June 5, 2007 Archives

After a long, heated and (probably) annoying fight, Danny would not allow coverage of the Give It Up! session at the Search Marketing Expo conference.

So this is me blogging that you are not allowed to blog the Give It Up session.

But don't worry, we were given permission to post our notes from this session one month later. So I have asked Tamar to schedule the post to go live in one month from now. Maybe we will even clean it up for you.

I will say that Danny allowed Matt Cutts of Google to sit in only if he gave up a secret no one knew. Matt agreed and he gave up something, but I can't say what it was.

Now the remaining speakers are up now and giving up some of their secrets.

Greg Boser, Search Engine Marketing Consultant, WebGuerrilla
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
Todd Friesen, Director of Search Engine Optimization, Range Online
Mike Grehan, Founder and CEO, Searchvisible Ltd.
Jennifer Slegg, Owner, JenSense.com
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts, LLC
Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Creative Director, deMib.com
Shari Thurow, Webmaster & Marketing Dir., Grantastic Designs
Jill Whalen, CEO and Founder, High Rankings

We will be posting this coverage in one month from now, unless someone else breaks the embargo.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP Agency & Search Marketing, ExactTarget

Panelists:
John C. Kim, Senior Director, Advertiser Product Marketing, Yahoo! Search Marketing
James Colburn, Product Manager, Search Strategy & adCenter Go To Market, Microsoft
Tom Leung, Product Manager, Google, Inc.
Paul Vallez, Director of Product Management, Ask.com

John Kim, Yahoo:
I want you to start thinking about different ideas that Yahoo is interesting in hearing about from you. Some of the things we’d like to give you to think about are:

Trends/Key Hypotheses
• More Search Tools Developing To Improve User Experience
• Search Formats and Types are Changing
• Best of Breed is Still King
• Off-Browser Search Could Explode
• Ranking and Matching Based on Personalization and Community Factors

Implications
• Need More Data – SKU level information, meta data
• Needs Ads in Multi-Media Formats
• More Vertical Fragmentation
• More Experimental Models to Emerge
• Less Transparent

More Trends
• 360 Audience or Action Based Buying
• Organizational Silos Becoming the Norm
• Increased Bifurcation of Advertisers Into Sophisticated and Unsophisticated Advertisers
• No More Time for Experimentation and New Tools
• More Fragmentations and Customized Needs
• More Focus on Interaction Effects and Advanced Analytics

1. How do you think these trends will impact you and what do you need?
2. How do we keep it simple for the advertiser?
3. What ideas do you hope emerge from the commercial API program?

James Colburn, MicroSoft:
Really when usually get the opportunity to speak, but this time we are here to listen. There are two focus areas I would really like to focus on: AdCenter and AdCenter Labs.

AdCenter has been in the market for about 13 months now. In this area, I’d like to know your thoughts on what can we improve… editorials, tools, UI, etc.

AdCenter Labs, which is almost exactly a year old, is really being focused on. How many ppl are familiar with the AdCenter Labs? (few hands) How many people would like a quick refresher? (few hands).

Help us shape how we work with you, where we go in the future, etc. (Provides various ways to contact the AdCenter team on the screen).

What I’d like to talk about out front is making sure you’re aware that we have a very strong commitment to increase query share. Our Sr. VP talked about it extensively during the keynote, and I wanted to reiterate here.

Tom Leung, Google
We’d like some “meat and potatoes” feedback, things about the existing tools and features. We’d also like to feedback about new things that we’re trying, and then also we’d like to hear sort of your fantasy wish list for things you’d really like to see. We appreciate everyone coming out. Please don’t be bashful and if you don’t get all your questions answered, please come down to the booth and talk to us personally.

Paul Vallez, Ask.com
Just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the things we’re working on right now.
Our focus is primarily to ensure that you have the right tools to work with our system in the most efficient way possible. We’re trying to make your advertising campaigns transparent across all ad platforms. One of the things we’re trying to do is show the difference between Search Advertising and Display Advertising…we’re trying out some new types of ads… hybrids, almost, between search and display.

URL Stuffing… we’re working on the ability to include various elements into the tracking URL.

Publisher Controls... Relevancy Thresholds: Work with publishers to define vertical relevancy thresholds; Meet strict relevancy vs. Coverage needs

Ad Performance Thresholds… CPC/CTR Thresholds.

Open Client Questions:
1. How often do publishers want to make changes?
2. Is Vertical Granularity too much?
3. What’s the right interface? API vs. UI (both?)

Open Questions/Feedback

Q: There seems to be an uneven enforcement in policies when it comes to trademark violations in paid search. Do you have any plans to offer new tools to help advertisers see people using their trademarks in campaigns?

(silence)

Paul: That’s a hard one to solve. We tend to approach that manually. On the SE side, I imagine it’s very difficult to keep track of which terms are okay to use and which aren’t.

John Kim: I just read a media post about how Saatchi and Saatchi got fired for using the image of Kurt Cobain w/o permission. That was an asset management issue rather than a trademark issue, but they’re similar issues for the SEs.

James Colburn: How many ppl would like a clarification on how the trademark violation policy works at Microsoft? (third of the room raises hands)

Tom Leung: If you own a TM and you’re very concerned about other ppl using your terms in ads, there’s already a place in AdWords where you can indicate you’d like to prevent other ppl from using your terms in their campaigns.

Q: Why can’t you go through the USPTO’s db of trademarks and cull out all the trademarks and *know* who is authorized to use them and who isn’t?

Q: I would like to see Google have an alt-text feature or some way that we can specify parameters like misspelled keywords, etc.

JC: How many people find parameters confusing or annoying? (a few hands)

Q: On the AdWords editor… it crashes ALL THE TIME. We have a campaign with a million keywords. We’ve escalated it through our contacts, and if we move our account to a new one, we’ll lose all the history. For Yahoo, I don’t seem to have the support level that I’d like… do you see that changing anytime soon?

John Kim: We’ll have Stew Easterby chat with you after the session.

Feedback: The way my management system works, impression share is important to me. Ask gives it to me once a week, but the others don’t really at all and I’d love to get that from them. Also, exclusion keywords are my best friends… they improve my CTR and they’re good for you because they help you make the most of your inventory… I think there should be more keyword exclusions. Also, I’d like to be able to switch geography to see what the SERPs will look like in each of the geographical locations I’m targeting.

