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Search Engine Marketing

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Is it time to go under the hood and remove the “engine” altogether? p. 12

PLUS The year of the social business 6 Picking the right mobile tactics 20 iPadvertising: What to expect 22 No one cares about your products 28

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6 8 May 2010

Search Engine Marketing vs. Search Marketing Shouldn’t we broaden the definition of search marketing to include all forms of marketing, media, and advertising that capture consumers who have expressed search intent? §

ses TORONTO SNEAK preview From social to video and local to mobile, the new online marketing frontier is here. Learn how to connect the dots at next month’s Search Engine Strategies conference. Learn about the speakers, sessions, and workshops that make SES Toronto a must-attend event. §

Terms and acronyms every search marketer should know. §

Should you worry about real-time search? As an online marketer, you need provide the content that’s in demand. Here’s what to consider on real-time search, including the roles of SEO and online reputation management. §

2010 and web 3.0: The year of the social business This year brings an opportunity for savvy businesses to chart their paths into the global consumer markets that are just now emerging. §

Canadian marketers score with social media Two campaigns where marketers used sporting events and social media to entice their target audiences to engage with the brands. §

Tips for talking to your boss about social media How to research, plan, and budget for your social media presence — and how to present your findings and ideas to your manager. §

Picking the right mobile tactics

iPadvertising: What to expect

Call tracking simplified

4 ways to waste even more time on client reports

No one cares about your products

Managing global websites

GLOSSARY

columns

A cheat sheet on some of the mobile marketing tactics that are available to marketers today. §

Will publishers embrace the iPad? Will they charge for content? How will ads differ from current online and mobile models? §

Call tracking allows businesses to optimize their marketing activities for those methods that generate the highest quality conversions. §

Four cornerstones of lazy agencies. Avoid these senseless practices to better serve your clients. §

People don’t care what you say about your services or products. They want to know what other people say about your products. §

It’s a lot of work to manage a global program, but the more you can make it uniform, measure it, and provide best practices to markets with little to no resources, you will have greater opportunities for success. §

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Staff Matt McGowan Publisher, Head of U.S.

about SES Magazine

Mike Grehan VP, Global Content Director

Magazine Managing Editor Drew Eastmead Contributors Eric Bader, Kathleen Colan, Dave Evans, Kevin Gibbons, Bill Hunt, Kevin Lee, Sage Lewis, Robin Neifield, Marc Poirier, Gary Stein, Tessa Wegert

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

SES Magazine, now in its fourth year, is brought to you by ClickZ, the leading online destination for news and expert advice in digital marketing. In this issue, you’ll find articles on the latest online trends, as well as a preview of our upcoming event, SES Toronto (June 9-11). We are grateful to our contributors and readers alike, and we’re always interested to hear your feedback and learn about what topics you’d like to see (e-mail us at magazine@SearchEngineStrategies.com). For more information on advertising, subscribing, and contributing, or to view past issues, visit www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/ses-magazine. You can also follow us on Twitter: @sesmag.

VP, Content Development Stewart Quealy Senior Program Director Marilyn Crafts Program Coordinator Jackie Ortez

Drew Eastmead | Managing Editor OPERATIONS Director, Operations Michele McDermott Operations Manager Dan Hoskins

SES Advisory Board Clickz & SEarch engine watch Executive Editor, ClickZ Director, SEW Managing Editor, News Senior Editor, News Staff Writer Staff Writer Copy Editor

Anna Maria Virzi Jonathan Allen Zach Rodgers Kate Kaye Christopher Heine Jack Marshall Caitlin Rossman

Comprised of both industry thought leaders and real-world practitioners, the Search Engine Strategies advisory board brings together top players in the field of interactive media and search. The team works to deliver continually cutting-edge search techniques, more integrated and relevant content, and professional development resources to SES attendees.

SALES & MARKETING Sales Directors Andrew Katz Elaine Mershon Elaine Romeo Peter Westerholm Account Executives Elizabeth Huston Katie O’Hea Director, Client Services JoAnn Simonelli Marketing Director Angela Man Marketing Manager Christian Georgeou Web Designer Rebecca Holz Online Operations Manager Louise Laberge Online Operations Assoc. Aleksey Gershin

CORPORATE Chief Executive Tim Weller Group Managing Director James Hanbury

Matthew Bailey President SiteLogic

Andrew Goodman Principal Page Zero Media

Lee Odden CEO TopRank Online Marketing

Thomas Bindl Founder & CEO Refined Labs GmbH

Mike Grehan, Co-Chair VP & Global Content Director Incisive Media

Pauline Ores Sr. Marketing Mgr, Social Media IBM Corporation

Mikel Chertudi VP, Demand & Online Marketing Omniture

Bill Hunt President Back Azimuth Consulting

Stewart Quealy, Co-Chair VP, Content Development Incisive Media

Brett Crosby Group PPM Google

Anne Kennedy Managing Partner Beyond Ink

Erica Schmidt Global Search Director Isobar

Bryan Eisenberg Bestselling author bryaneisenberg.com

John Marshall CTO Beyond Ink

Crispin Sheridan Sr. Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP Marketing

Jeff Ferguson Sr. Director, Online Marketing Local.com

Jon Myers Head of Search/Assoc. Director Mediavest

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Search Engin Marketing to go Is it time

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6 business of the social tactics 20 The year right mobile 22 Picking the What to expect 28 ng: products iPadvertisi about your No one cares

PLUS

remove

Search Marketing

the “engine”

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May 2010 SearchEn

Advertiser Index For information about advertising in future issues, please contact sales at sales@SearchEngineStrategies.com or (212) 457-4993.

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Advertiser Page Acquisio.......................................................... C2 Brafton CustomNews........................................ 3 ClickZ.com iPhone app................................... 14 ClickZ.com iReviews....................................... C3 DMAT............................................................. 29 iContact.......................................................... 23 LinkWorth......................................................... 5

Advertiser Page NVI................................................................. 11 OneDegree.ca................................................. 25 Outrider Canada................................................ 9 Search Engine People..................................... 19 SES World Tour............................................... 31 topseos.com................................................... 21 Wiley Publishing............................................. C4

§ FOCUS: what’s next

Should you worry about real-time search?

By Kevin Gibbons ast year, there was a lot of buzz Because of the frequency of tweets, you’re around real-time search, but so likely to see the most recent updates every far there appears to have been few seconds. Bing shows the links relating to your less enthusiasm this spring. In recent discussions at search search that are being shared the most — events, several people have told me that effectively, it’s the closest thing we have to the service has been a flop and hasn’t really peer-reviewed search engine results. Google’s offering came a little later, but changed our industry. Clearly, Google feels it needs to provide it’s a competitive live-search service. When real-time search to improve the relevancy of you run a search for a popular term, you can see loads of stuff. its results for breaking There are generic news, topical stories/ Real-time search has search results, but events, and popular queries. But is it somemany more implications there are also news stories, plus breaking thing online marketers for online reputation news if relevant. need to be concerned management than it does You can also with? click “options” and Real-time search for optimization efforts. “latest” to watch realservices allow you to time results as they look for information online as it’s published, meaning you can come in. These are updated with Facebook comments, MySpace content, FriendFeed, watch updates as they are made. Normally, search engine spiders will Jaiku, Identi.ca, and Twitter. Yahoo has also signed a deal with Twitter; crawl a website periodically, meaning it can take some time to find new content through it will pay the microblogging site so its users a search engine. News and blog content is can access their Twitter feeds within Yahoo picked up much quicker, but it still relies properties, as well as see real-time updates in on that content being written and published search results. online, so there is an obvious time lag between how quickly a tweet and a blog post What does it mean for SEO? or news article can be written. Any online marketer needs to provide the However, when it comes to rapidly- content that’s in demand. So, get active on written, rapidly-published updates such as Twitter and other social media platforms tweets on Twitter, there’s little point reading (although, mostly Twitter, at least at the them five hours after they’ve been made — moment). the situation could well have changed. You Don’t spam — you need to protect your need to see them as they happen, and that’s reputation, as well as get brand mentions. what real-time search allows you to do. Keep up organic optimization efforts like blogging, and promote these articles through Twitter and other social media. If an online What the search engines offer Which search engines actually offer real- buzz is created around something you’ve time search? Bing moved quickly, partner- written, then you’ll benefit from real-time ing with Twitter to produce a results page search. As always, quality matters more than just for that one platform. To try it, type in sheer numbers. Of course, one issue with real-time search a trending topic from Twitter into Google or Bing, and you’ll quickly see a scrolling results is that they can force natural results box of real-time search results appearing. further down the page — certainly with

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

Google. That means many firms will be tempted to plough more of their resources into PPC, helping them secure a more prominent place in the SERPs. However, companies have to remember that people trust the organic search results more than paid advertising space. Devoting some time to both the natural results and PPC is still the best way to attract the maximum number of visitors.

