October 24, 2008

SEW Experts: The Organic and Paid Balancing Act

As SERP listings and functionality changes, there are still two types of listings that have weathered the storm and are still attainable for marketers: traditional organic listings and paid search listings. In today's SEM agency issues column, "The Organic and Paid Balancing Act," William Flaiz explains that by making sure your site stays above the fold in these two outlets, you can maximize your controllable visibility.

» Full story

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

October 17, 2008

SEW Experts: Making the Most of Your Local Search Marketing Dollars

Clients often ask where they should spend their marketing dollars: online or offline, search or display? The problem with these questions: they assume there's one or only a few sources for all local sales leads. In today's vertical search column, "Making the Most of Your Local Search Marketing Dollars," local search expert Gregg Stewart explains that the question isn't "either/or;" it's about how much of each.

» Full story

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

October 10, 2008

SEW Experts: Search is Not Enough

Marketing has grown fairly sophisticated over the decades, and it would be foolish to view search as anything more than a component of a much more comprehensive marketing plan. Gone are the days of thinking that our only job is to drive customers to a Web site. In today's SEM agency issues column, "Search is Not Enough," William Flaiz advises us to examine the entire marketing funnel, not just the search component, to maximize our marketing dollars.

» Full story

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

SEW Experts: Is Your SEM Truly Looking at Search Holistically?

To achieve SERP nirvana, your search engine optimization and paid search efforts must have the same goal. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, "Is Your SEM Truly Looking at Search Holistically?," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson offer five important questions to make sure your potential search vendors view search holistically when updating ongoing strategy and planning considerations.

» Full story

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

September 24, 2008

SEW Experts: I'm a PC, What Are You?

Apple is trying to connect with the rest of the world (beyond college students dominating the Mac audience) via great ad campaigns. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "I'm a PC, What Are You?," Kevin Ryan reminds us that if you can't connect with your audience in the real world, you're flushing all your marketing efforts right down the drain.

» Full story

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

August 28, 2008

How Search Marketers Can Use Landing Page Testing to Influence Offline Ad Campaigns

Search marketers deal with landing pages everyday in their work, but not all landing pages are created for paid search campaigns. Many landing pages, or sometimes entire sites are created for offline advertising on television, radio, and magazine ads.

Should these landing pages be tested as well? I talked to Google Website Optimizer's Tom Leung to get his thoughts on how testing can influence offline campaigns.

Leung said there are two ways that tools like Website Optimizer can be used in offline campaigns:

1. As already mentioned, to test landing pages created for traffic coming in from offline ad campaigns.
2. Using paid search or display ad campaigns to make informed decisions on creatives designed for offline ad campaigns.

The second point really got my attention. Leung expanded by saying that SEM's can use landing page testing as a "bargaining chip to get a seat at the table with other marketers in your organization."

This information gained from testing is highly useful to marketers planning offline campaigns. As a search marketer, you can use testing and analytics tools to be the one in their department or agency who knows the most about a target audience. That knowledge is highly useful to your colleagues, and can help you work more as an integrated team.

Even though offline and online campaigns can generate interest from consumers with different expectations, at the very least, testing can rule out things that don't work. An image, text, or highlighted feature that just doesn't resonate can be discovered through landing page testing. Marketers can test these factors in a paid search or other online ad test, and use the results to develop creatives for offline ads.

Online ad tests can also be used in advance of an offline-to-web ad campaign.

For offline traffic driven to landing pages, you can use those preliminary tests to narrow down the number of landing page options for the initial traffic driven from the offline ad. When the offline traffic begins to arrive (and you're expecting enough traffic to run a test), you can test the first visitors. You don't want to test more than 1 page per 100 conversions. Multivariate testing should generally be reserved for large, national campaigns.

WiderFunnel Marketing used Website Optimizer for Tourism BC's TV-to-Web ad campaign for HelloBC.com. According to a published case study, the campaign targeted the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets. Tourism BC experienced a 52% conversion rate (filling out a web form), up 7% from the previous year.

Even though search marketing has been gaining ground for years, SEMs still may find themselves struggling to lend their insight to traditional marketing methods that have been around for decades. Landing page testing is not just a must for SEMs in their own work but can be a strength to participate in the greater strategy at hand.

