From SEW, the auction site will pay $75 million in cash. So, how will eBay use this acquisition?

IMO, they will include a Stumble button on specific objects in an attempt to better profile users’ bidding habits. This makes a great deal of sense, because a major weakness is StumbleUpon is limited to those who install the toolbar button. I have no idea how many eBay users currently use StumbleUpon; however, I feel fairly certain that regular eBay shoppers will use a modified feature on the site regularly.

Also, it would be smart to use some type of permission-based email service that notified users when “Auctions of Interest” begin.

After initially refusing a request from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s request for sex offender information on its members, MySpace has complied. Approximately 245 were identified.

Kudos to MySpace for handing over the information. My only complaint is that they took so long to think about it. Initially, they sited federal guidelines that require “proper legal process.”

Now, their general legal counsel is singing different tune:

"We hope to get requests from every state," [MySpace general counsel Mike Angus] said. "From day one, we have preserved all the information in the hopes of getting these requests."

I sure hope the delay doesn't lead to anyone else being negatively affected.

Here’s IAB’s full report, starting from 2001

Labels: IAB, Online Advertising

If you have not yet read Chris Sherman’s interview with Seth Godin on Search Engine Land, you should.

As usual, Godin provides an unfiltered opinion of search and interactive marketing.

I want to preface this post by saying that I have never participated in PPC arbitrage. Having said this, I’m not terribly upset to hear that Google is shutting down Adsense arbitrage sites.

We’ve always maintained that SEM is not six degrees of Kevin Bacon. That is, conversions work best when the SERP (either organic or paid results) delivers exactly what the user is searching for. Your visitors are not looking for something similar to the keyword they type in. If I type in “ipod,” then I might need “ipod accessories” at some point…just not at this part of the buying cycle. And that means if I have to click through on a result, only to have to click again, then I’m not going to have the most positive user experience.

This is one of the main reasons why we rarely use content networks. In fact, when we first begin working with a new paid search account, the first thing we do is baseline the first few weeks (to include existing content network activities). There has never been a time where average CPC, CPA or overall ROAS has been higher when using content networks. This means if client’s goal point is a CPA model based on a predetermined adspend, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to increase CPA immediately by simply eliminating content network.

Someone is getting an acceptable ROI on content network…just none of our clients.

Shoemoney has an interesting video post regarding why he doesn’t believe this will stick. His two main reasons are:

1. Google considered Arbitrage to be a respected business model.

2. Instead of cutting Arbitrage participants off, it makes more sense for Google to remove those sites that do not perform well for advertisers.

The bottom line is that Google is going to continue to try and “make the user experience as positive as possible while still providing value to publishers and advertisers.” If publishers that don’t perform get dumped, then they need to work harder to show value for readers and advertisers.

Who knows? After the dust settles, maybe we’ll think about content networks again.

SEW posted information on Chasing the Long Tail. It’s a great read that discusses not just the volume associated with terms like “mortgages” but the related terms that drive traffic. Here’s my favorite:

At Google's Universal Search announcement, Udi Manber put up a slide that stated that 20% to 25% of the search queries Google sees every day are search queries it has never seen before.

Now, in February, there were 3.3 billion searches on Google in just the US. That comes down to approximately 117,857,142 searches every day. So of those, between 23,571,428 and 29,464,285 of searches every day were query combinations that were never searched on Google before.

According to Search Engine Land, not everyone will see it at first, but it should be more widely implemented for English-speaking search results over the next few days. Barry Schwartz provides a nice test drive.

For the organic searcher: For more popular and newsworthy keywords, your process will be impacted…obviously. This is also the case for local search, and it will be solely dependent on popularity/demand of the keyword phrase. That means that more instances will occur on product level searches where the SERP may not reflect the intent of the searcher.

IMO, I think we will see more people either changing their SE settings to increase the number of results per page or increased impressions on Google SERP’s two and three (hence the title of this post).

For the SEO: Depending on your keyword set, you could be in for some potential tough times. If I was optimizing for auto parts, then my job just became one position more difficult as the news results are now in the #10 slot.

However, if you are optimizing your site correctly, then I’m convinced that the sky is not falling. The truth of the matter is that in most cases, you won’t be affected. If you look at most eCommerce-related searches, you’ll have a hard time finding major changes.

But you very well might see a change on Click-through rates on organic results.

If we use ipod as the search example, then you’ll see that the new filters (i.e. Web, Patents, Products, News) attract more attention to the #1 PAID result (hat tip, Jon Revill). And in addition, if someone clicks on the “Products” filter (which couldn’t be any higher up on the page), then you enter Google Product Search, which is PPC.

For the Sponsored Ad Searcher: The chance of fewer user-relevant results on a page will almost certainly increase the demand for paid search on respective terms. IMO, you can also expect for impressions and click-throughs on page-two, sponsored listings to increase.

For the Paid Search Analysts: Expect lower ROAS and more aggressive bid strategies on top-tier terms. Additionally, you can expect an increase in the use of Google Product Search.

Overall, I think the new system has a very good chance of being successful. Most search engine users are loyal to their favorite, and I think they will adapt to the new format.

Labels: Google Universal Search

During a little experiment this morning, I Googled jewelry.

Remember, Valentine’s Day is only 9 months away!

Labels: PPC mistakes

Today I received an email invitation from MarketingProfs, asking if I’d like to download “Download Omniture's MarketingSherpa Ecommerce.”

I have limited experience with Omniture, but every marketer that I have spoken with tells me that it is the analytics version of crystal meth…once you get a taste, nothing else will do. We have several clients who use it and swear by it. And I was at minimum very curious.

