Advertising Archive

OK so I’m a slow typer! This is just a quick write up of another great session I attended at SES London.

Following on from his solo performance at SMX Stockholm, Google’s Adam Lasnik again took the stage for the Universal, Blended & Vertical Search session ably accompanied by Andrew Goodman from Page Zero Media, Mike Grehan and Jeff Revoy from Yahoo!

Kevin Ryan kicked us off by explaining that these new type of search engine results were seeing higher CTRs, with fewer users clicking through to the second page. Having images, video and news results populating the page was doing away with the “10 blue link” phenomena, making it harder for search marketers to use traditional methods to drive traffic to their sites.

Not being backward in coming forward, Kevin came straight out and asked whether there was an inherent bias towards YouTube or FlickR results appearing in Google and Yahoo! respectively.

Mike thought there was simply more of a richer experience for users with Andrew saying that in 3-4 years there’d be more and more of an emphasis on in-house properties featuring more and more in the SERPs. Both G & Y! said there was no bias but in Google’s case we’re not surprised YT gets more of a look-in as they have huge database of video to choose from.

So are site-builders thinking about universal search when they start designing their sites? The consensus was this new angle was filtering through, but that site-owners still need to get the basics right and struggle to get the content they have indexed.

As far as G were concerned all queries do pass through a universal search filter but results depend on the query. If the query lends itself to a visual result then it will appear. Y!’s approach to pretty much the whole session was one of relevancy. If relevant to a particular query, then a blended result would show.

Then Adam then mentioned something about chocolate – but I can’t read my notes………so will move on 🙂

When asked about how decisions are made regarding the display of results, Adam again (as he did at SMX Stockholm) explained he’s a “search quality guy” and nowt to do with ads! Decisions are made on a query by query basis and there were no plans that he knew of to display universal search ads on a paid basis.

Social Search was touched on just as the guys on the analytics panel had discussed earlier. Is it a new breed of spam? How do you measure a conversation? Can we take it too far or are we still hooked on the direct response metric?

Jeff said it depended on how you filter the data, you need to ask questions of the conversation depending on its context.

Is social search adding value? Well Andrew said you’re going to get a lot of junk, so users need help to filter down to the “wisdom” of the individual. He then touched on personalisation, using past data to determine what a user might be most interested in.

So how is this going to happen? Through a secret sauce, experimentation, Google surveys 1% of users, we’re still on a journey (!). Andrew wanted “more openness, more inclusion.” Mike wants to see more video from different sources, although Adam was quick to point out that before Google bought YouTube the videos stayed on the site and were not “syndicated” via search.

SuperGuru Tips:

• Mike – get ready to change
• Andrew – be local, be social
• Adam – create compelling content
• Jeff – be relevant

There’s no doubt that these kind of results are just the tip of the iceberg and how we’ll see search providers display results in the future. We’ve all been dipping the toe in and experimenting – check out what Live Search thinks of Amy Winehouse!

The businesses that are savvy and get into the rich, indexable content game will see great early results. But you don’t have to be a big business either. If you’re a “builder in Richmond” I’d love to find a search result showing a short video of you showing off your recent work. Any £50 digital camera can take a half-decent video these days, so put down that cup of sweet tea and get shooting.

The Internet Marketers of NY have kindly got me squeezed into their charity party being held on Tuesday 18th March at the Black Fin!

By squeezed in, I mean my London Marathon charity has the chance to garner even more cash from the very generous SEM community…..but only if you VOTE FOR ME!

Check out the details for the Party and Vote for The National Association For Colitis & Crohns – Please!!!!

Search Engine Strategies Charity Party Sponsored By The Best Of The Web

I didn’t make it to Search Engine Strategies yesterday as I was busy getting set up for my announcement today about the UK adExcellence Launch.

The SES Photos I posted yesterday have been doing the rounds, and as you can see the event was pretty big and everyone was having a great time.

My favourite session on Monday was the Orion All Star Analytics Panel:

Jim Sterne – Bryan Eisenberg – Brian Clifton – Ian Thomas – Steve Jackson

I think it was a bit of a coup having some of the worlds finest web-metric minds on one stage, and the hour wasn’t a disappointing one.

Moderated by the enigmatic Kevin Ryan, the session dived straight into why advertisers should take advantage of the free packages out there – Google Analytics and the spanking new Microsoft Gatineau.

Brian E was quick to encourage people to go with them as they would have 65-70% of the functionality of more sophisticated, paid-for solutions.

It didn’t take long for the issue of privacy to come up. Should advertisers trust such big companies with their data, especially as they’re running the PPC campaigns many advertisers rely on for traffic too?

Jim responded to the doubts about trust and privacy by saying search engines know an awful lot about us and poo pooed the notion that anything sinister was going on by saying, “I’m upset that my bank knows how much money I have?!”

There was a suggestion that because the engines might know the conversions advertisers receive, they could somehow artificially inflate CPC prices. Brian C was quick to dismiss this by saying the market sets the price in the auction not the engine.

An over-riding theme was one concerning the lack of actual analysis of the data. Companies simply don’t have the resources to look at the data and take action. Steve talked about clients of his who are companies part of larger groups. The larger group has an analytics solution which, when the reports filter down to the individual company marketing departments, they simply don’t know what to do with the data.