What do you think about landing page testing and integrating marketing campaigns? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 17, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Issues with Global Expansion

When a U.S.-based company expands globally, they typically spend little or no time with their expansion plans overseas. In today's Enterprise Search Marketing column, "SEO Issues with Global Expansion," Aaron Shear explains why that's a mistake. Big business is commonly lost with their overseas Web sites.

» Full story

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

June 4, 2008

SEW Experts: Measuring the Impact of Multichannel Marketing

In many cases, search is the first step in the customer buying process, when they're in research mode. But, at other times, search comes into play in response to an offline campaign. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "Measuring the Impact of Multichannel Marketing," Eric Enge describes the ways Web analytics tools can be one powerful component in measuring the impact and effectiveness of an offline marketing campaign.

» Full story

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

May 23, 2008

SEW Experts: What's In Your Travel Tool Bag? - Part 2

Are we just so mesmerized by the glitz and glam of the coolest, latest and greatest flavor of the day that we've become oblivious to basic principles of marketing? In today's Vertical Search column, "What's In Your Travel Tool Bag? - Part 2," travel search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski urges a return to basics: creating a product that fulfills a specific need, is well positioned against its competition, is priced appropriately, and is promoted within the right context.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 9, 2008

SEW Experts: Black, White, and Blue all Over

The LA Times is in the midst of an aggressive online product rollout. If anyone should be able to build solid local content sites, it's newspapers. In today's Vertical Search column, "Black, White, and Blue all Over," local search expert Michael Boland outlines their efforts, noting that it's their game to lose, with a sizeable but quickly closing head start, as publishers across the country sit on their hands.

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

May 7, 2008

SEW Experts: 100 Million Theoretical Dollars

In a recent episode of South Park, the characters set out to create a viral YouTube video to earn their millions. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "100 Million Theoretical Dollars," Kevin Ryan advises marketers looking for 100 million real dollars that capitalizing on the connection between traditional placement and search can be as easy as lip-syncing Romanian dance music.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

May 6, 2008

SEW Experts: CEO Tells Wall St. Why He Invests in SEO

Not every CEO understands the value of search engine optimization. Here's one who does: Tom Evans, CEO of Bankrate. In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "CEO Tells Wall St. Why He Invests in SEO," Kevin Heisler outlines Evans' comments to Wall St. analysts explaining why SEO is one key to the company's success.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2008

SEW Experts: Top 5 Non-SEO Ways to Increase Your Search Rankings

Contrary to what some search marketers may think, marketing is not all about search. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Top 5 Non-SEO Ways to Increase Your Search Rankings," Chris Boggs explains that by branching out into other areas, like usability and PR, you can increase the effectiveness of your search efforts.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2008

SEW Experts: Leveraging Traditional Media Placements in an Online World

Online media and Internet-based search continue to grow at the expense of their offline counterparts, newspapers and magazines. Because media placement options are continuously growing, smart local marketers need to leverage this major transformation of how people consume media in some creative ways. In today's Vertical Search column, "Leveraging Traditional Media Placements in an Online World," local search expert Gregg Stewart explains that fragmenting media options will continue to force smart marketers to stitch together sales opportunities from an ever-increasing number of sources.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 6, 2008

Super Bowl Advertisers Fumble on SEO

The advertisers who spent millions on TV airtime during Super Bowl 42 should have spent a little more of their budget on SEO, it seems. While many showed a marked improvement in SEO strategy over last year, there is still much room for improvement. In today's SearchDay, "Rating the Super Bowl Advertisers' SEO Record," Chris Boggs examines the search engine placement of many of this year's TV advertisers, and finds most to come up lacking. Yesterday, in "Super Bowl XLII Ads – Where's the URL?," Chris found that many of the ads didn't even show the company's URL well. Weigh in with your thoughts on this year's ads in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:59 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: How to Engage Customers in Search Marketing

Relationships between businesses and customers are changing. Search marketing can no longer operate in a vacuum, but is just a part of the bigger marketing picture. In today's By the Numbers column, "How to Engage Customers in Search Marketing," Eric Enge shows you how to turn these new types of customer relationships into a weapon for your business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 4, 2008

SEW Experts: Search Marketing Trends That Matter

Search optimization and advertising is gaining its rightful place among marketers' tools. In today's Search Ads column, "Microsoft-Yahoo: Search Marketing Trends That Matter," Matt Spiegel shares eight trends that will change your company's search engine strategies.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 1, 2008

Super Bowl Advertisers Mostly Unprepared, Search-wise

It seems that every year it's the same story. Advertisers pony up big bucks to create and air an ad during the Super Bowl, then fail to prepare for what most people are going to do when they get back home after the game or to work on Monday: search for the ads they saw.

