SES Day 3 San Jose – VP’s of Search Engine Marketing

Abhilash Patel

Who needs a VP Search?
– Anyone with offline media budgets
– If you separate Sales and Marketing – you need a VP Search

How big should a company be that deserves a VP?
How big is the SEM budget?
Are you prepared to go after 70-80% of search traffic.

What does the VP do?
Progress on a daily basis: Constant Execution.
Harmony with web-technical teams.
Independent growth stats?

The argument for in-house SEM/SEO & Vendor Outsourcing.
Greater control

Marshall Simmonds, Chief Search Strategist, The New York Times
CEO – Define Search Strategies

If you are not integrating – you are left behind.

Selling Search to NYT
– “Pope Dies” not people converge on Vatican
– Communication

Optimize articles, not front page

Develop metrics – important to quantifying success later

Got rid of registration wall. (it was a big deal)

Sean Smith – Citibank

We are marketing in a more targeted way. Internet acquisition has passed mail.

90% of my job is communicating why I’m here. You are educating and driving strategy.

Search is not a volume driver for us. It’s about getting the right users to obtain cards and get them.