SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

September 18, 2008

SEW Experts: 5 Million Users Hate the New Facebook? No Problem

Facebookers are annoyed that their beloved social network implemented a new design. But will their annoyance outweigh the value they get from using the product? In today's building brand equity column, "5 Million Users Hate the New Facebook? No Problem," Erik Qualman considers whether Facebook's brand will be damaged, or emerge stronger than ever.

» Full story

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

September 4, 2008

SEW Experts: (Google) Insights on VP Candidate Sarah Palin

The recently announced Google Insights tool provides unprecedented data on Google's user searches and trends. In today's building brand equity column, "(Google) Insights on VP Candidate Sarah Palin," Erik Qualman offers three quick tips on how to leverage Google Insights, whether you're running a Presidential race or a brand marketing campaign.

» Full story

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

August 7, 2008

SEW Experts: Avoiding Online Missteps with Generation Y and Millenniums

Often, millions of dollars are spent on tailoring a marketing message to a youth audience, and not enough is spent to tailor the actual product or service we're delivering. In today's building brand equity column, "Avoiding Online Missteps with Generation Y and Millenniums," Erik Qualman explains that marketers need only look to the simplicity of Facebook and Craigslist to see that success with young people doesn't need to come in a fancy package.

» Full story

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

June 27, 2008

SEW Experts: Creative Messaging in a Direct Response World

Should a company focus on building their messaging around their brand image, or on driving direct response via their Web site and online media? In today's Vertical Search column, "Creative Messaging in a Direct Response World," local search expert Gregg Stewart shows that branding and direct response messaging can co-exist online, and local business profile pages are a good place to meld writing techniques for both.

» Full story

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

June 10, 2008

SEW Experts: The Big Picture -- Well-Rounded SEM for SMBs, Part 2

There are many different elements a small business can use to put together a well rounded online marketing campaign. When it comes to marketing your small business, the key is keeping your mind open to the possibilities -- you never know where the next big thing will be. In today's Small Business Search Marketing column, "The Big Picture -- Well-Rounded SEM for SMBs, Part 2," Carrie Hill looks at tactics for branding, reputation management, social networking, viral marketing, images, and videos.

» Full story

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

December 13, 2007

SEW Experts: Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 3

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, Eric Qualman discussed why you want to buy your brand search terms and how to properly measure them. In today's Brand Equity column, "Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 3," Qualman explores the intricacies of the ongoing maintenance/optimization of your brand terms.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 29, 2007

SEW Experts: Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we showed you how to convince your executives to buy your own brand terms, even when you already rank first organically for these terms. Now the question is: How do I properly manage and measure my paid brand terms? In today's Brand Equity column, "Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 2," Erik Qualman shows you why dumping these terms into your portfolio is not a wise move. See how to prevent brand terms from covering up weakness in other areas.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 15, 2007

SEW Experts: Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 1

Whether you're an agency, consultant, or in-house search expert, it's likely that you will eventually need to answer this key question from your CEO: "Why would I buy my own brand terms? Aren't we are already listed at the top of the search engines?" In the inaugural Brand Equity column, "Brand Strategies for Search Marketing - Part 1," Travelzoo's Erik Qualman shows how paid search can bring incremental traffic, control of your brand's messaging, and other benefits the CEO will appreciate.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 30, 2007

SEW Experts: SME Brand Strategy: SEM Tactics, Tips, and Tricks, Part 2

Is building a small business brand online impossible? Not when all forms of online media are converging under search. In today's Little Biz column, "SME Brand Strategy: SEM Tactics, Tips, and Tricks, Part 2," Carrie Hill tells you what to do next once you have a memorable brand. How do you get people to notice it?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 16, 2007

SEW Experts: SME Brand Strategy: SEM Tactics, Tips, and Tricks, Part 1

They said it couldn't be done. You can't build your brand online with search marketing tactics. In today's Little Biz column, "SME Brand Strategy: SEM Tactics, Tips, and Tricks, Part 1," Carrie Hill debunks that myth with tips and tricks to prove them wrong.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 5, 2007

Super Bowl Ads – Where's the URL?

There have been some good reviews of this year's always-anticipated Super Bowl ad crop, but this article will identify the “URL visibility factor” for the ads, based on the use of the Web address of their Web site within the commercial, spoken or displayed. For any that did not get to watch the commercials, a fairly good introduction and review can be found at Ad Age (Video Link). Also, CBS promised ads on a special Super Bowl Ads page at their Sportsline domain.

According to Reuters, a fair sample of this year's Super Bowl television advertisements actually caused fear or anxiety on the part of some test subjects at the University of California. This makes sense, as there was a lot of violence, and even field mice were being tortured at some point during the game.

Tomorrow's Search Day will provide an “SEO Review” for those ads that did provide URLs.

URL No-Shows There was a fairly surprising list of no-shows when it came to URLs. Coca-Cola was the most obvious, as they purchased quite a few spots which were entertaining, but never mentioned their domain. I guess they probably figured people are smart enough to find Cocacola.com…that subject will be further discussed in the Search Day SEO Review article. Overall, however, I think Coca-Cola did a good job counteracting what could have been Pepsi dominance, in a general marketing sense.

Other “no-domainers” included Bud Light, Schick and the “Drive” movie (?). It was surprising the movie ad didn't lead to a link, especially since a search this morning of Google Movies and a variety of news searches couldn't find a movie with the word “Drive” in it. It is possible that I missed the title, but now I can't even remember the movie name. A URL would have cured that problem, at least for me. Oh well, if they had a Super Bowl ad I'll probably see it again soon, unless they blew their whole budget.

