SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

January 9, 2009

SEW Experts: PPC Landing Pages: Surprising Examples

It's time to kick off the New Year by looking at examples of good and bad combinations of PPC ads and their landing pages. In today's Profitable PPC column, "PPC Landing Pages: Surprising Examples," David Szetela looks at some real-world examples to see what they're doing right, and what they're doing wrong.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 16, 2008

SEW Experts: Making the Most of Search Engine Copywriting

Whether it's organic page titles and meta descriptions or PPC ads, it's your job, as someone who's seeking a conversion, to deliver what you promised. In today's small business search engine marketing column, "Making the Most of Search Engine Copywriting," Carrie Hill explains that small business owners must be aware of what their ad copy promises, and how they deliver on those promises.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 11, 2008

SEW Experts: Dynamic Keyword Insertion: Friend or Foe?

Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) can sometimes help improve ad campaign results. But you'd be surprised how often it's a bad move.In today's Profitable PPC column, "Dynamic Keyword Insertion: Friend or Foe?," David Szetela shows that indiscriminate use of DKI can result in generic ad copy and diluted messages that fail to match the searcher's intent or need.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 7, 2008

SEW Experts: PPC Advertising: Art or Science?

Pay-per-click advertising is 10 percent art, and 90 percent science. In today's debut Profitable PPC column, "PPC Advertising: Art or Science?," David Szetela begins showing you the fundamentals and secrets of successful PPC advertising in his new weekly search advertising series.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2008

Obama Needs You! Obama Campaign Endorses Search Engine Watch Jobs Board

Barack Obama needs internet marketers to win the Presidential Election. So his campaign wisely advertised on the Search Engine Watch Jobs Board.

You know Obama Rocks the Youth Vote but he's not stopping at the primaries. Here are the first two requirements for joining the Obama internet revolution:

We're looking for internet experts who strongly support Barack Obama for President and have expertise in one or more of:

* Search Engine Marketing * Search Engine Optimization

You can check out the full requirements for the Obama For America internet marketing gigs here. Note: This is a short-term gig. There's no guarantee this will turn into a Cabinet-level position.

But wouldn't it be great if the new President named a couple Joint Chiefs of the Internet? After all, Secretary of the World Wide Web doesn't sound like much fun.

Or how about Internet General?

Yeah, we like the sound of that.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 24, 2007

Search & Outdoor: Separated at Birth?

Apparently SEM is not so different from outdoor advertising -- you know, billboards and such. At least that's what Intrapromote's Eric Dafforn writes in his latest ClickZ column, What SEM Can Learn from Outdoor Advertising.

Dafforn asked his friend and Clear Channel Outdoor exec Brent Bolick to share high-level strategies for outdoor, and found them to be strikingly similar to those of search marketing. They include:

  • Keep It Simple
  • Give Your Message Time To Sink In
  • Maintain Your Message, But Change Its Delivery

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:25 AM | Permalink

January 19, 2007

The Sweet Smell of Search?

In his latest column at ClickZ, Kevin Lee explains the concept of "search scent," which illustrates that humans forage for information on the Internet in much the same way animals follow scent and visual cues to find food. Scent is essentially an application of user interface optimization best practices, and some of the bigger elements affecting search scent include ad creative and landing page optimization.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:51 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2006

Branding Buys in the Social Whirl

Maybe it's time to consider brand-oriented SEM buys.

We know that Gen Yers embrace brands within social environments like MySpace and Facebook. According to MediaBuyerPlanner, advertisers don't have to come up with breakthrough experiences anymore. They can sell products laden with celebrity contests, just like other media.

It wasn't long ago that advertisers were nervous about appearing next to content they could not control, and that's changing now. Reaching a mass audience is more important in the new social whirl.

What does this mean for SEM buys? Consider making more broad-based, message buys to dominate specific domains or communities. Right alongside those banners and social site profiles.

Posted by at 3:00 PM | Permalink

October 28, 2006

Mazda 'Craves' Clicks From Honda

Pontiac had a much celebrated TV ad in which the viewer was invited to “Google” its then-new Solstice convertible, but an ad for Mazda came up among the sponsored links. Here's Danny's earlier post on that episode. Now Mazda is at it again with its new CX-7.

Honda has mounted a clever user-generated content campaign (from RPA) for the newly redesigned CR-V. It also involves search (as well as traditional media). The name of the campaign is "Crave."

