Smartphone and tablet users have unique preferences, and savvy mobile marketers can use them to create better campaigns

All mobile devices are not created equal, and we’re not just talking about screen size. A new report by Forrester Research shares insights into the different habits and preferences of tablet and smartphone users. Marketers can use this information to tailor specific campaigns to specific devices for better results.

Here are some highlights from the study:

• Tablets are primarily used at home for consuming media, online shopping, and viewing along with TV.
• Tablets are “lean-back” devices, and the term makes sense: 67% of tablet owners use them in the living room and 57% in the bedroom.

Eight digital media rising stars from the U.S., Latin America, and Europe will soon be on their way to Cannes!

This year’s Yahoo! Young Media Stars competition was bigger and better than ever, with more winners from more countries. Our all-star team of judges from the IAB, Yahoo!, and six leading media agencies have made their decisions, and we’re thrilled to announce the eight Yahoo! Young Media Stars for 2013:

• Jenny Jones, Digital Media Planner, Initiative Media, Los Angeles
• Brian Zai, Digital Supervisor, OMD, New York
• Allison Sims, Senior Planner, Integrated Planning, MEC Global, New York
• Luiz Roberto de Almeida, Coordenador de Midia, Ampfy, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Pablo Alustiza, Director Digital, UMWW, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Armando de los Santos, Lider de equipo de Planeación, Havas Media, Mexico City, Mexico
• Owen Lee, Activation Executive, Starcom MediaVest Group, London
• Klara Krok-Paszkowska, Mobile Manager, Manning Gottlieb OMD, West Hampstead, U.K.

Bing Ads’ Traffic Quality Center shares security insights, best practices, and more

All clicks are not created equal, which is why we have top-notch security teams and automated measures that work 24x7 to detect and prevent fraudulent click activity on the Yahoo! Bing Network.

You can add another layer of security by learning what you can do to protect your search ad accounts. That’s why we’re launching the Bing Ads Traffic Quality Center. It’s a website packed with information on our security programs along with tools, best practices, and other resources to help you maximize your ad spend and improve the quality of click traffic.

Here’s a great introduction to the center, complete with a video overview and highlights of the website.

Our plans to acquire Tumblr made big news yesterday, so we polled some executives from leading agencies to get their thoughts.

Sankar Patel, VP, Digital Director, Carat USA

The implications of the union between Yahoo! and Tumblr are huge. Many social startups like Tumblr have been slow to roll out effective marketing products, with Pinterest being the slowest so far. Yahoo!’s backing will help Tumblr pick up speed. While Tumblr has a decent ad product to promote Tumblr pages, media agencies are hoping Yahoo! will introduce innovative new ad products for their brands that are native to the specific platforms, and at a faster pace. Also, the prospect of uniting the whole network together through log-ins or data would make Yahoo!’s current environments more enticing to advertisers.

Mike Kelly, Founder & Partner, Brand Value Advisors

The knock on Tumblr has been its lack of enterprise offerings; hence the defections. Marissa Mayer's focus for Yahoo! has been product, product, product. Tumblr has a great brand in the space, but needs to be weaponized, and you can look to Yahoo! to do just that.

Major moves will grow our audience, deepen consumer engagement, and create options for advertisers

In case you missed it, Monday was a big news day for Yahoo!. In the morning, we announced an agreement to acquire Tumblr, one of the world’s fastest-growing media networks. In the afternoon, we announced major updates to Flickr, the world’s leading photo site (see video below). Those are two major strides forward in our continuing effort to make our daily online experiences more engaging for consumers and provide more opportunities for marketers.

Here’s a look at both big stories:

Tumblr: With more than 300 million unique visitors a month and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr brings us a huge new audience of content creators, curators, and users of all ages. Plus, more than half of Tumblr’s audience uses its mobile app. Bringing together Tumblr and Yahoo! is expected to grow our audience by 50 percent to more than a billion monthly visitors and to grow traffic by about 20 percent.

The acquisition offers opportunities for both partners. Tumblr can leverage our personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love. In turn, Tumbler brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more each day) to our media network and search experiences. We’ll work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance our users’ experiences. Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business with its current CEO, David Karp, at the helm.

Your competitors are growing by double digits. Here’s why you can outpace them.

It’s good to have a goal, and this week’s infographic lays out a big one for online businesses: Grow revenue by at least 15% this year, or risk losing market share. It also shares insights from ecommerce studies and forecasts that show why that 15% goal is within your reach.

Here are some highlights:

• ecommerce is outperforming brick-and-mortar: It’s taken nearly $6 billion in revenue away from physical stores in the past year.
• Some products are blowing up: Digital content/subscriptions and consumer electronics grew 26% and 19% respectively YoY. Apparel and accessories grew a healthy 17%, further evidence of how traditionally brick-and-mortar shopping activities are moving to the Web.
• Marketing on key dates can make a big difference: Online campaigns that target key shopping dates, such as Thanksgiving or Cyber Monday, can boost revenue by up to 70%.

Get more insights from the full infographic after the jump.

Bold ad offers wealth of features including videos, galleries, social sharing, and a Jazz Age avatar creator to draw viewers into the film

The latest film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby” is a lavish production that’s typical of director Baz Luhrmann’s style ("Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge!"). Everything Luhrmann does has a distinct visual flair, so it’s fitting that Warner Brothers went big and flashy with a full-page custom takeover on the Yahoo.com homepage that puts the “rich” in rich media.

To get viewers hooked on the tale of Jazz Age excess and disillusionment, the ad offers a wealth of engaging features, including videos, galleries, an abundance of behind-the-scenes content, and even a cool avatar creator that lets you outfit yourself in fine Gatsby-era style.

Here’s how it works.

Stop straining to come up with new ad ideas. Just choose from this list of six.

Advertising creatives spend all their time trying to come up with ideas that have never been done before, but some ad experts think there may be a limited supply. For example, a recent Ad Week panel explored the theory that there are only seven types of stories used in everything from movies to ads (the quest, rags to riches, etc.).  Our own David T. Jones, a veteran ad creative himself, believes there are only six types of ads.

Of course, the real challenge is finding the type of ad and story that best fits your brand, and then bringing them to life with consummate skill and creativity. But that’s another cartoon.

Check out the full cartoon after the jump.