Given the US military's current involvement in the Middle East, American young men and women have to think long and hard before entering into a career in the Army.

ROI planning is often short-sighted

Yellow Book USA, a national yellow pages and online local search company, has launched a live advertiser video trial on yellowbook.com, the company's Internet yellow pages site.

áYahoo last week announced its latest move in an ongoing acquisition battle to dominate the Internet advertising market.

The American Girl Boutique and Bistro that opened in Atlanta on August 18 is the first location constructed under the brand's new retail format. With a smaller footprint than American Girl's flagship stores, but with more space dedicated to party rooms, the new concept brings with it enhanced opportunities for American Girl to build an ongoing relationship with its target audience.

Jason Burby, the co-chair of the Web Analytics Association Standards Committee, spoke to DM News managing editor Cara Wood about the association's new report that provides standardized definitions for 26 widely used analytics terms. A writer for The ClickZ Network, Burby recently co-authored Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions and is chief analytics and optimization officer at Wunderman interactive agency Zaaz, Seattle. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

A recent survey by International Communications Research showed that consumers, by a very large margin, prefer postal mail to e-mail for receiving offers and information about new products from companies they do business with. There really was no contest: 73 percent prefer postal mail; 18 percent prefer e-mail.

Internet search engines are a prime force in connecting buyers and sellers across every industry and market. Potential customers use search engines to find products, services and information, and companies use search marketing to maximize targeting customers, offering them a significant competitive advantage.

If you use e-mail as the primary form of con tact with current clients, adding referral pages can help you build distribution lists and expand your client base. They are the backbone of a growing business and are used to entice readers to recommend or refer friends and colleagues to your products or services. Referral pages help because potential leads receive the referral e-mail from a trusted source, increasing the likelihood that they'll open the message and read the content.

As the advertising market continues to mature, so do the ways in which advertisers can harness the evolution of the online ad channel. One of the latest developments to emerge is increasing opportunities to advertise on vertical platforms. Vertical PPC networks such as Miva Precision, and vertical networks such as Business.com enable advertisers to tap into ad distribution channels that are specifically optimized for their business category.