E-mail marketing service providers Lyris and Silverpop are expanding into the European markets. Lyris is doing so by acquiring UK-based e-mail marketing agency Facultas and Silverpop is expanding with a new office in Germany.

Ally bank, a newly formed unit of GMAC Financial Services, has launched a campaign with help from BBH New York. The goal of the campaign is to position the company, which was announced earlier this week, as a trustworthy place for its customers in an increasingly wary world around financial services.

It's dogs vs. cats at American Greetings where the furry pets are facing off in a contest to help promote the company's limited time offering of free selected pet e-cards. Owners can upload their pet's photo at www.americangreetings.com, where visitors can vote on the cutest, advancing the pet to the next round. The last four-legger left standing will win prizes, such as a $250 PetSmart gift certificate. Entrants also can invite people to vote through Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. The contest is sponsored by Frontline, which provides a downloadable $15 coupon on the site. The site requires registration where entrants also can opt in for e-mails on holiday reminders from American Greetings.

Digital marketing technology provider Datran Media is rolling out its first cloud-based version of StormPost this week to clients including The Washington Times and MediaNews Group. The platform's fifth release automates the process of selling banner advertising within newsletters as well as improves the audience metric reporting due to client requests.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its first official click measurement guidelines, which are meant to help combat click fraud. Key industry leaders agreed upon the guidelines to help ensure that advertisers only pay for legitimate clicks.

As Memorial Day rounds the corner, travel marketers are using e-mail to promote last minute deals.

The problems facing e-mail marketers shift like the sands in a desert. Fortunately, most of the recent challenges — whether they be deliverability, SPAM, erosion of trust or competition in the inbox — can be addressed with one over-arching premise: relevance enabling tools.

The 2008 DMNews Essential Guide to E-mail Marketing is now available as a PDF file. Click on the image or headline to download it.

Ready to climb the peak of e-mail optimization? From an ROI perspective, e-mail marketing can be more effective than search in increasing conversion rates, especially if you have the right tools and techniques.

Trinity Direct introduces the Catholic Greeting Card Buyers @ E-Mail Address list to the market. The company already offers a postal list of the same prospects. This file contains Catholics who have made a purchase for greeting cards.