So I happily filled out the opt-in information on their online form as they requested. Now I don’t know what the page below says to you. But to me, it is clearly saying, fill out the information and you’ll have access to the Webinar.

Not quite the case. Here’s the information from the confirmation email I just received from Omniture:

Omniture helps companies identify problems and make effective decisions that will drive sales and increase ROI for your online business.

Four of the top five Fortune 500 companies rely on Omniture to do just that.

As the pioneer of on demand marketing solutions, Omniture provides a marketing tools suite that will complement your company's objectives and help take your online business to the next level.

An Omniture account executive will personally contact you within 48 hours to discuss your needs and provide a free demonstration if desired. For immediate assistance please contact us at 801-722-7000 or toll free at 1.877.722.7088. For EMEA +44 845 226 1205.

From anyone else, I’d probably let this slide. But Omniture is in the business of demand marketing solutions, and they completely missed my demand by throwing my request in the sales bucket.

Eight attorneys general requested that the social networking site provide information related to convicted sex offenders. MySpace declined.

MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam], said the company regularly discloses information to law enforcement officials but the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act says it can only do so when proper legal processes are followed.

Someone call Chris Hansen.

Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s attorney general, has requested names of registered sex offenders from the social networking site. Cooper, signed this request along with attorneys general from Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

While MySpace hasn’t agreed or disagreed to provide this, I seriously hope they will comply without incident. They have taken a few steps already:

In December, MySpace announced it was partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to build a database with information on sex offenders in the United States. Software to identify and remove sex offenders from the site was launched in early May, MySpace officials said Monday in a statement.

But it brings up an interesting question, how do they actually retrieve this data?

It takes absolutely no time for me to set up a MySpace profile from places outside of my home (work, wireless access at Starbucks, etc.). Nothing would prevent me from using fictitious names and other information. So how do they know that the list is complete?

Last week, I took advantage of SMN’s Successful Feed-Based Search Marketing: Shopping Engines, Paid Inclusion & More Webinar. If you have a client who is considering shopping engine channels, direct them to this presentation. Chris Sherman does an effective job of explaining these subjects at a very high level.

I was fairly comfortable with most of the information that Chris offered. However, even four days later, I’m still stumped on why people are still choosing to use paid inclusion, specifically the bulk Search Submit Pro. Below are recommendations on who needs paid inclusion from Chris' presentation, followed my initial thoughts:

1. Content management of database-driven sites with search-unfriendly architecture

• Forget the 10%. Fix the site!!! How stubborn do you have to be to ignore 90% of market share?

2. Sites that require cookies or session IDs; sites with Flash content

• See #1

3. Sites with rapidly changing or seasonal content

• Proper use of XML sitemaps and 404 error pages should help keep inventory pages stocked. Remember, the paid inclusion means a crawl every 48–72 hours. That means it’s imperative that you evaluate how your business works, compared to what Yahoo will provide.

4. eCommerce sites with moderate to frequent inventory turnover

• See #3

5. Brands needing rapid response to negative feedback or events

• Again, effective use of XML sitemaps can help with this, but it’s better to use some reputation management tools.

6. Any site seeking rapid or regular feedback on organic optimization strategies

• I can’t really comment on this because I really don’t know what the “regular feedback” looks like. Chris was very upfront about Yahoo not giving away the special sauce, so I’m not sure how much value it really provides. If anyone has an example of what Yahoo sends as feedback, please let me know.

IMHO, paid inclusion is a band-aid for a much larger problem. Until Google decides to adopt a paid inclusion model (and I’m not holding my breath on that one), Yahoo’s paid inclusion will account for 9.87% of search engine market share. Now 10% is better than nothing; but remember that inclusion means indexing, not ranking. And I can’t imagine a situation where Yahoo’s Paid Inclusion would drive more revenue than aligning your site with general SEO best practices (which Chris also recommends).

There’s a fantastic piece from Lee Odden on What Makes an Ideal SEO Client. He discusses two back-to-back prospect calls with some significant modifications.

For some reason, the majority of inbound sales calls (either from past or present interest) seem to find themselves on my phone. And much like Lee, I’ve become adept at smoking out what could be a great client relationship from what will almost certainly haunt my dreams.

Of all the prospects who call us, very rarely will we agree take on a client solely focused on SEO. I have no problem with a client who wants to go 100% interactive, but anyone who chooses to put all of their eggs in the Google basket is just asking for trouble. Companies really need to have a mix of other marketing channels to support their brand (which, when done correctly, supports the SEO function anyway).

If you are an integrated marketing agency, consider the Who, What, When, and How Much when speaking to a prospective client:

1. WHAT? Request clear, concise and quantitative goals: Telling me that you want to improve your search engine presence is useless. Telling me you want more sales is useless. Telling me that you want more unique visitors to your site is useless. Who doesn’t? Some examples of clear goals are:

· We have 10,000 pages on our site. Google has four indexed. Help us get the rest crawled.

· Increase my conversion rate from 2% to 3% on my paid search campaign.

· Increase sales by 15% on our new product line.

2. WHEN? Determine the timeframe of the campaign(s). It could take 2 weeks or 2 years to increase sales on a product line, depending on the ferocity of promotion. Tactics for a short-term plan and long-term plan are night and day.

3. WHO? Does the client have an accessible leader as point of contact? If it’s not the person on the other end of the phone, then what is that new person’s focus within the organization? Can he/she affect change effectively? Can he/she be counted on to champion your recommendations?

4. HOW MUCH? As in how much of a marketing budget has been earmarked to meet the goal? This certainly affects consideration #2.

Your clients have expectations of you. Make sure you can handle them. You have expectations of your clients. Make sure THEY can handle them.