Bryan Landaburu (aka Reno Bryan, Willie Vega, and Fuze) | Dont call me a blogger

Ad:Tech Day 3 - wrapup

Art of Persuasion - New laws of eCommerce Marketing
Natalie Long - Internet Marketing Manager, REI
Peter Brumme - Director of Web Marketing, Intuit
Monte Hudson - VP Sales, Revenue Science
Joey Wilson - Director of Marketing Strategy, Sapient
Moderated by Bill Tancer - GM Global Research, Hitwise

Currents:

• online sales US 155.8B - up 17% from 2007
• Internet penetration slowing but sitting at 71.1% - meaning people that want internet, have it
• Number of new retail sites slowing (3.5% growth)
• Visits to retail sites are up 26%

Are there any new rules of eCommerce?

REI

• interesting customer centric views - order online & return in store, and many other innovations
• moving towards portable content (good for their customers) but paying special attention to making sure the content and network experience across all channels (blogs, reviews, video, podcasts, etc.)
• Customers expect more our of brands - responsible, at "your" service

Intuit

• spend your dollars in the highest ROI areas
• be relevant at all steps of the purchse funnel - persuasion comes from the consistency at every point in the process
• the power of FREE is a way to significantly shorten the buying cycle
• testing remains one of the best tools that exists - dont forget about simple things like testing buttons - tactics will be different at different points in the funnel

Revenue Science

• personalized & relevant messaging is key to moving people through the funnel process

Sapient

• clients dont take advantage of conversations they have already started with a client - so many dont even do simple things like re-engagement messages on dropped baskets and the like.  If you already have the lead, it is more critical to work it, than to look for new ones.
• knowing what and how to measure is critical - have to name specifically what factors represent success - and this should be based on revenue not based on CTR or CPA.
• media should be optimized - focus on whaat drives sales, retention or profit
• Testing plan is critical important - focus on placements first, creative second - aplit vs multivariate - walk before you run.
• every step of your process can be optimized, personalized and impact can (must) be measured.

Q/A

• Fuze Question to REI - Since REI has always subtly been a "member" organization, has REI considered building social spaces or engaging in more trendy blogging tactics like Twitter to show they are connected to the bleeding edge and engaging with their members/customers.  if not, do you plan to, if so does it drive any sales and who runs the programs?
  • Answer: REI is considering taking on the social space by building tools that allow their global customers/members connect, share, review, travel
  • My Take: this could be the most explosive case study in social networking/media ever - just hang on for a year or 2 - REI over almost anyone, could pull this off - BIG TIME.

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The Empowered Consumer - Are we losing control of our brands?
Chas Edwards - Federated Media
Keith Rabois - Slide (180 Million unique viewers/month)
Bill Capodanno - Microsoft
Richard Becker - Citi
Marc Ruxin - Mcann worldwide/populist

How has the conversation evolved?

• First age - uni-directional - TV/Radio
• Second age - bi-directional - Interactive
• Third age - multi-directional - participatory

Here are my rambling[genius] thoughts...

This session can be summed up in a single word: Yes.  Companies are losing and having to relinquish control of their brands/products/services to the social world.  it will remain incredibly challenging for big brands to stay in the conversation and successfully "advertise" to people who dont want to see their message.  Good luck having a conversation that isnt exploited as we go forward here.

I have much less of an issue with brands reading what i have to say than i do with brands trying to control my conversation or interrupt me with advertising.  For instance, Citi relaunches mortgage.com and is, yawn, showing rates of competitors. Hasnt the insurance industry has done this for years? It blows me away how some brands think because THEY do something new to THEM, that is should all of a sudden be interesting to US.  Being interested in that, folks, requires you to take a healthy dose of Crazy Pills.

Citi [and others] need to respect and submiss to the fact that: no "institution" web tool will be more valuable and useful and visited than an independent. Ex: Which site will you trust a home valuation from: one on Citi vs. Zillow?  Of course Zillow.  They are the pioneers, they are impartial, they are data fueled. They have the eyeballs.  They are NOT TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING! This is a fundamental issue with big brands getting into the social space...they try to control too much.  Poop on them.

I hate that marketers "follow" everything that consumers embrace as a format and immediately exploit it for their own benefit.  Sort of wondering when the backlash will happen?  Maybe sites like facebook et al need to start generating a little revenue by charging people some small amounts of money to strip out the advertising.  They cant do this however, because ADVERTISERS pay them WAY MORE than users ever could.  Users are the pawn...and it sux.  Think about what happened to the original "social network" AOL...learn it, know it, live it.

