Q&As

AutoZone Inc.’s new product look-up system for driving in-store sales will soon be tried on its Web site.

The $6 billion company, which sells auto parts and accessories, has two customer segments: do-it-yourselfers and professional technicians. But it faced a challenge: How to make sure it had the exact parts customers needed.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have all optimized their search to help mobile users find what they want on the Web. Now Ask.com is rolling out a set of mobile services that will let owners of global positioning system-enabled handsets use the Web to find their way to local merchants.

Yes, most database marketers still rely on revenue and income to determine return on investment. But a growing number are measuring brand equity, especially those that sell to businesses, according to Direct’s 2007 database marketing practices survey

While catalog mailers are adjusting to hefty new postage increases, postcard mailings are thriving. Even the largest 11-

Once upon a time, brand lived here and direct lived there waaayyyy over there. Today, they’re roommates. Many brand advertisers have begun incorporating

If you lived through the dot-com bubble, you could be excused for thinking you’d slipped through a wormhole in time and landed back in 1999. In rapid-fire succession, a slew of the biggest online ad players announced plans to get a lot bigger by acquiring platforms, technologies or expertise they hadn’t had before.

Loyalty programs have become a core component of many plans focused on rewarding more frequent and higher value transactions. Their proliferation gives

A pilot program in which news was turned into song became the second most popular video feature on Boston.com last month.

Sure, all that newfangled new media is grand. But today we’re here to pay tribute to the good old telephone the most versatile, flexible and consistently

A HIT AND A MISS? Thanks for Ray Schultz’s thoughtful column (Direct Hit, May). Copywriting is my background. I learned from a seasoned pro who retired