The first PNC Bank commercial actually showed someone online doing their business banking, and failed to mention or show a URL at any point during the ad. Missed that one! However, in a subsequent ad either late in the game or just after, they showed the pnc.com/leadingtheway address. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette talks about the launch of the campaign and describes some of the commercials. Looks like they need some link building quickly, as that article ranks first for “PNC leading the way” currently at Google. Kudos to PNC, however, for hosting the page on their Web site instead of farming it off to a new domain which is an SEO-no-no if you want your main site to benefit from the buzz. Again, more SEO talk later.

The biggest URL omission, in my opinion, was Revlon's ad for the “Not fade Away” tour being performed by Cheryl Crowe, while her official colorist is supposed to be seething. I am seething because they have a decent idea that just begs for viral marketing of a Web site. It looks like notfadeaway.com is taken already and being used by a community that hopes to remember lost heroes and tragedies. I wouldn't go there and try to buy that away, however the community seems small and some money may help them decide to use another URL. I was actually surprised to not find a Grateful Dead fan site there.

So Revlon is launching this “Not Fade Away” tour and maybe people would remember to go to Revlon.com to look for information. Too bad for them, as the home page currently doesn't show any mention of it, let alone a link to a section of the Web site. So I assumed if I drilled down to the hair color page, I would be presented with more information? Wrong again. It is disappointing that Revlon would go this far to create am online buzz-worthy campaign with Cheryl Crowe and not release a Web site to go along with it. (added: looks like there is a page setup on a subdomain here. Might be nice to link to it from somewhere)

URL ... But No Call to Action For those that did display and/or mention URLs, not all actually encouraged the viewers to visit the site. A few ads were primarily designed for that purpose, such as Pepsi's contest, which sponsored the halftime show and was hosted at Superbowl.com/Pepsi, and the obvious GoDaddy.com, Geico.com, Careerbuilder.com. CBS did a decent job of promoting two primary domains, including Superbowl.com as well as CBS.sportsline.com. In fact, they utilized a nice method of placing the links directly above the score given to viewers just before going into commercial breaks. These were done on a rotating basis, and not all scoreboards included a URL above them.

Speaking of CBS, it seemed like they really “poured it on” for their shows. Either it was just me or there were a lot more commercials for CBS shows than I had seen in past Super Bowls. Perhaps they didn't get their entire inventory sold? It was very unfortunate not to see a wedding proposal in just one of those dozens of spots, which they could have shown and may have gained some new fans. For the full story on that see mysuperproposal.com.

URL ... But Unreadable Many of the ads that did show URLs displayed them in either a very small font or in an otherwise unmemorable manner. This may be because traditional advertisers have targeted those of us that look for domains as being likely to notice it. Or, if I was cynical, it could be that traditional agencies want to keep the focus on other marketing instead of driving interest to the Web site.

Either way, the following advertisers kept their domains small, and most of them did not have the announcer mention them: Honda, FedEx, Comcast (which should probably be driving as many links to as many pages as possible using the anchor text “Comcast customer service,” if the hope to ever get rid of the YouTube result for that search), Coca Cola (as mentioned), GM, and eTrade.

To me, eTrade made the cardinal sin of thinking everyone knew it was eTrade.com. They do pretty well at Google for the search eTrade, and the majority of their target market has probably heard of them or will assume, but if you are spending 2+ million dollars driving people to a Web site, you would think that you should at least mention the URL somewhere.

URL ... Done Right The big winner in my opinion from a URL visibility standpoint was King Pharmaceuticals which led people to beatyourrisk.com, literally with a thud as the heart figure is thrown into the wall. The longer version of the ad that aired first even had a double showing of the wall with the URL on it, although it was cut out in the shorter version. I would have kept it in both versions, since the goal is obviously to drive traffic to that site. I may also even throw a link to the commercial up on the Beat Your Risk domain.

The other URLs that did gain a mention will be analyzed in tomorrow's Search Day for SEO value. By the way, congratulations to Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy, and the Indianapolis Colts on winning Super Bowl 41, which was in fact quite entertaining for the most part. Of course had Vinatieri hit that field goal at the end of the first half I would have won that quarter's office pool. The good news is that Tony went for it and gave the ball back at the end of the game, preserving my 4th quarter pool victory.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 9:33 AM | Permalink

January 25, 2007

Brand Advertisers Not Warming Up to Google

It seems many brand advertisers are not happy with Google's attempts to appease them. According to ClickZ, Google's outreach to brand advertisers -- expansion into radio and print, its acquisition of YouTube , its new display and video ad formats , and the move to its opulent offices in Manhattan -- are being resisted by Madison Avenue brands for a simple reason: Google insists on trafficking and reporting all the ads itself.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:11 PM | Permalink

January 9, 2007

Exposure Works

Here's another great example of brand banners impacting search campaign results.

According to Chief Marketer, "a group exposed to display media was 27% more likely to click on a branded search ad than was the control group. The exposed group was also 41% more likely to convert."

You should get some lift too, regardless of product category, brand, creative or offer. This exposure simply works. (See Actionable Analytics study from Avenue A | Razorfish.)

Posted by at 11:14 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

October 9, 2006

Coke Counters Bad PR With Search Ads

Coca-Cola Counters Critics With Search Ads from MediaPost covers how Coke is using search marketing to get the word out about a court victory where it was accused by a Colombian trade union of intimidating and assassinating union leaders.