I just discovered that when you plug in the word "Crave" into 'The Google', you see the Honda campaign ad at the top of the page, but also an ad on the right for the new Mazda CX-7, inviting comparison:

CRaVe Mazda CX-7 Discover the 2007 Mazda CX-7. The SUV You Never Saw Coming™! MazdaCX-7Info.com

This hasn't made its way yet to Yahoo. This tactic, intended to intercept and divert potential CR-V buyers, is identical to the Miata vs. Pontiac Solstice strategy used before.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:47 PM | Permalink

January 23, 2006

How to Handle Yahoo's Shorter Ad Descriptions

Last week, shorter ads descriptions came to Yahoo as Danny points out in this post. To assist with the change, Kevin Lee's column on the Clickz site: Strategies for Yahoo's Shorter Descriptions, offers some suggestions and tactics for SEM's on how to handle the new ad lengths.

Here are a few key points, in my view, from Kevin's column:

+ Don't simply clone your Google ads to Yahoo. Why? Any changes result in the ads going back through Yahoo!'s dreaded editorial process. So first, evaluate if the truncated ads continue to communicate your advertising message appropriately. Many advertisers write their descriptions in an inverted pyramid format, so truncation may not be a big deal because the meat of the message is in the first few words.

+ Yahoo and Google campaign structures are "likely very different." Though you may rely on Google campaigns running on broad or phrase match, Yahoo! creative and keyword lists may need to go much deeper. In addition, unless you really want the highest possible volume of clicks from a listing, your ad creative may be better served with a clear message about the product or service you provide. In Google, less-than-compelling ad creative is penalized with a lower quality score. That results in a lower position or more expensive campaign.

Finally: Another reason to keep Yahoo! titles at the maximum length is that often, additional length allows you to more effectively communicate your value to potential customers. On the other hand, you may have already created compact ad titles that communicate with the same level of clarity as longer ones do. Google and MSN forced many of us to become experts at compact communication.

Much more in Kevin's excellent column.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:52 PM | Permalink

October 17, 2005

Good Clickthroughs Like Getting An Ad Discount

Brand Discounts at the Major Engines has Kevin Lee talking about a brand discount, but don't get excited that big brands are somehow overtly getting cheaper ads. What he's pointing out is that both Google and Ask Jeeves reward ads with good clickthrough, as I wrote about last week. You can potentially rank higher even if others are willing to pay more. MSN is to do the same, and it's widely expected Yahoo will follow as well next year.

So what's the brand discount concept? If you're a big brand, when your product goes against unknown products, people might be more inclined to click on your ads since you'll be familiar to them. If clickthrough rises, your cost per click might be able to drop without hurting your ranking.

Not a big brand? Have good creative, and you can reap the clickthrough reward, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:42 PM | Permalink

October 4, 2005

Mastering Google AdWords

Google likes everyone to believe that using AdWords is a snap, requiring no more than five minutes and a credit card to get going. Seasoned search marketers know otherwise, understanding that creating a sponsored link is just one small aspect of managing a successful AdWords campaign.

Now we've got an excellent guide to AdWords written by Andrew Goodman, who's both an expert with the program on behalf of his search marketing clients, but also an astute and acerbic observer of Google's business practices. His new book gives us a concentrated dose of experience and insights that make a fascinating and highly valuable read. I've got a review of Andrew's new book in today's SearchDay article, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Google AdWords.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:00 AM | Permalink

August 4, 2005

Phase 2 of Longer AdWords Text Beta Begins

In the SEW Forums, moderator OptimizeOnline posts about Google beginning the second phase of a beta test allowing longer descriptions in AdWords on the Google Network

RustyBrick summarizes: Basically, Google AdWords will up the description character limit to 200 and then test the CTR rates of those ads versus the original ads. OptimizeOnline says that some advertisers will be invited to "beta test in mid-August and may continue it into October." The only variable that will be changed in these tests are the ad descriptions, the "the title, display URL, and destination URL of the ad will remain the same."

Posted by Gary Price at 2:53 PM | Permalink

May 30, 2005

Looking At Google's In-House Ad "Poets"

Spotted via Search Engine Lowdown, Search-Related Ads Rely on Poetry of Words, Numbers from the LA Times (free reg. required) looks at Google's in-house team of "maximizers" who work with clients to improve ad copy and performance.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:38 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2005

Got Good Rep? Strut That In Your Search Ads

Give Your PPC Ad "Authority" and your CTR will skyrocket from Search Engine Guide has some nice advice on ensuring your play up your company's reputation in ads as a means of increasing clickthrough.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:56 AM | Permalink

December 22, 2004

Copywriting For Search Ads

Kevin Lee's got a two-parter at ClickZ on writing copy for search ads. PPC Search Copywriting Strategies, Part 1 looks at the importance of keywords in the title and description, while PPC Search Copywriting Strategies, Part 2 looks at crafting compelling copy, such as price points and "power" words, along with other tips.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:20 PM | Permalink

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