Criticisms

Real-time search isn’t popular with everyone. Many SEO experts have complained that it values quantity over quality — just be the most recent person to Tweet around an issue if you want to secure a top listing in the search results. Others think it’s effectively enabling realtime spam. That’s a real danger to an extent, but as the service grows in popularity, expect the engines to invest more money in keeping the results clear of valueless content. Somehow.

What else should I consider?

Real-time search has many more implications for online reputation management than it does for optimization efforts. As Twitter starts to buzz with indignation or amusement when a company screws up, that buzz isn’t contained to the micro-blogging platform. It’s spilling out into the search results, meaning even people who don’t use services like Twitter will see them. That makes it imperative that companies monitor online buzz, and react swiftly and decisively to any criticisms. § Kevin Gibbons is founder and director of search at U.K. search agency SEOptimise. A highly respected blogger on search engine marketing and social media, Kevin writes frequently for SEOptimise and Econsultancy and can often be found actively contributing on Sphinn and Twitter. @kevgibbo

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2010 and web 3.0: The year of the social business

By Dave Evans he new year is underway, and “social media marketing” nomenclature is fast giving way to “what’s real.” So, what’s real? For starters, the core technologies of web 2.0, aka “the social web.” They are part of the mainstream Internet use around the world, and their impact on business — worldwide — is significant. The continued evolution of the web-based technology — whether deployed on a desktop, laptop, netbook, or smartphone — is pushing businesses to reconsider business design. The shift extends to the entire C-suite, not just the marketing department. Living and working in India, it’s striking how closely the Americas, Europe, and India parallel each other for those who have adopted and regularly use broadband social applications. Outside of these Internet users, the three are worlds apart. But for the creators and adopters of online social technology, the distinctions are minimal at best, and in most cases essentially nonexistent. No less than eight chapters of Social Media Club have sprung up in India in the past six months. Philips, based in Amsterdam, has an incredible awareness of its own social presence. Starbucks and Dell in the U.S. are practically cliché examples of social media and the impact of connected

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

consumers on these businesses — and far beyond the marketing departments. Compared with the mass markets, where undifferentiated goods and services are still sold on little more than price, the “social” markets have armed consumers with the information needed to make holistic decisions. These “informed” markets are growing, too, as low-cost technology pushes richer information deeper into the market. In a striking example of technology adoption, India is poised to go to 11-digit mobile phone numbers in 2010: the country’s combined operators have issued roughly 800 million phone numbers to date. With 30 new market entrants vying for a share of India’s 3G spectrum, the capacity limit of one billion phone numbers (all mobile numbers in India begin with “9”) will surely be crossed in 2010. This kind of latent technology acceptance can dramatically — and rapidly — change marketplace dynamics. But why wait? The current digital/social market is already in place. Take half the U.S. market and a good chunk of Europe — call it 100 million people, give or take — and then add to that 5 percent of the Indian market — which is to say, “add 50 million more.” Throw in savvy Internet users in Canada and Latin America, and a growing segment in China, and you’re

FOCUS: social § probably up to around 250 million regular users of advanced, social web technology worldwide. As a business that is looking for global growth, you’ve got the beginning of a real market. These 250 million consumers are surprisingly homogenous too: largely English-speaking (outside the U.S., typically with the command of one or two additional world languages) and upwardly mobile (the Indian economy is booming; it is creating a significant upper middle class that is more alike than different, no matter where you are). These consumers are largely within the important 15- to-45-year-old age bracket. They are very aware of the technologies that facilitate smart purchases, and of the global issues they face. They are connected, and they think collectively. 2010 brings an opportunity for savvy businesses — adopting nothing short of comprehensive social business design — to chart their paths into the global consumer markets that are just now emerging. To be sure, we’ve had global, multi-national businesses for years: centrally-run, they have approached national markets as distinct — citing regional and cultural differences. But a sense of shared experience — of commonality versus exclusivity — is also developing and is powered in a large part by global social communities. Facebook has 400 million members worldwide, in something approaching 50 languages. Travel and discovery is no longer about going someplace far away and bringing back artifacts of exotic foreign experiences that friends and family have never heard of. Now, it’s more about going some place far away to connect in person with someone you’ve already virtually met, and to experience what you’ve become familiar with through shared personal media and online social interaction. For the digitally aware, the social web offers the world — travel just makes it real. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is a powerful example of just this kind of transformative approach to global business leadership. The Chennai, India-born 50-something executive was formerly associated with the Boston Consulting Group. Raised as a vegetarian, she now heads a soft drink and snack foods firm. She visited China recently and chose locations outside the typical corporate mustsees purposely to “understand what makes China’s markets tick.” She’s the new model of a global executive. Consider the impact getting China right will have on Pepsi: average soft drink consumption in China last year amounted to about 35 eight-ounce servings per person — less than one soda per week — compared

with 125 worldwide and a whopping 789 Want to learn more? — or roughly three sodas per day — in SES Toronto will feature several sessions on the U.S. And that’s just the soft drink busisocial, including “Successfully Integrating ness. Personally, I’ve become a big fan Search & Social Media.” For more information, visit of Kurkure (pronounced KER-ker-ay), a SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto PepsiCo snack food in India that would be a smash hit as a part of U.S. football tailgate parties. Combined with its introduction of the above are now in-store purchase decifully compostable packaging, Pepsi’s global sion factors. For those who have attended awareness is tapping the connectedness and my American Marketing Association social sensibilities of the emerging social markets: media workshops, you’ve heard me talk By smartly innovating and participating about “carbon footprint” as the decision through well-designed social applications, factor for household purchases. Pepsi is building the organic conversations For a growing segment of your market, that will drive its continued success. it’s no longer just price and availability. As a Let’s dial it back to the development of CMO, what is your strategy for dealing with marketing and business programs that lever- an “advocate mom” who is making her deciage the increasingly connected and social sion — and influencing her friends — based nature of marketplace interactions. The on your firm’s hiring practices, investment contemporary social business builds on this policies, and social impact and hiring poli— call it web 2.0 — and then takes it one cies? Your strategy had better involve the step further: It uses CEO, COO, and the the information gained Travel today is about going rest of the C-suite. through the extraction And it should defisome place far away to of meaning to shape nitely involve your connect with someone and evolve the busicustomers, suppliers, ness itself. In other and employees. or something you’ve words, the business If this seems a already virtually met. feeds off of what its stretch, consider that customers are saying 250 million globally by connecting the substance of the conver- connected, influential customers are moving sation to its own employees, suppliers, and up fast on Maslow’s triangle. For them, business partners. This is the emergence of the factors driving a purchase decision are Web 3.0 — the semantic or “meaning-based” not limited to price, proximity, and basic web — and the application of consumer- features. More and more it’s about larger driven business design. What might this look issues with personal relevance, about the like in practice? way in which this immediate decision plays Consider the “Good Guide,” a socially out over a lifetime of consequence, of shared connected mobile application that pres- global responsibility, and the realization that ents itself as a marketing application, but the world around us is the world we make it. in reality carries a stick that reaches far The evolution of the social business — and beyond the CMO. Mobile applications for the Web 3.0 technologies that will power it smartphones that scan barcodes and present — are built out of this shared and collective pricing data along with customer reviews knowledge. Make 2010 the year you put it are becoming common, and in particular to work in the design and operation of your within this 250 million-strong and growing business. § globally-connected consumer base. I used Dave is the Consulting Director my Android-based G1 to scan the barcodes with 2020Social, based in New in the aisles at Target when I was looking Delhi, India, and the author of “Sofor a portable spin-style toothbrush for my cial Media Marketing: An Hour a travel kit. If I’m doing it, trust me: Everyone Day,” a practical, hands-on guide is doing it. to implementing and measuring In addition to features and reviews, the social media as part of an integrated marketing program. BuildGood Guide serves up health, environmental, and societal impact ratings. A high score ing on the approach he outlines in his book, Dave lison “society,” for example, means the prod- tens to what a client’s business communications needs are, then evaluates current operations, marketuct in question is offered by a company with ing, and management processes. Working alongside responsible investment polices, equitable his clients, Dave develops an effective, measured aphiring practices, an appropriate commitment proach to using social media and achieving organizato philanthropy, and a firm policy toward tional and business goals. @evansdave workplace diversity. Say what? Yes, all of SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

