Search Engine Marketing and PPC Management News & Info

Keyword Research for Blogs

Our friend, Amanda Watlington, has been keeping a low profile since her departure from iProspect, but she resurfaced at SES San Jose and appears to have moved on to better things. A newly established advocate for blogs, Amanda keeps the momentum going
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Christine Churchill Leaves SEMPO

Christine is leaving the SEMPO board, she explains why.
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WebSourced Parent Completes $15.05 Million Private Placement

We're going hunting for some additional acquisitions! ;-) CGI Holding Corporation (OTCBB: CGIH ; the "Company") today announced that the Company has raised gross proceeds of $15.05 million through a private placement of its common stock and warrants.
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Google Plans Animated Ads

Never thought Google would do this !

Google will test animated ads through its AdSense network, the search company said yesterday.

The animated image ads will appear shortly on Web sites that opted to display Google's graphical ad units, which the company introduced in May. Until now, Google has allowed advertisers to use only static banner ads. A test group will run animated GIF files, though Google said it would keep its maximum file size for image ad units at 50 kilobytes.

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Ads Move in on Mobile - Viral is the way Forward

James Pearce takes an interesting look at how inovative telcos and ad firms will very likely begin to advertise to your mobile in an opt-in viral way. The main problem with mobile ads is the fact that the new-gen mobiles, capable of receiving streaming video are infinately configurable and models to deliver ads via your cell are in their infancy.

One line of thought is the classic viral ad. The system talked about in the article would require users to enter a short code to have your ad streamed to them and one way to encourage participation is viral ad marketing.

It's an interesting read if you're following this sector and a good primer on what the various options for mobile advertising are now, and may be in the future.

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007 Search Company Enters Commercial Space in 2005

Convera, a company with US government agency ties, including the FBI plans to enter the commercial search fray next year as pointed out by Gary in the SEW blog post threadlinked above. The source of this info comes from this Washington Post artcle and they may very well be something to look out for in 2005.

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The Wayback Machine And The Google Sandbox Theory

Ledfish brings up some interesting connections between Google's alleged "Sandbox"
and The Wayback Machine. More theory to chew on.

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Yahoo Local adds PFI and Basic Listing Tools

Thursdays searchday article at SEW looks at Yahoo Local's quiet roll out of paid inclusion, enhanced listings and tools for businesses to alter some of the infomation in their free basic listings.

Chris Sherman has the scoop and it boils down to this:

• Limited editing on basic listings (free)
• Up to 5 listings in the Y! local directory
• Enhanced listings which add additional info like: tagline, descriptions, promo links, photos (up to 10) etc
• The enhanced listings cost $10 a month and are straight up listings, no ppc involved

You can see an example of a local listing here

Pretty neat huh?

Chris has all the details, check out his write up...

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The 6 Myths Of Creativity - Busted!

FC have a story, threadlinked above on some very detailed and extensive research into creativity in business - if you run a company, or even a one man band, this is gooooood stuff! Check it out for the full details, here's the bullet points:

The Myths of Business Creativity

1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types
2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator
3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
5. Competition Beats Collaboration
6. A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization

I tend to have my most creative thoughts whilst in bed, at the end of the day. Many a time i've gotten back out of bod and sat back at the PC to jot them down :)

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Ecom: Shopping Cart Conversions - What Matters Most?

Threadwatch member grnidone kicked off a beautiful discussion on cart abandonment and conversions a few days back, it's now ripe for your enjoyment:

She got the ball rolling with this little nugget:

As far as how we combat it, on one site, we place a cookie so when someone comes back to the site, they are offered a pop up window that tells the person they have something in their cart, and if they finish the purchase, they get 10% off their cart. That has worked well, we have a 13% conversion rate from that pop up alone. I think that could go up if we switch to dhtml to get around the pop up blockers out there.

So, what does matter when it comes to carts?

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Adsense - Is Rich Media the Next Step?

Gary Stein asks if Rich Media will be the next step for Adsense. Logically, yes, most likely I think, and it would rock..

With the adding of adsense url channels and other features today, what can we expect next?

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Congratulations SE Roundtable

Great Job Barry Schwartz on making Search Engine Roundtable a success in it's first year!
It's a great daily read.

PS. Also, if you can't make it to the major conferences check out Barrys coverage of the sessions he attends. They're the next best thing to being there!

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SEMPO Loses Founder - Christine Churchill Resigns

Word just in via rumours@threadwatch.org

Christine Churchill one of the founding members of SEMPO has resigned her seat on the board.

Founding and rearing SEMPO has, as many of you know, been a bumpy road. We've all learned a lot. It's been a good, if sometimes challenging learning experience. The SEMPO of today isn't the SEMPO I envisioned when I first started with it.

She goes on to say that the industry may require several marketing associations, a statement that looks very like the beginings of the long awaited admission that SEMPO has failed.

Threadwatch sends it's best wishes to Christine however, nobody would wish the personal trials and grief expressed in her last paragraph on anyone. Good luck Christine, and all the best.

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Click Fraud Detection Solutions List

Here's a nice little list of clickfraud solutions from the se journal threadlinked above. Most of the article is probably wasted on Threadwatchers but if you dont know what click fraud is then certainly check it out.

ClickDetective
ClickDetective allows you to track return visitors to your site and alerts you if there is evidence that your site may be under attack. Its reports show you every click in real time rather than a summary hours later.

Who’sClickingWho.com
This fraud detector tracks all PPC search engines, detects multiple IP’s, and even pops up a “ClickMinder” after a potential abuser clicks repeatedly over five times.