A search for coke on Google, for example, brings up the Killer Coke site ranked third, which covers the allegations. Now Coke is fighting back against that -- sort of. A search for killer coke brings up this ad:

Coke Lawsuit Dismissed Suit against Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia dismissed. Read more. www.coca-cola.com/presscenter

That leads to more information about the victory from Coke, right alongside the "anti" natural search result that appears, like this:

But c'mon. This is Coke being savvy? A regular search for coke on Google doesn't carry this ad. That means plenty of people are seeing the Killer Coke site ranking well but not getting a counter message from Coke itself.

Perhaps it is an oversight, though it might be intentional -- trying to target those specifically searching for "killer coke" with a positive message without trying to be too in the face of those doing regular searches who might not know about the allegations.

Curious, I checked out the trend of searches for killer coke versus coke on Google Trends. As you can see, practically no one is searching for "killer coke:"

Overall, if Coke thinks spreading the word is important, I'd have gone with an ad targeted to Coke as well. Then again, since the company already has three different ads running for its My Coke Rewards program, the main Coca Cola site and the official Coca Cola store, maybe it felt a fourth ad would finally trip Google's rules against multiple ads from the same company:

To provide the best possible experience for our users and advertisers, Google does not permit multiple ads from the same or affiliated company or person to appear on the same results page. We believe that pages with multiple ads from the same company provide less relevant results and a lower quality experience for our users. Over time, multiple ads from the same source also reduce advertiser performance and lower their return on investment.

Of course, Coke does seem to meet the exception to this rule:

  • The destination site for each ad offers different products or services (for example, a large manufacturer with two product sites, one solely for stereos and one solely for computers, both running on keyword 'electronics').
  • Each destination site has a different layout and design, and each URL and domain is different.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:07 AM | Permalink

October 6, 2006

Honda's New 'Crave' Campaign Missing Search?

Honda has redesigned its bestselling CRV sport utility vehicle. There's a snazzy flash-based site featuring the new car and a user-generated/social media component there too. People can post their "craves."

But this otherwise sophisticated campaign, which includes outdoor and other traditional media, is apparently missing search.

One of the things you'd have thought that marketers learned over the past 12-24 months is the centrality of search in the consumer product research experience. Here's Chris Sherman's Search Day piece on comScore research that shows the importance of search in the car-buying process.

What typically happens with consumers is that they are made aware of something via word of mouth or traditional offline media and then they go to a search engine to find out more information or otherwise conduct research.

That's exactly what I did. I was having lunch at Yahoo! yesterday and driving back to my office saw a billboard that featured the new Honda and simply the word "Crave."

What did I do when I got back? I went to a search engine and plugged in the word "Crave." (I didn't know that Honda was the maker of the car so I didn't go straight to the Honda site.) Here are the results of that search on Google, Yahoo, Windows Live: nothing, nothing and nothing.

How foolish is that?

Now, let's talk about price. The term "SUV" (according to Yahoo) is worth $5.03 per click. Both Ford and Honda are bidding that same amount. Given that they're competing at that price they're probably paying it too. By contrast, the top bid for the term "Crave" is $.20.

One of the things that traditional media can do is create demand (or more precisely search inventory) for terms that are unique or cheaper to buy.

I should have been able to plug in "Crave" and see a paid add for the new Honda CRV and been taken to their cool new interactive site. But because Honda's agency doesn't fully understand consumer behavior it's missing an important campaign component and an opportunity to build awareness of the new redesign very cheaply.

Bad agency. Time to put the account up for review?

Postscript: I was informed by AdWeek that RPA is Honda's general interactive agency. These guys are very smart and won Yahoo's first "Searchlight Award" based on their integration of search into an overall campaign. I was a panelist at that event and was very impressed with their work.

If the information is correct and RPA is handling the new "Crave" campaign online, my question remains: why aren't they buying a word so central to the campaign?

Postscript 2 - Mike Margolin responds in detail to this post below:

Wow, Greg, ouch. Initially, I'm a bit disappointed that the SEW Blog apparently doesn't allow comments to posts. I've long held the belief the blogging is meant to be a two-way medium and that it's important to give readers a voice. The only thing that I can imagine is that, in an effort to control the sheer amount of opinions that might be generated on any given topic, SEW decided to disable this function.

So about the campaign. You are correct that we (at this early stage) made the oversight and forgot to include the keyword, “crave”. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that we did, considering the amount of keyword brainstorming that was done to support the central theme of the campaign (more on that below). I even recall a specific conversation that we had with one of the search networks where we talked about copy strategy for the keyword. I'll liken the omission to turning over every book and pillow in your house looking for your sunglasses, but realizing that, d'oh, they were in your jacket pocket all along. Thanks to your suggestion, we'll add the keyword to the campaign today. But I won't lose too much sleep over the missed opportunity as here's what we've actually done with this campaign so far:

Earlier in the year, shortly after the “CRaVe” creative concept was approved, we went to work on the on the website and marketing strategy. Right off the bat, we felt that search marketing (both search and content-targeting) could play a big role in driving visits from the right psychographic profile to an experiential site leveraging user-generated content. In fact, our search marketing team actually had a big voice in web site strategy meetings, explaining how the site would need to function in order to make the best use of cost-effective search traffic. And when all was said and done, we developed a strategy that targeted thousands of non-automotive keywords which could easily be turned into craves. For example, one of the initial site users uploaded “celebrity gossip” as something that she craves. Well, now when someone searches “celebrity” gossip on Yahoo!, they now see this ad:

Crave Celebrity Gossip? Tell us what else you crave and see what others are craving. crave.honda.com

And when someone searches for yakitori (which, BTW, is one of the things that I crave as well), we show this ad:

