Compliance with the CANSPAM Act remains below 5% after more than 9 months, according to eMarketer. This is disappointing news for those who hoped it would make a significant dent in the deluge of spam, but not surprising given the ambiguity of much of the legislation.

The fact that CANSPAM’s definition of commercial email is at once impossibly broad and needlessly vague has left many marketers wondering what is really covered. Are individual emails sent by a sales person to a prospective customer “commercial” or “relationship” mailings? Although the question has been posed directly, an equally clear answer has not been forthcoming. In fact, it seems that any time a direct answer is required the “judges” resort to quoting the text of the legislation itself and claiming it to be “self-explanatory”. A trend that leaves at least this writer questioning whether even the “judges” are sure what they meant.

Without a clearly written guideline that defines email in terms that are relevant to the industry and clearly delineates what emails must comply, there is no way for marketers to be sure they are fully compliant. Faced with impossible choices, many are throwing up their hands in frustration and sticking to best practices while hoping for a better solution.

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It’s true - at least for low volume keywords, according to aQuantive’s Atlas Rank Report, Part 2.

The report analyzed conversions resulting from approximately 4.5 million clicks on paid position search engines resulting from over 400,000 keywords during July and August 2004. Conversions were defined as the metric site owners defined as the primary conversion - a list which includes online sales, lead acquisitions, account sign-ups and requests for information. The research was weighted toward etail metrics though, with online sales accounting for the bulk of conversion statistics.

For high volume keywords, rank is important. Higher ranking sites generated both higher traffic AND higher c onversion rates than those further down the list. However, on low volume keywords, sites ranked 8 through 10 actually generated higher conversion rates than sites ranked as number one.

The report doesn’t go so far as to define what constitutes a “low-volume” keyword but does suggest that marketers take the time to calculate the CPA of their keyword spend and be willing to test lower rank positions for their low volume keywords.

Industry Canada recently held a 2-day conference to recognize the importance of the Internet and e-business to our national economic health and to establish strategic priorities.

“ecommerce to e-economy, Strategies for the 21st Century” was held in Ottawa at the end of September and featured a keynote presentations by eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey. Ramsey presented the results of a recent eMarketer report suggesting that Canadian companies need invest more aggressively in evolving technologies if we are to remain competitive in a global marketplace. According to Ramsey, new technology must be deployed effectively and affordably if the Canadian economy is to reach it’s full potential. And the change must be widespread, involving multiple industries and geographic regions.

The report looked at the challenges facing small (fewer than 100 employees) and medium (fewer than 500 employees) businesses across Canada and asked about recent and planned technology investments. Canadian companies have been sluggish to invest in IT solutions over the past three years and the Canadian e-economy is falling further behind other global competitors.

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