"So how is your company shifting, or even taking advantage of the current economy?" Amy Deveau asked the table of the Professional Insurance Marketing Association (PIMA) MarkeTTech attendees.

With the holiday season approaching, consumers are flocking to retail locations — and now, more than ever, online — to find gifts. This time of year is especially important for search marketers looking to connect online shoppers to their clients.

SEM technology provider Kenshoo Ltd. has integrated its end-to-end search marketing platform, Kenshoo Search, with the latest version of Google Analytics software. Marketers using Kenshoo will now be able to access all of their cross channel search data in Google Analytics for increased visibility, reporting and analysis.

With the rise in the use of Flash to create Web pages, it has become increasingly common to see that Flash-heavy pages do not appear on the Google, Yahoo and MSN search results pages. The reason for this is that search engines' spiders can't read the large majority of Flash pages.

Everyone has heard that they need to put money into search engine marketing, online media, viral marketing, social media, direct mail, print ads and television. The need to use multiple channels is real, but it is important to note the relation­ship these media and tactics have with one another.

Traditionally, online political campaigns have lagged behind online marketers. From the Web site platform to e-mail campaigns to search, we have spent the recent cycles bemoaning our candidates' approach to online media.

For Nissan, the third-largest Japanese automaker, which boasts the Altima, Sentra and Pathfinder in its fleet, 2008 has not been a banner year. US automobile sales have been on a downward slide, as consumers avoid car showrooms in the face of a declining economy and still-high gas prices.

Search experts discussed search engine recommendations and the value of pay-per-click ads at a panel discussion today on "Smart Choices in Search Advertising."

Shopping search engine TheFind.com has partnered with vertical content network Glam Media. The venture will enable Glam.com and other sites within the network to have access to TheFind's shopping search when searching for boutiques, item type or a particular label.

The story is classic: A factory replaces the human worker with a machine to mass produce and streamline its process. Well, this isn't quite the same story, but the idea is the same — leveraging technology to make your business more efficient. In today's challenging economy, marketing budgets are being slashed and agencies are being tasked with squeezing every last drop from their precious budget, and many are developing tools to do the same work in less time, using fewer resources.