§ FOCUS: social

Canadian marketers score with social media

By Tessa Wegert his year’s Super Bowl provided ample examples of how to successfully integrate a traditional TV media buy with social media to drive online visits that promote consumer interaction. Advertisers that scored big with this strategy included Budweiser, which invited consumers to vote on Facebook for their pick of three possible Super Bowl spots. While much of the attention Budweiser received was related to its campaign in the American market, Canadian consumers got their own taste of the brand, and it was just as reliant on social Google-owned properties, media. including YouTube, accounted for 39.5 percent online video In the Canaviews in January 2010. Hulu dian campaign, ranked second with 2.8 the brand used a percent, followed by Microsoft one-day contest and Yahoo sites, respectively. Source: comScore to further encourA For more details, check out age visits to ClickZ Stats. the Budweiser Canada Facebook Page. The brand ran a series of four 15-second Super Bowl spots related to Bud Canada’s ongoing “Bud Plane Flight Attendants” effort. Each ad drove viewers to Facebook, where they could sign up for a chance to win premium seats aboard the Bud Plane — a jet that takes winners from Budweiser contests to the Super Bowl — to next year’s event. According to Labatt Breweries of Canada, the campaign, which was created with interactive agency Grip Limited of Toronto, generated more than 30,000 new Budweiser Canada Facebook page fans in one day (for

39.5%

Want to learn more? SES Toronto will feature several Canadiancentric sessions, including “Canada-Specific SEO & PPC Issues.” For more information, visit

SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto 8

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

a total of about 126,000), as well as several material; the microsite also links to a Twitter thousand contest entries. Although the brand feed featuring daily photos that help promote officially launched the contest at the begin- the contest, a Flickr gallery, and a YouTube ning of the day, the huge jump in entries channel that plays to out-of-country visitors came only after the first spot had aired in addition to Canadians. Like Budweiser with its Super Bowl during the game. During the following week, the focus contest, the CTC gives consumers a good shifted from the Super Bowl to the 2010 reason to visit its Facebook page. Fans can Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where inte- take a quiz about local spots to determine grated ad campaigns from Canadian market- how well they know their country and post their score to their Facebook wall or directly ers also appeared. Among them was the Canadian Tour- to Twitter as a tweet. The “Locals Know” effort isn’t new; it’s ism Commission’s (CTC) “Locals Know” campaign. Unlike the Canadian tourism an extension of a campaign that ran last campaign seen on the American networks, summer. While the CTC hasn’t yet released data on the results this one invited resiof this winter iteradents to explore their Increasingly, social tion, reports state that own country’s exotic media is proving to be the original microand exciting sights, from Québec’s ice hotel the missing link between site attracted 55,000 unique visitors each to British Columbia’s television and the web. week and, accordhot springs. Like any ing to the CTC, ultisuccessful modern-day mately resulted in cross-media campaign, this one, created by DDB Canada, included about 200,000 Canadians choosing to plan TV spots airing on local stations during the domestic vacations instead of going abroad. Olympic coverage, print ads, and an online And just in case those stats weren’t enough, presence. Offline creative acts as a teaser “Locals Know” was also named one of for online offerings, with enticing imagery the top tourism campaigns in the world by of a mystery location and messaging like, Forbes.com. Increasingly, social media is proving to be “Where is this? LocalsKnow.ca.” This microsite has done a terrific job of the missing link between television and the relaying the campaign message and inte- web. Whereas past initiatives drove consumgrating social media. Visitors to the site can ers to a site and left them at a loss for what view specific destinations from across the to do next, social media allows marketers country, read consumer-generated reviews to entice their target audiences with any and commentary, and even upload their own number of interactive activities that extend photographs and videos to help build out their engagement with the brand. § the site in the style of a wiki. Travel offers Tessa Wegert is an interactive meprovided by the CTC’s partners deliver the dia strategist with Enlighten, one impetus visitors need to go from idly browsof the first full-service digital maring the site to actively planning a vacation. keting strategy and services To further encourage consumer-generagencies, serving such brands as ated submissions, site users are invited to Food Network, Hunter Douglas, and Jergens. An industry veteran, tender their own picks for must-see CanaTessa has worked in online media dian places in an “ultimate upload” contest that could win them a vacation to one of buying and planning, marketing, and online copywriting since 1999. She is an active freelance writer, is the site’s locations. But the use of social frequently quoted as an industry expert, and speaks media extends beyond consumer-generated regularly at conferences and events. @tessawegert

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§ FOCUS: social

Tips for talking to your boss about social media

By Robin Neifield you underestimated it. Ask your boss ack in the early digital days, about budgetary support because these we often fielded panicked efforts are not free. Strategy, creative, calls from in-house marketoutreach, internal training, and many ing personnel whose C-level other items come into play, and they all executive demanded that they require an outright expense or the use secure the top organic search listings in the of expensive and scarce resources to major search engines. Thank God most busisupport.   ness people now understand both the value Find the aimless, ill-conceived, or and difficulty of that feat. abandoned efforts in the reviewed Today’s equivalent is the overworked, competitive field, and highlight them understaffed, and stressed out in-house as well. We can learn from failed marketing departments experiments just as that are asked to start surely as successful Your social media ones. tweeting or launch program is about a Facebook page — Bring in the creative team. There yesterday. When your your customers — is thought required to boss comes blowing not about you. build the best program into the room demandor campaign. It takes ing that you make an time and special skill immediate splash in sets — not least of which is experience social media, deflect any attempt at forcing in social media.   an ill-conceived tactical launch by asking for Develop both a content strategy and a a short period of time to gather and present content plan with resources outlined. your research, plan, and budget. Social media programs require care and feeding. Conversations must be nurtured and followed.   The homework Put together a realistic launch timeline Create an organizational chart of all that allows for iterations of learning.   the different departments or divisions that a social media effort might touch. Identify a monitoring and listening Think HR, PR, legal, marketing, tool to help you regularly report on customer service, and others. Find out and tweak your program. Develop a who else in those departments was mock dashboard for your boss that will issued an edict, and partner with them capture and show key metrics from to share the load. Create a best-practice your social media efforts.   approach to a successful social media Create a set of guiding principles, and program that meets enterprise needs. defend it from the temptations of others Create an audience profile; then spend to use the channels you are so carefully time understanding how your audience crafting as push vehicles for marketing uses the web and social media, and messages. If you have to, distribute what they would find relevant and daily leaflets that state: “Our social valuable associated with your brand or media program is about our customers company. This will form the foundation — not about us.” of your effort. Check out the direct competition in social media as well as others who The conversation share your audience. Find what appears Ask your manager if you can count on to be successful efforts, and try to his support for this effort and budget estimate the effort associated with for at least two years. Social media is their work. Double it — I am certain

