“Today’s marketers are increasingly spreading their budgets across a widening variety of digital specialist firms. A creative shop here, a search marketing firm there, an e-mail services provider somewhere in the middle. Such fragmentation is taking a whole lot of pressure off the traditional agency — or putting a whole lot on, perhaps — as marketers rely less on their agency of record and move toward a more specialist-by-specialist approach. Rather than focus on a particular media or service, winning agencies today must look at the customer’s business objectives as a whole and provide true, seamless solutions across all media and channels that drive ROI. Then, and only then, does everyone win.”

“Business statistics can often reveal a great deal of information about a market or trend. A single number, like a picture, can be worth a thousand words. Take 9.3 percent. That figure represents eMarketer’s prediction for the share of total U.S. media spending going to the Internet this year. (In 2007, the share was only 7.4 percent.) In absolute terms, 9.3 percent translates into $27.5 billion being spent on various forms of Internet advertising in 2008, according to eMarketer projections. That number, in turn, reflects a variety of trends and industry developments that are expected to take place. For example, advertising on social networks and online video are both projected to grow at double-digit rates this year. But while video and social networks are among the most hyped online marketing techniques, they will account for only $2.9 billion — or about 10 percent of total online advertising dollars projected for 2008.”

“If you are only using traditional campaign metrics, like open, click and conversion, to maximize yield for your e-mail list, there is a gaping hole in your program. Consumer lifetime value is the new hero metric for successful, innovative e-mail marketers. Lifetime value incorporates both campaign metrics and key criteria such as frequency and relevancy to maximize value for each individual across campaigns and mine the hidden value in your database. The result? Better monetization of your entire list, rather than just those who respond to a specific campaign, and improved consumer satisfaction to boot.”