Online Marketing Blog

A lot of work can go into producing and promoting a popular blog. While we’ve made some progress in terms of raising the visibility of TopRank and have made a tremendous number of connections, I think we’re really only “half way there” as far as where we could be. Using blogs as a marketing and PR tool is a process of planning, execution, measurement and refinement like any other tactic. We’ll continue that trend with new features and design in 2008.

With increasing demands in opportunity, budget and training with search marketing, the benefits of networking and advocacy have correspondingly increased. Informal networks are prevalent within the SEO business connected by IM, email, private forums etc.

However, as more formal SEM budgets and cost centers are created within organizations looking to expand their search marketing effectiveness, the platform for harvesting collective wisdom and resources often comes in the form of an Association.

SEMPO and IAB are great examples of national organizations (U.S. based) that have had a significant impact. The eMarketing Association has also been around quite a while.

This weekend completed a successful wrap up of MediaPost’s second Search Insider Summit show for 2007. TopRank’s participation with the event involved both speaking (moderating actually) and serving as a media sponsor.

The Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, Utah was an excellent location for a winter event, especially for those that participated in the snowshoeing, skiing and snowmobiling activities. Next year the two SIS event will be held in May (down South maybe?) and another Winter event in December. Below is a wrap up of blog posts, images, video and even a few PowerPoint presentations.

The sponsored lunch today at Search Insider Summit comes from Microsoft adCenter which included a demo of their new Keyword Services Platform and add-in to Excel 2007.

Stacy Harris:
Feedback from marketers is that traffic is good, but they want more of it. Marketers also want AdCenter to be easier to use.

Natala Menezes is up next and promptly announces Stacy was engaged last night!

Key points for current and future development of adCenter: Quality, Transparency and Simplicity.

As has become the practice for me while blogging conferences, I take a lot of photos. Not as many as Tamar Weinberg, Barry Schwartz or even David Berkowitz, but quite a few. Out of those photos there are daily favorites that give a visual of what the conference day was like.

Day one of Search Insider Summit here in Park City Utah was fast paced and information rich. The Compete.com opening VIP breakfast warmed things up while snow started to fall out side.

Sessions covered included Gord Hotchkiss’ opening remarks and keynote debate with Mike Margolin.

10:45am: Leveraging Local Search on a National Basis with:
Moderator: Aaron Goldman, VP, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships
Marc Barach, CMO, Ingenio
Mike Margolin, VP, Interactive Marketing Director, RPA
Christopher Knoch, Principle Consultant, Omniture Consulting Group, Omniture, Inc.

Aaron excitedly shows slides/stats from eMarketer supporting that budgets are going to local, “local is here”. 20% of all queries are local based but over half of all queries are for local info but do not include geographic terms in the query (according to SEMPO)

9:45am: Managing Search in an Uncertain Economy with:
LeeAnn Prescott, Director, Research & Communications, Efficient Frontier
Roger Barnette, President, SearchIgnite
Joe Charlson, CMO, EDMC
Moderator, Cam Balzer from DoubleClick Performics

Cam: “What uncertain economy?”. Panel will offer two perspectives: Agency (LeeAnn and Roger) and a client side marketer or CMO perspective (Joe).

LeeAnn from Efficient Frontier, manages 300-400 million in paid search management. EFF has seen an increase in spend of 35% over the past year.

Roger from SearchIgnite explains their technology platform and says they haven’t had that much fluctuation.

9:00am: Keynote address - FaceOff: Will Agencies Ever “Get” Search? with:
Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro
Mike Margolin, VP, Interactive Marketing Director, RPA

To present his point about whether agencies “get” search or not, Gord started things out by telling a story. He brings up John from MediaPost to be a human map of Ontario, points out some factual information about Ontario.

Gord asks the audience, “Based on that, would you want to visit?”  Not really. To find out more about Ontario, what would you do? Search.

Opening remarks: Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro —Emcee of the Search Insider Summit

Where is search at? This year was the first time seeing a major change to what users see via universal or combined search, as well as the beginning of personalization and search term suggestions or query refinement.

Gord recently talked to usability people at the major search engines via a webinar which can be found at enquiroresearch.com

The “holy grail” of search is disambiguation, i.e. understanding user intent.

Four things that came out of the webinar.

Despite the snowy, blowy mountains outside it’s going to be hot inside at the Search Insider Summit conference with the following sessions on my plate for attending and some for blogging:

8:00am-8:45am
VIP Breakfast: Compete, Inc. - “Carving Up the Market in Park City - Your guide to segmenting the marketplace for better ad targeting”

8:45 am:
Opening remarks: Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro —Emcee of the Search Insider Summit

9:00am:
Keynote address - FaceOff: Will Agencies Ever “Get” Search? with Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro and Mike Margolin, VP, Interactive Marketing Director, RPA

At ad:tech last week, fellow PR/new media marketing practitioner and blogger, Rohit Bhargava and I were talking about his new book, “Personality Not Included - Why Brands Lose Their Authenticity and How Great Companies Get it Back”, and he mentioned that I should send him a list of recommended reading for a new bookstore feature he’s adding to his blog.

I thought that was a great idea and with so many smart marketers reading Online Marketing Blog, I’d like to invite you to share a few of your favorite books on the subjects of marketing online, social media and new media public relations.

Topics for this morning’s keynote centered on the notion of the “new P” platforms, video advertising and random references to Gilligan’s Island and weird porn.

The panel was moderated by Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB. Panelists included:

• Suzie Reider, Head of Ad Sales YouTube.com
• Michael Barrett, EVP, Chief Revenue Officer Fox Interactive Media
• Arianna Huffington, c-founder and Editor in Chief Huffington Post
• Matt Freeman, CEO Tribal DDB Worldwide