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

about building relationships over time, and you don’t want to abandon this prematurely. Ask what he is willing to give. Most often the core elements of the successful programs you found in your homework offered something of value to the audience. Is your company prepared to invest in building a program and offering content, tools, discounts, entertainment, access to other like members, or something else in exchange for goodwill and engagement? Talk goals. Like any other marketing effort, unless you have a road map, you will be forever lost. Insist on defining clear goals for the proposed program well before you talk about any specific tactics.   Remove “viral” from your vocabulary. You can’t reasonably plan to get viral uptake — so don’t plan on it. It is as much a strategy as a lottery ticket is a retirement plan. Lots of smart, relevant, entertaining, and useful content never makes it past a small audience. Set regular check-in meetings where you can discuss the program performance against the goals you set. No boss can fail to be impressed by your preparation and the smart approach you will have outlined. This will balance an urgent request with an action plan that puts business goals and audience needs first. § Robin Neifield is the CEO and cofounder of NetPlus Marketing Inc., a top 50 interactive agency established in 1996 to focus exclusively on online marketing and advertising best practices. Robin brings innovative strategy and a depth and breadth of marketing experience to the agency. She is a frequent speaker at national industry events, including ad:tech, Search Engine Strategies, and Online Marketing Summit, and she is a sought-after resource for industry publications for her insights on digital strategy, social media marketing, and behavioral targeting. @rneifield

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Search Engine Marketing

. s v

Search Marketing

Is it time to go under the hood and remove the “engine” altogether?

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

COVER STORY / FOCUS: the state of search §

he recently released 2010 SEMPO “State of Search Engine Marketing Report” is a whopping 110 pages long. If you want to know what your competitors and colleagues are thinking and doing, it’s a great read, and it could make the difference between success and failure for your campaigns and initiatives this year. The survey report and results were made available at no cost to SEMPO members and those who responded to the survey. In addition, the report can be purchased online, so if you want one you’ll have to decide whether to join SEMPO or, for a bit less money, get the report from Econsultancy. (As a SEMPO board member, you can guess my recommendation.)

Take the ‘engine’ out of SEM

Before looking at some highlights of the report, I’m compelled to rant on an issue that I’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s time we kill the word “engine” in the phrase “search engine marketing.” Why? Many of the forms of search marketing that we as marketers engage in are now independent of the search engine results page (SERP) and even of the search engines themselves. So, we must broaden the definition of search marketing to include all forms of marketing, media, or advertising that capture consumers who have recently expressed either search intent or a desire to learn more about a specific subject or keyword. Every year, more dollars will flow into forms of search marketing that extend beyond the SERP. This of course creates a quandary for the acronym “SEM.” Assuming we want to keep this acronym, we as an industry

How new is the data in the SEMPO report? To avoid any potential confusion, I’d like to point out that due to the timing of the report this year, the SEMPO research committee called it a 2010 report because the data was collected primarily in 2010, unlike prior years when data was gathered late in the year prior to release. However, the longitudinal data is still fairly accurate, even though it looks like SEMPO skipped a year if you look at prior results. It was more of a naming convention.

need to clarify that search engine marketing (SEM) signifies not just pay-per-click How can I purchase the (PPC) search, but is a term that includes all report? forms of search marketing: organic search Those interested in acquiring the 2010 SEMPO engine optimization (SEO), social media State of Search Engine Marketing Report have search marketing, PPC search advertising, two options: directory advertising, Internet yellow page A Join SEMPO advertising, comparison shopping engines, A Purchase it from Econsultancy at search-behavior driven display advertising, http://econsultancy.com/reports/state-of-search video search advertising, and more. Ironically, one of the areas of search boundaries of SEM. Since Google’s Q4 marketing that is perhaps furthest from numbers have been available for a while, it “pure search” is contextual keywordshould come as no surprise that the search driven advertising, something that has been industry (where revenues are made up included by most marketers within the primarily of PPC search advertising) has definition of SEM, mostly due to Google grown, even in 2009, when the economy being the primary supplier of contextual took a severe beating. Paid search wasn’t the text-link, keywordonly form of search driven ad placements marketing to grow, The search industry grew with its AdSense for and — per my earlier the Google Content even in 2009, when many point — because more Network. Western economies took forms of marketing Yet, even in the are being classified a severe beating. instance of AdSense, as search marketing, one can make the arguthe growth came from ment that when advertising is charged on a experimentation in these new areas as well. cost-per-click (CPC) basis, the consumer The key takeaway from SEMPO’s “State has telegraphed search intent based on of Search Engine Marketing Report” is that the combination of context (driven-off the North American search engine marketkeywords, phrases, and concepts) and the ing industry is estimated to grow 14 percent, fact that the consumer chose the ad by clickfrom $14.6 billion in 2009 to $16.6 billion ing on it — thereby demonstrating clear by the end of 2010. Clearly, some of this curiosity about what lies on the other side growth will be accomplished more easily of the ad. because 2009 was a slower year of growth Where does it stop? Should all advertising than prior years (8 percent). that results in curious consumer behavior be Bottom line: if you expect to coast though considered search? Clearly not, and the lines the year with less competition in the paid are going to remain fuzzy for some time, search markets, clearly you are mistaken. particularly given that even printed yellow You had better have your teams and page directories could easily be defined as resources ready. § search marketing under a strict definition of “search.” Kevin Lee, Didit cofounder and executive chairman, has been an On a side note, the day I wrote this acknowledged search engine column, I got an e-mail notification that marketing expert since 1995. His Yahoo is shutting down YPN (Yahoo latest book, “Search Engine AdPublisher Network) — its attempt at a selfvertising,” has been widely serve contextual ad platform for publishers. praised. Industry leadership inI don’t doubt that the upcoming Microsoft cludes being a founding board integration has something to do with this member of SEMPO and its first elected chairman. The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The New York announcement.

Highlights of SEMPO’s annual report

Let’s take a closer look at the SEMPO report that got me thinking about the

Times, USA Today, and other press quote Kevin regularly. He lectures at leading industry conferences, plus New York, Columbia, Fordham, and Pace universities. Kevin earned his MBA from the Yale School of Management in 1992 and lives in Manhattan with his wife and children. @Kevin_Lee_QED

SearchEngineStrategies.com § SES

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SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

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Learn to use all dimensions of search

Social, mobile, local, video, and more: Discover how they’re connected, where search is headed, and where you need to be. Search Engine Strategies Toronto puts you in front of the experts who can help you determine which emerging technologies and channels fit your goals, and which are just hype. Search Engine Strategies is the pioneer of search education. It’s the conference where industry visionaries and leaders gather each year to discuss the newest trends, share insights, and present the strategic action plans you need.

Agenda Thursday, June 10 Track

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

9-10:15a

Conference Welcome & Opening Keynote: Peter Morville, President, Semantic Studios

10:15-11a

Grand Opening of the Expo Hall (open 10a-6p)

11a-12p

SEO Then & Now: What’s the Same? What’s New?

1-2p

Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning, & SEO

2:30-3:30p

Link Building Basics

3:45-5p

Sponsored Session

1:45-2:45p

Introduction to Information Retrieval on the Web

Canada-Specific SEO & PPC Issues

Search Ads & Landing Page Clinic

3:15-4:15p

Search, PR & the Social Butterfly

Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic

Tough Love: Get Your Site Tuned Up!

4:15-5:15p

Track 2

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

Open Mic: Black Hat White Hat — Does it Really Matter Anymore?

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Keynote Speakers

Sponsors & Exhibitors For the most up-to-date list of SES Toronto sponsors and exhibitors, visit SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto

Acquisio Brafton CustomNews gShift Labs LinkWorth Marketwire, Inc. Microsoft presents Bing NVI Outrider Canada Search Engine People Inc. topseos.com Visibility Magazine

Peter Morville

Maile Ohye

President Semantic Studios

Sr. Developer Programs Engineer Google

Peter Morville is acknowledged as a father of information architecture. He has authored the best-selling books, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability. As a key innovator, Peter will be bringing ideas on the changing nature of organic and paid search, ensuring attendees with go away with new strategies for implementing their marketing programs.

