Category: Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing, SEM

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SES San 2007 Jose Day 1 – Universal & Blended Vertical Search

Moderator:
Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, SES San Jose
Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Greg Jarboe, President and Co-Founder, SEO-PR
Sherwood Stranieri, Search Marketing Director, Catalyst online
Bill Slawski, seobythesea.com
Erik Collier, Director of Product Management, Ask.com
David Bailey, Engineer, Google
Tim Mayer, Vice President of Product Management, Yahoo! Search

Quite likely the busiest session of the day to the fullest house. One can’t help but notice that if Greg Jarboe had gone to Google and designed Universal Search himself he likely couldn’t have designed it to play into his strength areas in news and pr related issues. The implications and transformation for universal search are still evolving, but they are clearly changing the landscape. One other thing that became clear from this event was that Ask is becoming a serious contender in this marketplace.

Greg Jarboe –

Universal search is the biggest event since “Florida” update. 70% of what I used to know is now obsolete. The patterns are not yet clear in personalization.

News results ranked #4 if you searched for the term iPhone on June 29

In the #8 position, was a Youtube video. We don’t know if it was done on purpose.

July 17, Rupert Murdoch – news with image – brings up a whole new reputation management – be prepared to optimize images.

Early chapters of Henry Potter were leaked, the blog results are on page one of results

Investor relations now is moving to the front page of Countrywide. Few companies have complete control of their brands now on Google.

Unflattering images of Hillary Clinton and that vast right wing conspiracy is building links to unflattering results.

Blogs on Hurricane Dean already on front page. Images will likely come next.

All of the rules have been rewritten – how do I research this? Focus on the upper left links. News seems to be on the top left all the time. Search remains #1 way journalist find information about a company.

Newsknife and Google News Report – be checking this. Your PR people aren’t ready for that yet. If you are not giving a jpg file in a release, start now.

Google News right now doesn’t do video news. Likely to create that.

Social mapping tools can help identify most influential bloggers. In certain categories they show up.

A couple of years ago there was vertical creep session here at SES – I now rank for that term. Not a good thing.

You can’t afford to ignore Universal Search Today

Google is making specialized or vertical content more visible through Universal Search

Sherwwod Stranieri, Catalyst Online

This throws a lot of  curves into the theme. Ask 3D and Google cut new paths.

Conventional web pages that once rank well are going to move around maybe down. Other things will move updates.

Number of videos is significant in the Youtube world. Are the search engines using comments as an indicator?

We are looking at it as search marketers. Showed client example.

How to look at it: Google PR, Y! Page links, keyword phrases in tags.

Videos ranking correspond well with views, comments, etc.

Bill Slawski

Why does news, images and video show up there.

I’m not sure I see this all as a revolutionary concept. How do we get out content into our results.

Showed examples of screen prints from each engine for the word spider.

Showed the Google patent, oddly looks quite different than Google’s universal search does now.

Google acquired several Infoseek patents.

Discussed Onebox and log file data.

Ranking in Vertical databases – how do you rank for that vertical?

User behavior – key value pairs, be certain definition and being defined. Questions and Answers work the same way. Html formatting may play a role.

Enhancing the user experiences.

David Bailey – Google
Technical lead for the vertical search.

What are our goals?

Make google.com the search box of first resort.

Display special features for special results

Keep it fast. Keep it simple. Above all, keep it relevant.

Showed example: origami crane

This will continually improve and extend to more result types.

It’s still about the web.

But: think about creating quality content in other forms. Expect similar SEO guidelines to apply.

Create quality content, describe it well and we’ll see what happens.

Tim Mayer, VP Product Management

We are transitioning to a better optimized user experience

Freshness and user intent became relevancy issues.

News, local and other verticals – the possibilities are infinite. Federation plays a role.

Some implantation examples:

Music Artist Shortcut

Movie Shortcut

Hotel Shortcut Inline

Consumer Electronics Shortcut

As we go forward, it’s going t be more about the intent of the searchers.

