Bing: The Promise Of The Next Act

by Chris Copeland ~ July 10th, 2009

This post was written by Chris Copeland and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, July 10, 2009

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At the end of “Casablanca,” Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick, utters the famous line “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” And in those words, we find the current feelings from advertisers towards the newly credible Microsoft search entry, Bing. So far, the data is good. Query shares are up, and advertisers are reporting positive click and ROI trending. Overall, good news for a space lacking a viable forward-moving competitor for too long.

I recently spent a day being served up a weird mix of Kool-Aid by the individuals tasked with creating and selling the latest, and to date, greatest effort by Microsoft in the search space. The Kool-Aid was spiked with a heavy dose of caution. Every positive data point was met by a word of caution. I appreciate the actions speak louder than words mantra adopted lately, but guys, the goal isn’t to kick Ask.com’s tail, it’s to pass Yahoo at the least and put a bit of competition back in the market.

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Investing in Search Marketing – Get What You Give

by Julia Schneider ~ May 6th, 2009

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You get what you pay for – unless you choose not to.  Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company and employing a world class search agency, or a Mom and Pop paying for a la carte search services, it’s essential that you get every drop of value for each dollar you pay to your marketers. While this may sound like a no-brainer, more clients than not are investing in search and then under-utilizing its value.

I’ve seen many clients pay top dollar for exactly what they should be paying for: SEM, SEO and Social Media.  They buy in to what we sell them, but then create hurdles that can limit our ability to be effective in all areas.  We have the knowledge to move our clients forward comprehensively; yet many of them do not engage us as strategically as they should for what they pay us to do.

Brand new, multi-million dollar sites go up all the time without organic optimizations built in, big money is spent on PR pushes that are not supported by Social Media and medical bombs are dropped on pharmaceutical companies who must scramble to react in the digital space.  All of this can be avoided when clients are fully engaging their SEM, SEO and Social Media contracts.  So what is involved in getting the biggest bang for your search marketing buck?

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The “Interior Design” Phase – Campaign Goals

by Susie Henderson & Karen Works ~ March 12th, 2009

This article is part five of a multi-post series on SearchFuel discussing tips to a successful search marketing program through integration of your search and media agencies. Click here to access previous articles in this series: Let’s All Play in the Sandbox Together, Share for Success or Share to Exceed, Communication-Your Shovel to Success and Budgeting Campaigns- Building With All the Right Materials.

It’s time to tackle the next stage of building our sand castle – picking paint colors, flooring and lighting fixtures, or in layman terms ­­– setting our campaign goals. In previous blogs, we’ve discussed the grains of sand involved in teamwork across multiple media partners – playing together, planning and communicating and budgeting – now that the foundation is in place, it’s necessary to get to the details.

The campaign goals are more than likely to be mandated by the client. They want to set a goal for ROI or CPEA (Cost per End Action) so they are able point out how their money was spent and what they received in return. It’s important to bring to the table secondary goals and add-ins so the client realizes that working together as a team will bring value-add to the account.

Let’s say our client wants registrations as their goal indicator. They want 5,000 registrations to their program by the end of the year with an average spend of $500 per registration. The interactive or direct mail groups can probably reach these goals, but TV may be less likely. So how can TV get involved in helping with the goal? Mentioning the website or phone number repeatedly and prominently in their ads will provide viewers with the proper information and lead them to the registration page where they can sign up. The cost of TV on its own may not meet the client goals. A combined spend across traditional and digital media helps the client become more cost effective per registration. Showing the correlation of on-air TV ads and registrants vs. off-air times and registrants can help correlate the relationship of TV to the rest of the campaign.

If testing or combining data isn’t a possibility, find out what value each specific medium brings to the campaign and suggest a proper measurement. Many online campaigns measure awareness as a goal. The cost to get the brand name to users can be much lower in such campaigns. Revenue campaigns can be the hardest for all marketers, especially in times of recession.

A funnel approach can be helpful with revenue generating campaigns, as they will help determine what a potential buyer is thinking and how to reach them at the decision stage-and where to place the most money in reaching these people. Funnels also help you to have multiple goals, and to reach those goals.

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Tradeshows: Are They A Thing Of The Past Or Just In A Recession?

by Christina Makos ~ February 27th, 2009

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At a search marketing event in late 2008, 67% of pre-registered attendees attended, leaving a whopping no show of 33% of pre-registered attendees. As the economic recession has burdened families and corporations alike, and as companies are adjusting budgets to cut corners, I can’t help but ask, has it also affected the attendance at tradeshows and industry events? Are companies looking to save dollars?  Are they not willing to put forth the costs associated with sending staff or having presence at shows because of the economic slow down?

As an attendee of last year’s SES San Jose and SMX East, I felt that attendance at these shows has dramatically dwindled compared to similar or previous events.  Could it be that the content of the sessions is outdated? Are there so many interactive and search-focused shows that content seems redundant? Is content not in tune with the attendees needs? Or is it that advertisers are looking for vendors and partners through other channels?

At search marketing events in 2008, I personally found the session content to be valuable and the speakers to be knowledgeable about the latest trends and technologies in search.  That being said, as I walked the exhibitor floor of SMX East (yes, I was looking for more than cool swag to take back to the office), I noticed that there were not as many attendees walking the floor as there were at SES San Jose; other exhibitors I stopped to speak with, who also attended the same shows agreed with me.  SMX is newer and is a different event than SES, and there’s something to be said about a smaller, more-focused crowd. But this observation led to discussions about the cause for lighter attendance at recent events. Most obvious is the conclusion that companies are starting to cut costs where they can because of the economic recession and that they are willing to absorb any pre-registration costs to save on the other expenses that are associated with attending the show, such as the added cost of travel or the $5,000 to rent booth carpet.

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Ask Purchases Sendori

by Erika Moersch ~ January 23rd, 2009

Ask.com officially announced on January 22 they purchased Sendori, a provider of direct navigational search technologies.  While we haven’t been given any information yet as to how the two will work together or what it means for Ask.com and/or Sendori users, we are excited to see how the merger plays out.

Most people are familiar with Ask.com, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, being a general Search engine.  Sendori works a little different than Ask.  Being a provider of direct navigational search, Sendori sends “qualified visitors from undeveloped web domains to advertiser websites ”  Make sense?  I know, it’s a little confusing.  The example illustrated on their website shows how when someone types in an undeveloped web domain such as NiceDiamondRings.com, Sendori will qualify the visitor by matching the domain to keywords, and then send the user to an appropriate advertiser’s page, such as DeBeers.com.

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