PHP and PHP/MySQL Database Programming
PHP is a scripting language used to create dynamic web pages and web applications. A PHP script is embedded within a web sites HTML and is used to collect data, generate dynamic web page data, build shopping carts, track cookies or many other tasks.
Building Marketing Lists
In order to gather information from your web site visitors you must have a place for them to put the information (and give them a reason to do it). This is where PHP comes in - it is used to to gather information from forms and act on it via creating a txt file, generating an email to the webmaster or entering the data directly into your database. The information is then sorted into categories like newsletter recipients, email marketing campaigns (if a person has signed up to receive promotions), or categories unique to your business. You can not ask for a more targeted market. These are the people who know what you do, sell or preach and are interested in staying informed.
Fresh Content
PHP is also used to track cookies (when enabled) so you can show your customers new data each they return to your page. Given the short attention span of most web users fresh data is vital to repeat conversions.