MerchantCircle.com released findings today from a survey that revealed 50 percent of small-business owners follow political candidates or related organizations on Facebook. Fourteen percent of respondents follow these groups on Twitter. The survey comprised more than 6,000 U.S. small-business owners. It’s surprising to learn that busy small-business owners prefer their political messages funneled through social media. This is a telling effect of the comfort shift from traditional to digital advertising among SMBs.

Television was the least informative marketing method with 40 percent of business owners tuning political ads out. Ironically, the bulk of campaign ad budgets are spent on television. Based on MerchantCircle’s results, social media appears to be three times as effective as television for political campaigns that are seeking to target small-business owners.

Printed materials, including direct mail political fliers, are also better received than television. Fifteen percent of respondents said they found these materials informative. With less than six months until the presidential election, these data come at a critical time. Digital media agencies are feverishly working with political groups to ramp up effective outreach strategies. If you want more political ad talk, read our Advisory on how traditional and digital media stack up in political advertising.

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This week, Yodle announced the integration of mobile-optimized websites, mobile ad bidding and distribution to its product suite. The mobile solution has already rolled out to more than 30,000 existing SMB customers. New customers can also expect to receive the solution moving forward. This approach is part of Yodle’s commitment to generate quality inbound calls and emails at the lowest price.

According to BIA/Kelsey and vSplash, only 7 percent of SMBs have mobile-optimized websites. Yodle views mobile channel optimization as a core feature of its marketing platform and a competitive advantage for its customers. It has also leveraged existing distribution partnerships to expand customers’ reach to 95 percent of all mobile browser search.

Yodle’s media bidding technology ClickRank optimizes a combination of ad placements across both mobile and desktop channels for each customer. The company plans to establish additional mobile distribution partnerships, including planned expansions into in-app search queries.

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Telmetrics, a call measurement provider, has released pay-per-call best practices designed to optimize the number of quality, billable calls delivered to advertisers. “With mobile it is all about being there at the time of action — whether it is a new or existing customer, asking for basic info from store hours to driving directions — in mobile, if you aren’t listed, consumers will move on to someone else,” said Telmetrics President Bill Dinan in a statement to BIA/Kelsey.

A BIA/Kelsey survey found that 61 percent of SMB advertisers say a telephone call from a prospective customer is the single most important lead they can receive. In the client Advisory, “Call-Based Ads: Eliminating the Unknown From Advertising,” BIA/Kelsey Program Director Matt Booth discusses the growth of mobile and its contribution to call-based advertising inventory.

Here are Telmetrics’ top five pay-per-call recommendations for optimizing quality billable calls:

1) Eliminate telemarketer calls

2) Use category specific benchmarks

3) Don’t discount basic information calls

4) Recognize existing customers’ new sales opportunity

5) Consider local IVR drop off rates

We’ll discuss pay per call in the context of monetizing local mobile advertising at our Mobile Local Media conference tomorrow in San Francisco. You can register here.

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Vocus, a cloud marketing and public relations software provider, is focused on helping SMBs grow their online business with its new marketing dashboard. Business Development Manager Christine Mulquin shared with us that the company is targeting its marketing suite to the subsidiaries of its larger clients. It’s a practical strategy as we continue to see a need for efficient and effective online presence management software for SMBs.

The Vocus Marketing Suite integrates SMB public relations initiatives into a central Web-based application. In 2010, Vocus acquired Help A Reporter Out (HARO), a social media service that connects reporters, bloggers and news sources. HARO is free, but SMBs can pay to receive early notices about reporters looking for sources. In addition, business owners can also make direct pitches. Last year, Vocus bought Facebook app maker North Social. This acquisition allows Vocus to create apps like Deal Share, Fan Offer, and Show & Sell, which allows customers to buy products from the store located on a SMBs’ page.

2011 saw another acquisition with Engine 140, a social media recommendation engine that builds and manages a business’s Twitter presence. Vocus also acquired iContact in February and plans to integrate its email marketing functionality into the marketing suite by late fall or early next year. “Eighty [percent] to 90 percent of people still use email,” said Director of Public Relations Frank Strong. Email continues to be an efficient way to build loyalty databases.

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Cox Target Media announced its acquisition of Savings.com, an online coupon website, and its British-based sister site, Savoo.co.uk today. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Cox Target Media also owns and distributes Valpak coupons. Its print coupons from national and local retailers are mailed to more than 44 million homes a month. Savings.com gives online shoppers access to offers from national and online retailers. More than 5 million users access the site per month.

The acquisition also expands alternative revenue models, something Cox Target Media President Michael Vivio mentioned during ILM West last December. Under the traditional model, Valpak businesses pay for the ads up front and hope to receive a profit on the back end. Now, Valpak and Savings.com will offer national merchants pay-for-performance advertising that lets marketers drive sales with lower upfront costs. Savings.com also brings high-level email marketing and the ability to build loyalty databases around specific products and services to Valpak’s print-based model.