Do You Crave Yakitori? Where can you find the best? Tell us or see where others go. crave.honda.com

All told, there are thousands of crave-related keywords in the campaign, ranging from “ice cream” and “barbecue ribs” to “Labradors” and “surfing”. And while the search portion of Yahoo! Search Marketing's campaign has been very important, Google's content targeting has been even more valuable. The result: a combination of these crave-related keywords and SUV category keywords have already generated nearly œ of a million visits to the crave.honda.com site (it should be noted that that the total number of searches on the keyword “crave” across the Yahoo! network during the prior month was a whopping 9,750 – that's roughly the same amount of people searching for “banana split”). And because of the breadth of words which can be spun into the “crave” concept and how valuable those keywords have been to this initiative, the average CPC of our campaign has ended up being a very, very small fraction of the $5.00 CPC that you pointed out in your blog post. That's the problem with scrutinizing search marketing initiatives from the outside; not every campaign strategy will be immediately apparent, mainly because of the purchasing/placement models with Google and Yahoo! across both search and content properties. It's just not always as simple as searching on a couple keywords and determining whether the campaign was a rousing success or a miserable failure.

And frankly, while I hope I'm wrong, I just don't see a ton of people outside of the search marketing world seeing a CRaVe-themed billboard for the new Honda CR-V and then typing “crave” into their search engine to look for more on the theme or the vehicle. Google Trends shows virtually no lift in search volume for that keyword since the campaign began, which suggests that the 9,750 number above isn't likely to change much. The lift on “2007 Honda CRV” is much more interesting. If people are intrigued enough to carry their interest from an outdoor ad or TV spot over to a search engine, they'll more likely search for “Honda CRV” or even ”Honda Crave” (and we have highly visible SE presence for both).

Was it an oversight to not get covered off on this keyword? Yep. And I'm a bit chafed at myself for missing such an obvious word. But was it a missed opportunity to the extent that we're “stupid”, a “Bad agency” and worthy of Honda putting the account “up for review”? I just don't think so. We might've missed out on a couple thousand clicks to the site. But not for much longer.

Postscript From Danny: Comments are very welcomed. We have a How To Comment link in our left-hand navigation that explains that discusison happens in our Search Engine Watch Forums, so we aren't having discussions run in two different places. I'll look to make that link perhaps more prominent under posts themselves, in the future.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:09 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2006

Big Brands: Do You Know What Wikipedia Saying About You Via Google?

Steve Rubel produced a small study on the top 100 advertisers, according to AdAge, to see where in the Google rankings does the brand's Wikipedia entry fall. For example, a search on the well-known automobile brand Chevrolet shows a Wikipedia entry for them at the number four result. What that Wikipedia entry says about your company can have a huge impact on your brand, given that Google will be driving traffic to Wikipedia. The study showed that the Wikipedia entry listed in the Google results for the top 100 brands, on average was at position 11. But Steve Rubel explains that many of those brands have listings within the top 10 and some even the top 5 for their brand name.

Steve explains that if you have a lot of domain names for your company, then the Wikipedia entry will most likely be pushed down the results. Also, he said Yahoo, MSN and Ask all have similar responses, but they are not documented in his study. He finally links and summarized an adAge.com article named Your Brand on Wikipedia.

FYI - this is part of online reputation management.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:41 AM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

The Search & Branding Tug-Of-War, Again

"Cannes Lions Diary: Search under scrutiny" from the Financial Times at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival covers what we've seen before, traditional ad buyers worried that search is going to rob their budgets while search engines planning to do that theft try to distract with a "search is a brand thing" message.

First, let's do the sound bites out of the event. Here's what Laura Desmond, chief executive of Mediavest USA (which the FT says "advises clients such as P&G, Masterfoods and Kraft on buying and planning media") is quoted as saying:

Google is going to have to change its business model soon. Search alone isn't where marketing is today. It is about search and branding and putting the two together.

As for the search engines, we have:

Damian Burns, head of European agency relations at Google, said: "There is a need for self-education among agencies and clients. But I don?t believe that you can have people being exposed to brands on search results day after day without that having an impact on brand building."

During one conference event, campaigns by IBM and an onscreen prompt by Donald Trump, presenter of ?The Apprentice?, the US reality show, for viewers to investigate a new coffee product online, were cited as examples of pairing television and search. In both cases, online searches for keywords related to the campaigns rose sharply after relevant keywords were used onscreen.

Speakers said marketers would in future have to time their spend on search engine keywords to coincide with television or press campaigns to get the best results.

OK, let's go back to Desmond. First, is Google in trouble for only doing search? Actually, the company does more than search. All those ads across the web, the contextually placed ones through AdSense, those aren't search. Moreover, some of those placements are image and video ads sold on a brand-building friendly CPM basis.

Now let's say Google really did only have search ads. Why would it be in trouble for failing to put search and branding together? I mean, search marketers haven't depending on branding value for their stunning success over the past 10 years. What, today suddenly you need to have a brand component?

Search marketing is a fundamental advertising activity that stands alone from others, as I've been stressing in keynote speeches recently. It works because it gets your message in front of people who are overtly expressing a need, often without any exposure at all to brand advertising that tries to build that need.

Saying search must address branding is like saying that direct marketing address branding. You don't need to have a brand lift for direct marketing to be successful. Neither do you need a brand lift with search.

