The Big Fat Marketing Blog

It takes Bezos six minutes to cut to the chase about the deal, but is worth watching.

Spending on search engine marketing (SEM) may be nearing the bottom of the decline that has plagued the channel for several quarters now, according to a new quarterly analysis by SEM agency Efficient Frontier of a fixed basket of the accounts it manages.

The Sunnyvale CA-based firm found that spending on pay-per-click advertising “stabilized” in the second quarter of 2009 at only 3% less than the spend in Q1 2009, adjusted for seasonal variances. While year-to-year spending levels for the quarter were down 21%, that was a “mild improvement” over the 23% year-to-year drop of Q1 2009. more

Spending on search engine marketing (SEM) may be nearing the bottom of the decline that has plagued the channel for several quarters now, according to a new quarterly analysis by SEM agency Efficient Frontier of a fixed basket of the accounts it manages.

The Sunnyvale CA-based firm found that spending on pay-per-click advertising “stabilized” in the second quarter of 2009 at only 3% less than the spend in Q1 2009, adjusted for seasonal variances. While year-to-year spending levels for the quarter were down 21%, that was a “mild improvement” over the 23% year-to-year drop of Q1 2009. more

Breaking news this afternoon: Amazon spent a boat load on shoes. Yep, Amazon spent more than $850 million on Zappos.com.

Sounds like a dot-com deal of yore, especially when you consider recent bankruptcy deals like Golden Gate Capital’s purchase of Eddie Bauer or Golden Gate’s on-the-cheap deal for J. Jill.

Why did Amazon shell out so much money, and why was Zappos willing to make the deal? Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh summed it up in this e-mail to his employees: more

Breaking news this afternoon: Amazon spent a boat load on shoes. Yep, Amazon spent more than $850 million on Zappos.com.

Sounds like a dot-com deal of yore, especially when you consider recent bankruptcy deals like Golden Gate Capital’s purchase of Eddie Bauer or Golden Gate’s on-the-cheap deal for J. Jill.

Why did Amazon shell out so much money, and why was Zappos willing to make the deal? Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh summed it up in this e-mail to his employees: more

Although the proposal for five-day mail delivery by U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter remains unanswered in Congress, Potter believes it will become reality by FY 2011. And the U.S. Postal Service returns to the black by FY 2012. This bold prognostication came out of a meeting last week, according to a letter by Charley Mapa, president of the National League of Postmasters. more