Question: Has anyone found the UI on AdCenter is confusing? How many people get lost in the UI? (a smattering of hands)

Feedback: I’d like to see something so if you have an acronym… like DVD or CD that it actually LETS you have all caps instead of Cd or Dvd since it makes us look stupid.

JC: Just so I can do a little nyah-nyah we already have that. We already have that in AdCenter.

Feedback: We’d like to see more explanation regarding why we’re getting discounted clicks (as a result of detected or suspected click fraud) because my executives are wanting to know what exactly was happening to cause you to give us a discount or a refund without us asking for it.

TL: We definitely understand your need for transparency, but at the same time, we have to not be completely transparent because by providing too much detail, we’ll be exposing the system to additional exploitation. So we really have to walk a fine line, but I’ll definitely be bringing your concerns up with our team because I understand where your team is coming from and why they want that information.

Matt Van Wagner (in audience): I have a question about the letter S and plurals. Why don’t you open up the ability to differentiate between plural and singular forms? I think that’s something people are interested in, am I right? (Chorus of YES!) Is that something you can do? Please, please please?

Also, are you other guys considering putting in any historical data like Google is currently offering?

Paul Vallez: What level of granularity are you looking for?

Matt Van Wagner: Not very much… just like major changes… doesn’t have to be really really granular.

(Various heads nodding that it’s something they (the other SEs) either are working on or will work on).

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Matt Cutts, Software Engineer, Google, Inc.
Peter Linsley, Senior Product Manager for Search, Ask.com
Tim Mayer, VP of Product Management, Yahoo
Aaswath Raman, Program Manager, Live Search, Microsoft

Q: What are you doing to eliminate the .edus ranking for Viagra, etc? Are you banning people based on their WHOIS registration?

MC: Registrars do not automatically get WHOIS info, so I can dispel that misconception right there. Additionally, Google is a very algorhythmically centric engine, so we try first and foremost to “fix” things via the algorithm first and use human intervention and manual fixes as a last resort.

TM: From a Yahoo perspective, the automated approach is much more scalable. So across the whole index, it’s much more feasible to use an automated approach because really, how many pages can real humans touch?

PL: You can employ 2000 people to work everyday for the next 2 years and they still couldn’t clean up all of the stuff that would need to be manually touched.

Danny: The whole Jason Calacanis "we’re going to have Mahalo", etc. It’s that whole idea that we’ll manually build all the search results out and eliminate the spam.

Danny: A suggestion was made that the SEs post some sort of “Johns” list for sites that have been penalized. “Let the rest of their industry know they did something wrong; make examples of people”.

Danny: Is there any frustration that sometimes it’s more about the exact technique, rather than the “intent”.

Question: Life after banishment… cleaned up site, submitted reinclusion request, 6 days, site was back in the index… except there’s no backlinks credited, no PR, nothing. WTF? Are we on parole?

MC: Look at your traffic. Backlinks and PR get pushed every 3 months. You might have caught it in a weird part of that cycle.

Same Questioner: So even though it’s showing 0 for everything, it’s not really gone-gone?

MC: Right. If you continue to have any questions you can contact us and ask someone to take a look at it. It’s also a good time to do an audit… you know when you get a flat, it’s a good time to make sure the rest of the car is in good working order.

Jonah: Why can’t we report spam right out of the SERP? Why do we have to go fill out the form?

AR: Because it can be gamed by your competitors.

Danny: How many of you would like to be able to throw a switch in your WMC console and turn on the Spam Report buttons on the SERPs? (Hands go up)

PL: I would imagine most people prefer a consolidated location where you can report spam.

MC: They do a thing in Germany where they compile a master list of things people don’t like and we (the SEs) can go get that and look at it.

TM: We would want trusted people to go out an report spam. If you make it easier to report spam, the quality of the spam reports will go down.

Question: I really try to get in contact with you guys, and I never hear from anyone. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Canadian or what?

TM: In terms of Yahoo, if you don’t hear back, like sometimes if you’re breaking a ton of rules, you’ll get a very terse “Please review the guidelines”. But if you’re a small mom & pop and just need a few tweaks, you’ll probably get a lot more feedback.

Question: What about if we had some type of wiki where we could agree on coding standards so that they aren’t mistaken as spam?

Lightning Round!

Danny: Shout out a solution in 5 words or less…

-- List of actual penalties
-- Full list of penalties
-- Get more input from webmaster about their own site.
-- Trusted webmasters… give an exam (lots of applause)
-- Give us a "clean" report
-- Trusted API through webmaster tools
-- Maximum number of keywords per tag
-- Better training for advertising reps
-- Ban Viagra
-- Give Viagra away so there’s no profit in selling it
-- Details in the penalty (when, where, when does it end?)
-- Negative Rank on the Toolbar
-- Bad Neighborhood API

Last Word:

AR: (couldn't really hear what he said... he's softspoken and I'm a little deaf)

TM: We have an interface that’s dig like in that you can give feedback. It’s fairly cool. WE’ve been integrated this stuff into site explorer.

MC: We love you infinity times infinity. Seriously, we take spam very seriously. We’re going to keep going forward with our webmaster console.

PL: It’s all about getting the feedback from you guys. We can’t do it without you.

Better Ways

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speaker:
Alex Bennert, Director of Client Services, Beyond Ink
Greg Boser, Search Engine Marketing Consultant, WebGuerrilla
Jim Boykin, CEO, We Build Pages
Christine Churchill, President, Key Relevance
Todd Friesen, Director of Search Engine Optimization, Range Online
Cameron Olthuis, Director of Marketing and Design, ACS
Aaron Wall, Author, SEO Book

Danny introduces the session and says that it's really called "Better Ways to to Boring Stuff." You can think of this session as an SEO technique clinic.

This is a question-and-answer session instead of a presentation session.