Having said this, search certainly can help with branding. Scott Karp over at Publishing 2.0 has taken a fairly anti-branding stance in his Search Advertising Does NOT Build Brands post, and here's some of my counter-response to him in the comments:

What do you think made Zappos a brand name when it comes to buying shoes online? Those magazine ads you saw for them? That TV spot? Wait ? I don't think they do that stuff. What they do is a lot of spending to show up in search engines when you search for ?shoes? and related terms. You did a generic search, you keep seeing a particular provider, and you learn about that brand.

Hey, need an espresso machine? I learned an entire new brand, Whole Latte Love, simply because when I was doing searches, I kept coming across their site. J&Rs in New York? If you?re in Manhattan, you know that brand as well as I knew Fry?s living in California. But J&R was a mystery to me until I kept seeing them in some shopping search results before making a trip to New York. Now that brand is rooted in my mind, not because I saw some offline ad but because I saw them first in search. That brand did build in my mind, to me.

I've done panel after panel on the intersection of search and branding at our SES conferences. We have another one coming up for our San Jose show this August. Actual advertisers and brand holders continue to say there's a brand value in search. They don't say they'll build brand only with search. Nor do they say they want all the branding money to come away from other venues like TV and solely support search. In fact, they want TV ads to keep going -- those help fuel the searches they buy.

Instead, the real pushing point is that they want more of the ad spend. They have a type of advertising that converts incredibly well and, in my opinion, is incredibly undervalued still. If the ad spend pie isn't getting bigger, then it has to come from the traditional space -- a space itself which has to be feeling more pressure given the relatively poor metrics it can offer.

As for the search engines, they've been pimping brand value to traditional advertisers to woo spending since Overture's big study way back in 2001 (see here and here). There is brand value with search ads, of course -- but if they really wanted to help establish search as a serious fundamental marketing activity, then how about leaning on the Cannes Lions festival to recognize that with awards just for search. Here are this year's awards. Search isn't a category, not even within the Cyber area which does recognize things like email marketing.

For more on these issues, here's some selected reading:

Want more? We've got plenty. Check out our Search Ads: Branding & SEM Tips: Branding categories, if you are a Search Engine Watch member.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:22 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

Brands, Search and Local

ClickZ local columnist Phil Stelter wrote a piece this week about brands taking notice of local search. Geotargeting online is something that all brands are waking up to and will need to address. Like all politics, most spending is local; 97% of consumer buying behavior still happens offline, despite the impressive growth of e-commerce. But the Internet's and search's influence over that offline spending increases daily. Tracking that growth and a true picture of consumer behavior is what prompted comScore to launch qSearch Retail this week. (On a related note, ClickZ's Kevin Lee has a nice article on search, multi-channel retailing and some of the practical steps marketers can take now to track offline conversions.)

Beyond the top search engines and a few of ad networks, buying local online right now is very inefficient if you're a large brand marketer or their agency. It's hard to get the reach and exposure you've historically been able to get from traditional media, like print newspapers. But expect it to get substantially easier over the course of the next 12 months. According to comScore, brands and trademarked terms represent only about 20% or 25% of search query volume. But they convert much better than the "generic" queries that comprise the remaining 75% to 80% of search. That's generally because consumers signal they are typically "farther along" the buying cycle when using those terms. There's a much longer discussion of how to market against that behavior that is beyond the scope of this post.

In the near term, manufacturers will need to work with retailers to drive people to local stores where they can buy their brand merchandise. There are a number of tactical ways to do this via paid search and other local vehicles (online newspapers, Internet yellow pages). And shopping engines are a potentially fruitful area for brand marketers and manufacturers, though most aren't yet set up to offer local store options where consumers can buy offline. By contrast, ShopLocal, CNet, Froogle and Yokel are to varying degrees offering product inventory information and where you can buy offline, locally. This is consistent with the dominant consumer use case (shop online, buy offline). And as of last night, Google has integrated enhanced product data and brought it into Maps through a partnership with StepUp.com, which is aggregating local retailers for online distribution.

In the implementation, clicking on a link gives you a way to see images and inventory information about products in local retail outlets. It's not a perfect integration, but it will get better. I write in detail about it on my blog. The larger point is that Google, ShopLocal, CNet and Yokel recognize that after consumers conduct their research online they fundamentally want to know where in their local markets they can buy what they're looking for -- today. Brands need to catch up to that behavior and start marketing accordingly.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:23 AM | Permalink

June 2, 2006

Reputation Management: How To Handle Saboteurs

The [failure] GoogleBomb had become well-known enough to have seen Marrissa Mayer post a response on the Google company blog last September. I first heard the phrase "Reputation Management" as applied to search from Heather Lloyd-Martin during a private conversation a long time before this. It was obvious Heather was on to something because we've all seen search results that produce unexpected listings. David Dalka recently posted his frustration that Googling his name could confuse searchers into thinking he is a millionaire. This may be a personal example, but what if you have a bona-fide saboteur?

Heather recently related to me her experience with a client where a saboteur took the client company name, mixed it with adult content, and auto-generated unsavory posts published across the Web in numerous blogs and forums. Needless to say, search results for that company started looking really bad, and at times, the whole set of results was flooded with what looked like adult listings.

Heather now regularly points out examples of big brands that could use reputation management as regards their search listings. She presents screen shots at conferences showing Google queries for uhaul and victorias secret having results at number 3 and number 2 respectively that read: "UHaul made my move a miserable and stressful experience" and "Victoria's Dirty Secret."

The dirty secret site has an image with an "angel" holding a chain saw. The site makes it sound as if whole forests are regularly depleted because the cataloger lacks environmental awareness. What can you do when this happens?