Savings.com and Savoo.co.uk will continue to operate independently but work together with Valpak to share resources, leverage technology platforms, and promote consumer engagement. Loren Bendele, founder and CEO of Savings.com, will continue in his current role.

Also worth noting today is Valassis Communications’ acquisition of Brand.net, an online display, video and mobile advertising platform. Valassis Communications is a direct mail company that is building out its digital display offering — Valassis Audience Network.

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The study of 10 broadcast network and cable brands over a five-week period showed that an average of 90 percent of consumers engaging with a given brand did so on television, while 25 percent did so online and 12 percent via online video. We continue to see the trend of consumers engaging with brands across platforms.

In addition, the study investigated concurrent media users, namely consumers who watch TV and use the Internet within the same half-hour time block. Across the media brands in the study, 60 percent of the brands’ TV consumers used the Internet concurrently while watching the network on TV at least once during the five-week study period. Almost half of those consumers used Facebook.

Source: comScore and CIMM

CIMM was founded in 2009 and its members include AT&T, CBS, Discovery Communications and NBCUniversal.

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American Eagle Outfitters becomes the latest partner to launch Shopkick nationwide, including its Aerie locations, starting today. The announcement comes on the heels of Target’s national rollout that we reported here. American Eagle Outfitters and Aerie shoppers will earn “kicks” or points just for walking in, and receive exclusive offers throughout the store.

American Eagle Outfitters was one of Shopkick’s first partners when the app launched in 2010. A year later, American Eagle Outfitters hosted the mobile app company’s first birthday party in its flagship store. For the past two years, the global retailer has conducted tests in pursuit of becoming an early adopter of technology to enhance the shopping experience. Among Shopkick users, American Eagle Outfitters found increased traffic (no exact numbers specified), sales, and higher purchase amounts.

As retail stores look for ways to leverage mobile technology, we expect to see similar partnerships with app companies providing mobile rewards. Speaking of partnerships, Shopkick also announced today the selection of Giftango to power its new digital card offering. The offering will allow retailers to access customer’s gift card information from within the app, eliminating the need for traditional gift cards that can get lost or stolen.

So much is happening right now in mobile commerce. To hear Shopkick CRO Doug Galen and learn more about the latest developments in the space, join us for MLM San Francisco.

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Yellow Medya, Turkey’s Yellow Pages publisher, announced a new partnership agreement today with TomTom Places. The Yellow Pages publisher will serve as the business listing and content provider to the navigation products supplier. In addition, Yellow Medya will serve as the exclusive reseller of TomTom Places in Turkey. TomTom Places provides priority business listings, keyword and brand search capabilities on its devices and apps.

As a reseller, Yellow Medya will offer guaranteed placement on TomTom products including PNDs, in-car satellite navigation systems and mobile phone apps. During the past four years, Yellow Medya has invested in building its business listing database. Currently, it contains more than 750,000 businesses.

Earlier this year, Yellow Medya released SoLoMo, its location-based engagement platform. It also partnered with vSplash Tech Labs to fulfill online and mobile brand points of presence. The new partnership with TomTom Places is poised to complement Yellow Medya’s business developments in location based marketing, local search, and engagement solutions for SMBs and brand owners.

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Repair.com launched its online repair scheduling tool today which allows potential customers to view and compare open appointments using data from its parent site, National Electronics Warranty, LLC. The new venture is an extension of its parent site that provides extended service contracts and product protection programs. But instead of post-sale customer support, Repair.com primarily focuses on decisive actions that precede a sale.

Before the launch, we discussed the new site’s value proposition to both customers and service providers with General Manager Chris Spanos. Unlike other companies more focused on high volume leads for service providers, Spanos says Repair.com’s focus is on “higher quality leads at the stage where a customer is ready to act.”

Repair.com allows customers to view a side-by-side comparison of local service providers. In addition, Spanos says the site gives customers more “power” to pick their preferred product and brand. Once these selections are made, Repair.com matches each customer to an applicable service provider and displays available appointment times.

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Mobile ad network Millennial Media is out with its Q1 mobile mix report, showing that tablets were among the top 20 across all mobile devices. The Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle Fire are the top three tablets on its platform. Non-phone connected device impressions, including tablets, made up 20 percent of the device mix, up from 15 percent last quarter.

Although smartphone ad impressions saw growth from last quarter, the percent of overall impressions is somewhat flat quarter over quarter. This demonstrates a disproportionate growth of non-phone connected device impressions in comparison to smartphones and feature phones. Other findings include gaming as the top category for mobile apps, with music & entertainment and mobile social media rounding out the top three.

This week, we released our top 10 mobile local media trends. You can view the presentation slides or watch the video here. And if you’re looking for ideas on how to monetize the intersection of mobile, local and social, then join us for our MLM conference in San Francisco next month.

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