This year seems to be shaping up in much the same way, unfortunately. We'll look at the full results on Monday, but in preparation for the big game, Reprise Media's Peter Hershberg takes a look at the search presence of some past and potential advertisers in today's SearchDay, "Super Bowl Advertiser Search Trends."

To keep up with the ads during the game, you can follow "Scorecard" on Twitter. That's an account that Reprise Media set up for just such a purpose.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:31 PM | Permalink

January 15, 2008

SEW Experts: Search Engine Conferences: Where CMOs Meet Social Media

Most companies have little to no understanding about social media optimization and what it can do for their organizations. In today's Big Biz column, "Search Engine Conferences: Where CMOs Meet Social Media," Aaron Shear pins the blame on the outdated SEM education most marketing executives got in business school, if they got any at all.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 13, 2007

What's Old Is New Again

There's a hot new ad unit that all the search marketers are talking about. In today's SearchDay, "Search and the Comeback Kid: Part 1," John Tawadros chronicles the rise, fall, and rise again of this old friend with a new twist.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:44 PM | Permalink

December 10, 2007

SEW Experts: Search Engines, Silos, SES Solutions

Not long ago, it was easier to justify the existence of disparate marketing functions, each working within its own domain. Today, consumers move between touch points with ease and expect consistent and meaningful messages to be delivered on their terms. In today's Search Ads column, "Search Engines, Silos, SES Solutions," Matt Spiegel shares details of a panel discussion he participated in at SES Chicago where it was noted that if we begin by asking questions about the needs of the consumer, then the goals of the business silos are naturally harder to justify.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2007

SEW Experts: How to Integrate PPC and Display Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) or display advertising? You don't always have to choose one or the other. In today's By the Numbers column, "How to Integrate PPC and Display Advertising," Eric Enge shows you how to integrate PPC campaigns with display advertising, and use this cyclical approach to improve overall ROI.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2007

Fitting Search Into Your Marketing Strategy

There are a few different ways to integrate search into your overall marketing strategy in order to maximize your returns across all channels. You can work with a traditional agency that has moved into search, work with a search agency that has expanded into traditional media, or work with a best-of-breed search marketing firm alongside other best-of-breed marketing partners.

The third option has the most potential upside, but also is the most challenging to manage. In this week's SearchDay, "Making It Work: 6 Factors to Integrate Search with Other Best of Breed Partners," iProspect's John Tawadros shares six factors that should help you pull it all together.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:35 PM | Permalink

November 1, 2007

Seth Godin Dishes Out Meatball Sundaes

Today, SES Chicago keynote speaker Seth Godin spent an hour dishing out his marketing wisdom on a webcast with our own Kevin Ryan. He expounded on the ideas behind his new book, Meatball Sundae.

What is a meatball sundae? According to dedicated live-blogger Lisa Barone, Seth described it this way: A meatball is a worthwhile commodity. They are things we need and sold to everyone. The sundae is the hot fudge and the peanuts, the tactics of social media and the MySpace profiles. These things work but they work best when they're not on meatballs, but when they're on an organization designed to work with them.

Seth also offered 14 trends to help organizations avoid ending up with the meatball sundae. Jody Nimetz at SEO-space has a good recap of those.

Specifically for search marketers, Seth advises ditching the reactionary moves to find the latest and greatest tactics to place well in the search engines, and focus on real marketing: What he's trying to say to the search engine optimization world is that SEO has traditionally been a tactical minute-to-minute game. It's been about figuring out what the search engines want right now and tweaking sites to meet that. That's over.

What we want to do now is to change the very nature of what SEOs do so that regardless of what tactics are hot at the moment, the engines will want to find them because the stuff they're doing matches the strategies the engines are always going to have.

You should print that little bit out and stick it on your wall. If this wasn't a free event, that would have been worth the price of admission right there.