As a developer programs tech lead, Maile coordinates Google Webmaster Central outreach efforts, such as the Webmaster Central Blog. Previously, she was a systems integration consultant for several pharmaceutical and technology companies and the Department of Defense. Maile earned a B.A. in cognitive science with a computer science emphasis from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sample Sessions Wednesday, June 9 (training) Thursday, June 10 Partnered training (Bruce Clay): Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Training This course covers SEO methodology, concepts, and strategies, providing the process needed to achieve significant traffic.

Video: The Next Marketing Frontier Video has found its way into the daily routines of most Internet users. This panel will cover the latest developments in video-based marketing, including ad networks, formats, and more.

Partnered training (Page Zero Media): Paid Search Training: Core Concepts + Resources for Relentless Improvement Too many companies fail to capitalize on PPC opportunities. Paid search is highly profitable if fully optimized, but it can also be a ticking time bomb.

Successfully Integrating Search & Social Media With blogs, user-generated content, tweets, and Facebook/LinkedIn profiles ranking highly in Google, what is more important than integrating your search and social media strategies to ensure brand reach, integrity, and of course rankings?

Search Engine Strategies training courses: Google AdWords Tactics to Improve Your ROI Increase your AdWords profitability — we’ll dive into the psychology of search, determine how to choose the correct keywords, and learn how effective ad copy can generate more clicks and increase conversions.

Link Building Basics Discover how search engines rely on link analysis as an important component for ranking web pages. You will also learn how to increase traffic to your site.

Building a Content Strategy to Maximize Your Search & Social Efforts Turn a solid list of targeted keywords into a strategic search and social outreach plan designed to inform, persuade, and ultimately convert your target market.

LEARN MORE

Managing a Global SEO Campaign As the world becomes smaller and search marketing becomes more complex, the era of “ranking well in Google” is over. This session tackles issues critical to successfully developing, optimizing, and managing the global campaigns that will meet next-generation marketing goals, without losing control or your mind.

Friday, June 11 Twitter Nation Learn why subtle, suggestive marketing works best on Twitter — and how to automate effectively. Plus, strategies to outpace your competitors. Introduction to Paid Search Paid placement is a form of search advertising that provides a top ranking in return for payment. Every major search engine offers a paid placement program. Learn what’s available in this session that is especially geared toward beginners, with details from major providers and advice on how to succeed. Canada-Specific SEO & PPC Issues While many SEO matters are common globally, Canadian companies face a unique collection of issues due to our proximity to the United States. Panelists offer a variety of practical approaches to dealing with a host of Canada-specific SEO and PPC challenges. Search Ads & Landing Page Clinic Your ad copy and landing page contents should be aligned for a smooth and profitable visitor experience. This clinic will examine actual ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience.

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SearchEngineStrategies.com ยง SES

§ FOCUS: mobile

Picking the right mobile tactics obile marketing presents a dizzying array of opportunities for brands to invest in, but as any marketer will tell you, the hardest part isn’t deciding whether to do mobile, but what kind of mobile marketing to do. Here’s a cheat sheet on some of the mobile marketing tactics that are available to marketers today.

SMS

By Eric Bader

with rich data about each action. Most importantly, brand marketers shouldn’t just rely on their online site serving the needs of their mobile interactions with consumers. Most online sites look and operate terribly on a mobile browser and can either kill or impede the intended marketing experience for consumers. Unless your site is optimized for the unique dimensions and uses of mobile, it’s generally going to look cluttered, the buttons will be tiny, the pages will be too long and wide, and applications such as Flash won’t work most of the time. Even if it’s just a mobile landing page that handles consumer traffic driven by your mobile advertising, it’s a worthy investment for the benefit of consumer experience, completing the program, and generating valuable user data.

SMS, also known as text messaging, is an excellent way to generate a response from a consumer. Tag your other media with a short code and a keyword, provide a clear message of purpose that motivates the consumer to act, and you’ve got a response, a contest entry, and a name in a database in a just a couple of easy steps. SMS interactions are in real time, at the relevant location, and in Augmented reality context with the message. Augmented reality is one of the newer And no, SMS isn’t “old technology,” technology applications that marketers are in light of all the new mobile technologies being pitched more and more. But it actuthat seemingly launch every week. SMS ally isn’t that new. On TV, for example, can reach nearly every augmented reality is mobile device user used for the first down Most online sites look worldwide. With that markers that you see and operate terribly on ubiquity, along with overlaid on the screen the fact that most during football games. a mobile browser. people text every It’s not really there day with friends and on the field, but it colleagues, you’ve got a proven, easy-to-use enhances the experience for the viewers by channel that produces interactions and valu- mixing real life and computer-generated or able user data with every program. applied information. In mobile, augmented reality is used to overlay information (e.g., data and advertisMobile websites Mobile websites are essential to using ing on top of real-life images). Some uses mobile for brand marketing. Your customers include ways to allow a consumer to use a need some place to land after you’ve engaged camera phone to view a street, for examthem with your message. A well-optimized ple, and an augmented reality application mobile website efficiently moves consumers enhances the view by overlaying contextuto the content or functionality that pays off ally relevant data — information about busithe campaign messaging and allows market- nesses, prices, promotions, and even video ers to complete the loop on the engagement, that refers to what the device is looking at. Augmented reality is compelling because including sales, leads, and a phone call — all it brings together some of the most valuable tactics that marketers want in engagWant to learn more? ing consumers: real-time data, contextual SES Toronto will feature several sessions on relevance, and highly visual communicamobile, including “Augmented Reality: A New tions. But it hasn’t reached critical mass yet World Order.” For more information, visit in terms of how many consumers can and SearchEngineStrategies.com/toronto do use it when it’s made available. In the

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

next year or two, it’s worth marketers’ time to concentrate on how it will move their marketing forward.

Apps

There are merits and limitations to brands offering applications to consumers. Well-developed apps can be immersive and productive for brands, helping to drive brand awareness, interest, and sales. In many cases, consumers demand and expect to see your brand’s app being offered in their app store of choice. But apps are also hard to produce, distribute, and advertise. They require a smart, efficient plan, the right investment in promotion, and frequent updates and upgrades to succeed. Brands must provide apps to each of the major device platforms in order to get reach — notably iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. And if your brand wants to reach consumers globally, consider that Nokia, running the Symbian operating system, still has that largest installed base in the world. Creating apps for each platform can be time-, resource-, and budget-consuming. Also, once you’ve developed and distributed your app, there’s a highly fickle and fragmented audience, divided across the various platforms and devices. Even though billions of apps have been downloaded from app stores by millions of consumers, data shows that most consumers use just a few apps regularly and often drop apps after using them once or twice. Stickiness has to be central to any app marketing plan. Certainly, dozens of other mobile tactics warrant consideration by brand marketers, but as with the ones discussed above, finding the right tactics is a matter of having a detailed strategic plan and a good understanding of the needs and behaviors of your target consumer audiences. § Eric Bader is a partner in BrandInHand, a full-service mobile marketing and media company that serves clients in the consumer goods, financial services, technology, and retail industries. Previously, Bader was managing director of digital at MediaVest Worldwide, head of online enterprises at CSTV Networks (now CBSSports), and executive director of interactive marketing at Ogilvy.

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§ FOCUS: mobile

iPadvertising: What to expect pple’s breakthrough new device, the iPad, came out earlier this month, and a handful of magazine and newspaper publishers are already offering content specifically created for it. While many uncertainties surround the iPad, here is what we do know: A small number of large publishers offered iPad versions of their content during the week that the device launched. One example is Hearst’s iPad version of the April issue of Esquire. These publishers will charge for this content. Some will charge a single download fee, while others will offer a subscription package. But make no mistake: Content is not going to be free here. These publications will be ad supported, and the ads will take advantage of the inherent interactivity and connectivity of the iPad. Publishers are selling these ads based on a model that Although just 21 percent of borrows more U.S. wireless subscribers from print than were using smartphones in from online. They Q4 2009, Nielsen predicts are selling space these will surpass “feature in publication, phones” by Q3 2011. Source: The Nielsen Company not impressions.