Q: We've seen great results with social media for small clients, but our bigger clients are hesitant to get into that space. They are having difficulty launching their first blog - it took six months to show them that there's value in that. Do you have recommendations on how to ease them into it?
Cameron: We run into the same thing. A lot of education is involved. Reinforce the idea that you'll be doing a lot of reputation management and watching that closely. You can watch the fire and catch it before it goes out.
Aaron: You can reach out to brand evangelists if they don't want to do it on their own site.
Greg: The corporate web world is so slow. Even if you get approval, it takes 6 months and 400 meetings and meetings about the meetings.
Alex: We have a client of a large corporation. They wanted to start a blog. However, it couldn't get through legal. The blog ended up being generously being sponsored through an affiliated company. There is a good halo effect without having to worry about legal stuff because technically it's not their blog; they're just sponsoring it.

Q: I have an open-ended question: how would you scale getting linkbait? What would the tricks or tactics actually do to get a lot of backlinks without having to do much?
Aaron: You can find the key ideas for your topic. When you search for your topics on Google, search for things that are non-commercial that people are interested in. Then write about it. Get really good content for it -- spend a few grand -- and run an ad campaign for keyword permutations that would match that.
Christine: If you happen to be an authority in a certain area, you can give out awards. An example is web2.0 awards of SEOmoz. These have longevity and can continue to build links. Try to look for something that has continuous link-building ability.
Todd: We take a different approach. We have a lot of interns who do directory submissions and we also do link buying. We feel it is media placement and relevant. We also have done widget building. When that HTML is generated, we embed a keyword link with one of the phrases we're trying to target.
Jim: Our approach is "no pain, no gain." We send it via email and do it by hand. You need to write something where you'll expect a response. The days of pressing buttons is over.
Alex: We also try to build it into another part of the business. We have a matching service and offer incentives (referral fees) for links.
Cameron: Use brand evangelists - give them the content and let them do the linkbait or viral stuff for you.

Q: Has anybody got a tool or a way of logging into social networks very quickly?
Cameron: I think anything worth doing is worth putting a little time into it. Pay your dues. (Hurray!)
Danny: How long does it take to log in to them?!
Todd: Use Roboform which logs you in.
Christine: There are scripts that you can add to the toolbar that keep you logged in.

Q: How about developing an accurate keyword research tool? All the ones there suck.
Todd: Have you seen Microsoft's keyword tool? It's a fantastic tool. They have a lot of data including demographic data. They launched it a few weeks ago and they now have an API.
Greg: Why do you think they suck?
Christine: Most of the keyword tools pull information from ISPs so you can get some skewing. Others like Wordtracker pull data from metasearch engines and then have a filtering system which throws out aberrations in the search trends. That’s why the search queries in WordTracker are lower than some of the comparable tools. Keyword Discovery recently made a change in the way they present their data – the default data used to be from ISP data, but just recently they changed the default data to be user toolbar data, so its resonably accurate. They still have the ISP database, they just made the toolbar data be the default. A good thing to do is to use a couple of keyword tools and compare the order of the phrase – and ignore the actual search number. If I see the same phrase above another one above 3 different keyword tools, I can assume that it's a more popular keyword than another one.
Alex: You gauge the relative disparity across different tools. e.g. children's furniture vs. kid's furniture.
Greg: The relationships of the words do pan out very accurately, even if the numbers are different.
Alex: The most accurate source for keyword data is your referral data.
Followup: Our referral data shows different results from those keyword tools.
Christine: Use a PPC campaign. There are a lot of differnet ways to determine this.

Danny gets a poll of which keyword tools are being used. Christine says that Overture is still good for brainstorming even though there isn't a large show of hands.

Q: I have a question about linkbait. Some pages have a lot of icons that add clutter to the page to submit to Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc. Has anyone done any research on "how much is too much?"
Cameron: I prefer not to include those at all. Generally, what happens is that a lot of stories get submitted to Digg and provide more value to the Digg community, but if the Diggers see that your site is being continually submitted to Digg, they would equate your site with spam. You should add the ones that are most relevant to your userbase.

Q: In a corporate culture, how do you explain to corporate clients that you will be getting links from unrelated sites, unrelated topics, etc. to people who don't get it?
Cameron: I think that the links are pretty relevant. The blogs that link are generally on topic to what you've written about it. There will be a few irrelevant links, but it's not like it's going to hurt you.
Aaron: A lot of links can be polluted anyway across the web.
Todd: It will spread through your group of interest. That's how it spreads. The vast majority of your links will be on target.
Christine: You should have a balance in your links. When you do link-building, you don't want Digg links only, or blog links only. You need to do links over a variety of sources.
Greg: We don't have control over anchor text and what people link to you. However, it helps develop trust to your site to rank better. You should still look for focus, targeted links.
Cameron: You can't control that anchor text but you can influence it by having an applicable title, description, etc.

Q: How many targeted links would you go after a month without penalty?
Aaron: It's all relative to what others are doing and the field you're playing in. Some people go for thousands, and others go for fewer.
Followup: Let's say it's under control and it's not viral.
Greg: The rate that we add links really depends on the space and where your site is in the level of trust. What's good for one might not be good for another. Older sites can get crappy links and it will help you. Newer sites have problems with that.
Jim: I think a lot of sites are concerned about the number of backlinks. It also depends on the quality of the link as well. If a subpage has a thousand links that go to it and you get a link from that page, it's worth a lot more.
Todd: In regards to Greg's comment about fitting into your space, I once got 65,000 links overnight by pressing a button. The top competitor had 3,000 links. Eventually they found me out.

