With a number of tech giants from the last generation stagnating and dying away in recent times, it’s no wonder that companies today are acquiring smaller companies so as to relevant and more importantly, stay ahead, business-wise.

 

It’s been almost 15 years since companies that are considered juggernauts namely Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Amazon have been acquiring smaller firms.

 

That said, here are a few stats accumulated by business insurance provider Simply Business as to the largest acquisitions made by each of the companies listed:

 

#1: Apple purchased Anobit and AuthenTec for $390 and $350 million respectively. It’s interesting to note that Apple kept the price of its acquisitions as low as possible since it prefers to buy for technology instead of market share. Quite interestingly, even though Steve Jobs considering acquisitions a failure to innovate, the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, continues to bring new intellectual property to Apple.

 

#2: Amazon bought Zappos and Kiva Systems for $900 and $775 million.

 

#3: Google’s acquisitions are gargantuan compared to the previous two. These acquisitions include Motorola Mobility, Nest, DoubleClick and YouTube for $12.5 billion, $3.2 billion, $3.1 billion and $1.65 billion.

 

#4: When it comes to Yahoo, there was a complete stop of acquisitions for two years until Marissa Mayer went on a buying spree while acquiring Broadcast.com, Overture and Tumblr for $5 billion, $1.83 billion and $1.1 billion respectively.

 

#5: Last but certainly not the least, Facebook purchased Instagram and Whatsapp for $715 million and $19 billion respectively. The reason why the social media giant started acquisitions after its IPO was to deal with the phenomenon of ‘brain-drain’.


Social logins are an easy way to login into any website without having to setup a separate username and password.

 

Facebook, according to social login service Gigya, is the market leader by virtue of powering almost 51 percent of all North American social logins.

 

However, even though Google+ is second on this list – it still is far behind Facebook.

 

Yahoo comes third with 15 percent. However, it continues to lose share across almost every vertical while Facebook currently dominates every platform and vertical.

 

Finally, Twitter also has 4 percent share and can be considered a minor player in social logins for both desktop and mobile.

 

That said, media is one area in which Google has made substantial gains by powering 32 percent of logins yet Facebook has made gains by 2 percent since the fourth quarter of 2013.

 

On mobile, Facebook’s control is even more clear where it has 62 percent of logins while Google+ has 26 percent while Twitter and Yahoo have 6 and 4 percent consecutively.

 

Overall, Facebook powers 58 percent of logins while Google+ and Yahoo powers 28 and 13 percent in North America.

 

Outside of North America, the story is no different with the numbers all in favor of Facebook in Europe (59 percent) and South America (80 percent). Google comes in second place in these regions with 19 and 13 percent respectively.

 

While these numbers might be similar in the Asia-Pacific region, Google is far behind local services such as Sina and QQ instead.


This article was written by Ted Dhanik

Retargeting is an exciting new method for capturing new conversions from an audience that has already viewed your ad. Advertisers know that the most powerful tool they have for branding and conversions is repetition. If the viewer sees the ad multiple times, he is more likely to come around to the messaging of it and buy a product. Using retargeting, you can reach the users who have already seen your display advertising with new messaging or special offers.

Definition

Retargeting uses tracking cookies to identify users that have already seen your ad or your landing page. When the ad appears, cookies track if a user visited the page and then serve new ads to that user. Retargeting sometimes takes time to launch, unlike display advertising, which you can launch immediately. You need to first build an audience to retarget, then you can publish new ads to entice them.

How Retargeting Works

On the user side, your first ad appears. If the user clicks this ad, the cookie tracks the record. That user is then served banner advertising from you based on a frequency you adjust. For instance, you might choose to show a user the same ad four times per day.

On the publisher side, you start by setting your usual interests and demographics. The difference is that you create an ad group or campaign that is dedicated entirely to retargeting campaigns. This allows you to build an audience and test your work, without clouding your other campaigns and muddling your results. Retargeting has the potential to save money, but banner advertising is still an important part of any campaign. You should not expect to completely stop regular banner advertising in favor of retargeting. Instead, look to retargeting as an upsell for your current campaigns or a method of getting one more chance at your most motivated potential buyers.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is an expert in business development, with experience building recognizable brands online. Ted Dhanik is the co-founder and president of engage:BDR. Find tips for retargeting and direct marketing from Ted Dhanik.