Today is the 20th Annual World No Tobacco Day, which was started by the World Health Organization to promote the dangers of tobacco use worldwide.  To mark this occasion, eStara is announcing a new partnership today with Free & Clear, a leading tobacco cessation program that works with corporate employers, healthcare providers and government agencies to put people in touch with phone-based counselors to help them quit using tobacco.  Here's the scoop. 

Brad Stothkamp, financial services analyst at Forrester Research has a new report published today that looks at the business case for using interactive help -- click to call and click to chat -- on financial service websites.

While the report is focused on financial services, it does highlight best practices in the use of these technologies that could be applied across verticals, such as:

• Proactively targeting Web site visitors
• Focusing efforts on “engaged” visitors
• Moving shoppers from the Web to the phone

A summary of the report states, that these technologies have come of age. "That's a good thing, considering tomorrow's financial services shoppers will increasingly be found online. Financial firms contemplating their long-term eBusiness strategy need to consider the role of interactive help. Firms like E*TRADE Mortgage and Dell Financial Services have found such technologies to be an integral part of meeting their Web sales goals."

A new report released this month from eMarketer states that the lines between online and offline commerce are becoming blurred.  The report also looks at some of the drivers of online sales, which online and offline sources are influencing consumers and some of the challenges facing multi-channel retailers.

In order to retain customers in today's envirnment, the report notes that retailers must do much more to retain customers and increase loyalty.  

Recently, IT Business Edge asked eStara's John Federman to share some best practices on deploying click to call and click to chat solutions.

Click to read more ...

Search engine marketing blog, Think About Search, looks at a few metrics for calculating ROI on search engine marketing.  As they note, it's important for search engine marketers to think beyond the click.

As we've talked about in the past, being able to track offline activity generated from search is a necessity for optimizing any campaign.