Q: Regarding getting large companies to make the shift, I run into challenges with editorial writing (locked into an old style of writing) that isn't SEO friendly. Also, there are graphic designers who want to build Flash sites that aren't discovered by spiders. Have you had any success stories on getting them to change their minds?
Todd: We have a lot of clients like that. It's a long process of education. Search engines need to understand what the page is about. If you show someone a description of a product without the actual image of the product, people don't necessarily know what the product is that you're describing. You need to make sure it's understandable. Add one word to the writing and make it as simple as possible. That's going to get their attention. A lot of corporate clients are thinking about this as a resource issue of how to get it done.
Greg: If they give you grief, I'll just fire them. It's like pulling teeth. Lawyers ruin everything. Everything hits legal and goes to a grounding halt. I don't work at that level anymore simply because I can't work with clients unless they prove to me that they'll follow through. I like to win.
Alex: In terms of designers, Danny wrote an article that clicks for some of them. Make sure that any designer has a design that is cross-browser compatible. If you think of the bot as a browser, that's how you can help them see how to work on the content.
Christine: Some clients will launch that Flash page regardless of what you tell them. They will learn by being burned. A lot of times, you can then convince them.
Todd: We have clients that have a lot of Flash pages. There's absolutely no way in the world that they will change it. We built out an HTML version of the site and sent a User-Agent delivery to the bots. Call it cloaking as you like, but it's the same page for the search engines.
Greg: We used to use cloaking to prove our case for some of these clients. I would build a bot version of that model and cloak that. All of the sudden, they would believe it.
Danny: You can have a great headline that is keyword rich. Newspapers are struggling behind content behind paid walls. 25% of visitors to newspapers come from search engines. I think that's because they are learning that they need to change the way they write. At Search Engine Land, I talk about that "third browser" - everybody uses a search engine. Designers have to design for IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. But search engines are more popular than all those browsers combined. That idea should resonate with the developers.
Followup: I wanted to followup with that question. I trained journalists to write for search. You shouldn't mention SEO at all. You should emphasize that you're writing for users who use search engines.

Q: I was wondering how relevant page freshness is to ranking. Do we need to reoptimize pages every few months? Sometimes we see pages that rank higher which are crap but are fresher.
Danny: You've never seen this page before and it comes up?
Aaron: You probably see that these newer pages are featured more prominently on their page structure. You need to make sure that your older pages continue to have that prominence. You need to make sure your internal link weight focuses on these types of pages. You should assume that since Google News is now integrated into search, Google is also focusing on newer content.
Jim: Google would try to feed in a fresh page that may or may not last through time. I think there are a lot of people who say that content needs to constantly change and be fresh. Search engines look at this. If you wrote a great page in 1996 and many people linked to it and suddenly you decided to change that content, I believe the search engines see those older links as not having as much value. Newer links, however, would have more value.
Todd: I know a site that has 500,000 links to it and Google says it has 8. You need to use other tools like Yahoo. It might be a freshness issue - it might be something entirely different. Google is constantly tweaking the algorithm. Today, something might have changed. Always make minor adjustments to maintain your position.
Greg: Check your header messages - Google supports the Last Modified date.
Christine: I have pages that I optimized 8 years ago and still rank, so it might not be a freshness issue at all.
Danny shows a Google Blogoscoped blog post that mentions that Google has a QDF value - "query deserves freshness"

Q: Do you have tips that a retailer can optimize in Google Base to go above organic results?
Nobody uses it on the panel.
Someone in the audience says that it doesn't do much for him.
Danny: I'm not actively using base but they are taking more and more database data. They are doing outreach to real estate agencies. Base doesn't yet have that momentum and still needs to be experimented with. They may downplay it but it is going to be Google Real Estate or Google Classified down the line.

Q: Regarding Google Base, we have a real estate company that updates the feed for Google Base. We see that people are scraping the MLS off the feed.
Greg: The playing field is never even. Google gets a lot of duplication in the MLS. Individual agents send their own stuff and then brokers send their own stuff, so I think they're taking only from brokerages and that will hopefully address the spam issue. You always want to hope that the guidelines are evenly enforced/policed. The guidelines say don't do it but Google doesn't allocate the manpower to hit the people who are cheating. Those that understand that push the envelope. So now you have to face your own solution - do I wait for Google or do I compete?
Todd: About a year ago at another conference, Tim Meyer of Yahoo was looking at spam (pills, mortgage, etc), and we concluded that you can't take a sword to a gunfight. Otherwise, you'll miss the opportunity entirely.

Comment from someone in the audience: Eight months ago, I added a Google Base application and we saw some of the results going into a OneBox.

Danny then reviews the Google Universal search and shows how Google OneBox is more prevalent: news results, maps, pictures, and Google Video have gone to replace traditional organic results.

Q: I wanted to know if you have a favorite tool that you use on a regular basis for anything.
Greg: All our stuff is internal that we built ourselves.
Todd: We use a lot of internal tools, but my favorite Firefox tool is SearchStatus. The Web Developer toolbar is also brilliant.
Cameron: We have developed a tool inhouse called Serph, which is a reputation management tool that checks many social media sites.
Jim: We have a We Build Pages Top 10 Analysis tool.
Todd: I also used Aaron's SEO for Firefox extension. We also use Xenu Link Sleuth which will come back with a list of URLs on your site, etc. (He adds: It has a multi-threaded crawl. You can do that to your competitors.)
Alex: Xenu is great and lets you export the entire crawl to a file.

The conference competitiveness has really started to heat up while at SMX.

Rand reported of rumors of exclusivity contracts that speakers who wanted to speak at SES conference had to sign. In this contracts, SES supposedly did not allow speakers to speak at both SES and SMX.

Kevin at Search Engine Watch denied that there were exclusivity for speakers between SES and SMX. He said, "There have not been, nor will there be any plans to institute any kind of exclusivity agreement for speakers at any of our events."

So I spoke with Danny Sullivan who said that this is not entirely true. Danny told me that he put clauses into the speaker notes that says they do not want speakers to speak at another conference within two weeks of the SES conferences. I then spoke with Chris Sherman, who has chaired dozens of SES shows and he explained that the speakers technically do not have speaker contracts - they just ask that speakers do not talk at two conferences within two weeks of each other.

I am told, they have never enforced this exclusivity clause. But I am aware of some speakers who have told me, probably over two years ago, that they could not speak at WebmasterWorld's PubCon conference because they are speaking at Search Engine Strategies. So there must be some truth to the exclusivity.

Danny told me, he has no plans to add speaker exclusivity to SMX conferences but he was the individual responsible for the exclusivity clause in the SES speaker notes.

Since SES has always been run by Danny Sullivan, I suspect he would know best. It is possible that Incisive Media, the new organizers of SES, can remove any of these clauses or simply not enforce them in the future.