You certainly have little control over the natural rankings of saboteurs unless they spam. You can easily choose to hand spammers that polute your rankings over to search engine quality assurance teams when they use tactics that would have them removed. In the case of the dirty secret site, it appears the other extreme is occurring. The campaign for environmental change at Victorias Secret may be working. Perhaps Victorias Secret will establish more earth friendly contracts with their suppliers.

Other things you can do is publish pages telling your side of the story in the hopes to get natural rankings that counteract the negative spin. You needn't wait for natural rankings to appear either, you can purchase sponsored listings to drive users to the new pages straight away. At least in the meantime your presence can be felt on those most troubling queries should they begin to affect your image in search results.

Postscript: David's personal example caused him some grief. Consider the amount of grief an "eBay Avenger" causes the young fellow who it looks like fell victim to an angry buyer that decided to make an example of him. Even if the allegations later prove to be false, and although the eBay avenger has publicly offered to take down the site, SERPs for his name will likely be damaged for a long time to come, (Google, Microsoft and Ask too).

Posted by Detlev Johnson at 4:44 AM | Permalink

April 17, 2006

Branded Searches Lead To Non Company Site 15% Off The Time

ClickZ reports on a Hitwise study that shows that 15% of branded searches lead to competitor's sites, comparison shopping engines and affiliates as opposed to the official brand Web site. The study also shows that branded searches are up 17 percent over the same period last year. The study shows that for some branded keyword searches, diversion from the official company site is as high as 26 percent, as with the case with the search query "allstate insurance." You can request a copy of the report here.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, What Percentage Of Brand Name Traffic Should Brand Names Get?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:33 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2006

Integrating Search with Traditional Advertising

Search advertising used to be an afterthought. Businesses were reluctant to spend large amounts of money on it. They didn't understand it. They didn't know if they'd see results. They thought it belonged in the tech department. And that was just a couple of years ago. A lifetime on the internet. In 2006, search had become a fundamental part of any major brand's advertising strategy. Four experts talked about this shift and how search marketers can capitalize on new opportunities at a recent Search Engine Strategies panel, recounted in today's SearchDay article, Putting Search in the Ad Mix. A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members goes into more detail, with specific tips and suggestions from each of the experts profiled in this article. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:23 AM | Permalink

February 21, 2006

Search Marketing for News and Blog Services

While a good search marketing campaign is obviously targeted first and foremost at the major search engines, other sources of traffic are becoming increasingly important. News and blog services are among these sources, and they require different strategies and tactics that many search marketers aren't yet taking advantage of. In today's SearchDay article, News Search Engine Optimization,guest writer Shari Thurow recaps a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these increasingly important sources of search traffic.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific tips on copywriting for news releases, creating unique URLs and landing pages for specific purposes and tips for crafting a powerful public relations strategy that complements your search engine optimization efforts.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:48 AM | Permalink

January 30, 2006

Mazda Taps Into Pontiac TV & Search Ads Again

Remember the post earlier about Pontiac telling people to search for them on Google? What I loved especially about that was it reminded me of Gregory Markel over at Infuse Creative telling me how he helped Pontiac-competitor Mazda drive a benefit off a similar campaign that Pontiac did with Yahoo last year. Now history repeats once again.

Last year on The Apprentice, Pontiac used a programming tie-in to tell people to look them up on Yahoo, where Yahoo had inserted some type of Yahoo Shortcut-style link.

Gregory noticed this link came below the sponsored search results -- and if I recall correctly, Pontiac hadn't bought any of those. So he got Mazda into that space. For a few thousand dollars, he tapped into traffic from a product placement set-up that cost over a million, if I recall. He's actually got an awesome little video I want him to show publicly that explains it all very well with voiceovers, music and images.

Today, John Battelle notes that Mazda has bought a sponsored link on Google to come up for those Pontiac-driven searches.

Miata vs Pontiac Solstice Exclusive test-drive invitation for a New MX-5 Miata. Sign up now! MX5NoComparison.com

Mazda's bought Yahoo, as well

Compare MX-5 Miata to Solstice www.mx5nocomparison.com Sign up to receive an exclusive invitation to test-drive a new 2006 MX-5 Miata.

Andrew Goodman breaks down the comparative advertising campaign more here. Meanwhile, self-confessed data geek Bill Tancer over at Hitwise couldn't resist looking at traffic to the Pontiac site over time. You can see how the TV mentions to check Yahoo last year and Google this year drove traffic to Pontiac. He also shows how the site that received the most "pontiac" searches on search engines after Pontiac was -- yep, Mazda.

All this brings me back to something that came up at our Future Of Search Engine Marketing panel at SES Chicago last month. While several of the search marketers said that they were getting money formerly devoted to TV, none of them wanted TV spending to be cut entirely. TV drives search traffic, which in turn helps them.

That got me to wonder/observe to the audience if we'll see a change coming over the next year or so. Instead of people wondering how search can tie into other campaigns, maybe we'll see search become the primary target of a campaign. In other words, Pontiac someday might plan to do a big search buy and want to ensure they drive traffic to support that -- so television, radio, outdoors will all be purchases to push search.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:08 PM | Permalink

January 26, 2006

TV Commercial "Googles" Pontiac

Here's yet another example of "Google the verb" in action, this time in a telelvion commercial. It also illustrates why "Google the brand" is so powerful.

Several sources including Media Post, Searchblog, and SEOmoz Blog point out that new television commercial for Pontiac (airing regionally in the U.S.) includes a Google mention and an actual shot of someone entering the word Pontiac into the Google search box with voice over saying: "Don't take our word for it, Google 'Pontiac' to find out!"