BogusClick
BogusClick can help advertisers determine competitor IP addresses, originating PPC search engines and/or partner sites involved, as well as keywords used.

Clicklab
Clicklab employs a score-based click fraud detection system that applies a series of tests to each visitor session and assigns scores. Calculations are made to indicate bad/good sessions to show an advertiser the quality of traffic.

Can anyone add to that list?

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The Blogging Gold Rush - Early Players Wait for Business to Catch up

Everyday business moves a little closer to blogging, slowly in most cases but very, very definately surely. There are an awful lot of people taking a punt on blogs finding interesting and viable business models and business continuing to move toward them with $$$'s in fists.

Now advertisers are realizing there is a market emerging in the blogosphere. Already, the growth in regular online advertising, estimated to be about 35% this year, will far outpace the spending increases for any other sector of the media world. Add to all this the fact that about 11% of Internet users today are inveterate blog readers, and the blogging scene starts to get mighty compelling for marketers.

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Message Boards - The Missed Opportunity of Marketing

Theres a lovely short post over at adverblog on one of the great missed opportunities of online marketing: The message board.

I agree with the general principle that communication with clients via forums and other social media is a massive missed opp for most companies - in the post, they talk about fixing a customer problem: The guy complains about the product, then gets a nice response saying "right! I'll talk to our design guy about that and come back to you ok?" - It's the little things that count.

If a company is seen to take swift action on customer problems, and to take customer suggestions and feedback seriously it inspires confidence in all who witness the exchange. In the context of a message board, that exchange can be refered to again and again by linking to it in future cases. How could interacting with your customers and being actively involved with them possibly be a bad thing?

Also, there's the benefit for search marketing, thousands of highly specialized search terms in the titles of your pages, and the noticeable benefit dynamically grown and organic looking site content provides. Ok, so that's pure(ish) speculation on the boost to rankings but im not the only one to have remarked on this lately, Mikkel has also said he's noticed it and so have a few others around the community.

So what do you all think, is there ROI in communities?

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Google News - Time to take some Responsibility?

The Register's Andrew Orlowski's anti-google views are well known, most folks in Search take his comments with that fact in mind. This piece, thredlinked above, is however both very funny and, i think, important.

Is Google News' chief scientist, Krishna Bharat, actually a robot? From an interview in the current issue of Wired magazine, it's increasingly difficult to conclude that Bharat could convincingly pass the Turing Test. Every time Google News is criticized for bias, Bharat is wheeled to field out an identical reply. He claims that humans can't be held responsible for what appears on his website - because machines are in charge.

"The truth is, Google News doesn't have a point of view," he tells the magazine. "It's a computer, and computers do not understand these topics the way humans do and can't be systematically biased in any direction."

Does Orlowski have a valid point in that G news should take some responsibility for their content?

I think he does, feel free to disagree...

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Dynamic Logic Launch Ad Impact Database

DL Europe have launched an online ad impact database, MarketNorms based on data gathered from 1400 campaigns and taken from 1.5M respondents over the last 5yrs.

Types of campaign analysis the database can be used for include:

• Optimal frequency
• Impact of technology - e.g. rich media vs. gif
• Impact of ad format - e.g. skyscraper vs. banner
• Valuable in-depth demographic, category and creative information

Netimperitive have the full scoop in the threadlink above.

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Carnivores Spyware - Law Suits in Progress

Cnet are roporting on how one spyware company's program deleted millions of a competitors installs that has cost direct revenue, another so dubbed "spyware firm", $10,000 a day.

Good, hope it hurts :)

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Podvertising makes it's debut - As an idea...

Im more than a little behind the curve with podcasting but thanks to Aaron im at least familiar with the general idea :)

Today, in the article threadlinked above, Steve Rubel talks about the possiblility of reaching the streets ahead super early adopters that make up the burgeoning ipod nation.

You can’t walk 50 feet in a major city without seeing them. You can spot them a mile away by the dual white wires that dangle from their ears. They’re young, technically savvy, loyal, enthusiastic card-carrying members of the burgeoning iPod Nation. They represent an attractive demographic of early adopter influencers that marketers covet. And, thanks to an emerging revolution in online audio content called podcasting, there are all kinds of new and exciting ways to reach them through “podvertising.”

So, i have 3 questions for Threadwatchers if I may:

• Do you have an Ipod?
• Is it cool?
• Will the new gen mobiles kill it?

Go on, help me get up to speed...

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New Contextual Ad Network Launches - AdMarketplace

Hot on the heels of Chitika comes Conducive's AdMarketPlace (sorry, cant find a link..). Clickz have the scoop in the story threadlinked above but i must say, bearing in mind that Conducive also provide search engine marketing and their site is utterly unspiderable their offering doesn't inspire much confidence at first glance.

Also, they could do with hiring someone to help with their PR - check this out:

"We've taken a lot of the learnings from that and repackaged it a bit into maybe an AdSense version of that system," said Jim Waltz, president and CEO of Conducive, referring to Google's contextual ad program.

Sheesh, is it or isnt it Jim?

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Marie Claire Picks Espotting for Contextual Ads

Adverblog has news that European women's magazine, Marie Claire, has selected Espotting to provide contextual ads for their network of web sites.
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Google's Brin Sells More Stock

According to The Street, Sergey Brin has sold some more of his stock. In two Form 4s filed late Tuesday, Brin reported 30 separate transactions in which he sold 149,700 shares at prices congregating around $178. At that price, the transactions would ha
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Google to Introduce Animated Banner Ads

According to DM News (via MarketingVOX), Google is taking a step further into the realm of "non-search" by adding animated banner ads to their product offering. If they add pop-ups, it's all over for Google. ;-)
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