While social networks are potentially creating some effective marketing opportunities, traditional and effective internet opportunities remain unsaturated. Search, rightfully so, commands an ever increasing portion of Internet ad spending, local is still an open market (though I’m bent on changing that), and profound improvements in Web-based video technology are threatening to change the definition and economics of “television”.

Who attends:
Brands, Agencies, Publishers, Portals & Service Providers, CEO’s, CMO’s, Marketing Execs, Brand Managers, Creatives, Media Buyers and Planners, Product Managers, Solution Providers…

Who else is going?
I’ll be there, in fact, with a booth behind me so stop by 5684 say hello!

I’m looking forward to a keynote from Chuck at an upcoming marketing conference; we could use the entertainment! Looking at Pop Labs though, I am left wondering, did I miss the trend in pop bottle logo design?

This person will lead the development of metrics dashboards and related resources while playing a significant role in the development of a proprietary analytics platform. 4+ years of broad web analytics experience including performance management and analysis, supporting marketing and media revenue streams. Will work most closely with online media sales, marketing, and product development organizations.

We’re in need of someone with advanced skills with ASP-based analytics solutions (Google Analytics and Hitbox preferred). Knowledge and experience with A/B and multivariate testing and conversion optimization highly valued.

If you are or know this person, please drop me a line directly at paul_l_obrien at yahoo dot com or click “Call Me” above to do just that.

The CommonCraft Show has found a niche with these unique videos providing brief explanations of popular and varied topics. They are contagious and informative, check them out.

Certainly, one has to have a degree of ego involved with starting one’s own blog, after all, these are my thoughts; thoughts I presume are of interest to someone. Sure, perhaps it isn’t really “ego” but, needless to say, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t hope someone cared and derived a modicum of value. With that it mind, it is with great pride, continued hope, and a shedding of a layer of humility that I let id loose, take a moment to do more than wax poetic, and share with you one of my most honored moments.

Wiley, famed publisher of Frommers, For Dummies, and CliffsNotes, recently shipped, “Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus”, to major bookstores. Internet advertising experts interviewed for the book include consultants, agencies, CEOs, PR professionals, advertisers, and publishers discussing everything from paid search to PR, social media marketing to affiliate marketing, SEO to online retail.

Featured:
Joan Holman, Greg Hartnett, Jacob Hawkins, Mark Oldani, Jeffrey Glueck, Lauren Freedman, Tamara Adlin, Steve Rubel, Greg Jarboe, Eric Ward, Jordan Gold, Heather Lloyd-Martin, Chris Baggott, Ed Shull, Brian Lusk, Lee Odden (should I really link to Top Rank again? seems gratuitous), Jill Whalen, Liana Evans, Perry Marshall, Kevin Lee, Ron Belanger, David Fischer, Phil Terry, Patrick Duparcq (who has, perhaps, the first online marketing college course I’ve seen) and… me.

Lee Odden reached out to a few of us and asked of those involved to share a summary in a collaborative post. I’m not going to steal his thunder but I don’t think he’ll mind if I borrow the idea. Here are a few excerpts:

Yahoo’s Ron Belanger on search
It started out as a direct marketing medium, but today more and more traditional marketers–including brand marketers–are beginning to utilize search engine advertising.

• * Use search advertising to take advantage of high-impact moments where a customer is interested in receiving a product or marketing message.
• * Search marketing isn’t just for national advertisers; local businesses can use search marketing to target down to the individual market level.
• * Social search lets you locate and communicate with passionistas–your most passionate brand advocates.
• * Search advertising is a low-barrier, low-risk medium. It costs you very little to get started, and the potential results are huge. So dip your toe in the water and start advertising!

Didit Co-Founder Didit Kevin Lee on analytics and optimization
We are in the midst of a change in the advertising ecosystem and those marketers who embrace change with passion will triumph over those who fail to evolve with the massive shifts in consumer behavior and preference. Paid Search Marketing and Online Media is only the beginning of this macroeconomic shift in the way content and advertising is “consumed” by the consumer. Marketers will increasingly rely on data-driven models for media and advertising, but they better be sure the data is accurate and the models comprehensive. Bad data is sometimes worse than no data at all.

• * Consumers are beginning to pay attention only to advertising that’s relevant to their needs.
• * The way to reach consumers online is via narrowcasting a relevant message to each individual segment of your target audience; not by mass marketing a general message that everyone sees.
• * Creativity in online marketing involves the ability to analyze data and formulate strategies based on that analysis.
• * Search needs to be considered in relation to other forms for advertising; everything interacts with everything else; nothing is a silo onto itself.
• * Carve out a portion of your marketing budget for experimentation with new media and advertising types.

KeyRelevance Director Internet Marketing Li Evans on priorities and SEO
“search marketing” isn’t about title tags and keyword densities anymore, search marketing has taken on a whole new meaning with the search engines trying to deliver the most relevant and engaging experiences for their users. Marketers need to realize, the days of “post-Florida” are gone, this is a whole new marketing medium that we ourselves need to adapt too.

