It was a short week, but a productive one at Subscription Insider. We hope you fared well too and are ready for a relaxing weekend! In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, LinkedIn reports its top 50 U.S. companies, Marketing Week shares the high cost of ad fraud, Brand 24 offers eight fabulous tools for SaaS companies and entrepreneurs to track analytics and improve productivity and user experience, First Data announces its acquisition of CardConnect, and Hubspot explains how sales reps can use Facebook to reach prospects.

Where the U.S. Wants to Work: LinkedIn’s Top 50 Companies

LinkedIn recently published its Top Companies 2017 report, listing the top 50 companies where people want to work. The companies cross 21 different industries, and collectively employ 3.3 million workers in the United States. LinkedIn based its ranking on actions taken by LinkedIn’s 500 million-plus users including their interest in a company’s jobs, interest in a particular brand and its employees, and employee retention. LinkedIn and Microsoft, who now owns LinkedIn, are not included in the list.

Here are the top 10 U.S. companies and the industry they represent. Many, particularly the technology companies, have ties to publishing, SaaS or subscriptions. Click here to read the complete U.S. list and to see the lists for other countries. Many

1. Alphabet (formerly Google) – IT and services
2. Amazon – Internet
3. Facebook – Internet
4. Salesforce – Internet
5. Uber – Internet
6. Tesla – automotive
7. Apple – consumer electronics
8. Time Warner – entertainment
9. Walt Disney – entertainment
10. Comcast NBCUniversal – media production

U.S. Brands Will Lose $6.5 Billion to Ad Fraud in 2017

According to Marketing Week, U.S. brands will lose $6.5 billion to ad fraud in 2017. While this is still shockingly high, it is a 10 percent decrease over last year’s total of $7.2 billion. Quoting a report by Bot Baseline from White Ops and the ANA, 20 percent of the Internet is made up of ad-fraud sites with fraud bots and click fraud still taking up a big chunk of the web. There is good news though.

“Marketers worldwide are successfully adopting strategies and tactics to fight digital ad fraud,” claims ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “This is a powerful indicator that the war on digital ad fraud is winnable for those who establish proper controls and protocols. And that is exceptionally good news for the advertising, marketing, and media communities worldwide.”

Ad fraud on mobile devices is a lot less common, says marketing Week, and desktop display ad fraud is expected to drop from 11 percent to 9 percent this year. Video ad fraud, however, at 22 percent this year, only down 1 percent from last year.

Learn more about ad fraud in the U.S. on Marketing Week here.

Brand 24: Top 8 Tools for SaaS Companies & Entrepreneurs

Brand 24 put together a list of eight of the best tools for SaaS companies and entrepreneurs to use to track metrics, optimize conversions, track and organize work, etc. Here are their suggestions:

1. Privy for growing your email list
2. Unbounce to design more effective landing pages to increase conversions
3. Zapier to connect apps and automate workflows
4. AskNicely to gather and act on customer feedback in real-time
5. Appcues for better user onboarding without coding
6. Heap Analytics to track user actions on your website or iOS app
7. Hotjar for all-in-one analytics and feedback of user behavior
8. Calendly for easy scheduling

For screenshots and an explanation of these tools, see the original article on Brand 24 here.

Payment Processor First Data to Buy CardConnect for $750 Million

On Monday, payment processor First Data (NYSE: FDC) announced that it will buy CardConnect (NASDAQ: CCN), a commerce solutions provider, for $750 million, including repayment of CardConnect’s outstanding debt and redemption of the company’s preferred stock. First Data will acquire all outstanding shares of common stock of CardConnect for $15 per share. CardConnect processes approximately $26 billion in volume annually from approximately 67,000 merchant customers worldwide. First Data processes more than 2,800 transactions per second and about $2.2 trillion per year.

“This transaction is consistent with our strategy of integrating and scaling innovative technologies across our distribution footprint to better serve our partners and customers,” said First Data Chairman and CEO, Frank Bisignano in a statement. “CardConnect is a long-standing First Data distribution partner and we are excited to incorporate their state-of-the-art solutions across some of our most important strategic initiatives such as partner-centric distribution, integrated payments, and enterprise payments solutions.”

The merger has been approved by CardConnect’s Board of Directors. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017. Read more about the transaction here.

4 Tips for Connecting with Your Prospects on Facebook

Many different types of businesses use Facebook as one marketing tool in its arsenal, but did you know that Facebook is a good place to connect with prospects too? Hubspot offers four ways that sales reps can connect with prospective customers on Facebook.

1. Use Facebook as a touchpoint to keep your brand top-of-mind and to develop a one-on-one relationship with a prospective customer.
2. Show your personality with a less formal approach on Facebook. Of course, you’ll still want to use good grammar, spelling and punctuation, but you can connect in a more personal, casual way on Facebook than email, for example.
3. Build a rapport by connecting over hobbies, interests and other commonalities.
4. Keep it short and sweet so you aren’t monopolizing your prospect’s time. Take just enough time to nurture a new relationship and show that you are responsive.

Thanks to Hubspot for the great advice. Read the full article here.

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Five on Friday! Do you have topic ideas or suggestions for future Five on Friday columns? If so, email me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you! Have a great weekend.