That's right, don't call (no phone number) or the common line in tv ads for automobile manufacturers, "visit your local xxx dealer." Nope, just Google it.

The complete 30 second commercial is available on YouTube here. The audio and video are ok but not great. In true "old schoool" media bootlegging style, it was recorded by someone placing a camera in front of the screen. (-:

When I just "Googled" Pontiac I find an ad (in a blue box) for the "official" Pontiac home page at the top of the web results page and sponsored links a myriad of car pricing services in the right column.

Battelle makes a thought provoking point about this tv/web ad combo: Now, when I Google Pontiac, I see two sponsored links up top [I'm only seeing one], both from Pontiac (if I were, say, Toyota, I might just think about bidding that keyword....but I digress). In any case, since many folks have no idea that those blue shaded links are in fact ads, I am sure that they are going to be making Google a lot of money over the course of this campaign.

Yes, John is very accurate when he writes, "many folks have no idea that those blue shaded links are in fact ads." What does this say about the searcher and the knowledge they have about understanding the difference between a paid and organic listings? Is the better disclosure and documentation that most search providers offer making a difference?

Postscript: In my Google search for Pontiac, after the paid listing in the blue box, a link to a map of Pontiac, Michigan, and OneBox with results from my desktop, I end up on the first organic result also from Pontiac.com.

Postscript: Btw, look at all of the free publicity Pontiac is getting by running this ad. Smart!

Postscript From Danny: Google tells me Pontiac did seek their permission to use Google in the ad. Google did not pay to be in the ad, nor was it any type of comarketing activity. Says Google:

"We are happy that Pontiac has featured Google search in their television ad campaign. This is evidence that mainstream brand advertisers are increasingly realizing the close relationship between broadcast advertising and search usage."

Posted by Gary Price at 6:58 PM | Permalink

September 28, 2005

Branding & Search Panel Highlights

OMMA Conference Track: Maximizing Brand Advertising Via Search from SearchViews gives you a few highlights from a panel at OMMA this week about branding and search

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:31 AM | Permalink

Better Yahoo Tools Coming To Measure Search Buzz - And Watch Google, Too!

Yahoo! Testing New Branding Metrics for Search at ClickZ covers how Yahoo is helping more advertisers tap into tools to measure brand reach and buzz through search, a sign that tracking search buzz is finally getting some needed, renewed attention.

Many are familiar with Yahoo Buzz, the consumer-facing service that shows what's hot in search. Not so well known is another version that advertisers and others can tap into. Yahoo has had that product for years. It's not new, as the story suggests. Instead, it sounds like it's being given a revamp in preparation for wider positioning. A new "Search Share Of Voice" tool is also planned.

It's long overdue for greater outreach like this. As we've had more and more "word-of-mouth" tools designed to measure blog buzz, it's seemed forgotten that search engines have access to much more broad web buzz based on what wide, everyday audiences are looking for and writing about.

FYI, Google's got a similar tools it developed to help CurrentTV do Google Zeitgeist segments. I asked Google a couple of weeks ago whether these tools might be rolled out for others to use, when talking about them. It's something Google has in mind, but there were no immediate plans to do so. So we watch and see!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:25 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2005

SES San Jose 2005 Coverage Wrap-Up

There was a ton of news out of our Search Engine Strategies show held last month in San Jose. I've been collecting links of various stories, for the rundown below. There's probably stuff I'm missing -- I still have some catch-up reading for what came out during the week of the show itself. If I see more as I work through that, I'll do a second wrap-up.

  • New SEM Tools From SES San Jose from Pandia covers the many tools presented during our SEO/SEM Toolbox session. There's a great round-up, so check out the list here.  

  • The New World of Search from Kevin Lee at ClickZ gives highlights of what he found from the show, especially looking at changes in metrics used to measure the effectiveness and impact of search.  

  • SearchTHIS: SES Part Deux from Kevin Ryan at iMedia Connection is the second part of his coverage of the show, touching on things such as the keynote talk with Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz, MSN's new paid ads program. There's a first part, I'm sure -- but I couldn't find a link when looking around!  

  • How Motley Crue Saved Search from Harrison Magun at MediaPost touches on "booth babes" at the show's exhibition. I don't run the expo side of thing, and my understanding is that the sales team that does recommends that exhibitors do things in good taste. Nevertheless, some think sex sells. That's too bad -- and in fact, it's downright stupid for an industry that's so heavily represented by women. The SES NYC expo center a joke? thread on our Search Engine Watch Forums looks at this issue in depth, a discussion that came up after booth babes were a feature of one exhibitors show there.  

  • Chris Pirillo was running around with his mike interviewing people for The Chris Pirillo Show. Interview with Ask CEO Steve Berkowitz (On Location), Rebecca Lieb on ClickZ (On Location), Brett Tabke on Webmaster World, Jill Whalen on Search Engine Optimization (On Location) and Search Marketing Experts (On Location) are some of them. Chris caught me at the New York show, if you're curious: Searching for Danny Sullivan (On Location). What cracked me up the most about talking to him was that I didn't even realize it was Chris until after it was over! Honestly -- I'd only seen his cartoon on the site and thought it was someone for his show interviewing me, not him. We had a good laugh when I asked him to please say 'hi' to Chris and he said, "I am Chris!" There's even more in his archives from SES San Jose and SES New York earlier this year. Thanks, Nick, over at Threadwatch, for spotting some of these.  

  • How many publishers are really being suspended from AdSense? over at JenSense looks at the Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud panel where -- through an unprecedented degree of cooperation between Yahoo and Google -- we finally had reps from both services on the panel. Thank you both, Google and Yahoo! As you can see from her review, she felt it made things much more balanced and useful.  