If Lisa and Jody's great coverage is not enough, you can also find more insight from Josh Bernoff, David Dalka, and Darren Barefoot.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:49 PM | Permalink

October 29, 2007

SEW Experts: Search and Brand Authenticity

CMO life expectancy shrinks. Search for brand authenticity grows. In today's Search Ads column, "Search and Brand Authenticity," Matt Spiegel tries to get to the bottom of this paradox. With the need to market an authentic brand, it's time for marketing to reclaim some of its glory.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2007

Are Your Media Efforts Making a Mess of Your PPC Campaigns?

Your paid search campaigns do not exist in a vacuum. A PPC campaign is affected by other, non-search media efforts. A consistent focus on coordinating your paid search with other media efforts can yield great dividends for a savvy marketer.

How difficult that will be depends on the complexity of your non-search media plan. In today's SearchDay, Is Your Paid Search Campaign Part of a Mix or a Mess?, Impaqt's Pat Stroh gives you a quick quiz to determine your MESS, or Media Energizing Search Score.

Your MESS score depends on the amount and complexity of your historical data; your ability to handle the data complexity with analytical specialists; the extent to which your organization is oriented toward learning and testing; and the extent to which an opportunity exists for better results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:25 PM | Permalink

October 1, 2007

SEW Experts: Breaking Down Silos: Specialization With Integration

For any search marketer working with large enterprises or agencies, integration is the toughest job they face. In today's Search Ads column, "Breaking Down Silos: Specialization With Integration," Matt Spiegel describes a challenge that makes changing bids on thousands of keywords seem like child's play.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2007

SEW Experts: Halo 3 as Meta4

With the release of Halo 3, it's worth your while to take a look at what can be learned from the big launch. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Halo 3 as Meta4," Kevin Ryan explains how you can entice searchers with the right marketing message.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2007

Is Your Search Integrated Like Chunky Monkey?

Integration in search is like integration of Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors. If you're in the market for a search vendor, you might have something to learn from the boys in Vermont. In today's SearchDay, "Searching for Options: Integration Spells Sweet Success," John Tawadros writes that while options abound, successful integration has its rewards.

However you decide to engage in search, be sure to choose your search marketing vendor wisely, and give careful consideration to the importance of integration in the process. Otherwise, you could end up with a melt-down on your hands, and a sticky mess that could take more than a few napkins to clean up.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:05 AM | Permalink

September 14, 2007

SEW Experts: Baking SEO into a Full Fledged Interactive Work Plan

In today's Outsourced column, "Baking SEO into a Full Fledged Interactive Work Plan," Chris Boggs discusses where SEO belongs in a strategic online marketing plan. If you think you know the answer, you may be surprised by this week's Outsourced column.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 27, 2007

Search and Offline Converge

At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose last week, ClickZ editor Matthew Nelson saw lots of evidence of the interaction between search with other media, including offline media. He shares his experiences at ClickZ News in "Search and Offline Marketing Converge at SES San Jose."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:08 AM | Permalink

August 20, 2007

Offline Ads Surprisingly Influential to Searchers

While many search marketers understand that there is a connection between online and offline marketing, some may not understand its full extent. According to a new study by Jupiter Research and iProspect, a surprising two-thirds of searchers are led to search on a given keyword as a result of offline marketing.

Specifically, 37 percent of respondents said that in the last six months, a television ad prompted them to conduct a search on a particular company, service or slogan, while 20 percent said a magazine or newspaper ad led them online. Twenty percent said a company's store drove them online, and 17 percent were influenced to search by a radio ad. A smaller number were influenced by outdoor ads.

Only 33 percent of respondents said they had not been influenced to search by any offline media in the past six months. For daily searchers, the influence of offline media was even more apparent, with only 28 percent of searchers saying they had not been prompted to search by any offline media in the past six months.

Besides driving traffic, offline media tends to drive quality traffic. The study asked those users influenced by offline media if they had ultimately made a purchase at that site as a result, and found that 39 percent had done so.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:53 AM | Permalink

July 17, 2007

SEW Experts: Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts

In today's au Natural column, "Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts ," Mark Jackson discusses the key components of successful SEO, showing you how on-site optimization efforts work together to accomplish a common goal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 9, 2007

SEW Experts: The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search

In today's Search Ads column, "The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search," Tony Wright ponders the evolution of search marketing from its heady first years to the competitive situation today. Can this be the beginning of the fragmentation of search?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2007

How Do You React to a Media Blitz?

