According to Internet Retailer's recent search engine marketing survey of 102 web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers, 28.0% of merchants report more than 25% of their site traffic stems from paid search advertisements, while 51.5% say more than a quarter of their traffic comes from natural search. Search engine marketing is one of Internet retailing's fundamentals, says the report. Web merchants keep pouring money into advertising on search results pages and on search engine optimization projects to move up in natural search results.

According to an analysis of the BIGresearch® Simultaneous Media Usage Survey, the message is loud and clear to marketers serving, the U.S. Hispanic community: "one-size-fits-all marketing won't work." The study finds that there are key similarities and differences every marketer should know about Hispanic groups in America including those households that speak English a majority of the time and those who don't, as well as Hispanics who were born in the U.S. and those who were not. ??

A Vocus "Snapshot of Integrated Communications" summary from March 10, 2010 to March 31, 2010, surveyed 966 public relations professionals about their perceptions of integrated communications. Survey participants were provided the following definition: In the context of this survey, the term "integrated communications" means a management concept that ties all aspects of marketing communication, including, but not limited to advertising, search marketing, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing, together to function in a unified an comprehensive fashion as opposed to functioning in isolation or silos."

According to a Nielsen study among 21 European and North American countries, reported by Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights, heavy store brand buyers are good for sales overall, leading the charge on unit growth, unit spending and trip frequency criteria. Store brands have won favor among younger households, boding well for long-term store brand prospects. Prompted by belt-tightening as consumers respond to the long-tailed economic downturn, store brand offerings posted value or currency share gains in two-thirds of the 21 countries Nielsen studied, picking up an average of 1.3 share points during 2009.

According to a new report, "Connected Marketing for Travel Providers," from StrongMail and the Relevancy Group, based on the study of travel and hospitality email marketers in April 2010 by the Relevancy Group, the top three email marketing initiatives for the travel industry in 2010 are increasing email deliverability rates (38%), integrating email and social media (37%) and improving the segmentation/targeting of their programs (35%). The travel industry continues to be plagued with list churn, says the report, which has been amplified by people losing their jobs during the recession and opting for "stay-cations" instead of traditional vacations to …

According to the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month period ending March 2010 compared to the preceding three-month period, Samsung, Motorola and LG separated by a mere fraction of a percentage point of market share among handset manufacturers, while Verizon led among mobile operators with 31.1% market share. In the 3 month average ending in March, 234 million Americans age 13 and older were mobile subscribers, with device manufacturer Samsung ranking as the top OEM at a 21.9% share of U.S. mobile subscribers, inching out Motorola by a fraction …

A new report, "Improving Ad Performance Online," by the Online Publishers Association (OPA), found that advertising effectiveness scores on original content sites (represented by the group's member sites) were numerically higher than on the Web, portals or ad networks. Sarah Barry James, reporting from SNL, quotes Stuart Schneiderman, director of research for the OPA as saying "One of the biggest questions we get from the marketers and agencies is not only about whether online advertising is an effective branding mechanism or medium, but whether environment matters... "

According to the BrightRoll survey of executives and media buyers at advertising agencies, online video advertising is poised for continued growth, as 94% of respondents plan to spend more in the category in 2010 than they did in 2009. In a positive sign for the industry, targeting capabilities, a point of concern for 28% of last year's respondents, were cited by agencies as the most valuable attribute of online video.

A new study, conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) and students at the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, "24 Hours: Unplugged," asked 200 students at the College Park campus to give up all media for 24 hours. After their 24 hours of abstinence, the students were then asked to blog on private class websites about their experiences, to report their successes and admit to any failures. The 200 students wrote more than 110,000 words, about the same number of words as a 400-page novel.

According to the "State of Inbound Marketing Report" from Hubspot, as reported by Marketing Charts, inbound marketing is continuing to grow in importance at the expense of outbound marketing, As a percentage of the overall lead generation budget, inbound marketing expanded slightly from 2009 to 2010, while outbound marketing contracted more significantly. The net effect is that the gap widened from inbound marketing, which had a 9% greater share of the overall marketing budget than outbound marketing in 2009, to a 15% greater share in 2010.