Expedia Media Solutions, the advertising sales division of Expedia, broadened its display ad unit offering this week to include rich media units called StorePoint Expandables. This is Expedia's third release of ad unit offerings since 2008, when the e-commerce company began to grow its business model to include display advertising.

Acxiom announced September 23 that it will acquire Direct Marketing Services, which has offices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to extend the data marketing agency's footprint into the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close by the end of next month, were not disclosed.

Online shoe retailer Zappos.com is increasingly focused on building long-term relationships with customers via social networking features, one of the company's marketing strategists explained to DMNews. Preliminary results are promising, with increases in the number of pages viewed per visit and sales, since it added the features.

Miles Media, an agency that specializes in marketing for travel and tourism bureaus, is using a share-to-social tool for its clients' e-mail marketing efforts. Miles used the Silverpop tool in e-mail marketing efforts for Visit Florida and for West Virginia's tourism board. The technology allows recipients to share the message with friends by posting it directly to their Facebook, MySpace or Twitter pages. The goal of both campaigns was to acquire new customers.

The American Dental Hygienists Association has awarded Infocus management of its client list. This is the first time that the ADHA list has been offered on the list rental market. This file contains registered dental hygienists.

Executing an efficient and effective shopper marketing program requires three direct marketing tactics: relevance, reach and reward. Understanding the unique preferences of each shopper is the only way to create and deliver truly relevant offers. Shopper preferences can be found in the purchase history of your better shoppers. These shoppers are also the most efficient to reach and influence.

Based on the buzz these days, I get the impression many in our business think "multichannel marketing" means including social media with your paid search campaign. For those of us working in business-to-business marketing before "friend" became a verb, direct mail was usually the centerpiece of most multi-channel campaigns. However, the astronomical growth of the Web — and a concurrent shift in marketing budgets — has left the once-venerable workhorse of direct mail languishing in the barn.

Omniture is a data company that works with hundreds of technology vendors, including ExactTarget and Silverpop to help combine data with digital channels. It recently partnered with ComScore to help media planners have better audience measurement tools. DMNews chats with Matt Langie, senior director of product marketing at Omniture, about data integration, behavioral targeting legislation and the new partnership

New selects — Weight Watchers Magazine - Ethnic / Religious Masterfile — ALC — This file contains active women who subscribe to Weight Watchers magazine. The median age of these women is 45. Sixty-two percent are married, 60% are college educated, 77% are homeowners and 40% have children under age 18. A third have a household income over $75,000

New e-mail list — Trailblazers Travelers to Foreign Lands @ Email — ListBargains — This file contains travel enthusiasts. These prospects charge their trips on their premium credit cards, are members of frequent-flyer plans, and are owners of laptops, portable DVD players and iPods.

Community Magazine/Affluent Jewish — Market2Jews.com — This file contains subscribers to Community Magazine, a Sephardic Jewish monthly. This is a niche audience of affluent business owners, investors, and consumers, with a median household income of about $150,000 and a median subscriber household net worth in the million-dollar range.