Yahoo! Search Marketing

In today's cross-channel retail environment, a holistic approach to making any investment decisions — especially when it comes to choosing an e-commerce provider — is the name of the game. The process of choosing the right partner for your business can be a daunting one. H

The hype around daily-deal websites and mailings, and the rush of established online companies like Google and Facebook to get into the space, has some industry watchers wondering whether consumers will quickly tire of the offers. 

Over the past three weeks, there's been a spate of discussion in the search engine marketplace about the reduced quality of Google's natural search results. The discussion has centered around two key issues:

Deals website Groupon appears to be making preparations to start operations in China, a move that could shake up the market for group buying, even though challenges lie ahead for the young U.S. company.

Savane has branched out from its previous traditional, print-based marketing campaigns and launched an exciting new interactive initiative sure to get the men’s bottoms brand some attention.

Mobile applications can be exciting, even essential tools, but the majority fall short when it comes to getting consumers to download them. Is the hype greater than the apps themselves? My company wanted to find out, so it recently conducted a national study to help marketers better understand who uses mobile apps and what makes an app a "favorite."

Although Wire-Sculpture.com already had strong and aggressive marketing strategies in place, including Google AdWords and Yahoo marketing, it still lacked the extra umph it needed to meet its full potential.

Traffic is like oxygen for a website: it can't "live" if it doesn't get it, no matter how cool its features and graphics are. The simple truth is that you need visitors to get sales. Want to increase your sales by 20 percent this holiday season? You need 20 percent more web traffic to do so.

For an interesting look at the inner workings of the customer service industry, try Emily Yellin's "Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us."

Brick-and-mortar retailers badly want to tap into Facebook's 500 million users. Retailers realize that for a growing number of Facebook users, it's no longer just a website. It's a new platform, one of the "big new disruptors" in the online world, according to experts assembled at this week's Shop.org annual retail technology summit in Dallas.