Some expert tips included:

Jim – Look at behaviour. Segment based on your audience behaviour, finding out why a particular segment landed on a particular landing page using a particular KW.

Brian C – Check your bounce rate. Why are users coming to a page and then leaving it without going anywhere else on your site? – A single page visit.

Ian – Check out Gatineau’s demographic capabilities. See which age/genders favour what pages and adjust landing page products and text accordingly.

The there was talk of marketing effectiveness. The need for people to start using analytics wholesale is apparent but some companies are starting to get and understand the opportunity to take an authoritative view of the site.

All the panellists agreed that analytics isn’t accurate – you’re looking at trends. A lack of standardisation, different methodologies, different sessions and suchlike mean having spot-on stats is unlikely.

Before they all gave a “must-track-stat”, the subject of social-networking was touched on. How do you put a $$ value on a conversation? It’s not just about traffic, you’re driving customers to take action, to buy something or sign up.

Social measurement will involve tracking the conversations and assessing their impact but organisations have to get involved and wake up to this new phenomena and get out of their two-dimensional view of their world.

Killer Tips:

JS – Think E-Metrics not just Web Analytics

BE – More awareness of conversion rates

BC – A/B testing

IT – More understanding of privacy issues

SJ – We need to create a culture in companies to embrace web analytics

A point Ian made stuck out for me, when he foresaw analytics automatically being folded in to online advertising products and services in the future.

What does he know that I don’t? Better get a job in Redmond!

{UPDATE 22/2: Ian now wants you to Trust Him!}

SES London Photos… 

The Search Engine Strategies London Expo Hall

The All Star Web Analytics Panel – All On Their Mobiles!!

Jim Sterne – Bryan Eisenberg – Ian Thomas – Steve Jackson

What is it with analytics and chelsea boots?

A very svelte Dixon Jones..

The Dyson hand dryers eveyone was talking about!

Joe & Jon

We love Kristjan!

The fabulous Christine Churchill

Dave…

I’ll be at Search Engine Strategies London on all 3 days from 19th to 21st February next week.

I’m doing quite a bit of work this weekend to clear the decks so I can immerse myself in all the sessions, all the talking, and I might be found with a beer in my hand on some, if not all, of the evenings.

Going to conferences like this one is a must if you work in this industry.

Why?

1) You can’t call yourself a marketer if you don’t know what’s going on in your own market.

2) You’ll hear from a lot of good speakers from all disciplines, so expect to learn something new!

3) You’ll hear some bad speakers who’ll give you confidence that you’re not that bad a presenter after all.

4) You’ll hear some good speakers who’ll deliver ideas you think are tosh. It’d be boring if we all agreed.

5) You’ll hear some bad speakers talking about stuff you know better than they do – It could be you up there next year!

6) You get out of the office!! Look the weather forecast!

7) It’s a great networking opportunity – I bet you pick up some business!

8) I may have something of interest to announce at the Search Advertising Forum on Thursday 21st Feb at 11am!?

9) Islington is a very hip part of town with loads of great pubs and restaurants in which to close that deal!

10) You’ll never have to traipse to the docklands ever again……….we hope!

The Internet Advertising Bureau have launched a comprehensive, 65 page booklet on advanced search marketing techniques and trends.

Microsoft sits on their search council along with Google, Yahoo! and a host of agencies and industry luminaries.

For this publication I was very kindly asked to write the introduction.

The publication includes tips and tricks on a plethora search related disciplines including:

Combining natural and paid search
Demographics
Geographic and behavioural targeting
Bid management strategies
Advanced analytics
Copywriting for search
Cross media integration
Multi channel search
Global search culture

Download here: IAB Advanced Search Marketing Handbook

 Check out this article I contributed to on Search Engine Land – Shari Thurow asked me and Dixon Jones, among others, to fly the British flag and let US marketers know how they should market to us across the pond.

Got a lot of traction on Sphinn too 🙂

How do I know?

Because I got a load of PVs on my Superbowl Commercials post…..

Dennis Mortensen has posted on his VisualRevenue Blog that “Microsoft is the best converting search engine today!”

He “conducted a study on 15,014,924 visits across multiple global commerce web properties in Q4 2007, with approximately USD 1.2 Million in Paid Search advertising spend.”

This Independent research backs up the study we did last year with NNR which concluded that Live Search would convert 70% (actually we revisited it and it’s now 80%) higher than than other search engines on average.

Net/Net – Although the traffic from Live Search may be lower than on Google and in some cases Yahoo! it still pays to advertise on adCenter from an ROI perspective.

And if you want more high quality traffic, how does 20m unique users and 330m pageviews sound?

As The Guardian writes Yahoo! is expected to lay off 1000 staff in a cost-cutting exercise.

Having been made redundant from Looksmart in 2004, and knowing tonnes of people who suffered a similar fate back in the hectic days of the DotCom crash, I really feel for those guys, especially as there seems to be little details be shared about who will get the chop!

But with a fantastic forecast for online advertising growth from Group M – 30% this year – and the chance we’ll over take TV revenues next year, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of companies willing to snap up any ex-Yahoo! staff.

Seriously good luck guys!