Chris Sherman added that since he is chairing some SES conferences, that he has a special contract that won't allow him to speak at SMX or moderate at SMX now. Nor can he speak or moderate at WebmasterWorld's conference.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP, Agency & Search Marketing, ExactTarget

Panelists:
Anton E, Konikoff, Founder and CEO, Acronym Media
Matt Greitzer, Director of Search Marketing, Avenue A|Razorfish
Scott Greenberg, SVP, Advertising Services, Marchex
T. J. Kelley, VP, Marketing, LookSmart
Tom Paraboschi, Director of Advertising Sales and Agency Relations, MIVA

Anton E. Konikoff

How cool is this to be the final session of the show? So, my name is indeed Anton Konikoff. I run Acronym Media in NYC in the Empire State Bldg (55th floor). What we specialize in is keyword driven marketing. What that is it takes the things we’ve all excelled in as far as marketing and keywords, etc. and applies linguistics and sociology.

We all know who the Oligarchs of Paid Search are… being Russian, I know all about Oligarchs. They tend to be rich, good looking (kinda) and content in exile. The big three (Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) are the oligarchs of Search. You’ll note I didn’t include Ask.com… how many of you consider Ask to be part of the majors? (few hands). Well, I do, but we can argue about that later. So can you imagine the world without those three (plus Ask)? There wouldn’t be much left.

So today, we’re declaring June 5 International Second Tier Search Appreciation Day!

In addition to the general second tier engines (miva, kanoodle, mamma, etc), there are also vertical engines like business.com, kayak, superpages, etc. Plus there are the foreign engines like Baidu.

So when should we consider using second tier engines?
• Large budgets and not enough inventories on GYMa
• Opportunity to lower blended cost/conversion
• Brand defense imperatives
• Client/boss insists on diversification
• Really good looking search engine reps.

So why do I like 2nd tier engines?
• Lower CPC than majors (1 cent)
• Better and unique positioning
• Fewer bidders -> more winners
• Different footprint
• Tap into niche audience segments
• High-touch customer support

Share of paid search budgets
• 1% of search market share == $100 million in revenue, $1 billion in market cap – Don Dodge, Microsoft
• at Acronym, we spend 15% (incl International)

Important Considerations
• Secondary engines do not typically offer conversion tracking
• Lack of APIs and integration with big management tools  manual reporting and optimization is often necessary
• Typically results are not real time – could be up to 48 hours delay
• Do not always report on same metrics

More aspects to consider
• Features: some do not offer geo-targeting, budget options by campaign, landing page testing and multiple ad copy
• Distribution is not always top-notch
• Click fraud potential is thought to be higher
• Not always clear editorial guidelines

Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Spend could be too low to justify effort and time for optimizations
• Evaluate based on campaign needs and imperatives
• Look for an create profitable niches

Optimization Techniques
• Searcher behavior and benchmarks likely to be different from Tier 1
• Launch with volume words that convert well in GYMa
• Test broader keywords that are too expensive in GYMa
• Ad copy MUST be very targeted to pre-qualify visitors (tight ad roups)
• Test, test, test
• Monitor query-driven v. contextual
• Negatives for Sites/Keywords
• Dedicated landing pages?
• Share conversion data, ask vendors for help w/ optimization

Summarize
• Treat Tier 2 as a serious channel, not just a supplement
• Make very few assumptions
• Test, the invest
• Run cost/benefit analysis
• Engage users

Matt Greitzer

I’m going to go through pretty quickly 5 or 10 things and a few of the things Anton talked about.

2nd Tier Spending
• We spent last year (06) $151,000,000
o Of that, considerably less than 1% went to 2nd Tier engines

2nd Tier Challenges
• Operation Barriers – bid management tools and other software aren’t always compatible with the second tier engines.
• Quality Issues, Quality Perceptions – We see very good quality off of 2nd tier engines, but there’s a perception out there that the 2nd tiers are lesser quality and less desirable.
• Low volume – Do your c/b analysis. Is the amount of benefit you’re going to get from working w/ a second tier engine going to be worth the extra 2-4 hours a week you’ll be spending on it?

Success Stories – Travel Client
• Used 2nd Tier engines in the past w/o success
• Re-launched in Q1 07 on Miva and Enhance
• Driving to a targeted landing page
• Benefiting from CPCs 50% lower than other engines
• Drive more volume than MSN, and a more efficient cost per lead.

Success Stories from Vertical Search
• B2B
o Business.com (tech, travel)
o Industry Brains (Financial Services)
• Travel – Trip Advisor
• Retail – Shopzilla, Pricegrabber, NexTag, Shopping.com
o 10%-20% incremental volume
o Feed management

Scott Greenberg

So with a raise of hands, how many people in here are working with second tier engines? (half dozen hands) Are you experiencing success?

Quick Overview of Marchex Search Marketing

1. Pay Per Click Network
2. Contextual Network
3. Search Marketing Services

Marchex PPC Differentiators
1. Focus on traffic quality
a. Our won websites plus top distribution partners
b. Unbilled clicks at 10%-12%
i. (Industry standard: Google 5-10%, Yahoo 10-15%)

(Spends a lot of time explaning the history of Marchex, how they got to where they are today, and what they’re rolling out at the end of the month.)

T. J. Kelley

The LookSmart PPC Network consists of ISPs, Niche Publishers, Mainstream Publishers, Niche Search Sites, LookSmart Consumer Sites, Web Portals, Toolbars, and Meta Search Sites.

So I’d like to focus on these three: Niche Publishers, Mainstream Publishers and Niche Search Sites to show you how we’re going about growing our traffic and increasing exposure for our advertisers.

(Shows a graph of LookSmart Search Queries for One Day)

On our Technology and Services… our platform is scalable and handles millions of queries a day, and we combine that with our customer support, SEM services, campaign tracking, etc.

Tom Paraboschi

I’m going to go over a little about what we’re seeing in the industry.

PPC beyond the majors – why do it?
• Reach people where they spend the majority of their time online
• Increase branding potential
• Extend online reach
• Circumnavigate inventory issues
• Low cost of entry

Quality not quantity focus
• Drive for vertical specific traffic
PPC beyond pure acquisition
• SEM used to support PR
• ATL integration
Many advertisers priced out of search network

… and yet reservations still remain….

Vertical transition through the Precision Network
• Vertically focused PPC
• Spans 18 specific business categories
• Lower volume, higher value leads
• Developed in response to advertiser demand
• ROI
• Focused
• Now out of beta

Case Studies: True.com
Objectives
Increase membership for leading US dating site and help drive brand awareness

Strategy
Precision Network campaign developed for the ‘dating’ vertical. Mix of brand, generic, specific and seasonally focuses keywords.

