• Each Day Is A Gift
    I'm struggling with the onslaught of time. Maybe it's the fact that I'm turning 50 in a few weeks. Maybe it's that I attended the funeral of an old business colleague, friend and mentor who unfortunately was taken away much too early (at 66) due to Alzheimer's. Or maybe it's that my oldest daughter is graduating high school this week. Whatever the reason, I just want everything to slow down a little.
  • 10 Sports Analogies For SEM
    Two weeks ago, in a column about attribution models, Gord Hotchkiss cited John Yi's bowling and pinball analogies for marketing. That got me thinkingL "How many sports analogies can I come up with for marketing?" The answer: 152. Too easy. So I asked myself, "How many sports analogies can I come up with for SEM?" The answer: 10.
  • Google Ad Sitelinks: Facing Up To The Challenges
    Google claims that using ad extensions can greatly enhance click-through rate and ad engagement. In the case of ad sitelinks, for instance, Google claims that advertisers can realize a 30% improvement in CTR, and my own testing with clients has shown that to be true as well, with advertisers recognizing a 25%-30% bump in CTR. While ad sitelinks provide advertisers with additional ways to gain both visibility and clicks from their ads, what are the challenges of using ad sitelinks -- and how can you address them?
  • Leverage (The Right) Technology For Your Content Marketing Strategy
    When you think about the places that are hotbeds of innovation for publishing best practices, Bangor, Maine may not immediately spring to mind. Still, The Bangor Daily News provides a wonderful case study in the use of technology to make the act of publishing more efficient, effective and engaging. But why should marketers care about how a small town paper is innovating in the online publishing sphere?
  • Investigating rel=author's Organizational Impact
    It seems as if all the talk in search these days centers on social signals. The way that people find and share content online has been forever changed by social media websites and web pages with embedded social sharing capabilities. Now those most popular social sites are directly impacting organic search engine results with social share data annotations.
  • The Vancouver Riot Social Media Backlash: Justice Or Revenge?
    In the 25 years I've lived here, I've never had to say this -- indeed, I never believed I would ever say this -- but last Wednesday, I was ashamed to say I live in British Columbia. I wasn't the only one. I'm guessing the vast majority of the other 4.5 million people that call this Canadian province home felt the same way. In fact, the only people not feeling that way were the idiotic jerks that caused our collective shame. They were the ones using the Canuck's loss to Boston in the Stanley Cup final as an excuse to …
  • The 90:20 Budget Conundrum: Are Marketers Unknowingly Reinforcing 'Social' As A PPC/Advertising Channel?
    We, as marketers, may be unknowingly reinforcing social as a PPC channel, while the greater opportunity lies in participation and content publishing strategies. But as search marketers, we've seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. So today I want to go over a loose history of the "ppc-ification" of the search channel as a much larger strategy, and how the same path may be happening to the balance of social participation vs. advertising marketing activities.
  • Why You Shouldn't Use A Gmail Account For Your Google Accounts
    Because I work in a search marketing agency, I often get a unique view of challenges companies face with various search marketing issues. For example, I often work with clients who have existing Google accounts with various Google properties, not just limited to Google AdWords. Over time, I've seen many companies use a Gmail account to register on various Google properties and tools such as Google AdWords. However, using a Gmail account for corporate Google account management isn't really a good idea.
  • Tapping Into Or Creating Movements As A Content Strategy
    The rise of the Web has made it easier than ever for people of like minds and passions to organize themselves and work together toward a greater good. Movement marketing comes out of a desire by brands to join something that taps into the mutual passions of their customers and their employees.
  • Will Display Overtake Search?
    Last week eMarketer announced its forecast that total online display advertising spend will surpass total search spend by 2015. Google is spending $390 million on an acquisition of display ad company Admeld. MediaMind, a rich media technology firm, was acquired for $414 million by an offline advertising technology firm focusing on television. If the 2000s was the decade of search, it certainly appears that the 2010s is heading toward the decade of display. Is this true -- and if so, what does all this mean for search marketers?
« Previous Entries