Eric Collier, Director of Product Management

“We are the scrappy innovator of search.”

Ask.com 3D: SERP Design

We moved the content up top and removed the top links.

Large jumps in user satisfaction seen in both the site analytics and surveys

Increase in vertical channel usage

Starting to see a reduction of multiple query sessions around the same keyword term.

Expect to see a larger percentage of SERPs with blended results

User location will play a larger roles in SERPs

Expect to see fewer web results in SERPs

Blogs, Images and Video results will take online reputation into account when ranking

Pay attention to other search drivers

Other coverage of this important session:

RB Digital Boots

Rustybrick

AIM Clear Blog

Lee Odden’s Toprankblog

Bonus coverage:

Lee Odden interviews Tim Mayer

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 1 – Post-Search Marketing Ads

Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, Did-it.com
Dave Carberry, Director of Search Marketing, Advertising.com
Michael Benedek, VP-Business Development, AlmondNet
Richard Frankel, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Yahoo!

Kevin Lee

Tap the intent of the searcher. Search is the greatest indicator of a consumers needs.

Engines have the greatest leverage as they see the highest level of data. Google says they are not doing retargeting. Yahoo is live in Phase 3 of an evolution. Microsoft’s acquisition of adECN will have implications.

Preaching to the unconverted. If you are lucky 5% conversion is good. Contextual ads are most often links but are increasingly graphical. Converting the unconverted – different offer/price, ad creative, different landing page or time.

One click away. Target directly, Google Site Targeting, Yahoo! YPN, adbrite, link sellers like text link ads – which has pros and cons.

Piggy-back Retargeting

The Best of Search + Media Buying – don’t over focus on keywords.

Stay tuned. Post-search targeting adds relevance to non-search advertising.

Michael Benedek, CP – Business Development – AlmondNet

Owns post search patents

70 million aggregated in US/UK 40 segments

Delivery of ads based on wherever people go.

Behavioral becomes increasing important when contextual falls short.

Types – Advertiser Retargeting, Inventory, Data Sharing and Post Search

Why is post search so exciting?

People of their time 5% time searching, yet spend 95% of their time browsing ad supported content on other sites!!!

User should not be seeing an untargeted ad.

What have we learned for 600 million ads. Clickthroughs on targeted ads is about the same as untargeted – yet they convert 8 to 10 times better.

David – Advertising.com

Post search behavioral allows you to re–engage your consumers after they click. The desired conversion is key. The searched keyword is the behavior. Can overlap geo or demo based on audience size. Custom messaging from multiple touch points. Brand segmentation keeps retargeting pool wide.

Richard Frankel, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Yahoo!

There are a lot of things that consumers do that don’t have to do with search. Part of our secret sauce is. If you go to the mortgage page or Yahoo! Autos you are likely interested in those products. We put all that together.

Yahoo! Engagers – raise brand awareness, deepen engagement and build brand preference

Yahoo! Shoppers

How Yahoo! Behavioral Targeting Works – we analyzed predictive patterns for ad response in 350+ product categories.

Target ads to users who get the highest relevance scores in the targeting categories you choose

Uses all of the commercial categories. Pretty much every Yahoo! property is included.

The smart ads value proposition is much more clear to me now in regards to relevancy and how Yahoo! can leverage it’s broad and unique resources.

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SES San Jose 2007 Day 1 – Advanced Paid Search Techniques

Search Engine Marketing Speakers:
Jon Kelly, President, SureHits
Eduardo Llach, Founder & COO, SearchRev
Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster
Michael Sack, Director, SEM Technology & Development, Idearc Media Corp.

Eduardo Llach – Search Rev

Creative and Landing Page

Geo/Metro targeting
–    Accuracy – country 100%, state 50% , city 30%
–    Nationwide versus top 10 metro areas testing

Syndication – conversion rates vary among sites

Day parting – Focus on the conversation and the CPO, bid that way too

Early terms: Brand / Late terms

Jon Kerry: Sure Hits

Long tail keywords

Why should you care?
–    Small Volume Adds Up
–    Clear Intention >> Better Conversion
–    Less Competition >> Lower Bids

What is the probability and value of these low volume clicks?