Results… (pulled the slide down before I could get the text). Tom emailed us his presentation, you can download it here.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP, Agency & Search Marketing, ExactTarget

Speakers:
Brad Geddes, Director of Search Engine Marketing, Local Launch
Ben Perry, Ph.D., Paid Search Director, iProspect
Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster

Brad speaks first on dayparting/ad scheduling - changing your bids or displaying ads by time of day or time of week. These rules are not true for all businesses but this methodology may work for some.

Who should use dayparting?
- Businesses who only want to advertise during business hours
- Businesses who advertise based on a buying cycle
- Advertisers who track ROI on a daily or hourly basis

This is relevant because you can understand how people surf by hour, by day of the week, or by day of the month.

Every business is different. From retail to dating to finance to travel, you'll see different conversion trends. There are huge differences between 4pm and 12pm in particular industries, like finance.

Case study: B2B finance lead generation site
Conversions by hour: early in the morning, there are more conversions. But what about weekdays? Tuesdays are the busiest days, but Sunday is the second busiest day. 9am is a high conversion time and Sunday is a big day - so what do you do? Well, compare Tuesday hours to Sunday hours, and you'll see different kinds of spikes. Sunday evening is more active than Tuesday morning. Therefore, you need to look at a different picture and consider other variables.

You need to consider timezones also. EST is 3 hours ahead of PST. Find out where people are buying: is it national or international?

In this instance, the CPA dropped from $37 to $12 by doing time measurements and account reorganization.

Another example is for high end electronics - conversion rate by day of month over a 3 month average shows that the middle of the month is most active. But if you take each individual month and break them down, you see a different type of graph. Why are the conversion dates so different? High end electronics are based on the second paycheck. First paycheck goes to mortgage/rent. But the second paycheck is disposable income.

How can the engine help?
Google has 2 options: AdWords ad scheduling basic and ad scheduling advanced.
Microsoft adCenter has a Day Parting system - incremental bidding.
Yahoo doesn't have anything yet.

Time sensitive offers - consider the following:
Do you have a day of the week where business is slow? e.g. ad copy can say "25% off plumbing services if you call between 12-5pm on Friday. Serving the Chicago area."
Or do you just want to beat the competition? "Monday Sushi Lunch special. Free edamame on orders over $10. Order before noon for free delivery."
The use of the day in the ad helps connect to the searcher.
Look how these ads convert and how they interact. Consider your conversion metric.

Ben Perry speaks next about campaign setup considerations.

The importance of proper setup:
- Map out your account structure before touching the engine interface.
Why? Makes life easier, improves quality score, and the big 3 engines have essentially the same structure.
Considerations:
- Ad serving, reporting ,ease of use
- Don't mirror your site structure unless that is the best structure all around
- Use as simple a structure as possible

Also focus on budgeting.
- Hitting your budget throttles your ad serving
- You want to serve ads as if you had an unlimited budget
- If you don't do this, you're paying too much per click because you're competing in a smaller set of volume in terms of impressions.

Focus on new engines.
- Use Google's Website Optimizer to check new traffic sources
Create a new landing page.
Create an MVT test that taps into each of your main customer types.
Send all traffic from a new source to that page only.
Let the results tell you whether the source has value and to which customers.

Keyword Selection:
- Buy tangential keywords carefully or not at all.
Why? Search marketing works because of direct relevance. Contextual ads are usually a cheaper way to accomplish the same thing.

Match types: use broad match with negative keywords to reach maximum volume over CPA target
Why? You can't predict the way people search. It gets you to an optimal volume state faster.
However, this depends on good keyword selection and you must mine your data.

Another thing to consider is position -
Think of ad position as a side effect of your ROI equation, not as a lever for driving the campaign.
Why? There's nothing magical about position. Use it as a lever for driving the campaign makes you lose money. Calculate your bids based on your ROI.

Consider geo-targeting:
Use it strategically.
When targeting most of the country, use a national campaign as the base with geo-targeted overlays. You get a lot better results when you use a national campaign as a base and have these overlays. Why? Because only using geo-targeting leaves much volume on the table that it's worth paying for clicks that you cannot use.

The last person who speaks is Matt Van Wagner who talks about used fish, old socks, and a new attitude: implementing a dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) in a quality score world.

Google had this first, but Yahoo never really had it. Until they rolled out Panama, they didn't need it. Microsoft did DKI to the extreme.

What are the pros?
- Improves CTR.
- Improves quality score
- It is the secret sauce that all experts use
- Improves ad relevance.
What are the cons?
- Lose control of what your ad is going to look like.
- Too complex to understand.
- Decreases your conversion rate.

He shows a few screenshots, including a search on Google for "used underwear" and there is actually an ad result for "Used Thongs."

What is DKI? You have to understand it at a conceptual level before working on it on a tactical level. You have different words that you can customize ads to save time. You don't want to write a billion ads.

Yahoo says: reduces the number of ads you manage. Increase relevance, automatically includes the appropriate keyword because people can find bolded text well.

How does DKI work?
DKI picks up the keyword - it picks up the keyword from your list rather than what the user typed in.

In Google:
Headline: Buy {KeyWord: Gourmet Coffees}
Description line: Save on {KeyWord: Gourmet Coffees}

How to control word casing for dynamic text:
Syntax:
keyword: starbucks coffee - all lower case
Keyword: Starbucks Coffee - 1st word INIT (initial) CAPS, all lower case
KeyWord: Starbucks Coffee - all words INIT CAPS
KEYword: STARBUCKS coffee - 1st word caps, all other words lower case
KeyWORD: Starbucks COFFEE - last word caps, all others initial caps
KEYWORD: STARBUCKS COFFEE - all words all caps.

So for example, what if you're selling PPC campaigns?
Use KEYWord: PPC Campaign
What if you're selling "driving school in NH?"
Use KeyWORD: Driving School in NH

Think twice before inserting Google dynamic text into the display URL.
Google inserts the keyword from your ad group, not the user query.
Google DKI inserts the keyword from your ad group, not the user query, so it picks up the world in your ad group that caused the match.

