Online Marketing Blog

Live from SES Chicago, I had a fantastic opportunity to learn about the ultra-hot online marketing area of remarketing / retargeting from Christopher Hansen and Marty Weintraub.  Remarketing can be extremely powerful, but is easy to get wrong, and the consequences can be costly both in terms of budget and brand image.

Below are 3 tips to make retargeting campaigns work for you, and 3 potential mistakes.

Retargeting Done Right

#1:  Identify Your Best Content

The key to effective retargeting is finding what is already working in your marketing strategy. Retargeting can be very effective at increasing the success of your content, but the content must be effective on its own in order to see a benefit from retargeting.

Keywords are the core of your search engine marketing strategy. Most of us know the basics when it comes to brainstorming, generating and finalizing a list, but how can your company get beyond the basics and focus on advanced keyword analytics. The main focus of the presentation by Bill Hunt (@billhunt) at SES San Francisco focused on moving beyond data and focusing on consumer intent.

When we type in a specific inquiry we expect to find what we are looking for, but often paid search results fail us. In order to capture the user who may be disappointed by search results, marketers can better use keywords leveraging advanced keyword modeling.

Advanced Keyword Modeling

1. Understand the ‘voice of the customer’
2. Effectively map your content with query and query intent

Focus on the Micro and the Macro!

When Avinash Kaushik (@avinash) is giving the opening keynote you know that you’re in for a treat.  SES San Francisco was no exception.  Even with a few minor technical issues, Avinash rolled with the punches and jumped right into what is wrong with online marketing today, and how it can be fixed.

As always Avinash’ presentation was a unique mixture of stand up comedy, and expert advice from one of the only people who can truly call themselves a guru in the online marketing industry.

3 Things I Find Interesting That I Want to Share

“I got into the web through the path of data.  As it turns out the problem is very rarely lack of or bad data.” – Avinash Kaushik

Have you worked yourself to the bone on a video marketing campaign only to see the results fall flat? Do you have a wealth of video content but are unsure how to leverage it effectively to serve your marketing objectives? Can your presence on YouTube be summed as ‘well, we have a channel’?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re not alone. Getting results through your video marketing efforts can be a challenge if you don’t have the right game-plan. However, you’re in luck! At day 2 of SES New York TopRank CEO Lee Odden moderated a panel discussion with leading industry video marketers.Their stellar tips and insights that can be found below.

Perhaps he is writing some last minute jokes before his keynote?

There could not have been a better way to kick off #SESNY than a morning keynote from Avinash Kaushik (@avinash).  It didn’t matter if speakers had last minute slides to create or attendees stayed out until all hours, everyone made sure they were there.

This is the second time I’ve seen Avinash and he does not disappoint.  He presents the perfect combination of tactical tips and humor that both entertains and educates the crowd.  I’d like to share with you our readers the 7 things that I learned this morning from Avinash.  I hope you find them as useful as I did.

SES New York kicks off on Tuesday March 20, 2012, and I for one cannot wait.  Along with TopRank CEO Lee Odden who is speaking at the event, myself as well as one of our rockstar Account Managers Brian Larson will be attending and live blogging many of the scheduled sessions.

Based on the speaker lineup this years conference is sure to be filled with stories, tips, and tactics that any online marketer can put to good use.  This post is a combination of the sessions Brian and I  plan on attending as well as a little bit about our take on the Big Apple.  Hope to see you all there!

Ashley Zeckman: #SESNY Session Highlights

Tuesday March 20, 2012
Business Optimization in a Digital Age
Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

As SES Chicago reaches its final sessions the audience is still alert and ready to learn at TopRank CEO Lee Odden’s afternoon presentation on “Content Marketing & Optimization.”  According to Google’s Eric Schmidt, every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of time to the year 2003.  With so much information being shared what can we do as marketers to make our content easy to spot and easy to consume?

Can Customers Find Your Content?