21% A

For more details, check out ClickZ Stats.

Right now, no one really knows how many people will see the ads or interact with them. But, something just feels right about selling advertising on iPad content this way. I think it has to do with how people will think about the device and what it means to them personally.

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

Visit vs. own

By Gary Stein

You visit a website, but you own a magazine. Or you get a newspaper. Whatever the verb, there is some sense of “having” when you deal with content in the real world that has always been lacking in the online space. The great hope of the iPad — and the other devices that will follow it — is that it will bridge the incredible power of having content digitally, with the incredible satisfaction of having your content with you. This gets us into a place where we can Behavioral advertising will get a begin to imagine what advertising will come massive boost. The power of the to look and feel like within the context of mobile format, coupled with the these devices. I am sure that not all of the integration with a device you always have, will present a treasure trove of advertiser/publisher relationships will look data to the behavioral targeting guys, like they do now, at launch. But there are and they will generate some great new some things we can understand and expect: stuff. There will be free content, and that Ad networks will emerge, modeled content will have ads. It simply must. after the ad networks There will be that connect games. publishers that The great hope of the Since much content either want to will be downloaded give their work iPad is that it will bridge and installed, a out without an the power of seeing network that will initial charge, or there will be content digitally with the allow a single advertiser to put an ad publishers who satisfaction of “having” into many different want to challenge spaces will be the big guys, and your content with you. necessary. will do so with the content model The one other thing, though, is that we that we have come to expect online. don’t quite know what we’ll see. This is a There will be interactivity in the new device. I don’t know if it deserves the ads, but not the way we’re used to. Because the iPad won’t do Flash, there triple scoop of hype that it received, but it will have to be some workarounds. definitely will introduce some new thinking Interactive ads will need to be around what an ad is, as well as what online programmed from scratch, using and offline is. And what fixed and mobile is. Apple’s software development kit, or Which means that somewhere, someone is (potentially) created using HTML5. coming up with a completely new model. § But, soon we can expect that the companies that have built efficiencies Gary Stein is VP of strategy for around the creation of interactive ads Ammo Marketing. He has been online will apply their thinking to the working in interactive advertising iPad. for nearly a decade. Gary lives in Contextual advertising will find its San Francisco with his family. @garyst3in way in.

SearchEngineStrategies.com ยง SES

§ FOCUS: measurement

Call tracking simplified

By Kathleen Colan

any marketers are frus- was placed in a campaign ad and calls were trated with the current, reported from a simple detail report. In the limited methods of analyz- past, there was a disconnect between visitor ing and measuring online behaviors and phone calls that resulted in an to offline (web to phone) action to the actual sale. Today, this gap has been bridged. Over the conversions. They believe today’s technology cannot deliver a complete picture past two years, the call tracking industry has of actual sales-ready leads, and this won’t worked to develop tools that integrate their justify online ad spending. Without call systems with popular online paid search tracking, there’s no easy way to understand services, such as Google AdWords, Microwhich online marketing efforts are driving soft AdCenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing, thus displaying data in a familiar, easy-tophone calls. Call tracking allows businesses to calcu- read format. The goal of these integrations late success for every form of advertising. is to layer actionable call tracking data into With call tracking, marketers now have existing business processes and systems. Now, integrated data can be related an increasingly powerful tool to not only directly to the behavmeasure — but also ior, page, or ad that analyze — offline Call tracking illuminates drove the call. Addiconversions in an effort which campaigns, tionally, data can be to more effectively determine success and keywords, and marketing consolidated into the most popular reportmake informed spendtactics are driving calls. ing environments used ing decisions. by marketers, reducResearch indicates that 46 percent of local online searchers ing the learning curve substantially. Studcontacted a business by telephone follow- ies indicate marketers achieve leveraged ing their web research (TMP Directional and gain through integration. These include web analytics packages, bid management softComScore Study, summer 2009). ware, and customer relationship management (CRM) software. What is call tracking? With integration into reporting and CRM Call tracking is the ability to trace phone calls back to the person calling you, as well as environments, the offline conversion data their buying behaviors. You can account for can be compared against other marketing the marketing effort that led each consumer channels for maximum utility. Integration to call you, whether it’s your website, e-mail brings measurement, and measurement campaign, print ad, or television spot. As an brings clarity surrounding online perforexample, every time an online advertisement mance and future spending, as well as decidelivers a phone call, the call is recorded, sions around content and design. Basic questions that all Internet marketing traced back to the web visitor’s actions, and then logged into real-time, detailed reports managers have, such as, “Which keywords such as Google Analytics or Omniture Site drove calls?” and “How many units were sold as a result of my online paid search Catalyst. This allows businesses to optimize their spending?” and “What pages are causing an marketing activities for those methods that action to occur?” can finally be answered. With the advancements in call-trackgenerate the highest quality conversions ing technology and industry integration compared to guessing on the outcome. The advertising industry maxim is that 50 into third-party systems, Internet marketpercent of ad spending is wasted on leads ers finally have the tools to tie together a complete picture surrounding their online that do not convert into sales. Call tracking supplies clients with reliable, paid search spending and the resulting offline clear, and actionable data encompassing the call performance. Having clarity surroundentire sales cycle from customer brows- ing your marketing performance equates ing through completed sale. For example, to better spending decisions and ultimately call tracking illuminates which campaigns, higher returns on marketing dollars. keywords, and marketing tactics are driving calls and, more importantly, which calls are How call tracking works generating revenue — online and offline. It’s much more than recording the number of calls received. The call tracking software is part of a sophisticated marketing methodThe history of call tracking Traditional call tracking services have ology that ties results directly to costs and been around for more than 10 years. Only gives clients accurate, real-time campaign recently has call tracking moved beyond the effectiveness figures. Call tracking allocates a discrete phone traditional service where a tracking number

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

number — local or toll-free — for each unique source you want to track. These tracking sources can be keywords, affiliate IDs, search engines, or any other identifiers. When a visitor arrives at your site, the software conducts a dynamic lookup to determine which phone number is associated with the visitor’s origin page. That phone number is allocated and then cookied within the visitor’s browser. As a result, call tracking gives clients actionable data that allows them to optimize PPC campaigns, SEO, and other offline marketing efforts. Instead of associating a phone number with a particular campaign, ad group, or keyword, call tracking assigns a tracking number to each unique visitor session. By tracking each unique visitor, clients are able to see granular data associated with the call. Call data is then logged into a central database system that can also export the collected data directly into many popular web analytics programs. Additionally, reports can be exported into a spreadsheet or XML feed. Clients looking for even more granular data can integrate call tracking directly into their CRM database using the API feature. Some popular analytics packages that complement call tracking include Google Analytics, Webtrends, Omniture, and Coremetrics. Key benefits of call tracking include: Optimizing online campaigns: Know which campaigns, keywords, and marketing tactics drive callers — and whether those calls generate revenue, offline or online. Improve site design: Understand which pages drive calls. Customers may be confused, and there may be opportunities for site usability improvement. Save money: Find new ways to more effectively close business online and reduce call volume. Save time: Integrated reporting environments save time in analysis by consolidating call information with analytics, CRM, and bid management providers. § Kathleen Colan is a professional, freelance journalist and director of marketing and content for Mongoose Metrics, an enterprise-level call tracking solutions provider based in Cleveland. She writes about web analytics and general lifestyle topics for newspapers, magazines, and websites. She is confident that call tracking technology will put the final nail in the coffin of traditional media. Learn more about her at www. kathleencolan.com.

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§ FOCUS: customer service

4 ways to waste even more time on client reports By Marc Poirier So you’re finding the month-end reporting process too easy, huh? Let me introduce your agency to some great new ways to waste even more of your disposable time in the never-ending quest to provide all of your clients with their monthly reports as late and creatively as possible. That way you look like you’re working hard.