Ad:Tech Day2 - teens speak out [MUST READ POST]

Keynote 3 - Teens Speak Out - Moderated by Alloy Media+Marketing
Panel group of teens (high school mostly) discuss topics, devices and tactics important to them.  interesting realities for a lot of us.  I am enlightened that there are still strong relationships with parents, and a desire to achieve. Technology enables their lives and all indicated that they would not want to be without their PC's and Phones.

"Cool to be good" as a topic and theme was interesting to me and great (IMHO). These teens sniff out companies, products, services that they see are "good" companies.  Mischief seemed to be minimal, getting involved seemed more interesting to them. To validate this point 89% said they would switch brands to companies they see as being socially responsible.  They have a quest to want to feel important/involved/engaged in the globe, not just their little world. All good things to hear as a parent.

On the topic of "viral or virality" there was an interesting thought process on how they choose to pass content through their "filter" then they will tend to pass it along or not based on what they view.  They feel that the video has to be from a trusted source (YouTube). But, they are becoming skeptical of all the "american idol wanna-be's" and phony videos where people just want their face to be famous.  Saturation is frustrating and loses authenticity. They do pass along deals, things important to them, well produced things, and of course things that they find funny.

On Open Architecture, namely "facebook applications" they feel that there are too many.  Hard to figure out what apps are real and what are silly & useless. Facebook was seen as a better place to be than MySpace because Myspace has too much going on. They all indicated that photos were important and the basis of who you are on the social network. The applications need to be screened and qualified. Sponsorship is ok but it REALLY has to have value and that is hard to figure out. Causes and groups are being overly exploited and "look at me, arent i important". 

Quotes and the like:

• I get served car ads all the time - i cant afford, not interested in a car
• Desire a single device that does it all - TV, Movies, Mobile, Social networks, etc.
• Use social networks to stay connected to friends.  All seem to focus on a few (1-3) not every one.
• Games are important, but not as highly interesting to them as i would have thought - they did like the "live" elements of PS3/Xbox
• Virtual worlds were depicted as good for middle schoolers that dont have any options [couldn't be more true] as their options to get out and socialized increased, SecondLife stuff bored them.
• Social networks are over saturated - myspace in particular, is burying people with advertising and subtle would be a better tactic, than overt advertising
• the ads are not tuned out, but they dont often see the value in the ad...however, they are receptive.
• Concerned about virus' so they tend not to "click" things that they arent certain of
• Find text advertising to be incredibly annoying unless they can specifically recall actually signing up for the service/promos.
• Games for lame giveaways like t-shirts or pack of skittles are annoying and pointless, they would rather see company give the value of the giveaway and donate it to worthy charities. That vs. the giveaway ties them to the brand.
• Notification of social responsibility in companies comes from WOM, PR, and some trusted news sources.
• Dont try to be Hip & Cool - unless you are cool...you cant buy cool.
• Marketing should prove you are responsible and "get it"
• concerned about people stealing their photos, and intellectual property, and are very concerned about their privacy and security.
• Some concerns that getting very involved in a site and they worry about it closing down (small sites have a tough battle - have to build trust)
• Trust is earned - nothing specifically will make a teen trust a site.

Sites/services referenced: Hulu.com, Facebook, myspace, Hi-5, Youth Noise, WOW!, freerice, shopbob, youtube.

Overall

One of the best panels i have seen in a couple years at a conference. Pay attention to your audience or you are nothing more than the crusty ol' dean with a whole lotta nothing to say, and absolutely NO authenticity. They see through you quicker than shit.

Ad:Tech Day 2 - Workshops

Exchange Series: New Creative Workshop
A new tactic for AdTech but a good one.  Moderated by someone who i respect a lot, Tim Smith

Topics

• creative still an afterthought - design reduced to "decoration"
• big ideas are still best done by small teams working in parallel
• Linear process - very in line with how we do things at Fuze. Session very valuable and validating my full conference pass.
• evaluating the "new" - using it > public trial > internal eval > considering

Breakout

• Andrew Peters - UE Architect - Director of User Experience.

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Exchange series III: Web 2.0 meets Thunderdome
Chris Marriott - VP, Acxiom Digital
Rob Crumpler - CEO Buzz Logic
Jeremy Wright - Global director, Mobile Brand - Nokia

• [link Chris's slides]
  • email marketing should remain part of the mix
• [link rob's slides]
  • social media is here to stay because it allows targeting, pathing and reach and relevancy
• [link jeremy's slides]
  • mobile is so very pervasive, if we just get the tactics right, you have ability to reach more people at one time than most any other medium.  Infinite relevance.

