Optimize & Prophesize

Category: Relevance

  • Google Personalized Search: Goodbye Search Engine, Hello Find Engine

    For tens of millions of users, multiple times a day for each, Google just improved and it will keep on improving. All users need to do is continue using Google. That’s a pretty great way to create brand loyalty! How many products continue to get better the more you use them? A baseball glove, maybe…

  • More on the Promise of Behavioral Targeting

    Phil Leggiere has another great interview in today’s Behavioral Insider column titled “Beyond CPM: Bidding and Behavioral Data.” This time it’s with Alex Hooshmand of Right Media. Right Media is a transparent auction based platform that matches advertisers and publishers and optimizes ROI based on targeting. The exchange (RMX) officially opened to publishers this week.…

  • Real Behavioral Targeting Focuses on Intent

    Dave Morgan of Tacoda has an insightful essay “When Will We Deliver the Promise” that addresses a question asked to him by WSJ technology writer Walter Mossberg: when will online advertising deliver on the promise of right ad, right, customer, right time? The question is great one. However, I’m afraid the folks in display media…

  • Targeting Based on Category Affinity

    One of the more interesting things we’re doing at OTTO Digital is pushing the envelope on content targeting and re-targeting based on source and behavior. Presently we’re working with a major retailer on delivering contextually relevant content on their homepage to return visitors (either in-session or on subsequent visits) based on what category the user…

  • ROI Factors of Brand Keywords: Paid vs. Organic

    Part 2 of 3 In part 1 I discussed the thinking and strategy behind running tests on whether it was worth it for our client to have ads running on their brand keywords, especially in light of the recent Google changes to the result presentation. Would these clicks just end up going to the natural…

  • Do I Purchase My Brand Keywords or Has Google Improved So Much I Don’t Need To?

    Part 1 of 3 Recently Google has changed the way search results on brand queries appear for many businesses. They have provided them with added real estate at the top of the SERP by listing four links to internal sections below the main result and description (interestingly it seems for everyone but Amazon & their…

  • Lead with Landing Pages: Create Your Campaigns by Starting at the End

    Why do keywords and ads inform landing page creative? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? This is a vestige of the old way of thinking about advertising. The ad was everything. The ad could persuade. The ad could influence. The ad could brand. Those days are a nice walk down memory lane. Still, most…

  • YouTube Video Ad Optimization: Send in the SEMs!

    Ok, I know YouTube hasn’t officially started running video ads but they are testing. So it’s time to start thinking about how to optimize them. Well, maybe not so fast. The video ad production, media buying, results analysis and optimization will likely be done by folks that have little experience purchasing media based on user…

  • Google’s Use of Conversion Rates for Quality Score

    Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea provides a fascinating look at a recent Google patent application on ROI & Quality Score determination. In the application Google provides information and<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bragadocchio/340096133/”> a flow chart that makes clear the invention titled “Adjusting Ad Costs Using Document Performance or Document Collection Performance” factors quality score determination differently…

  • Dawn of the Video Search (& Ad) Age

    Quietly, as if it occurred while you were sleeping over the past few years search relevancy has improved. The combination of increased algorithmic accuracy plus an abundance of additional data and content have made this possible. Long gone are the days you could and would go from engine to engine and try your query in…

  • Optimizing Content: Give Users Control

    A week and a half ago I spoke at Outsell’s BrainGain conference to a group of leading executives from traditional publishers on how they can deliver relevance to their audience. It was a great group of folks and the Outsell team does their best to steer them in the right direction. However, I couldn’t help…

  • Afterthoughts on SES Chicago

    SES Chicago had a very different vibe from the six other SES shows I’ve participated in. The show was packed with first time attendees and lots of in-house folks. I actually think this is a really good sign. SEO/M has reached a turning point. On one level it has matured. Early practitioners now have years…

  • How Simplicity, Recognition & “The Perception of Ease” Impact Landing Page Optimization

    If there’s one landing page battle I’ve had to fight consistently with clients during my time as a strategist and consultant it is the fight for simplicity. Why don’t people like simplicity on landing pages? Here’s just a few snippets of what I’ve heard over the years: “It makes us look unprofessional” “It doesn’t represent…

  • User Goals and Conversion from Search

    Understanding user goals forms the foundation of my methodology for landing page and search ad optimization. Goal discovery also forms the core of searcher behavior research. This is all due to the fact that delivering relevance can only be done by first understanding the goals of users. Through my experience, research and user observation I’ve…

  • Marketing Speak

    I’ve been doing plenty of talking the past couple of weeks and I’ve been repeating a number of ideas. Forsaking humility, I thought that sharing what’s on my mind might make an interesting post. In no particular order: Contextual Relevance: Deliver relevance in the context of the user focus Sub-segments: Segmentation…at a whole other level…

  • What Google’s Quality Score Is & What It Is Not

    Over the past few months at OTTO Digital we have done a series of search ad optimizations for Google advertisers using multivariate content delivery to optimize ad titles, descriptions and visible URLs based on landing page engagement and conversion rate. In addition to improving client ROI we’ve been provided a fascinating look at the effectiveness,…

  • Measuring and Optimizing Engagement: The Audible.com Case Study

    https://s3.amazonaws.com:443/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=9259&doc=adtech-ny-next-generation-strategies-for-ecommerce-the-audiblecom-case-study-9259-9996 You can measure engagement. More importantly, engagement can be optimized. Yesterday, at ad:tech New York I delivered the presentation above on work we just completed at OTTO Digital for Audible.com on the panel Next Generation Strategies for eCommerce, moderated by David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan. The case study shows how we used multivariate and…

  • Why (Insert Your Brand or Product Here)?

    True story. I’m on the subway heading downtown in NYC. I notice an ad for Fiji Water. It was a picture of the bottle and this copy: Message In A Bottle FIJI water is from Fiji What caught my interest most of all was the question “WHY?” handwritten in black pen next to the bottom…

  • The Death of Best Practices

    Best practice by definition is the best possible way of doing something. Most marketers look at implementing best practices as executing standards to make improvement. Unfortunately, this one-way, one-size fits all standardization mentality is not an effective practice for digital marketers. It’s lazy marketing. Old school. Our world needs to be ruled by looking at…

  • How Starbucks Segments and Targets its Brand

    The lead story in The New York Times Arts & Leisure section this Sunday was “The Starbucks Aesthetic” and it’s worth a read. It actually would have been better placed as the lead story in the Business section. What the story made clear is that Starbucks has successfully expanded its product offerings, revenues and brand…