Reports are your last priority. Of course! That’s why you should only start working on them once clients threaten to hold payment. In fact, the best approach is to learn to send the report just before the threat comes in. That always works to diffuse the anger (because nobody likes an angry client). Now if the client threatens to walk away, don’t worry. You told them you’re the only expert in town, and they could never possibly consider bringing this stuff in-house. True story: I’ve heard of agencies that actually stopped reporting altogether, mostly because the girl who took care of it left the company (because, apparently, she was overly stimulated with all the Excel innovation opportunities she was given). And when you get on the path of making clients wait for their reports, another side effect is that you start having less reports to do, because you have less clients to serve. Yep. Pretty soon, it’s retirement.

Get everyone involved. Just like meetings, reporting is so much better when everyone has something to do with it. First, you have to get the interns to fetch the data. Everyone knows these young

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SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

interns are experts at lesser tasks (as one of our own interns says, he is the lesser task overlord). It makes them feel great to do loads of meaningless work that could probably be done by robots. Why is that? They’re probably afraid robots could actually steal their jobs, so they’re all about those lesser tasks. Bring it! But interns are just one part of the equation. You always need a great copywriter to explain away discrepancies, why the reports took so long to get out, and why you still aren’t working on those text ads and new landing pages you promised four months ago. The role of the copywriter here is to create the illusion that writing new text ads is a long, intellectual exercise that only the elite can perform. And if it takes months, well then it just goes to show that the value is much higher. Also, be sure to use them to notify your clients that you have to increase your fees yet again, because hiring all these interns is costly (but don’t call them interns in front of your clients; the term “data analysts” is much more conducive to getting paid). Next, throw in a great designer to lay out each client’s report into an original design that is unique to each client, and unique to each report. Always create something new. That way, the clients will feel like you pay attention to detail. Last in line is the analyst. You know, that evil geek who wants to do his own copywriting, and get a platform to replace some of the interns and eliminate the designer. Come to think of it, maybe you don’t need an analyst. Just hire three more interns and increase your fees. (Use the copywriter for that again. See? More money!)

Use your clients’ goals as an exercise in memory development. An excellent way to develop

your pay-per-click mnemonic skills is by trying to memorize everything you ever said to all of your clients, and everything they say to you, including all their KPIs and business goals for the month. Make a song out of it. Even better, try to visualize them — imagine your client’s face with a huge $55 CPA tattoo on their forehead. Then, each time you need to start writing a report, use those skills to compare what you’ve achieved to what they expected. Not only does this help develop your memory, but it’s also a fantastic way to explain away discrepancies between what the client actually remembers (“this month we have to break even”) and what you remember (“this month we have to spend three times more than the month before”). Blame it on the client’s memory, and suggest that they practice a little more mnemonics themselves. Calculators (and mental gymnastics) are your friend. Keep pulling out your trusty old calculator every month, and punch in those formulas for all your calculated metrics. It’s even better if you can do the math in your head. Don’t bother getting “organized” with any campaign management platforms (remember job solidarity?). Besides, you took accounting in high school. Calculators are always right, and they cost next to nothing. Maybe you should get a backup in case you spill coffee on your old TI. §

Marc Poirier is a professional search engine marketing expert with more than a decade of experience in the search industry. He is co-founder and CMO of Acquisio, where he leads all marketing activities. Previously, Marc was founder and president at Canalytics, a boutique SEM and SEO agency that’s one of the world’s most active Google Analytics authorized consultancies.

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§ FOCUS: user-generated content

No one cares about your products o one cares about your products. That was the message that really hit me at the recent Search Engine Strategies event in New York. The message was delivered by keynote speaker and bestselling author David Meerman Scott, writer of the new book “World Wide Rave.” While sentiment isn’t really revolutionary, the profound truth of it is probably more relevant than any time in the past. Let me tell you a story. My friend Greg and I had been talking all week about getting some good pizza in the big city. This is no easy task. If you look at virtually any online map, it’s very clear that Manhattan is infested with pizza places. If you’re only going to eat pizza one night, choosing the “best” place is daunting. Actually, for the last couple years during SES New York, I simply glanced at Google Maps’ first page of results and selected the location with the best (and most) comments. For two years in a row that was John’s Pizzeria. It currently has 234 reviews listed in Google, with an average of three and a half stars. But it’s not the stars that kept me coming back. It was the actual comments people left, such as: § The BEST...Hands down. By Kelly - Mar 2, 2010 This is the best pizza in NY. If not the entire world. I have tried them all and this is the WINNER. § John’s Pizzeria - Fantastic By A TripAdvisor Member - Jan 15, 2010 We went there for dinner 3 times during our holiday in New York and the food and the service were consistently excellent and we just wish we had gone there every evening! Definitely try it out!!!! § gorgeous By A TripAdvisor Member - Jan 7, 2010 the doorman at our hotel recommended to go here for some good pizza. we weren’t disappointed, the first night we went we were

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

By Sage Lewis

of the city. And you know what? Those anonymous reviewers I’ve never met in my life once again did not disappoint. The place rocked. But here’s where the story gets interestThat’s all I needed to hear. These people came to New York with endless choices of ing. I asked Greg if he went to Keste’s Web site. His answer was, restaurants, and they “I accidentally clicked went to John’s PizzeUser-generated on it. But it was all ria multiple times. I reviews and blog posts Flash and annoying, so went once and loved I just backed out and it. The next year I increasingly dominate got back to Google.” brought a party of the top results for your This interested me 10 people there. And brand name. to no end. As I thought they loved it. The user about how David reviews were spot on. This year I thought it would be fun to try Meerman Scott said no one cares about your something different. Greg dug a little deeper product, I realized there is transformation into the results and came up with Keste happening. People don’t care what you say about your Pizzeria & Vino. Granted, it “only” had 36 reviews, compared to John’s 234. But its products. They want to know what other overall rating was a solid four out of five people say about your products. If we don’t realize this, I believe our stars. But that wasn’t what pushed him to select this place. Check out some of these websites will become obsolete. People simply won’t go to your site reviews: because they know it’s just filled with puffery, marketing-speak, and straight-up mean§ Bellissimo!! ingless content. By TheBigOne - Jan 17, 2010 Another quote I got from David Meerman Took my fiancee there tonight. We are both ‘hardcore’ foodies. VERY friendly staff. Scott was, “Stop talking about the product. Service was great. Pizzas were some of the Talk about the people who are buying the best I have ever had. Cooked to perfection. product.” If you want to have any relevance in the Ingredients tasted extremely fresh. conversation that is going on about your brand, you would do well giving your pros§ Best Pizza - ever! pects some straight-up truth about who you By msasala - Nov 29, 2009 We ate lunch there today — it was by far the are and what you sell. All of this is reflected in the search engine best meal we have had in NYC! We remembered Roberto from when he was in Pitts- results. User-generated reviews and blog burgh and made sure to stop by. It was so posts increasingly dominate the top results for your brand name. We all need to be thinkgood! ing of off-site optimization in this brave new world of search engine optimization, in the § The pizza is delicious, refreshingly... second decade of the 21st century. § By TonyB1196736 - Aug 7, 2009 different and indisputably authentic. The Sage Lewis is the president of reasonably priced wine list (of wines that are SageRock Digital Marketing. He actually good on their own and as complespeaks nationally with Search Enments to the meal) and the interesting selecgine Strategies and other web tion of beers make Keste a standout lunch or marketing organizations. From casual dinner destination. coast to coast, Sage has trained, seated in the first part of the restaurant and didn’t realise how big it was until we went back the 2nd time.

This looked like an underground treasure

coached, and consulted with some of the largest brands and conferences in the country. @sagerock

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§ FOCUS: international

Managing global websites ttendees from a recent SES event asked me to write a quick primer on how to effectively manage global search programs. Managing global sites across dozens of markets is a complex process and can’t be summed up in a single article; the following are the key elements essential to the success of any global program.