Calculate Click Value

Geography, Product and Request are the drivers

Tag Your keywords

City – poor conversation
State – high conversion

Conversion x Value = Click Value

Avoid fake tail phrases

Homonyms
Mobile, Alabama brought mobile Mobile Home Loans

Florida 24% higher than Texas. 74% more clicks, population

Houston Google flaw? Example

Matt Van Wagner, Find Me Faster

DKI mythology

“Used fish” example from Yahoo!

“Used cigars” from Microsoft

“Paid search advertisements”

Dynamic Text Insertion

How DKI works on Google…

Case sensitive

Proper state abbreviations

Do not display in your URL…

Expanded Broad Matching

“used underwear” search

Bad broad match term

Panama – alternate text

Keyword, alternate text and default text

Dynamic – Text insertion is well regarded

DKI works best when they are tightly organized around sneakers

Michael Sack, Ideaarc

Day Parting – When to use

Competitive market conditions
Limited sales windows
Demographics

Pre-requisites
– Need to be doing on an hourly basis
– Plot performance against time

Hi-lo Optimization

Keywords are like an investment

Bidding is like Blackjack

Uneducated players change the table
– They can cost you money
– They ruin the landscape
– Same thing happens with PPC

What to do?
– Portfolios
– Set rules and Objectives
– Measure performance

Diversify
– More keywords (covered)
– Leverage the “Tail”

Bid more effectively

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Search Engine Strategies San Jose – Silicon Valley August 19-23

I look forward to seeing all of my wonderful search engine, mobile search and mobile advertising friends next week at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose!  While I’ll definitely be in Mountain View for the Google Dance (hopefully they won’t run out of XL t-shirts in 2 minutes like last year), I’m unsure whether I’ll make it to Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Oakland, Monterrey or Santa Cruz to visit and see some other awesome things. I do hope to make it to Barcamp Block.

Who else will be there and what spontaneous events, product launches and parties are you looking most forward to? I’m getting very close to some of my goals! I look forward to seeing you.

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adtech Chicago: Redefining Search to Realize Its Full Potential

August 1, 2007

MODERATOR:
Jeffrey Pruitt, President, SEMPO, and Executive VP, Search, iCrossing

PANELISTS:
Kelly Graziadei, Senior Director, Agency Development, Yahoo! Search Marketing

James Colborn, Group Marketing Manager, adCenter Communications Group, Microsoft

Kevin Willer, Central Region Development Manager, Google

James Colbourn, Microsoft

Kelly Graziadei, Yahoo!

Think about the many different faces of search.

– The Researcher – look at Yahoo! Buzz to create an audience pyramid. Look at other content. Miller Beer Run. Showed a campaign with getting the beer – Yahoo! created the game and got excellent results

– The Reputation Manager – geo-targeting, ad testing, etc. Jet Blue built a campaign to respond to negative news.

– The Brand Manager – 79% introduced to new brands in search and 61% expect brand leaders to be consistently in the top of search results.

– The Great Integrator – TV, web, games, mobile all at the same time.

– The Advocate – Searchers are advocates that build brands through social media – significant in the pre and post purchase mode.

Kevin Willer, Google
– Information silos in the past. You almost needed a search engine for the search engines. Now all the silos are in one universal search.

Google Promotion – search for Bourne – showed how the site with Youtube

Search for PR. – You need to be ready to answer those searches

Search the New Performance Link – showed Motorola example and Presidential campaign data for Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney (He said the

We want to start thinking about search in different ways.