Content creation is so much more than marketing, it is a way of engaging and enticing potential customers to take action.  Optimized content can make sure that customers interact with your brand.  There are many types of content that companies publish and many different audiences that a company should interact with.  Content creation is one of the most effective form of online marketing, it also happens to be the most difficult.

Proper execution of a local and social media strategy is still a head scratcher for many internet marketers.  The session on “Local + Social: the Future of Promotion” featuring Gregg Stewart and Benu Aggarwal at SES Chicago was a must see to answer several important questions.

A Best Practices Approach with Gregg Stewart

Did you know that roughly 20% of all Google searches have local intent?  When you look at mobile data that number is even higher.  These statistics alone should show us as marketers how important a online local strategy is for improving engagement.

Checking the Box Won’t Work

While website All Facebook says that 96% of small businesses are on Facebook, Mashable.com says that 64% of small businesses think that social media is unnecessary.  Part of what this data tells us that many companies are simply checking the box, but aren’t sure how to properly utilize social media marketing channels.

Wednesday morning’s panel discussion on search, social, and content was flush with information that was easy to digest and provided helpful tips for implementation. The session was moderated by Anne Kennedy from the SES Advisory board and featured speakers:

• Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit & SES Advisory Board (@omconnect)
• Arnie Kuenn, President, Vertical Measures (@arniek)
• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing & SES Advisory Board (@leeodden)

Kahlow Presents the What, Why, How, and Who of Search, Social, and Content

Aaron Kahlow focused on some very basic but essential areas that all marketers should focus on when creating a campaign either online or offline. In regards to search, social, and content he had this to share:

Mikel Chertudi, Senior Director, Global Media & Demand Marketing at Adobe Systems, presented Tuesday morning’s opening keynote at SES Chicago. The goal of his presentation was to take a deep dive into:

• How the value of what marketers do is often viewed incorrectly
• Mistakes that many marketers are guilty of
• What questions marketers should ask themselves in order to invest marketing dollars appropriately

Changing the Marketing Conversation
Often times, as marketers we talk too tactically

Many marketers today still refer to marketing dollars as “spend”, “budgets”, or “cost centers”. One of the things that Chertudi urges online marketers to do is change the conversation. What does this mean?  Organizations should begin considering marketing costs as an investment and not just a cost. Instead of focusing on the “burn rate” we are urged to focus on determining if our investment is large enough to fuel the growth of the company. This will enable marketing to be properly viewed as a means of growing the organization instead of being perceived as a cost center.

Really, truly understanding the competitive landscape can help pave the way for a successful search engine marketing program.

Chris Boggs led a panel discussion at SES Toronto on Competitive Analysis – What tips and tools can get you the vital competitive information that every SEO needs. According to Boggs, “Competitive analysis is one of the most exciting and important tactics (SEOs) can do.

The session was segmented into 3 areas of focus: on site research,off site research and PPC research.

On Site Research

Marios Alexandrou, Rosetta

When conducting on site (i.e. within your competitor’s site) competitive analysis, start by:

1) Asking yourself, “what companies should I look at?”  Compete.com can come in handy here.  Enter a handful of competitors and look for companies with high traffic. These are the companies that will likely have characteristics that will help inform your SEO approach.

In my preview post for SES Toronto, I counted John Alexander’s Keyword Forensics session as one of my “Must See” presentations for the 2011 conference. The promise of really digging down into keyword discovery and keyword analysis techniques sounded far too good to pass up. After all, keyword research is an essential part of any SEO process.

The session starts with an inspiring quote on the projector “Keyword Forensics – Exploring the Hidden User Search Behavior for Keywords That Are Often Missed by Keyword Researchers.”

I research keywords!  What am I missing?

Here are some good nuggets from the presentation:

Understand the Difference Between Keyword Research vs. Keyword Forensics

Keyword Research: Researching identified keywords to determine which phrases will provide the most search traffic.