According to the American Express Meetings & Events "2012 Meetings Forecast," 60% of meeting suppliers around the world expect the number of meetings planned to increase next year. Among those surveyed, 42% of North American, 50% of Latin American, 51% of European and 57% of Asian respondents see signs of increased activity from their clients. Issa Jouaneh, vice president and general manager, American Express Meetings & Events, says "... even in the face of economic uncertainty, meeting industry stakeholders appear to be cautiously optimistic as they report an increase in services and property demand from clients... "

New Benchmark research by MediaMind reveals that users are 2.5 times more likely to engage with ads that performed in the top 25%, with a Dwell Rate of 16%, as compared to ads in the Benchmark average. The bottom 25% of ads achieves a Dwell Rate of only 1%. In its research, analyzing the performance of over 300,000 rich media ads with over one hundred billion impressions worldwide, the study identified seven best practices that can help advertisers create smarter ads in order to boost campaign performance. These best practices include adding video to the banner, specifically auto-initiated video, matching …

According to the recently released Epsilon Targeting 2011 Channel Preference Study direct mail continues to deliver as consumers' preferred means of receiving marketing messages from brands. The 2011 research shows that despite direct mail's reputation for being "old school" or expensive, it is the top choice of U.S. consumers for the receipt of brand communications in almost every category, ranging from health to household products, to household services, insurance and financial services, including credit card offers. The preference for direct mail also extends to the 18-34 year old demographic.

According to new release from Knotice, the "Mobile Email Opens Report," featuring email opens and click activity via mobile device across 11 industry segments, mobile email opens climbed by 51% in the first half of 2011. The share of all email opens occurring on mobile devices in the first half of this year was 20.24%, compared to 13.36% for Q4 of 2010. This increase in mobile open rates in just a few months lends evidence to the accelerating rate of mobile adoption, says the report.

According to a recent wave of LMX, conducted by Ipsos, fathers with children aged 6-14 are significantly more likely than mothers with children of the same age to be planning on purchasing a host of consumer electronics. When it comes to buying consumer electronics such as smartphones, TVs, Tablets, Blu-ray players, 3-D TVs and desktop computers, dads with young kids are the gift retailers are happy to receive.

According to NRF's 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions survey conducted by BIGresearch, holiday shoppers are expected to spend an average of $155.43 on gift cards, the highest amount since 2007 and up from $145.61 last year. This holiday season, total spending on gift cards will reach $27.8 billion. The NRF holiday survey found that gift cards remain the most requested holiday gift, marking the fifth year in a row gift cards have topped consumers' wish lists.

According to the report, "Surviving the Current Market Mania with a Solid 2012 Plan," by Bronto Software, while traditional digital channels such as search and email continue to dominate retailer marketing spending, social and mobile channels are growing in importance.

In a new global research report released today by IDG Research Services, two-thirds of the technology marketers surveyed said they expect their budgets to rise on average 3.5% next year compared to this year. Digital programs will capture half the spend with 58% on demand generation and 42% on branding. Events is second at almost 24%.

The mobile channel's contribution to retail sales rose from 3.4% to 6.5% between October 2010 and April 2011, according to studies by Coremetrics. Even though mobile purchases are a fraction of overall sales, consumers increasingly use their mobile devices to research purchases before buying elsewhere, suggesting that the importance of retail mobile websites is only growing.

Secure social login can be used to speed up registration on sites across the web, says the report. According to an analysis by Janrain of online users across 365,000 websites of identities people prefer both for sign-in and content sharing, Facebook is the most popular option at 42% of online users, though a majority use a different social identity, such as Google, Yahoo! or Twitter. Facebook's share of social logins has increased over the past two years, mostly at the expense of Google.