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ClickZ’s Jeanniey Mullen notes that e-mail marketing is more popular than ever. Speaking with longtime e-mail entrepreneur and CMO of Message Systems Dave Lewis, Mullen asked what changes are coming to email marketing. Lewis answered, “Today’s ESPs are much more sophisticated and are fully integrated providers of a wide range of agency services, from strategy and analytics, to data and creative…These changes have been prompted by: changing consumer behavior, the evolving needs of brands that rely on ESPs. E-mail marketing today is very much a full-fledged part of the direct marketing discipline and is being integrated into true, multi-channel marketing strategies.” Read the full article

A long list of major marketers are on the prowl for new advertising firms, a signal that the ad recession may be easing but not necessarily a herald of better days for Madison Avenue. “Clearly we are seeing the beginnings of an ad recovery. The volume of ad reviews is way up,” says Russell Wohlwerth, principal of Ark Advisors, a consulting firm that matches ad firms with marketers. Randall Weisenburger, CFO of Omnicom Group, echoed those sentiments last week during a call with analysts, saying “new-business activity is improving.” But the industry isn’t celebrating yet. Ad executives and new-business consultants, who are hired by marketers to help them find new agencies, say an effort to tamp down ad agencies’ fees is playing an increasingly important part in the reviews. Read the full article

The tentative comeback in online display ad spending appears to be by-passing newspapers. Signs of the recovery started well enough this summer, but was short-lived, as ad networks began getting the bulk of major brands’ online budgets, thanks to the promise of lower costs and the promise of greater targeting. Large newspapers like the NYT have suffered as a result. The latest earnings reports from Google and Yahoo saw an uptick in display ad revenues but the NYT saw its web ad revs slip 18.5% while Gannett’s operating digital revs dropped 20%. Last spring there was a lot of hope that the Online Publishers Association’s new display ad formats might help draw more dollars from marketers. But ad networks quickly adopted the larger formats for those who wanted them, while other advertisers have complained about the complexity attached to these buys. Read the full article

More than 55% of US consumers plan to do their holiday shopping online in 2009, and 26% plan to purchase more gifts over the internet than they did last year, according to a study from MarketLive, Inc. and the e-tailing group. Results from the fourth annual “2009 Mindset of a Multi-Channel Shopper” survey indicate that these figures have increased since 2008, when the same study revealed only 49% of consumers planned to shop online and 21% planned to purchase more gifts over the internet. Read the full article

Online shoppers will see changes in retail marketing and promotions this holiday season in response to the economy, according to Shop.org’s eHoliday Study. The results revealed that four out of five online retailers will offer free shipping with conditions at some point during the holiday season, while more than half plan to offer free shipping without conditions. One-third of retailers surveyed said they will also offer holiday deals earlier this year. “Retailers know that times are tough so they have created promotions and incentives to help Americans save money this holiday season,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. Nearly 46% of online retailers expect their holiday sales to increase at least 15% over last year. Read the full article

In a sign the holiday period could be good to online retailers, Amazon.com posted a 69% increase in Q3 profit and offered a rosy outlook for the current quarter. The results were driven by a 44% rise in sales of electronics and general merchandise, which now account for 43% of the retailer’s sales. Amazon also reported a 17% spike in sales of media. “What they (consumers) are responding to is value,” said Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak, adding that the company had increased its expenses more slowly than revenue growth. Income for the quarter increased to $199 million, from $118 million a year ago. Sales surged 28% to $5.45 billion. Amazon’s results underline how e-commerce sites are benefiting from bargain-hunting consumers. Earlier this week eBay reported its first revenue gain in three quarters while Drugstore.com reported a 10% sales increase. Read the full article

It was a tough first quarter for fiscal 2010 for 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. The company saw a decline in e-commerce revenue of 14.8% to $74.8 million from $87.8 million. CEO Jim McCann. “Despite this, during the quarter we continued to execute on our programs to reduce operating expenses, which declined almost $5 million.” In the first quarter of fiscal 2010, 1-800-Flowers.com attracted 392,000 new customers. A total of 74%, or 289,000, of those customers came through an online channel, the company said. Read the full article

CVS has announced it has added innovative new features to CVS.com to enhance the user experience by providing instant access to prescription management tools, important health information and customer savings. With the introduction of a new mobile app, CVS is also now providing customers with a secure, on-the-go pharmacy resource to find store locations and refill, transfer and manage prescriptions. “CVS/pharmacy is committed to providing customers with simple ways to manage prescriptions and easily access vital healthcare information on CVS.com,” said Helena Foulkes, CMO of CVS Caremark. Read the full article

Q3 results showed improvements in the company’s struggling online marketplace, but its cautious guidance took some of the fervor out of Wall Street’s recent optimism. The e-commerce company’s profit dropped 29% from a year earlier to $349.7 million while revenue rose 5.7% to $2.24 billion, ending a streak of three year-on-year declines. eBay has struggled as online shopping habits have shifted away from auctions to fixed-price purchases on sites such as Amazon.com. As a result, the company has launched a series of initiatives to promote fixed-price transactions aimed at attracting larger sellers. “Simply put, we are seeing our turnaround efforts begin to pay off,” said CEO John Donahoe on a conference cal. In November, he said, eBay would launch a new marketing campaign to promote the site. Read the full article

Drugstore.com posted higher revenue in the third quarter and narrowed its net loss from the prior year. The company reported a gain in net sales of 10.3% to $96.8 million from $87.8 million in the prior year. Net loss was $1.6 million compared to a net loss of $3.6 million for the third quarter of 2008. “Our growth was a result of continued strong sales of replenishment and beauty items to our loyal customer base and impressive new customer growth,” said Drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore. “This new customer growth was achieved while reducing our marketing cost per new customer.” Read the full article