute for International Research's ePharma Summit in New York City. Attended by more than 140 pharmaceutical and Internet companies, the ePharma Summit is the premier U.S. conference where high tech pharma meets high-touch digital media. And this year, Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, is an official sponsor of ePharma.

Why? Because Yahoo! has a lot to offer pharma advertisers. While Yahoo! reaches over 80% of the overall U.S. online population, we also reach 8 out of 10 U.S. health consumers online, according to comScore.

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Traveling to the ePharma Summit? Be sure and visit Yahoo! at booth #24 to learn about custom solutions for pharma marketers.

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But here's the rub: A mere 1% of the time spent by health consumers online is spent by users perusing health-related content, such as health websites. In short, across the Web, health consumers live "outside the 'health box'." That's why it's essential for pharma advertisers to not only hit health consumers while they're actively researching health conditions, but also while they are viewing other content, targeted based on their online habits. Health consumers on Yahoo! are highly engaged with news content, video programming, entertainment news and lifestyle content.

With Yahoo!, pharma advertisers can:

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A trio of updates that can help you advertise in search results bigger, stronger and faster

Many people make New Year's resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking or otherwise improve their lives, but we all know that the majority end up jettisoning them by the time the calendar turns to February.

But not Yahoo! and Microsoft: We've launched three new enhancements that improve adCenter in various ways, and advertisers stand to benefit through greater ease-of-use and potentially better campaign results.

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#1 Super Bowl ad; how to spend $4 million in 30 seconds; how much you'll pay in 2024, and more

#1: The top Super Bowl spot of all time? Yeah, you guessed it: Apple's now legendary "1984" commercial, the ad the kicked off the Super Bowl ad craze in the first place. This according to a panel of Forbes CMO Network readers and agency experts. Really, guys? Really? It took a committee to figure that out?

$4 million: The high end of the range for a 30-second spot during the 2012 Super Bowl ($3.5 million being the "low" end). That's up from "just" $3.1 million in 2011, according to DailyFinance. The article notes that the biggest spenders include Anheuser-Busch—which is wisely also working with Yahoo!, as well—Pepsi, GM and Disney. Which commercial will bring the biggest buzz this year? We can hardly wait to see.

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