MindgruveMacarta Data-Driven Marketing, Creative & Commerce

Food for Your Brain.
Latest Trends and Best Practices from our Thought Leaders and Industry Experts.

Observing a (fantastic) Twitter trend: #TrueDetectiveSeason2

If you subscribe to HBO (or are lucky enough to have a friend or family member who is more than willing to lend you their HBO Go login information), you may be a fan of the crime drama, True Detective, created and written by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Though its first…

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Back to Basics: Focusing on Metrics that Matter

While I fell into marketing on accident, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed applying a scientific approach to improve marketing KPIs, from email open rates to paid search cost-per-click or e-commerce conversion rates and everything in between. In today’s ever-changing world of new tactics and emerging channels, marketers are expected to track and report on dozens of metrics…

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The Evolving Brand Tagline

“Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” “The ultimate driving machine.” “Just do it.” “I’m lovin’ it.” The common denominator of all these taglines is that they are all trying to sell their products to hungry consumers. And arguably, a great brand tagline is a memorable one. As you were reading the list above,…

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Social Media Marketing World 2014: “Let’s Get Social”

I had the opportunity to attend Social Media Marketing World 2014 from March 27th to March 28th to learn from some of the world’s most influential thought leaders in the social media and digital marketing world. During my time there, I’ve acquired a vast amount of invaluable information and education about social media and the…

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[INFOGRAPHIC] 2014 State of Digital Marketing

We understand the importance of keeping our finger on the pulse of emerging trends in digital marketing. For instance, though investment in digital is growing, only 25% of a marketing budget is used for online efforts. Of course, we anticipate these investments to grow even bigger as consumers turn to technology and thus are changing…

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MINDGRUVE WINS VISIT CALIFORNIA POPPY AWARD FOR BEST DIGITAL/SOCIAL MEDIA INITIATIVE

SAN DIEGO, CA – February 13, 2013 – Digital marketing and technology firm Mindgruve, won a 2014 Poppy Award for Visit Carlsbad’s “Carlsbad is where…” integrated digital marketing campaign. The biennial Visit California Poppy Awards honors the best of California tourism, celebrating innovation in travel marketing. A record number of entries for the Visit California…

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Happy 10th Birthday, Facebook

On February 4th of this year, Facebook celebrated its 10th birthday. Yes, that’s how long the platform that allows you to document your life has been around. To celebrate, a team at Facebook built videos for each user, putting together a “Look Back” compilation of shared moments (mainly of photos and status updates) in a…

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Tracking Engagement Goals with Google Analytics Custom Segments

When collaborating on a website redesign, I was faced with the challenge of measuring success without hard KPIs or conversion goals. Yet our project needed concrete goals we could point to and say, “Yes, this redesign worked!” Stepping back, it dawned on me that, frequently, the (re)design of a website may be disconnected from the…

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[INFOGRAPHIC] The Eyes Have It

There is a growing trend in visual content, and it doesn’t look like it’s fading any time soon. Instagram has over 150 million active users sharing #selfies with no fear. SnapChat had the nerve to turn down Facebook’s offer of $3 billion without a blink. Clearly, those so digitally-inclined are moving towards a more visual…

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Super Bowl XLVIII Commercials, Commence!

It’s that time of year again, where brands are able to show off their multi-million dollar ads to those who enjoy some competitive American football. As exciting as the Super Bowl XLVIII can be (you’ll get it next year, Chargers!), some of us are more eager to check out what brands have up their sleeves…

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2014 Marketing Trends: Get Your Search, Social & Mobile On

There has been a lot of discussions about the future of search and search marketing over the past 3 years. The industry has been moving toward quality-focused solutions that aim at improving user experience. In laymen terms, content is still king, social media is queen, big data is prince and SEO is the grand vizier….

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SEO in 2014: 5 New Year’s Resolutions You Should Make

Resolution#1: Focus on Quality Content 2013 was a busy year for Google: several additional Panda and Penguin updates targeting low quality content and spam link schemes, as well as the release of the new Hummingbird algorithm which focuses on relevancy and understanding users’ search intents. Topped with the continued rise of not provided keyword data…

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RECAP: Mindgruve Gives Back to the San Diego Center for Children

We’d like to give a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our Mindgruve Gives Back campaign to benefit the San Diego Center for Children. Established in 1887, the San Diego Center for Children is an accredited, non-profit organization that provides behavioral care, therapy and counseling, and special education for children and teens in…

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Video Ads: Intrusive or Worth the Watch?

Video is all the rage. Or so it seems. During its initial testing, Facebook noticed increased engagement and positive results from their auto-play video ads. Now, Facebook is rolling out auto-play video ads to the masses, and you know what, I’m not so bothered by it. Though some users are finding this tactic intrusive, the…

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Ramp Up Your Email Marketing Strategy for 2014

Email marketing saw some big milestones this year. Yahoo announced it would begin recycling  inactive email addresses older than one year. Outlook.com graduated from beta and replaced Hotmail’s web email service. Google brought tabs to millions of inboxes. Litmus hosted the first ever Email Design Conference. And just last week, we learned Google will begin…

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Native Advertising: Coming to a Comment Section Near You

Sponsored story. Branded content. Native advertising. Whatever you name it, it’s advertising. And studies show that readers prefer native advertising to the traditional banner ad, for the most part. According to the IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough study, “consumers looked at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads.” Those are a lot of potential…

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How To Integrate SEO Into Your Seasonal Marketing Strategy

As customers today expect to find more discounts and deals during the holiday season, it’s imperative that you develop and implement a long standing strategy to stay relevant. Seasonal marketing involves incorporating climate trends into your strategy in order to drive more sales or traffic to your website at specific times of the year. As…

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