Back to the "used underwear" example, it's a very bad broad match.

With Yahoo Panama, there was a one to one relationship for keywords to ads. In Panama, there are options for dynamic text - you can control title and description. You can change default text and alternative text.

In Panama, you can choose to insert the keyword automatically.

Alternate text:
- Always display for your title and/or description.
- Creates optimal one ad to one keyword relationship.
- Lets you control the word casing and grammar.

Microsoft went all out on Dynamic text -
It has a full set of text insertion tools, word casing is in your control, there are a set of parameters available at the keyword level, and works with content ads too. The online help is also very good.

You don't have to remember syntax; it's all there for you.

In adCenter, you can do keyword {keyword} which will insert your keyword.

DKI works best when ad groups are tightly organized around things that are like sneakers (red, green, blue, white, Vans, etc - words that have many ways to describe it). It works best when phrase match is used, rather than broad. It also works best when one dominant word varies only by part number, size, color, model #, etc.

It is less successful in conceptual campaigns and where branding is more important than clicks.

Does it improve ad relevancy? Absolutely and absolutely not.
Does it improve ad click-through rates? If you structure your campaigns right, CTR will rise.
Does it improve your quality score? Not directly.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP, Agency & Search Marketing, ExactTarget

Speakers:
Robert Ashby, Microsoft (formerly Director of Search @ Expedia)
Peter Hershberg, Managing Partner, Reprise Media
Misty Locke, President & Co-Founder, Range Online Media
Chris Zaharias, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives Efficient Frontier

Forgive me as this is the first time we've ever done debate coverage. It was tough. :)

Jeff introduces the session as a formal debate. He introduces the panelists and then explains that Misty and Peter think that bid management is dead, and that Chris and Robert think that bid management is not dead.

Then he polls the audience and most people here think that bid management is not dead.

Misty speaks first. She says that her theory is that bid management is not dead but that a "one size fits all" no longer works. She is challenging how we view search marketing - so that we don't optimize ourselves into a corner. You can't focus solely on bid management solution.
Search engines are no longer "bid to position." It is limited by time and data. Limited data will never understand CTR variables, impact of promotions impact of campaigns, conversion rate factors, etc.

Search is not just about keywords. There are other things that go into marketing: social marketing, video, branding, personalization, Google Base, etc. This is not present in a bid management tool.

If you're looking at the "last click to conversion" then you're forgetting about all the other marketing that is involved.

Consumer intent: it can never be measured by a tool. Marketing is an art, not a science. It can never be measured by an exact formula.

64% of all searches happen in the same month and 4% happens immediately.

Robert will cross-examine her first.

Robert asks: How can you possibly expect humans to do things like manage a tail of keywords?
Misty answers: I do not believe that these tools don't have a place in marketing. I just don't think they are the 'be all end all' solution. There are mini tools, one size does not fit all.
Robert: If you can redefine what is the nonautomated automated solution, it would be fantastic.
Misty: Am I conceding that the tools can help? Yes. But I don't think they are the best way to manage the campaign.
Robert clarifies: There are open questions that there are influences - how would you characterize increasing clickthrough if they didn't have better SEO?
Misty: Bid management tools don't always perform quickly enough. You cannot put a tool on your system and walk away and not look at it. It's not just the consumer's path; it's also the marketers' intent.

Chris gives the argument now on why bid management is not dead.

Chris explains the history of bid management because he says the context is important. In 2001 and 2002, a lot of people were taking advantage of search and people were buying a lot of keywords. Many people built Excel spreadsheets where all the data was stored to get rules to see which keywords should be bid more on which should be bid less on. This also took advantage of transparent marketplaces but Yahoo! Panama and Google replaced those markets.

However, bid management exists today and works well. The first proof that I have is in a data presentation (illustration shown of a graph). X axis: daily ad spend. Y axis: number of transactions/signups. You see an increase in signups as ad-spend increases.

My second point is that I would make a very strong case that advertisers don't have enough time to market. The reason for this is because they are doing things manually. They can't get to more important tasks because they are looking at math.

Another proof around bid management not being dead: There are at least a dozen firms that are selling bid management systems (aQuantive, Efficient Frontier, DoubleClick, Did-It, etc.). The fact that they are getting acquired by large sums means that there's something there.

Another one: there's a reason why Google is charging for its API: the reason is that people are using it. Every major search engine has an API. Those that don't have it are building it.

Automated campaign optimizaton does not apply to engines with opaque bid landscapes. The traditional approach does not work - data modeling is successful for keyword management.

To address the concern about data being invalid: many firms take historical data and compare it to more recent data, and it results in more accurate predictions.

Peter cross-examines Chris.

Peter: I'm glad that you went back to give a history with a respect to bid management. When there was complete transparency in the marketplace, the only way to secure a higher position was to bid more per click. Are there additional ways to do it today?
Chris: Absolutely. You can buy keywords, etc. Advertisers and agencies don't have time to do that.
Peter: Do you think that changing ad copy, landing pages, etc. can increase the cost?
Chris: Absolutely. They can also decrease the cost.
Peter: Is it true that the quality score creates a scenario where 2 advertisers are required to page different cost per clicks for the same keywords in the same placement?
Chris: Yes.
Peter: Let's assume that we're bidding on the same keywords but the engine requires us to pay 2 different prices. Don't I win because I am required to pay higher?
Chris: In search management, you have to react to the entire portfolio of keywords of your competitors.
Peter: I agree with that, but across a broad set of keywords, if a whole percentage of keywords were a high CPC, would you agree that regardless of how you are at bid management, there's no way to run an effective campaign?
Chris: I would agree to the extent that the advertiser has the time and effort to do this thoroughly to improve their ad copy and landing pages.

Now there is a 4 minute rebuttal.

Peter: We've been asked to take a position about whether bid management was dead or not. I don't think anyone is that extreme. However, it's not synonymous with search engine marketing. In a way, if you bid, you can game the system. It's not about who is willing to pay the most but which ads are most relevant. There are a lot of factors: ad copy, landing page content, etc. I don't want to understand the importance of bid management, but it's really one variable in a much larger equation. Our sense was that bid management would become commoditized over time, and we've seen that happen. From our standpoint, successful search marketing includes relevent ads, good keywords, good copy, landing page content, things in the offline world, etc. Bid management is no longer synonymous with search marketing.
Misty says that Peter's summary was brilliant.

