Optimize & Prophesize

Category: Branding

  • How Semantic & Intelligent Web are Changing Advertising

    Alex Iskold at ReadWriteWeb has a post on Semantic Search: “The Myth and Reality” that for the first time made me able to clearly express the benefits of semantic search succinctly. My comment on his post: The value in semantic search is simply about creating ontologies that allow for results refinement that can deliver a…

  • Macy’s Magical Online Disappearing Act

    In today’s Wall Street Journal Macy’s CMO and Chairman of the Online Division Peter Sachse talks about Search Marketing. It’s rare to hear a CMO of a major retailer discuss search marketing so it was with great interest that I read his comments. WSJ: How do you measure the effectiveness of search marketing? Mr. Sachse:…

  • 5 Ways to Optimize Google Search Result Video Ads

    Video ads are now part of search. Most advertisers will be throwing up made for TV commercials and fail to understand or take advantage of this new medium. That will be their loss. Google’s video ads present a huge opportunity for those that take the time to create compelling video specifically for the SERP (Search…

  • This Landing Page is a Joke

    This experience hurts Toyota’s brand in so many ways and it is a case study in poor landing page optimization. I have no problem with funny ads. Humor can create interest and attention — a very hard thing to do in this day and age. However, if you want to play a joke on consumers…

  • Why CPM Should Die

    According to TRUSTe 90% of consumers report that less than 25% of ads they see online are relevant. 58% said 0-10% of the ads were relevant. Display + Irrelevance = Banner Blindness Think of all those wasted millions. We’re moving forward with new companies like Lotame but clearly we have a long, long way to…

  • The Power of Brand to Influence Outcomes or Why Brands Will Always Rule Digital

    We all know power has shifted in the marketplace to consumers. Consumers have a more active and faster growing voice than ever before in the ultimate success of products and services. We wield this power through reviews, recommendations, social networks, message boards, blogs and most importantly our digital actions – quantified and delivered to marketers…

  • The $130 Billion Dollar Landing Page

    Google is a fully digital company. Everything Google has done and is today revolves around the web. Google is also by every account one of the top 3 brands in the world. Until billboards this past year Google has never spent a dollar on advertising. No TV, no print, no radio, No banners, no search…

  • Presentation on Branding & Strategy

    SlideShare is a site I’ve used and enjoyed since it was launched. In fact, since SlideShare launched I’ve uploaded every conference presentation I’ve given. It’s also a great way to get a pulse of thoughts and opinions pertaining to many subjects, especially digital. Yesterday I came across this deck below. Take 10 minutes out of…

  • The Brand Optimization Revolution – The Metrics are Coming! The Metrics are Coming!

    A common trait I find among many “red-coat” marketers is a lack of respect for the collective intelligence of consumers. This expresses itself in many ways. One is the “we know what our users want” mindset. Another is the Boston/NY-SF/LA view that folks in Middle America are unsophisticated and stupid. These attitudes are constantly reflected…

  • Platforms, Applications and the Future of Digital Marketing

    REST APIs, Rules and Relevance In the user controlled medium that is digital advertising success is predicated on delivering relevance. Nowhere is this exemplified better than the success of search where there is a data input (rule 1) and multiple additional rules (geo and behavioral) that results in the delivery of content believed to be…

  • Can Google Make You Notice Ads?

    128 million unique people a month use Google. 53 million uniques a month use YouTube (an amazing 92% increase since Google’s acquisition a year ago). With millions of page views a day from people across these two properties you work that to your advantage. There has been conjecture about the cross-property strategies that Google may…

  • 2008 Forecast: The Year of Landing Pages

    If 2007 was the year that testing and targeting grew from a baby into a toddler, 2008 will be the year that this kid starts to walk. And like so much of leading edge digital marketing practices those first steps will take place in search, namely landing pages. Most industry experts agree that fewer than…

  • The Antidote to Chaos – Build & Deliver

    Jeff Jarvis has a post in The Guardian that echoes two key strategic ideas I’ve been harping on the past few months. 1. Companies need to build marketing and communications platforms themselves to connect with consumers. 2. Companies need to serve themselves and advertisers better by delivering more relevance. These strategies are not mutually exclusive.…

  • Creating Intent in Digital Media

    In Part 1 I will look at three types of digital media and cross-media and see what the future may hold for intent creation. Next week in Part 2 I will focus on using creative and technology in synergy to optimize intent creation. The idea of creating intent is one of the touchstones of marketing…

  • Your Homepage Sucks – Use Landing Pages for Brand Keywords

    Recently we created and tested five different landing pages for brand specific keywords and ads. The winning page in this A/B/C/D/E test achieved a 148% increase in conversion rate. Taking the customer insights gleaned from the first test our follow-up multivariate was able to add an additional 15% lift in conversion rate and even more…

  • Afterthoughts on SES San Jose

    SES San Jose 2007 started for me during the one-hour delay waiting for the gate to be fixed so I could board the Sunday night flight from Newark Airport. With all the Search knowledge waiting to get on board it was easy to kill the one-hour delay talking with Kevin Lee, Barry Schwartz and Tamar…

  • Microsoft says Brand Search Ads a Waste of Money – Show Me the ROI!

    I have to chime on this since the timing of this Microsoft release and SES is not coincidence. It’s certainly attention grabbing but I think it’s almost irresponsible to make these claims without the right data to support them. In an article backed with little ROI data Microsoft/ Atlas is saying that it is a…

  • Jay-Z & Rocawear Lay Down the Viral Video Marketing Beat

    I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell I am a hustler baby, I’ll sell water to a well – Jay – Z from “U Don’t Know” In the lyrics to “U Don’t Know” from Jay-Z’s monumental September 11, 2001 release The Blueprint (amazingly one of the other top three albums from…

  • Test Design Advice for SEOmoz on their Landing Page Competition

    I’m incredibly excited about the SEOmoz landing page competition. Not only did they chose to use the Offermatica platform but because of the awareness, education and information that this test will provide, countless marketers will experience the fun and excitement of testing. What is testing if not a competition? Testing is also an ongoing learning…

  • The Search Engine Election: 2008 Presidential Campaign Scorecard

    The immense power of search engines to reach people and influence behavior based on information discovery intentions is beyond debate. Still, with the 2008 Presidential Election little more than one year away the ability to quickly find relevant information on the candidate’s views and positions from the search engines, namely Google, is extremely poor. The…