Company manages billions of keywords and syncs cost and revenue data for each one daily, says Marin’s Gagan Kanwar

Editor’s Note: From time to time, we run stories by members of the Yahoo!-Bing Preferred Partner Program that offer expert advice and insights into SEM technology and improving the advertiser experience. Now we’d like to give you a closer look at the four partners themselves, which include Marin Software. Here’s Gagan Kanwar, Director of Partnerships & Research at Marin, who talks about global trends that are reshaping digital advertising; the top features of Marin’s campaign management solution; and what advertisers should consider before building their own tools.

Yahoo! Ad Blog: What’s the biggest opportunity for search marketers in the next year or two?

Gagan Kanwar: There are actually a few large opportunities just over the horizon. Product Listing Ads let retailers use richer (image-based) ad formats within a search engine. Search retargeting, where search engines help advertisers target users based on prior searches, shows a lot of promise. And local area targeting will grow as more consumers use their mobile phones as local search devices.

82% of U.S. adults use the Internet every day. Here’s a look at who they are and how they’re using it.

For the vast majority of us, logging onto the Internet is a definite daily habit. This week’s infographic shares metrics and survey findings that show just how deep that habit goes. It also takes a close look at these legions of Web users by age, education, financials, online device use, and other categories---a mother lode of demographic information that marketers can really use.

Here are some of the daily habits of online consumers from the infographic:

• 82% of U.S. adults go online every day
• 59% use email every day
• 48% use social sites every day

Millions of Web users around the world also make Yahoo! a daily habit. We recently launched a new Yahoo! experience to give consumers a more personalized, modern Yahoo.com that better enables us to put advertisers at the center of our users’ daily habits.

So just how entrenched is the Internet in consumers’ daily lives? Some survey results show how deeply we depend on it:

• 8 million said they used the Web to find a new job or a new place to live
• 9 million used it to help make a major financial decision
• 15% said it played a major role in starting---or ending---a romantic relationship

Check out the full infographic for more insights into who’s using the Web and how.

Rich media powers a space-themed, full-page takeover that lets viewers explore the RAV4 as it floats in orbit

Toyota takes its tagline "Let's go places" to new heights in an interactive space-themed ad on yahoo.com that introduces its new-generation CUV (crossover utility vehicle). The highlight is a full-page takeover that launches the RAV4 into simulated space where it hovers weightlessly and allows the viewer to move it around and check it out from every angle.

The frequency-capped auto intro shows the new RAV4 soaring across the screen, fire blazing from its tail, before setting down in the 300x250 east unit. The 635x100 mid-page unit supplements the experience with a RAV4 view from the opposite angle.

When retailers can’t adapt to the online revolution, don’t blame innocent building materials

It’s sad to see your local Borders turn into a mattress store or a once-bustling Blockbuster become an empty hulk, but let’s put the blame where it belongs.

Bricks and mortar are tired of being dissed when retail businesses can’t deal with online competition, says David T. Jones in the new Ad Land cartoon.

Those former retail giants didn’t collapse from cheap building materials. They (and plenty of other businesses) went extinct because they didn’t adapt to the vast changes wrought by the Web.

There’s even a name for that---“Digital Darwinism,” based on the findings of scientist Charles Darwin that in nature, adaptability is more crucial to survival than brains or brawn.

We can see why bricks and mortar are touchy about this. Hear what they have to say in the full cartoon.

Compete with agency colleagues to win prizes including a trip to next year’s final and a 55-inch TV

Tourney Pick ‘Em is one of Yahoo! Sports’ most dynamic and engaging fantasy sports experiences, drawing millions of rabid online fans of the Men’s College Basketball Championship tournament. Now we’re delivering an exclusive version of that experience to our agency friends with Agency Pick ‘Em, which lets ad agency staff pick brackets and compete against their industry colleagues to win awesome prizes and a year’s worth of bragging rights.

Interested? Then enter now and get ready to start filling out your brackets on Selection Sunday, March 17. Registration closes at 12 p.m. Eastern time, Thursday, March 21, when the tourney’s first official game begins. And to help you make your picks, check out these pointers on bracket-building.