Robert: There has been a time where advertisers have a challenge with 50,000 or 100,000 keywords. I have partners with 5 million keywords. People ask questions: what would I do as a marketer? I'd rather have a relationship with my clients. Customers come in and ask questions and look for answers. There are a number of different variables in the equation. The challenge is time. You're subsequently supposed to the best with what you're doing. I disagree fervently about bid management being dead. It's a foundation by which you can do other things. Bid management is something you don't want to spend time on, but you have to. If you don't look at it in a scalable way, it saps your resources. If you don't watch what you're doing, you'll blow your budget. Bid management allows you to focus your attention on those other metrics and to quickly react to other goals (profit, reach, etc.) But you think of "what is the bid that I'm trying to set towards?" However, you need to think at the variables too. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. employ a technology for you to facilitate your campaign so that you can focus on your customer and not the bid.
Chris: Search marketing operates in search and content. Improved efficiency in taking the $500 billion+ cost of advertising and getting things in more advertising - radio ads, newspapers, etc. There is offline advertising. It is critical to have people capture data and analyze data to optimize their campaign. It's not a commodity because auctions will mediate offline advertising as well as online advertising.
The role of bid managemnet is to do things efficiently so that advertisers can address other points that are more important.

Misty and Peter wrap up their argument.

Misty says that her points are great. She clarifies her statement: you do need tools to get the job done. It is not humanly impossible to not use tools, but it's more efficient to use them. Real search marketing do not look just at the immediate return. They look at a bigger picture. Technologies change, rules change, and there are offline factors. A keyword is just the same as a TV advertisement - but if you think of a bid tool management solution - that technology alone - is the end-all, then you'll limit your growth. Don't think of it just as a keyword and a bid.
Peter: I made a reference to a quality score. There's no longer total transparency in the market. But it has also put the "M" back in SEM - where search engine marketing is about marketing again. At the end of the day, it's absolutely marketing, and I agree with Chris's point that we have to consider other advertising formats like other variables.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Google is now updating their AdWords Traffic Estimator data monthly.

GuyFromChicago, a respected forum member, said;

Last week I received an e-mail from Google and one of the topics was the announcement that the traffic estimator stats are now updated monthly. The announcement read:

"Selecting new keywords to meet your campaign goals can be challenging, including the process of getting traffic and cost estimates on potential keywords. We are pleased to announce that traffic estimates are now being updated monthly. As a result, the data will be more accurate than it has been in the past. The specific date that the data will be updated will change from month to month."

I don't think making it more accurate would be all that difficult. When you start with "not at all accurate" it should be pretty easy to move to "a little better than before"

I wonder if advertisers will take notice.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports some Google AdSense users noticing a new tab named Site Authentication in their AdSense publisher console.

I personally do not see it, and when I go to the URL, it takes me to a template page with no features.

What does site authentication do in AdSense?

In short, it allows you to feed AdSense a username and password, so that they can access pages that are secured by a user/pass requirement.

Typically, when AdSense can't see a page, they will serve up an ad that is related to the overall site theme or just serve up a public service ad that doesn't pay well or at all.

ProBlogger reported they began testing this in November 2006. Here is the email some beta testers received:

You are one of a select group of publishers that has been chosen to try out our new Site Authentication feature. Site Authentication allows publishers to give our crawler access to login-protected content so that users can receive targeted ads. While there is no obligation for you to try out this new feature, you may find it helpful if you have pages of your site protected behind a login screen.

“As an example, an online newspaper site may protect content behind a login for premium readers. Without Site Authentication, the publisher can’t show readers targeted ads on those premium pages because our crawler has not been able to access the content. Using Site Authentication, the publisher can now specify details for our crawler to pass the login screen and reach the protected content, allowing AdSense to serve relevant ads to the readers.

So does this mean it will be launched publicly soon? I am not sure.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: DaveN has a screen cap at his blog, so check it out.

Yesterday, I reported at Search Engine Land the launch of Quality-Based Pricing. In short, Yahoo will now begin to give advertisers a percentage discount, based on the ad's quality.

What makes up the quality of the ad? Yahoo told me, "publisher conversion rates, traffic source and implementation type." Now this is not live across all keywords yet, but will be in a few months.

When Yahoo told me the criteria, I had to take a second look. Did Yahoo say "publisher conversion rates?" Yes, they did. So I asked Yahoo for more information.

Yahoo is looking at how a publisher may convert for advertisers and adjust the pricing of the ad based on that. I asked Yahoo to clarify:

Rather than the overall number of leads sent to advertisers (conversion rates), the publisher conversion rate is the number of leads that the publisher send to advertisers that actually result in a conversion (e.g., a sale, a sign-up, etc. - whatever the advertiser has defined as a conversion event).

So it is not based simply on click through rate. So I asked what happens when an advertiser doesn't set a conversion metric? Well, since it is based on the "aggregate performance across the Yahoo network," even if one advertiser doesn't set a conversion metric, others probably will and they can use those data points in determining the pricing of the bids.

What do the forums think? Here are some quotes:

Publisher's perspective:

So much for YPN paying out so much better than Adsense.. All of that is over..

As an advertiser this is good news.

I think YPN first needs more the advertisers than the publishers. That's why they are doing this, to keep the comfort level of advertisers. They can run ads in their search engine too

This is just like Smart Pricing in AdSense, if you have low quality traffic (converts badly), you will get paid less.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld - YPN, WebmasterWorld - YSM and DigitalPoint Forums.

Ask.com has relaunched their search engine last night to "provide people with a faster, easier, and richer search experience."

Ask.com has decided to use the three pane interface and many of the features from the Ask X interface.

Here is the home page of Ask.com with the polka dots skin.

It is refreshing. When I began typing a query, vanity search, it offered search suggestions.

You can also customize your skin by clicking on the "Skins" link.

And here is the three pane view, with search box on left, results in middle and vertical search items on right.

Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land has a detailed write up and so does Gary Price at ResourceShelf of all the features of the news Ask.com.

Will it make a difference? That is the current SEO/SEM discussion in the forums.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.