SMX – Search Marketing Expo Conference

SMX West February 26, 2008 – Avoiding PPC Pitfalls Session – Amy Konefal, Addie Connor & One Other Dude

Posted by Adam on February 27, 2008
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Just got finished presenting on the panel – Defending Your Paid Search Budget Against Fad Ads and am now in the Avoiding PPC Pitfalls session.

Amy from Closed Loop Marketing is presenting the evils of broad match and advanced match with some prime examples of why you shouldn’t be running all your campaigns on broad match.

It is truely amazing how much liberty the engines take with broad match from related keywords, stemming, and liberties taken with geographical targeting on local targeted keywords.

General guidelines to deal with match types:

    Build out singular and plural terms
    Avoid broad & advanced match on broad terms
    Build out an extensive negative list
    Pull the search query performance report from Google
    Buy the most valuable traffic first

Then use AdGooRoo to get more visibility into your online visibility and that of your competitors.

Up next – Addie Connor from Course Advisor

This presentation focuses on account structure geared toward streamlining reporting, improving quality score, and improving all around performance.

Considerations when setting up PPC search campaigns include:

    Static vs. dynamic ads
    Display URLs
    Sales & promotions
    Budgeting issues
    GEO targeting needs
    Content vs. search
    Dayparting
    Reporting format & needs

Develop the keywords and ad groups in tandem while keeping in mind the landing pages and ad templates.

What to do if the account is inherited?

Quality score is combinations of ad text and keywords so if you inherit an account and preserve that, then try to keep the keyword and ad text combinations.

One Other Dude – Clix Marketing

What to do about PPC content campaigns to make them perform for you.

SMX – Search Marketing Expo Off to a Great Start

Posted by Adam on February 26, 2008
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Remember waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, when SES – Search Engine Strategies shows had just gotten started? The conferences were of a manageable size, you had a sit down lunch instead of a lunch it looked like someone sat on crammed into a little box. They had speaker receptions. If you were a speaker you could sometimes get an extra pass so someone else in your company could attend.

Well, SMX feels like a throwback to the good old days. They had a nice little welcome reception for everyone (not just speakers) with a couple free drinks and some appetizers (crab cakes & some kind of skewers with meat & veggies). I ran into Danny right off the bat, he seemed jazzed about the whole thing. The SWAG (Shit We All Get) bag was actually a backpack this time instead of one of the usualy conference things that is more like a reusable grocery shopping bag that is a aukward to carry around a conference all day.

Being out in Santa Clara California makes it nice as well. Feels like its about 50 degrees outside with a nice cool breeze. The sights are great. There are lots of familiar faces out here and many new ones. The convention center where the sessions are held is a nice short walk from the hotel rooms which isn’t so common anymore.

The hotel is nice. The HYATT has a flat-screen TV, the beds are comfortable and there is a nice view out the window. There is a gym on the 3rd floor so I’ll actually be able to work out. Since there are only two elliptical machines, I had to settle for a treadmill for 30 minutes until an elliptical freed up. On the road or anytime, it always feels great to be able to get in a workout.

The presentation is tomorrow, there are some more networking events and there will probably be more people coming in as the week goes on. It should be a great show. Look for updates here as the week goes on!

SMX – Search Marketing Expo Conference, Santa Clara California, February 26-28, 2008

Search Engine Strategies without Danny Sullivan & Chris Sherman, who would have thought? Well, now Kevin Ryan is at the healm of Search Engine Strategies and Danny and Chris are making tracks with Search Marketing Expo (SMX) under the umbrella of Third Door Media. Along with Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld, Danny & Chris are two of the most knowledgeable and experienced search gurus that host search focused conferences.

The conference will cover all aspects of search, have some exclusive content and insights that only Danny, Chris & other speakers and modertors will be able to provide and skip the boxed lunches! This might not seem like a big deal but one of the bast parts of CJU is the outstanding food served throughout the show. Most other conferences serve stuff your kids woud be embarrased to call a school lunch. Back in 2000 when SES was first getting off the ground, they used to serve good food but then the accountants teamed up with the shareholders and decided that they could make more money if they served cardboard to the attendees. Great food – just one more reason to head to SMX West.

SMX has also teamed up with the Las Vegas Affiliate Summit conference to offer great deals for those who go to both conferences. Register for SMX West or Affiliate Summit and get 50% OFF the admission fee to the other conference.

The conference will have quite a variety of sessions and keynotes. I’ll be on the panel – Defending Your Search Budget Against New Ad Fads in the paid search track on Day 1.

Are social media, blogs, widgets, NeverEndingFriending and other new ad opportunities attempting to take money away from search? Learn how you should look at and allocate your budgets to get the most bang for your buck! Even after all this time, search is sometimes still misunderstood, the metrics and measurements may not be in place to make a strong stand for search. Learn how to look at and present your case to keep get your organization to find funds elsewhere to fund the latest ad fads. Since search can be intangible and you won’t be submitting your search campaign to any “Addy” or other award contests, it seems more intangible and harder for old school budget allocators to understand. As a result, you need to make a strong financial case for your search budget.