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When it comes to cross-channel marketing, PETCO is at the top of its game. The specialty pet products retailer sells its merchandise in more than 1,000 brick-and-mortar stores across the country and an e-commerce website, regularly using its online channel to bring customers into its stores and vice versa. But the buck stops in the e-commerce department.

Q: "We've been using Google Ad Manager to serve our internal promotional banners, but unfortunately, the benefits of scheduling, tracking, testing and inventory control can't outweigh the cost of the painfully slow load times it's created. Are there any other solutions out there? Any suggestions or research would be gratefully accepted!"

At the DMA Annual Conference & Exhibition last week in San Diego, Kevin led a session offering three ways marketers can apply proven direct marketing segmentation principles to optimize search campaigns. Here are those three techniques, as well as further analysis that was provided at the session.

This week I continue my primer on internet video and how it can benefit your company. Picking up where I left off, here are some more opportunities to use video on your website.

Marketers are experiencing an implosion similar to that of traditional journalism this year. Early in the decade, they crafted the “multichannel era,” reasoning that the rampant growth in e-commerce sales was because print advertising created demand. The collapse of the economy caused marketers to question every single marketing dollar they spent. Print advertising is expensive, so once again this line item in the budget was heavily scrutinized.

Web 2.0 has changed the way many marketers engage with their customers. How about you? Do you know where your customers are hanging out in social media? Do you know what they’re saying about you? Do you know who your influencers are?

Performics today released aggregate data from its clients’ ‘same store’ online retail search marketing campaigns, illustrating important findings for advertisers, including an increase in first half ROI and a jump in July search spend. Signs point toward a possible shift among advertisers to increase search investment through the balance of 2009 and the holiday season.

Creating a singular marketing voice by ensuring clear communication across all channels is critical for today's marketers. Multichannel integration has become a way of life in our industry; each marketing dollar has to stretch further, with each channel fighting for its share of revenue credit and marketing budget. To succeed in this highly complex landscape, retailers must change the way they speak to consumers, and that means creating a truly holistic marketing organization.

With more than 41 million subscribers in its nearly seven-year existence, professional networking site LinkedIn is grabbing the social media headlines these days right along with Facebook and Twitter. In his keynote presentation at last week's DM Days New York Conference & Expo, Mike Gamson, LinkedIn's vice president of corporate solutions, revealed some of the secrets to his company's success, as well as tactics other direct marketers can use to make Web 2.0 more than just a buzzword.

Picture this: You’re on a sunny beach, stretched out on the sand. A child is sitting next to you with pail and shovel in hand. The child mischievously starts covering your ankles and feet in sand. You smile and continue sipping your refreshing piña colada. Now a dump truck pulls up and pours a mountain of sand all over you. You’re buried, and the sand muffles your scream. The former, pleasant scene represents the amount of data your marketing staff had to deal with about 10 years ago. The dump truck represents today’s daily data deluge.