Have an executive sponsor

By Bill Hunt

don’t coordinate and rally all their web and search efforts around the world. Bring all of the roles together. Many of these people have never worked together, or even met, but their combined efforts will make the site a better search and consumer experience. Set up a meeting or meetings, and notify all the marketing, sales, technology, communications, and brand teams around the world about it, and then get your executive sponsor to “encourage” them to attend. Once they do, you’ll find people already working or interested in search all around the world.

The right executive sponsor is always one of the key factors to success. The executive sponsor has to strike fear in the hearts Leverage force multipliers and minds of the local market partners, but These are things you do once that impact also must be a mediator and problem solver. all the sites. Often the easiest and most effecMany times you need help from other areas, tive activity is to make your site templates which requires the right level of manage- search-friendly and then push those optiment savvy to motivate them to participate. mized templates out to all of the countries. Ideally, this should be the global CEO In many cases, these templates will or CMO because they have near perfect have the authority on-page optimizaThe combined efforts of over the geographies. tion elements, thereby your employees from In many cases, the eliminating the need around the globe will make for those efforts in executive sponsor is in the HQ market and the site a better search and countries. This is helpconsumer experience. has no operational or ful in markets where fiscal responsibility for there are no web the global outcome, which marginalizes his resources or budgets to make search-related ability to motivate and/or force deployment. changes. Building on optimized templates and integration of search best practices into the Develop a search center of localization process can help with econoexcellence (COE) mies of scale and reduction of costs. Larger The search center of excellence (COE) should focus on improving the content companies use keyword research and creation workflow practices, compliance searcher demand to help prioritize content. For example, one large multinational levels, uniform best practices, policies, recently used global keyword research to awareness, and measurement across the program. It’s also highly focused on building see what phrases globally had the higha culture of search marketing excellence that est demand across the most countries. This will have a measurable impact on the bottom allowed them to reuse content more effecline. Your COE should bring together varied tively by multiple countries rather than each people and skills that promote collaboration doing their own localization and duplicating and best practice usage to drive incremental efforts. business results. I’m always amazed when companies

Want to learn more? SES Toronto will feature several sessions on international campaign management, including “Managing a Global SEO Campaign.” To learn more, visit

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SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

Manage local sites with Google Webmaster Tools

If you haven’t done so already, and especially if you deploy a dot-com portal for your global site, it’s critical you set Google’s geographical targeting. This Webmaster Tools feature will allow you to tell Google that content segments of your site are for a

specific country. Set up a master global account and manage it centrally, so that you know it has been set correctly, and also monitor messages and performance globally.

Measure performance with scorecards

Global scorecards are an effective way to “motivate” local managers to participate in your search efforts. These can be as simple as monitoring traffic and/or ranking performance and encouraging improvement to specific goals and objectives that everyone is measured against. One of my favorite scorecards that we used at Global Strategies was called the “Always On Scorecard.” It mandated, for a set number of words, that each market/ brand needed to either maintain a top five organic listing or ensure they had allocated sufficient paid search budget to achieve 80 percent share of voice in paid search impressions/clicks. This scorecard ensured that the most important words were “always represented” when someone searched. When set up correctly, each country could choose their own keyword phrases for the program, but the same number of words in each market allowed for uniform measurement. This sort of scorecard methodology fosters a workflow management focusing on highest value keywords and pages first resulting in a monthly to-do list of pages to be audited for optimization or addition to a PPC campaign. It’s a lot of work to manage a global program, but the more you can make it uniform, measure it, and provide best practices to markets with little to no resources, you will have greater opportunities for success. § Bill Hunt is considered a top thought leader on global search engine marketing and social media. Corporate leaders frequently seek his advice. Bill was previously CEO of two of the largest global search marketing firms, Global Strategies and Outrider, both of which were acquired by WPP. He grew both companies, oversaw global expansion, and provided strategic search marketing services for Fortune 100 companies. Bill is on the board of directors of SEMPO and is a veteran of the Marine Corps. @billhunt

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glossary advertising network: A service where ads are bought centrally through one company, and displayed on multiple websites that contract with that company for a share of revenue generated by ads served on their site. algorithm: The technology that a search engine uses to deliver results to a query. Search engines utilize several algorithms in tandem to deliver a page of search results or keyword-targeted search ads. anchor text: The clickable text part of a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is about. click through rate (CTR): The rate (expressed in a percentage) at which users click on an ad. This is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the total number of ad impressions. CTR is an important metric for Internet marketers to measure the performance of an ad campaign. content network: A group of websites that agree to show ads on their site, served by an ad network, in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads. Examples include Google AdSense or the Yahoo Publisher Network. contextual advertising: Advertising that is targeted to a web page based on the page’s content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content networks are targeted contextually. cost per action (CPA): A form of advertising where payment is dependent upon an action that a user performs as a result of the ad. The action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or asking for a follow-up call. An advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher based on the number of visitors who take action. Many affiliate programs use the CPA model. cost per click (CPC): Also called pay-per-click (PPC). A performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for every click on an ad. The majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed under the CPC model. cost per thousand (CPM): An ad model that charges advertisers every time an ad is displayed to a user, whether the user clicks on the ad or not. The fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions (M is the Roman numeral for 1,000). Most display ads, such as banner ads, are sold by CPM. geo-targeting: Delivery of ads specific to the geographic location of the searcher. Geo-targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or won’t be shown based on the searcher’s location, enabling more localized and personalized results. Googlebot: Google uses several user-agents to crawl and index content in the Google.com search engine. Googlebot describes all Google spiders. All Google bots begin with “Googlebot”;

SES § May 2010 {Toronto preview}

Below you will find commonly-used terms that every search marketer should know. Keep this list handy! A

for example, Googlebot-Mobile: crawls pages for Google’s mobile index; Googlebot-Image: crawls pages for Google’s image index. inbound link: An inbound link is a hyperlink to a particular web page from an outside site, bringing traffic to that web page. Inbound links are an important element that most search engine algorithms use to measure the popularity of a web page. invisible web: A term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that isn’t indexed by search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth. keyword: A word or phrase entered into a search engine in an effort to get the search engine to return matching and relevant results. Many websites offer advertising targeted by keywords, so an ad will only show when a specific keyword is entered. link bait: Editorial content, often sensational in nature, posted on a web page and submitted to social media sites in hopes of building inbound links from other sites. Or, as Matt Cutts of Google says, “something interesting enough to catch people’s attention.” link building: The process of getting quality websites to link to your websites, in order to improve search engine rankings. Link building techniques can include buying links, reciprocal linking, or entering barter arrangements. meta tags: Information placed in the HTML header of a web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers, but can be used in varying degrees by search engines to index a page. Common meta tags used in search engine marketing are title, description, and keyword tags. pay per click (PPC): See cost per click (CPC). quality score: A score assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad’s clickthrough rate, analyzing the relevance of the landing page, and considering other factors used to determine the quality of a site and reward those of higher quality with top placement and lower bid requirements. Some factors that make up a quality score are historical keyword performance, the quality of an ad’s landing page, and other undisclosed attributes. All of the major search engines now use some form of quality score in their search ad algorithm. return on investment (ROI): The amount of money an advertiser earns from their ads compared to the amount of money the advertiser spends on their ads. search advertising: Also called paid search. An advertiser bids for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed

above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link. search engine marketing (SEM): The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising, or paid search. search engine optimization (SEO): The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases. search engine results pages (SERPs): The page searchers see after they’ve entered their query into the search box. This page lists several web pages related to the searcher’s query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs. social media: A category of sites based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del. icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction. spider: A search engine spider is a program that crawls the web, visiting web pages to collect information to add to or update a search engine’s index. The major search engines on the web all have such a program, which is also known as a “crawler” or a “bot.” title tag: An HTML meta tag with text describing a specific web page. The title tag should contain strategic keywords for the page, since many search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing pages. The title tag should also make sense to humans, since it is usually the text link to the page displayed in search engine results. universal search: Also known as blended, or federated search results, universal search pulls data from multiple databases to display on the same page. Results can include images, videos, and results from specialty databases like maps and local information, product information, or news stories. web 2.0: A term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies.

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