Cost of digital advertising

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BI IntelligenceNeustar is out with its third quarter installment of the "Global Media Intelligence Report, " and the key takeaway is that social media advertising is better performing, at a more cost-efficient price, than other marketing channels — portals, networks, and exchanges.

First, it's important to understand the differences between the channels that were looked at in the study. Neustar defines them as such:

Exchange: Technology platform that facilitates the bidded buying and selling of online media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks.

Network: An aggregation of ad ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand.

Portal: A website that bring information together from diverse sources in a uniform way (e.g. Yahoo).

For its study, Neustar analyzed approximately 140 billion ad events, 60 billion impressions, and 32 million conversions.

• In the third quarter, social media ads had a 34% higher performance than the average across all channels.
• For the first time in the study's history, social media now leads all other channels in Neustar's "reach efficiency" index.
• The study also labels social media as the most cost-efficient channel for reaching the most exclusive consumers. (Neustar)

In Other News ...

Business Insider obtained more videos and evidence revealing just how pivotal Snapchat's ousted co-founder, Bobby Murphy, was in launching the company. (Business Insider)

Yahoo hired Katie Couric to be the "face of Yahoo News." (AllThingsD)

Business Insider's Jim Edwards makes a convincing case that the TV industry is in fact "dying" and that ad dollars will likely shift into digital. (Business Insider)

Facebook and Google are about to overtake all of TV in audience size. (Business Insider)

Flipboard raised $50 million in a new round of funding, which values the social news app at approximately $800 million. (Fortune)

Spambots on Twitter are beginning to form a niche black market for marketers. The Wall Street Journal talked with some of these marketers who get hired to manage thousands of fake accounts that follow and retweet a client's own account, so that that person appears more popular and influential.