2018 was a significant year filled with events that marked a sign of changing times, Google unveils with its annual ‘Year in Search’ 2018 report. Through the exploration of the over one trillion search queries the company receives each year, the top trending topics could be identified, including people, events and places that captured the attention of users worldwide who turned to Google Search for answers.

Buyers tend to seek as much autonomy and independence as possible during their buying decision-making process. As a result, far more than 50% of all purchase decisions have already been made before potential buyers appear on the radar of the sales department, making it difficult to actively influence them.

In a worldwide call for better respect for consumer privacy and relevant advertising experiences, a new report from MediaMath shows that although the majority of marketers understands the commercial importance of focusing on the consumer experience, many of them are still failing to adopt best practice.

Today’s challenge is no longer the availability of information but its abundance, bringing us the marketing issues we are dealing with now for decades. In all this noise, it is not only harder than ever to be found by customers, making things worse is the fact that the average attention span of today's media users has slipped below that of a goldfish.

A new report from Meltwater, titled E-commerce in SEA: Supercharging Holiday Sales Through Social Media, analyzed consumer sentiment during the year-end shopping period last year to help ecommerce companies better reach their audiences.

Mastercard announced a multi-year partnership with Riot Games to become the first global sponsor for League of Legends esports, the largest esport in the world. This first-of-its-kind global agreement signifies Mastercard’s support of the esports community and further diversifies the technology company’s world-class sports and entertainment portfolio.

The trending topic in IT, Blockchain, keeps the tech industry currently on its toes, as the distributed, decentralized database of blocks is considered impossible to get hacked: Many different servers verify algorithms for storing and uploading information, besides allowing all users of the network to see all the histories of changes or adjustments to a file or a block. Due to the security of decentralized storage and the elimination of third-party verification of transactions, processes can be automated.

PHD announced the launch of Engine, a specialist unit built for automotive brand Volkswagen, which has been designed to capitalize on the volume of anonymous data being generated by consumers researching cars online. The new approach, which will roll out globally in Q4 this year, will ensure Volkswagen can deliver relevant content to consumers as they move through their digital journey to purchasing a vehicle.

Cyber criminals are busy at work, especially during the end-of-year online shopping events, the security expert firm Symantec proves by detecting a major increase in attacks on online retailers and blocking almost a quarter of a million instances of attempted formjacking in the past three months.

Australian global payments innovator Verrency has certified two new strategic partners, Basiq and Pulse iD, to enhance the commercial offerings it enables for issuers and banks.

The way large online platforms, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon (GAFAs), restrict advertisers from using their data on the platforms is called “walled gardens”. In lieu thereof, around two-thirds of marketing executives complain that walled gardens do not provide enough information to measure campaigns effectively.

Although the death of Snapchat has been predicted many times by now, in fact right after its listing at the stock exchange where is was considered overvalued, the company proves us once again wrong and shows that there is life in the old dog yet.

Marketing has become ‘really’ digital in the last 20 years: we have email, search (SEO and SEA), social media and content marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing and native advertising – all measurable, everything personal and individualized.

Lazada, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with South Korea’s intellectual property regulator, Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency (KOIPA), to set up a framework that will safeguard the intellectual property rights of Korean brands, and curb illicit trading on the eCommerce platform.