  • (Almost) Live from Search Engine Strategies: Beyond ROI at SearchViews reviews a panel on how to get things out of search beyond ROI, such as linking into offline sponsorships or creating brand association.  

  • Coverage of SES San Jose: Search Engine Q&A On Links, Coverage of SES San Jose: Earning from Search & Contextual Ads, Coverage of SES San Jose: Search Algorithms, The Patent Files and Coverage of SES San Jose: Favorite SEO Tools are all reports from Stephan Spencer, over at his blog.  
  • Quick SES San Jose 2005 Session Coverage Recap has Barry over at Search Engine Roundtable summarizing all the session that he and his team -- yes, he's got a team now -- covered live out of the show. While the regular Daily SearchCast took a break during the show, Gary was doing some live podcast coverage of his own on August 9 and 10, which you'll find listed here.  
  • Live SES San Jose 05 Session Coverage at our SEW Forums has links to the same coverage Barry and gang (thank you all!) did. They posted in both places, the forums and Search Engine Roundtable -- but the forum threads may have further discussion and information about the various sessions.  
  • WebmasterRadio.FM our official and much loved conference podcasting company was busy. I just did a show wrap-up with them. You'll find it here, along with the pre-show...ah...show!  
  • Google Dance, Yahoo Search Night Off & More Parties At SES San Jose 2005 and Ask Jeeves to Rock SES with The Dan Band provide an overview of some of the major parties that happened at the event. I went to them all and had an excellent time. The search wars have spilled over into the entertainment from, and from enjoying fast access to rollercoasters at Marriott's Great America thanks to Yahoo, an outstanding rocking performance by the Dan Band courtesy of Ask Jeeves, and good food and good times rockin' at Google, everyone including myself had a blast.  
  • Google Dance 2005 are pictures put up by Google of its annual Google Dance party.  
  • Google, webmasters dance to music of different drummers is an AP write-up of the event which I'm going to comment on more separately. I've seen this before -- the manipulators being invited to Google. Yeah, some -- and a lot of the people who are also powering the revenues behind search. Any way, more on that down the line.  

  • Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:08 PM | Permalink

    Travel Search Engines Bump Hotels From Top Search Listings

    A study out from SEM technology firm SEMphonic finds that travel sites like Expedia, Orbitz and Hotels.com push out actual hotel sites such as Marriott and Radisson from top results of "247 hotel-related keywords." Travel aggregators or travel search engines get 39 percent of the top 50 spots in paid listings, while hotels get 17 percent of the listings. Hotels do better in organic listings, getting 48 percent of the top 50 spots.

    The firm hasn't released the study to any one but DMNews yet, so it's hard to poke at it more. You can read more in their article, Travel Sites Push Hotels Out of Searches.

    Top of my head -- I tend not to like studies that dig deeper than the first page of results. What's happening in the top 10 spots? That's what matters. There's a side remark in the DMNews story noting that when you look at the top 10 organic listings, Marriott, Radisson and Starwood hotel sites do well there.

    I guess the takeaway point is this. If you run a travel site, make sure you're doing everything possible to ensure that your official site is showing up well, if that's important to you. As someone sick of always running into your affiliates rather than the official site, I know it's important to me.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:30 AM | Permalink

    July 13, 2005

    Search Branding: You Want It, But How To Measure?

    Search Branding: Loving the Clicks That Don't Convert from Gary Stein at ClickZ looks at how many marketers say search has a branding goal for them but still fail to figure out ways to measure if this is happening. Gary then offers some tips on how to do so, such as establishing a "beacon" conversion event to ways to measure a building relationship.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:10 AM | Permalink

    June 15, 2005

    C'mon In Brand Owners, The Search Water's Fine

    It's not all about conversions, in the search marketing game. I was at a conference two months ago where a brand marketer said he didn't care about conversion. He wanted brand impact and was willing to pay for it, to the horror and fear of the mostly conversion-driven audience.

    Horror? Dump those big brand dollars into a marketplace mostly driven by conversions, and the pricing goes all out of whack -- at least for the conversion folks. But brand marketers remain wary of search for many reasons, in particular because it's a strange creature.

    Brand Engagement Via Search Marketing from Kevin Lee at ClickZ provides some ideas to understand how search may fit in as part of the message, rather than the complete message. And conversion-driven folks, don't come after him from inviting those with the big brand money to throw everything off. After all, as he concludes, if you measure more than just the conversion, you might find you've got more to spend.

    For more on that, see also:

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:59 PM | Permalink

    May 9, 2005

    Display Ads Can Generate More Searches

    Pam Parker's article, Display Ads Drive Searches in Yahoo! Case Study, reports on a new case study released by Yahoo that shows the "influence" of display ads on searcher behavior.

    The study found that consumers who saw Harrisdirect's display ads -- which appeared in Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Finance and My Yahoo! -- later did 61 percent more searches on related terms than did a control group who'd visited the same part of the Yahoo! network but didn't see the ads.

    Posted by Gary Price at 11:18 AM | Permalink

    April 15, 2005

    Search Is Also Navigation, So Brands -- Are You Well Represented?

    It's been long known that searchers don't just use search engines to find things but also depend on search to navigate to sites of interest. Search can be a sort of warp drive to get you to that site whose URL you can't remember or that you find too bulky to type into the address bar. Getting From Point A to B With Search from Gord Hotchkiss at MediaPost revisits the issue of navigational queries and how they may impact brand owners not properly indexed by search engines.

    Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:21 AM | Permalink

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