Ups and downs in search activity and success metrics are often related to activity in other media channels, such as TV, radio, print, and online. One common finding is that as media activity increases, impressions and clicks go up as well. Does that mean that we should up our search budgets and add keywords during an external media blitz? Not always.

In today's SearchDay, "Coordinating Search with External Media: Can Less Be More?," Impaqt's VP of analysis & decision support Pat Stroh explains that lowering your bids may actually be a better plan. Doing so could increase conversions and ROI.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:53 PM | Permalink

February 16, 2007

Keep an Eye on the Traditional

Sometimes, success in search marketing rests on your ability to keep up with the latest cutting-edge tactics and outpace your competitors. But not always. Sometimes, you can find success by sticking to old-fashioned, tried-and-true marketing tactics. That's what Susan Joyce has done to build up Job-Hunt.org to become a popular destination site with links from major publishers. Eric Enge sat down with Joyce to share her story in the SearchDay article, "Job-Hunt.org: An Old-Fashioned Success Story."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:12 AM | Permalink

February 6, 2007

Super Bowl Advertisers Missed Opportunities

I know, I could use all sorts of football metaphors here, but I'll skip that to get to the story. Reprise Media published its third annual Super Bowl Scorecard yesterday, looking at how TV advertisers integrated search into their media plan.

The short answer: most of them did some search marketing, but very few did enough.

Reprise discusses the results on their SearchViews blog, and I've posted more on it in a story at ClickZ News.

Our own Chris Boggs did his own assessment of the “URL visibility factor” of the ads in the SEW blog yesterday, and will talk about the organic results of Super Bowl advertisers in today's SearchDay.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:13 PM | 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

December 21, 2006

The Holiday Wish List

After Peace for all mankind, what do web publishers really want for the Holidays?

Harmony: buying that truly works the same way, across all engines. Understanding: the ability to see how keyword buys relate to each other. Brotherhood: some way to take that Understanding into my banner buys. Love: that targeters and branders all get along.

Posted by at 10:13 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

July 19, 2006

11 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Site

Rand at SEOMoz writes up an excellent post he named 10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic. He has given us 10, plus one bonus idea for driving traffic to your site. I will list them in summery here, but Rand has posted the "ingredients", "process", "results" and "examples" for each listed traffic driving strategy at his post.

10) Targeting Unmonetized Searches 9) Creating Controversy 8) Maps & Mashups 7) Event Coverage 6) Top Ten Lists 5) Online Tools 4) Graphic & Web Design 3) Leveraging Social Networks 2) Blogging & Blog Comments 1) Reporting Remarkable News *) Offering Something Incredible

Now get on implementing these ideas. Yea, where to begin. :)

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:19 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2006

Winners and Losers in Super Bowl Search Marketing

I find it hard to believe, but most of the advertisers who paid millions to have their ads shown during the Super Bowl completely neglected search marketing, squandering amazingly lucrative opportunities as search traffic related to their products, brands and services spiked during and after the game. For a fraction of what the TV ads cost to make and air, these companies could have captured some very valuable traffic. For some stats and a look at the winners and losers in this search marketing Bowl, check out today's SearchDay article, A Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:08 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2005

Avoiding Holiday SEM Blunders

The holiday season will soon be upon us, and it can be a fantastic time for search marketers, provided you make all of the right moves, says Kevin Lee.

Though many marketers are doing a lot of things right, they're also setting themselves up to make some serious blunders this holiday season. Some best practices could easily replace those blunders.

Kevin offers a checklist of these potential blunders along with "power tips" to turn each into a best practice for search marketing in his latest ClickZ column, Turn Holiday SEM Blunders Into Best Practices.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:35 PM | Permalink

June 23, 2005

Offline Marketing Generates Search: Were You Prepared?

No Search Is an Island is the first installment of iProspect founder Fredrick Marckini's new monthly column for CMO Magazine. In it, he covers why offline marketing activities create searches and how savvy marketers understand this and are prepared to best tap into that traffic. If you're doing offline marketing, be sure you're keeping your search marketing people in the loop, as he suggests.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:41 AM | Permalink

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