• Synchronization In Search
    Everyone loves the concept of integration. Advertisers love to tout an integrated effort, agencies love to sell the integrated model to those same advertisers, and consumers theoretically love the cohesive nature of which their day is infused with oh-so-pertinent marketing. But, being the contrarian that I can be, I'm going to suggest that in fact integration is more hype than substance. Integration today is more about making sure that when a TV spot runs, the banners or search listings you have show the same creative.
  • The Brand Effect On The Search Results Page
    Last week, I walked through an interaction with the search page step by step and looked cognitive engagement with the page. To understand the nature of branding on the search page, you first have to understand how we interact with brand messaging on the page.
  • Is Search Recession-Proof?
    By the time this column is published, I'll have completed my duties as moderator for what I'm sure was a riveting session -- with fellow Search Insider Gerry Bavaro on the panel, how can it not be? -- on search in a recessionary climate at the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference yesterday in New York. I did a fair amount of prep for this session -- not to mention, had a lot of fun with image search -- so I thought I'd squeeze a little more mileage out of it here.
  • Just The 'Factz' On Smarter 'Surch Enginez'
    What don't the major search engines do well? That's a burning question these days from way too many parties. It comes up in John Battelle's most recent post, which culminates in a plea for teaching search literacy in schools, and then journalist Cyrus Farivar's thoughtful commentary on it. It's a hot topic on Alt Search Engines, where Charles Knight finds and promotes startups that beat the engines at their own game. And of course it's the raison d'être for all those engines. There are two ways to address the problem of engines' shortcomings. One way is to make the engines …
  • The Power Of A Message
    Marketers right now are struggling to generate the best possible results from their marketing dollars. Consumers are more than ever looking for deals, researching before they purchase, and are likely to be much more cerebral about what marketing messages they take note of and trust. What's a marketer to do when the total number of potential customers shrinks, and those left still spending must be driven towards an intended action more frequently and with the utmost efficiency?
  • My Targeting Wish List
    I had the opportunity to attend Yahoo's Right Media Open last week and was amazed at the level of sophistication of display-based ad targeting. The transformation of the online display landscape through the advent of ad exchanges and data-based targeting is a fascinating phenomenon, but a topic for a later column. Rather, the innovations I saw at the Right Media event had me thinking of all the untapped targeting opportunities in the search landscape. If I had my way, search marketers could target customers in ways far beyond the query alone. Here are some of the top items on my …
  • A Cognitive Walk-Through Of Searching
    Two weeks ago, I talked about the concept of selective perception, how subconsciously we pick and choose what we pay attention to. Then, last week, I explained how engagement with search is significantly different than engagement with other types of advertising. These two concepts set the stage for what I want to do today. In this column, I want to lay out a step-by-step hypothetical walk-through of our cognitive engagement with a search page.
  • Using Keyword Analysis and Social Media to Inform Creative And Engage Your Audience
    I recently created a research strategy incorporating both social media and keyword analysis for a well-known corporation with a popular offline ad campaign. The focus of the research was to discover how people search for important life experiences online (as opposed to taking an ROI and transactional approach) and the findings were utilized by the client in a national TV and print campaign earlier this spring. Today I will share a high-level view of this applied approach to social media and search research, as well as a few key takeaways on how these findings can expand our view of search …
  • Will Search Advertisers Make MyAds TheirAds?
    Last week, Google and MySpace both announced major new advertising offerings that will be especially useful for small businesses. Though neither are search-related, both cater to search marketers in different ways. First, MySpace came out with MyAds, its self-service display advertising platform. For a few days, it was the only major self-service display offering by a publisher (then Google ruined the fun).
  • Good News, Bad News
    Google declared unusually strong earnings last week, resulting in a collective sigh of relief among all who work in the so-called "search ecosystem." Google is of course more than a bellwether for the health of this industry: love it or hate it, it is the marketplace itself (a fact not lost on anti-trust regulators), and if it catches a cold, the rest of us get pneumonia. But the bad news isn't in Google's 8K; it's in the finance section of the newspaper you read every day.
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