For Webmasters

Advanced techniques to improve your optimization.

Retargeting is hot and getting hotter. Witness relatively new startup AdRoll claiming revenue increases of over 400% together with over 2,000 new advertising clients. In support, trends-tracking company BuiltWith lists AdRoll's technology as the "fastest growing advertising technology" with ad network ExoClick close behind.

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The FBI's case against MegaUpload appears to depend in large part on up to five years of internal email and IM conversations gathered by FBI spyware programs installed on the suspect's computers. Documents filed by the US authorities discuss alleged conversations between senior MegaUpload management that were carried out over the Skype instant-messaging system. This is intriguing given that Skype claims not to retain messages beyond 30 days and the criminal investigation supposedly didn't begin until early last year. So where did the FBI get those messages?

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Now that the Facebook IPO registration has been filed we can finally get real insight into their business. Key takeaway, Facebook's ad revenue in 2011 was $3.2 billion. That represents an increase of almost 70% from 2010. We can break that down even further: part of the increase in revenues came from an increase in ad rates of 18% - not bad at all in the current economic climate - but most came from a 42% increase in ads served.

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We all love a good infographic so in the first of a regular series we bring you our Infographic Of The Week: Are You Running Enough Tests On Your Website.

Check out why companies that test more enjoy better conversion rates and what they actually test for after the jump.

Cookie-stuffing is a menace to both merchants and affiliates. For merchants, fake referrals created by rogue websites can cost an affiliate program thousands of dollars for sales that should have been credited to other traffic sources. At the other end of the buying funnel, affiliates can see sales gained from their hard-won visitors being stolen away when cookies are over-written. It is a major problem.

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A  research study conducted by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) reported that the online fashion retail industry demonstrated exponential growth – an astonishing 2,000% – from 2001 to 2011. Additionally, Forrester published statistics indicating that US online retail sales grew 12.6% in 2010 to reach $176.2 billion, with the ecommerce market expected to reach $278.9 billion in 2015.

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The always reliable Brian Krebs with an amazing story of Russian spammers, huge botnets and oddly named pwnsters.

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eMarketer revises estimates of mobile marketing up to $2.6 Billion:

eMarketer estimates mobile advertising spending in the US reached $1.45 billion in 2011, up 89% from $769.6 million in 2010. This year, US mobile ad spending will grow 80% to $2.61 billion.

Michael Wolf tells you what you need to know:

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Online gambling may soon be legalized once again if initiatives currently in Congress come to fruition. If that happens, many affiliates and networks will celebrate; and Facebook and Zynga's revenues will grow like crazy.

While many in the performance marketing community have a lot of experience with traditional gambling websites, what will be fascinating is to see how the upsurge in mobile and social marketing creates both new opportunities and new challenges.

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