This is actually our second running of Agency Pick ‘Em, which drew about 1,200 entries last year. The winner was Ravi Patel, a search planner and total sports fanatic with Neo@Ogilvy. We’re guessing that Ravi will enter again, because the prizes are even bigger and better:

• First prize: A trip for two to the 2014 Men’s College Basketball Championship Final game
• Second Prize: a 55-inch Sony Bravia Yahoo! Connected TV
• First 2,000 registrants win free three-month subscriptions to Flickr Pro

Ad agency execs talk about the value of experiential marketing and how it’s being redefined by digital, mobile and social trends

Editor's Note: Once again, we gather some ad agency friends around the virtual water cooler to get their answers to a burning industry question. This time we asked them, “How should brands and advertisers leverage experiential marketing in 2013?”

Experiential marketing---immersing customers in live experiences with a product or service--- has been around since the days of medicine shows. Today new trends in mobile and social are opening up a world of opportunities for brands looking to leverage it. Sure enough, the ad agency executives we talked to offer a wide variety of insights into how experiential marketing is evolving and how brands should use it today.

Kirsten Ludwig, Chief Creative Officer, SET
Experience is an important way for brands to connect with customers and ultimately create relationships. The most successful brands use experiential marketing to connect with people on an emotional level, give “physicality” to specific ideas that help tell their brand stories, and create lasting connections. You just made a buddy; make sure you keep them. In today’s digital world, brands need to create integrated experiences that engage customers across platforms, spark ongoing conversations, and make them easy to share on their terms. The interaction should be natural for the brand and customer – tapping into existing events, trends, and conversations that are already there.

One of the biggest mistakes that brands make is focusing only on the big experiences and overlooking the small ones. Experiences can happen at any time and have a lasting impact, which is why brands must be consistent, authentic, and integrated in every detail. From a store window to a pop-up, digital signage or Facebook page, every moment is an opportunity to make or break a relationship.

John Trinanes, Senior Vice President, Creative, George P. Johnson, a Project: WorldWide Agency

No other marketing channel gets as close to the customer as experiential. Experiential operates on every dimension that matters most to engaging consumers: time, place, sensory, immersive, and totally personal.

Successful marketers understand that you need to create rich experiential programs and invest in measurement systems to make the most of the time and attention you get with customers. The ability to measure more deeply and effectively – and to act quickly on that information – is one of the key differentiators between experiential marketing and other channels and tactics.

Online consumers spent a record $103B on travel last year. Our March 26 webinar offers tips to make sure your search ads won’t miss the boat.

Online travel is flying higher than ever. In 2012, digital consumers spent a record $103 billion¹ on travel in the U.S., with two-thirds of that total going to airline tickets. Search plays a vital role in getting travelers on the road, with 83% of leisure travelers² using it to plan flights, hotel stays, and more. In this lucrative and ultra-competitive market, advertisers want to gain every edge for their SEM travel campaigns.

You’ll find boatloads of valuable tips at our free webinar on March 26, where Yahoo! travel search experts will escort you on a fascinating tour of insights and best practices that will help you:

• Attract more travel searchers using our research into seasonal performance trends and leveraging growth opportunities via broad match, mobile campaigns, and more. (Mobile travel bookings are forecast to more than triple from 2012 to 2014, when they’ll reach an estimated $25.8 billion.³)

52% of mobile users won’t engage with a brand that delivers a poor mobile experience. Here’s a look at what mobile users want, like, and expect

Call it the “mobile majority.” By next year, experts predict there will be more mobile Web users than desktop users. And as mobile users grow, so do their expectations for ads and content that’s optimally designed for mobile devices, not adapted from other ones. This week’s infographic shares insights into mobile users’ preferences that advertisers can use to shape better mobile marketing experiences.

Here are some highlights:

• 75% of customers prefer a mobile-friendly site
• 76% want mobile pages to fit their screens better
• 74% want the option to navigate to a full site
• 69% say they want mobile sites to have bigger buttons
• 52% say they’re less likely to engage with a company if their mobile experience was bad

Scoot on over to the full infographic for more insights into mobile users’ preferences. And to see what winning mobile ads look like, check out our Mobile Showcase.