James Colbourn, Microsoft
Search Today: A Performance Tool
– To increase brand awareness
– To Sell Products
– To Generate Leads
– To Drive Traffic To Company Website

How do advertisers measure success?
– Traffic
– Conversions
– Impressions
– ROI

Brand, Awareness, Acquisition Tool and Lead Generator

Search as a research tool is a leading indicator for:
– A Business
– An Industry

Beyond Search
– Media Buying
– Budget Allocation
– PR Activity

The potential for search is higher than current usage…

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adtech Chicago: Search + Video + Contextual Targeting: Is the Holy Grail Upon Us?

July 31, 2007

Shashi Seth, Head of Monetization, YouTube.com

Rebecca Paoletti, Director, Video Strategy, Yahoo!

Patrick Moorhead, National Manager, R&D Advanced Marketing Solutions, Avenue A | Razorfish

Chris D’Alessandro, Group Director, Customer Insight, Organic, Inc.

Moderator: Curt Hecht, Executive VP, Chief Digital Officer, GM Planworks/Starcom Mediavest Group

Rebecca: Video search is not as important to core clients as media that is relevant to the brand. The off network piece is important as well. Reaching your users wherever they are, walking down the street, whatever…

Patrick: It’s almost the Holy Grail. We need to redefine contextual to mean what the user means at that moment.

Chris: If you are looking at an awareness company, it’s not the Holy Grail.

Curt: How does this scale? How are the agencies? Pre-rolls?

Rebecca: The trend to distribute us towards pre-roll. We are far away from dynamic video smart ads. What they search for. Dynamically delivered video is hard to deliver. Dynamic video is a long ways away.

Patrick: I disagree that we are far away from dynamically generated video.

Curt: Who is digging in on this?

Chris: Emerging and bleeding technology is getting there.

Curt: Are you talking about testing and learning?

Chris: Search is always part of everyone’s repertoire.

Rebecca: Shopping and merchandising makes a lot of sense. We have huge testing and learning going on right now.

Curt: Marketers will have to deal with versioning of creative.

Chris: we’ve had to segment sites. What kind of content do we deliver?

Patrick: We have to measure this stuff from an optimization of media dollars. The same investment can service a much broader audience. Campaign management tools will catch up at some point. Look at things holistically; it’s half about people management.

Shashi: Traditional click through and engagement numbers are not sufficient. We need to come up with standard metrics across the board.

Audience question on pre-rolls and potential attrition to smaller sites.

Shashi: When we announce our ad unit, we will take all those things into account.

Rebecca: We only use it for premium inventory. We balance the pre-roll with the length of the content. We’ve done a lot of testing in this area and found it had no adverse impact.

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adtech Chicago: Tactical Search Strategies: Local and Mobile Search

August 1, 2007 session…

MODERATOR:
Chris Bowler, VP, Media Director, Agency.com

PANELISTS:
Warren Kay, Director of Emerging Products, Yahoo! Search Marketing (not present)

Dominic Preuss, Product Manager, Local Advertising, Google

Janice Rohn, VP of Consumer Experience, Yellowpages.com

John du Pre Gauntt, Senior Analyst, eMarketer

The most important thing about this session is that half of the people from the previous session left – it shows that people don’t understand search and understand its’ importance in the eventual mobile domination. This session was presentations and much less dynamic.

Dominic –
Local and mobile are very much the same. Google Maps changes the way that people uses maps. Google Earth has some great partnerships. Google search on the wap browser. Gmail is an important part of our strategy. It is in a single repository. Discussed local business center. Make sure your information is up to date. Coupons for Maps. Regional targeting, country, state, city and radius. Google Local Business Ads. Google Mobile Ads – shorter messaging, link to mobile website, click to call enabled, carrier targeting, markup language targeting.

Janice Rohn – unfortunately had to leave the room for almost all of her talk…

John – Technical scale is not an issue. It’s about answers not links. It’s about all the collateral as well. The pain is very high. The carriers are not supporting a cookie like feature. Cross-carrier targeting it hard. Talked about a number of challenges facing the space and the fragmentation issues. For every $1 you spend on mobile spend $2 on training your staff. If you have the most wonderful mobile experience and a lousy customer experience, it does not matter! I couldn’t agree more.