Very Good Read: Drake Morton

Seven Lessons From Steve Jobs

For Search Marketers

by Aaron Goldman , Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011

I just finished Walter Isaacson’s epic Steve Jobs biography. Beyond being a captivating (and surprisingly quick, considering its 571 pages) read about the life and times of one of the most influential and controversial people in technology, the book imparts some important lessons for search marketers.

1. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. This was the tagline that adorned the first Apple II brochure in 1977 and became a mantra that stuck. “The main thing is that we have to make things intuitively obvious,” Jobs said in discussing his design philosophy. Much of this approach was rooted in his Zen Buddhist training and Bauhaus influence. I see the results firsthand each time my three-year-old daughter swipes to open our iPad, pulls up the Netflix app and finds a Curious George video to watch instantly.

For search marketers, it’s easy to get lost in the complexity of data analysis and campaign management — but sometimes, you have to step back and focus on the basics like creating a compelling call-to-action in your ad copy. Tell people what you want them to do. And clearly state why they should do it.
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Excellent Read: Drake Morton

Does Advertising And Digital Behavior Lack

A Unified Theory And Method For Measurement And Analysis?

by Judah Phillips , Friday, April 15, 2011

Major brainpower and capital is spent measuring digital behavior in the context of the performance of customer acquisition sources.  I mean referrers, like search (seo/sem), crm, emails, and other forms of paid, owned, and/or earned media;and, then spending mental energy and money optimizing digital customer experience for conversion and/or retention.  Digital analytical evolution over the last several years should no longer support a focus only on the linear flow of acquisition to conversion to loyalty.  The devolution of the “funnel” metaphor (are we not measurers?) makes sense because of the complexity of the digital and non-digital ecosystem, which has a multitude of customer touchpoints that lead to value-generating customer performance.  Do you believe the linear “funnel” is insufficient?   Is it really a “tumbler”?
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Need to Understand: Drake Morton

Uniting Search and Display for

Stronger Results

APRIL 13, 2011

Search and display bring distinct strengths to the marketing table and typically complement each other. Too often, though, separate, siloed groups within companies buy and measure the two interactive ad formats. Integrating search and display can bring greater efficiency and greater understanding of how well marketing efforts are working.

Tools for integrating display and search into holistic campaigns, such as attribution modeling, offer marketers detailed pictures of their work, which can yield more efficient and effective results.

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 Excellent Read: Drake Morton

Content Is King

Analytics & KPIs Are Royal Subjects

by Rob Griffin , Friday, March 4, 2011

It’s been an interesting string of weeks, with a couple of groundbreaking announcements from Google. While both are aimed at improving relevance, one is more algorithmic and mathematical in terms of assessing the quality of content — while the other is consumer feedback to essentially cross-reference the same quality content metric. I won’t waste any time here discussing the details, since this has already been covered in depth.

What is more interesting to me is how these changes will improve the quality of search results for consumers, and the impact they will have on advertisers. While Firefox has provided an extension for years that has enabled the consumer to filter both paid and organic results, this functionality existed in a vacuum and was only known to the elite tech-savvy lot. What Google is trying to do now is harness that collective feedback into a formulaic loop to improve results for everyone. For once I feel that this fits well with the engine’s mantra of “don’t do evil,” and I fully endorse these enhancements. This should only benefit quality brands, publishers, and advertisers. (more…)

Focusing on Analytics and Accountability

AUGUST 10, 2010

Closing the gap between measurement and marketing effectiveness

Most marketers are on board when it comes to analytics: They recognize the importance of measuring marketing effectiveness, especially when they are asked to justify spending and possible budget increases. But there is room for improvement in formalizing approaches and communicating results.

According to a survey of senior marketing executives by Forbes Insights and MarketShare Partners, nearly seven in ten said they used analytics to measure marketing effectiveness. Marketers with large budgets were significantly more likely to do so than those with spending of less than $1 million, but many in that group planned to adopt analytics in the future. (more…)

You need to think about this: Drake Morton

Why SEO Doesn’t Translate

by Guy Gilpin , Monday, August 9, 2010

SEO is a laborious and, to be frank, rather tedious task.  So it’s lucky that once you have SE-optimized your Web site in English, you can just have it translated without the need to repeat all that effort in foreign languages, right?

Unfortunately, no.  Robert Frost’s definition of poetry as “what gets lost in translation” could apply equally to SEO.  It is sadly not possible to pre-optimize your Web copy before translation — it has to be re-optimized as part of the translation process. (more…)

You need to be aware: Drake Morton

What is your SEO Objective. . . 

The efficiency of SEO against various marketing objectives including increasing revenue, lead generation, brand or product awareness and more.

See how B2B and B2C organizations differently perceive the efficiency of these SEO objectives.

 

You need to know: Drake Morton

Get Your Search House In Order

For The Holidays

by Stephen DiMarco , Friday, November 6, 2009

The numbers are in. The National Retail Federation (NRF) is, not surprisingly, predicting another dip in holiday spending in 2009, starting with an 1% drop in sales during the eighth-largest U.S. spending holiday, Halloween.  It’s a dismal outlook for marketers, but one that doesn’t have to leave us scratching our heads and biting our nails until the actual sales figures are reported.

Even with dour consumer spending and strained marketing budgets, smart marketers can adjust their marketing strategies to divert search traffic from rivals and gain an online competitive advantage. (more…)

Good Information: Drake Morton

And Now: The New News Regime

by Gord Hotchkiss , Thursday, October 8, 2009

This week, I moderated a session at SMX about real-time search. Personally, I find the convergence of social and search to be perhaps the most significant trend of 2009. Social adds an entirely new dimension to search. Traditionally search has been used to find “what” you wanted to know more about. Social adds the dimension of time. Suddenly, relevance isn’t the only measure. Search now needs a “stale date,” a measure of the freshness of the results.
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So much good information: Drake Morton

Optimizing For Natural And Paid Search,

After The Click

by Rob Garner , Wednesday, May 27, 2009

At the Search Insider Summit in Captiva, Fla., Gord Hotchkiss hosted a panel and clinic on eye-tracking analysis of Web sites suggested by attendees, specifically addressing the topic of post-click optimization.  This session preceded several related breakout discussions, including the “Branding and Post-Click Strategies” roundtable session that I moderated.
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