ChoiceStream

Interactive marketing will grow at a 16% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. However, the retail and financial services sectors will continue to have the largest share of overall interactive marketing spend at a combined 32%, according to a Forrester Research. “I think for 10 years, everybody tried to make display media a direct response tool, and they got so disappointed if they didn’t get high click-through rates,” said Shar VanBoskirk, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, and author of the report. “The reality is that display ads are great for branding, and we are seeing an evolution in measuring the engagement effects of display ads. Display has benefits beyond just direct sales.” Read the full article at DM News

QVC credits a stronger e-commerce platform and more exclusive deals with companies such as Liz Claiborne New York as the prime reasons domestic web sales grew in the third quarter. U.S. web sales increased 19.5% to $307.4 million from $257.2 million and total sales increased 1.8% to $1.67 billion from $1.64 billion. QVC president and CEO Mike George said “we continue to invest in our technology makeover and are on course with our launch of a new global e-commerce platform.” Read the full article

The online wedding merchandise retailer and lifestage media company reported that Q3 revenue was $28.2 million, up 4% from $27.0 million in the year-ago quarter. During Q3 the company launched 60 more niche web sites for a total of 220, added Gift Registry 360, a universal registry service. Read the full article

Mike Petevinos, head of consulting for retail at Capgemini UK believes that consumers will be cautious this holiday season, but retailers can do things to help consumers make better informed purchasing decisions by “look[ing] for ways to optimize the online experience and make it more relevant and compelling for buyers.” Robert Wint of Endeca agrees, noting that there are ways to improve the online experience to convert more of those “cautious consumers.” One of the key suggestions Wint makes is that retailers should make the online shopping experience more personal with the help of “targeted dynamic landing pages” which are proven to improve conversion and order sizes. Among Wint’s other suggestions: (1) give buyers more information about products on your site; (2) make buying easier with more purchase options; (3) increase trust in decision making by using customer reviews and (4) bring more customers to your site with better search optimization. Read the full article

If you don’t have your holiday marketing plan yet, you’re getting a very late start. But there are still things you can do in the short term to help boost sales for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays. Those include working to increase your organic search rankings by posting more pages of content to your site; investing in paid advertising to drive more traffic to your site; using retargeting to increase conversion rates by hitting visitors that’ve already been to your site; increasing e-mail marketing and finally using viral marketing to push the buzz factor for your campaign/products/promotions. Read the full article

The Wall Street Journal had some good news for the ad industry this week, reporting that retailers including Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart and the Gap are boosting their holiday ad spending above last year’s levels. The report states that Kmart launched its holiday ad blitz about a month prior to when it did so last year, and that Kmart, Wal-Mart and JC Penney doubled their ad weight during the first two weeks of October, compared to 2008. Home Depot and Lowe’s have increased theirs by nearly 50%. However, the Journal also reported that holiday consumer spending is expected to remain flat this year, according to numerous research firms. Holiday retail sales fell in 2008 for the first time since 1967. Read the full article at DM News

If a new privacy proposal set forth by the European Union becomes law, it could potentially reach all the way across the Atlantic to have a chilling effect on US online marketing practices. In a nutshell, the proposed regulation would prohibit the use of ’cookies’ unless users move to specifically allow them. The proposal is part of a larger piece of proposed legislation aimed at telecom providers, which requires users opt in for data mining being done by search engines or through other behavioral targeting practices. The European Parliament is expected to vote on the proposal by the end of this year. Read the full article

Privacy advocates are renewing calls for the Federal Trade Commission to impose limits on online data collection and ad targeting. “We need strong baseline laws and regulations to ensure serious industry compliance,” the Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. Public Interest Research Group wrote in comments submitted to the FTC in advance of its privacy roundtable next month. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which opposes new behavioral targeting regulations, doesn’t plan to submit comments before the first roundtable on December 7th. Read the full article

The retailer narrowed its loss for the fiscal third quarter and raised its earnings forecast. Macy’s posted a loss of $35 million in the quarter ended Oct. 31, compared with a year-earlier loss of $44 million. Revenue decreased 3.9% to $5.28 billion. Macy’s also improved its outlook for same-store sales, those at locations open at least a year. Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Lundgren said the company’s sees encouraging results from its Internet business and the company’s focus on local markets heading into the holiday season. Read the full article

The Container Store has relaunched its web site. The new site allows the multichannel retailer to integrate its in-store and online inventory, says Tom Birmingham, the company’s chief technology officer. “Before the new system, our e-commerce system was really an island unto itself,” he says. “What we have today is the direct integration between the web and the store so that when an order is placed on the web it is literally placed in the store at same time.” Read the full article