Measuring the value of marketing efforts on Facebook 
remains a mix of art and science. While most marketers agree that putting an exact value on the fans, shares or interaction on Facebook is difficult, they do express optimism that the Facebook ROI moment is not far off.

Sarah Personette, director of global agency relations at Facebook, discusses her new unit.

Marketers' lead generation tactics have grown more sophisticated. They are spending more time nurturing and scoring leads in favor of quality, a move away from the days of buying up big lists and collecting business cards.

Marketers employ a broad spectrum of behavioral tracking techniques to differentiate good leads from bad leads, effective campaigns from ineffective campaigns and 
to establish the best way to respond in either circumstance. Analyzing email click-through, email open rates, time on site and page views are among the many different statistics accessible today to qualify leads.

Marketers' search programs must be laser focused but nimble to keep up with algorithm tweaks and social and mobile while not neglecting the essentials of SEO that can organically propel brands to the top.

The purpose of search engines' evolving complexities may be to deliver more precise results for users, but a byproduct of that accuracy is more targeted data collection for marketers.

The printing industry's newfound creativity has recaptured marketers looking for impact as it races to compete against its digital brethren

Marketers sound off on how rising costs are impacting strategies

A US Postal Service update to its periodical content rules last July gave marketers a new route to send creative print materials at a discount.

Online retailers drove a holiday season of aggressive discounts that may be ingraining a culture of 24/7 bargain hunting among their customers.