• * For the time being, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Ask are the most important search engines; the smaller players don’t have much chance of breaking through the ranks.
• * Google is the big dog, of course, but other engines might be better to reach particular types of users.
• * Even though search engines rank different factors differently, the same basic SEO techniques will help your ranking across the board.
• * When optimizing your site, focus on relevant content first and link building second.

TopRank® and Online Marketing Blog’s Lee Odden on social media and blogs

• * Publish your media to different sites and channels to maximize the potential search engine hits—images to an image-sharing site, videos to YouTube, and so forth.
• * All media are valuable, but none so much so as text, because of its importance to search engines.
• * Most blog software is search-engine friendly out of the box and can provide a platform for delivering fresh content for the search bots.
• * When content gets noticed and cited by multiple blogs, you get multiple links back to your main web site—which drives direct traffic and can increase search engine rankings.
• * To succeed with social networking, you have to be transparent and honest. You must provide value in order to receive value.

I confess not knowing the illustrious set of folks interviewed as well as Lee so head over to Top Rank for more excerpts. Author Michael Miller though has done a fabulous job aggregating the most important considerations from the great variety of online marketing considerations. If you want a phenominal, general overview of everything you should know, grab a copy of the book.

As for myself? A chapter on local marketing

• * Optimize your site for local search—make sure you include locality information as part of your keyword set.
• * Focus on local directories as much as you do the big search engines.
• * Think beyond the business listing. You’ll retain your customers with a business listing but attract customers with search engines like Zvents.
• * Make sure you have a version of your site available that’s optimized for mobile devices.
• * Include latitude and longitude information for inclusion in upcoming GPS-enabled devices.

Good god… Am I going to have to start a book club?

I for one, only found amusement in the ongoing Yahoo! / Google dance as Yahoo! Finance announced (perhaps too proudly?), “Google Shocker: Paid Click Hits Wall.” How is the fact that Yahoo! announced the news as such not the only headline that matters? With the recent news of Yahoo! acquisition (Oh no he din’t just link to MSNbc for that story did he?!) and under the table efforts from Google to do, well, something, Henry Blodgett leads the story saying, “This is a shockingly bad report, I mean, even if comScore is only half right, it’s still a disaster for Google”

What? Is he out of his mind? How much money did Google make in January from paid search (genuine question, not rhetorical; I admit, I don’t care enough to look). Are paid clicks not still the future of digital advertising? Highly relevant, targeted, performance based marketing… Google hasn’t hit any wall and I assure you demand for that business only, at worst (at best? what’s the right turn of the phrase in this situation), blinked.

Are you not entertained that not only is the media no longer unbiased but they can so easily use their own massive audiences to attack one another with valid news? Yahoo! taking the opportunity to fling some mud, while themselves on the ropes?? Priceless.

I had a chance to catch up with Lance Loveday, CEO, Closed Loop Marketing, a marketing services organization which recognizes that a holistic approach to online is key. Simple put, and these are my words, not his, a holistic approach to online recognizes that no activity acts in a vacuum and that optimization of every touch point you have with customers creates synergy to greatly improve performance. Take, for example, the simple concept of a display ad campaign.

Most marketers still treat banner campaigns ad mere advertising vehicles with impressions, clicks, perhaps some behavioral targeting thrown in if their agency is savvy enough to upsell them. In reality, few banner campaigns deliver immediately clicks let alone conversions to justify the spend. No; advertising causes people to search. Upon searching they visit your website, call, or head to the store. And in turn that more direct touch with the customer is what causes them to buy or act. As a marketer, those most successful put the pieces together to recognize that improving conversions, or the propensity of customers to buy from the website, call center, or in store, improves the performance of their search program which in turn reflects on the success of banner campaign. Lance is one of those marketers and has put together a great list of resources to help marketers understand the whole picture.

In his book, Web Design for ROI, Lance and co-author Sandra Niehaus address how even the simplest of changes can have transformative results on your business. The book is intentionally laid out into sections addressing landing pages (of which, honestly, I’m not a fan but that’s a discussion for another day), your home page, category pages, detail pages, and your point of conversion or “forms and checkout,” creating, effectively, a series of priorities or steps through which to go to work with your designers and engineers to improve the quality of the site. Goals and objectives are spelled out making it easy for folks to understand and explain what to expect and why it is important to dedicate time and resources to optimization that is right for your company.

I really encourage your grabbing a copy of the book, moreso for those of my readers in e-commerce. This happens to be one of my favorite discussion topics so if you’d like to know more just drop me a line (or, incidentally, if you haven’t tried Grand Central yet, I highly recommend it… click the “Call Me” button I’ve added to the top of the blog and you can literally do just that - if you want an invite to use the platform, let me know).