Category: Search
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2008: The Year Search Won by a Knockout
I started seriously working in Search back in the year 2000. Eight years ago display ruled the Internet world and "search" as a line item on the marketing budget did not exist. Those display people made lots of money and then it ended, for a time. The display bubble didn’t pop – it floated with…
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Lessons in Digital Content Creation & Technology from Search Advertising
Virginia Heffernan has an interesting piece in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine. The premise is that the new ways content is distributed and displayed calls for new types of content rather than trying to retrofit traditional content forms into the digital space. Of course this is true. Heffernan focuses her article on…well, article content (specifically magazines).…
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Capturing the Gorilla: New Ways to Quantify the Value of Search
There is an ever-growing delta between the metrics that are commonly used to gauge search success and the true underlying value search marketing delivers. There is a ton of ROI being left on the table – not because it isn’t being delivered but because it isn’t being measured and marketed. There are a few metrics…
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Speaking, Moderating and Hosting a Clinic at SES Chicago
Chicago is my favorite SES because it's such a great town and the show always has a heavy conversion rate focus. This year I’ll be quite involved on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (December 9th-11th) at Search Engine Strategies Chicago so if you are going to be there and would like to connect please contact me.…
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J. Crew Wins in Search with Michelle Obama
In one of the smarter ad campaigns I’ve seen lately and a campaign only possible with the real-time relevancy of search and content targeting, J. Crew is running ads that create interest and intent around Michelle Obama, her style choices and J. Crew’s products. Here is the ad on a Michelle Obama query (click…
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Display Becomes Us
Scott Rafer gets it. I don’t know Scott, though I think we both spoke at CommunityNext and WidgetWorld Expo over the past year. In any case, his thoughts on the Lookery blog capture an important point that deserves an exclamation. “The increasing marginal returns of search advertising are now doing more than taking market share…
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Landing Page Utopia: 7 Lessons from Google
At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose last month I delivered a presentation for the session Landing Page Utopia off an idea I had previously blogged – that the Google homepage is the greatest landing page ever created. The presentation reviewed seven strategies Google employs and discussed how they benefited both Google and their audience.…
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McCain Wins Landslide Over Obama in Search Engine Marketing Election
During the pre-primary season I took a look at how the candidates were doing with SEM. The results were not pretty. Today, more than a year later, after both party conventions are over and the race is on I decided to revisit the SEM landscape of the Presidential election. Once again the results surprised me.…
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Landing Page Speed Hits Google Quality Score
As I predicted last year, today Google officially incorporated another landing page factor into their quality score algo. The new quality score factor is page load time. It seems what Google is trying to do is prevent multiple redirects. For example, if you click the Sony Style ad on this SERP you will see it…
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The Sleeping Giant: Ad Factors in Conversion Rates & ROI
If you’ve done multivariate tests across AdWords to a single landing page in order to optimize the ad you know a little known truth about conversion rate optimization from media that not many realize. The ad creative (alone) can have an enormous factor of influence on conversion rates. I’ve also seen results from multivariate tests…
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Intelligent Web: Where Search & Display Advertising Meet
This past Tuesday at SMX Advanced in Seattle, I presented my ideas and work relating to how the Intelligent Web will fundamentally change and realize the promise of digital marketing. In this post I expand the points and provide my presentation. Since the inception of online display advertising it has been mismatched with the web.…
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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:…
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Expert Guide to Multivariate Testing Success
I’ve been doing MVT for three years across landing pages and websites with over 40 clients like Citibank, Disney, Esurance, H&R Block, Inuit, Microsoft and T-Mobile. As the Founder & former Chief Strategy Officer of OTTO Digital, the services division of the market-leading MVT tool, Offermatica (now Omniture Test&Target) I’ve authored many case studies on…
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Multivariate Test Results: Confidence, Stability & Determining a Winner
Getting your MVT tests designed, developing your creative and implementing code are all just precursors to getting your test live. However, once your tests are live success will be determined by how well you did all those things. At this point you are just monitoring results – so relax and kick your feet up…if only…
Optimize & Prophesize 