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Exchange Series IV: Consumer esperience in a Multi-platform world
T-mobile sidekic and Connected

• interesting case study - tmobileconnected.com
• insane level of integration from a campaign standpoint.
• Results: largest MTV network digital program, 700K streams of the show, 100K xbox live skins, more streams than several MTV hit shows, stickiness of microsite outperformed many other MTVN verticals
• More important: grew sidekick sales by 140%

Stardoll Nim's Island campaign - virtual world and social network - 16million registered users, highest concentration of 9-17 out of the top 1000 web properties in the us.  Targeted around: Fame, Fashion, Friendship

• Stardoll is one of the only virtual world social sites that may hand in there and take. 
• Really nice association between the movie and the demographic group.
• Created real connections between users and their natural environment.

Overall
I really liked these sessions and AdTech overall has been pretty good this year.  They really pulled a rabbit out of their hat because it didn't start strong for me.

Ad:Tech San Francisco 2008 - Day 1

Keynote: Art of conversation Building great brands
Interesting panel of people that included VW, Nestle, MTV, Sony, etc.  Their opinions regarding their social "thrust" were current, and relevant, but getting to a point where a consumer is going to have a harder and harder time having a conversation without being exploited.  There is a jockey-ing about to "get social" and "be viral" - to the point that people ask what the ROI will be on their viral campaign? Doesn't that lose authenticity if you are trying to get ROI on something that isnt based on anything predictive?  Anyway, maybe its too early, and maybe i was up too late, but i am not a good listener yet this morning.

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Power Panel: Tales from the bleeding edge - moderator: lori schwartz - IPG media Pab

• Jason Goldberg - Creative director - MTI Interactive- Interesting concepts for retail environments that are really interesting and truly bleeding edge.  Things like:  pick up a product and be told about the product on an LCD. or, walk through Pep Boys and your keyfob will tell pepboys what the year, make, model of your car is.  INteresting opportunities to link interactive with hands on experiences to prevent people from walking out.
• Alan Schulman - CEO IMC2 - very interesting speaker and topics that discuss primarily integration with GPS technologies. Examples included:
  • Discussed how agencies want bleeding edge and marketers and brands want leading edge.
  • GPS in NYC Cabs - eTaxi GPS maps linked with advertisors - interesting mashup concept (taxitech.com)
  • VW Crispan Porter Times Square live polling - 2 minute live user experience that repeats 4x/hr taking live results and linking in real time on the microsite to completely engage visitors...even tells the submitter when to look a the screen to see their post. www/vw.com/vwhype/whatthepeoplewant/en/us
• michael mak - CEO, bCODE - Mobile coupons and the vision for the future - probably the best speaker with topics that are relevant now. Minority report example:
  • recognition technology/transaction/redemption
  • broadcast offer
  • in-store personalization
  • mobile offer targeeting
  • opt-out / privacy
  • available now
  • bCODE mobile platform
    • scans mobile phone
    • SMS text
    • Flash/Web applications
    • Location, time, mobile, profile, context - knowing exactly what you are doing allows the offer to be much more pointed and relevant and well received.
    • text messaging opt-out
    • mobile loyalty in a box
    • consumer opts in via SMS from anywhere
    • mobile # becomes a profile and part of a CRM database
    • coupons can come in the form of SMS from the brand once relationship is established
    • on the store visit, mobile phone is scanned and coupon is used to interact with the customer - this terminal introduction alleviates any dependency on leading edge handhelds. - 3 billion devices read the text bar code
  • in use currently at IKEA US, and Harrah's (of all people)
  • critical piece is: offer and relevancy
• Bruno Uzzan - CEO of Total Immersion - new term "Augmented Reality"
  • all i can say about what Bruno's company does is: WOW!
  • THeir ability to virtualize contents of a retail package, piece of paper, etc. and see what is in the box without opening the box - gave a good example using video and a lego toy
  • Could REALLY bring new life into print (yes i said it) advertising
  • The term really isnt new: "Augmented Reality is a solution to transform passive guests into active performers." - Walt Disney
  • Another example is the chrysler brochure- where a brochure is detected by video and the car is rendered in real time, users can also interact with the brchure by holoding their finger over a color and in real time the object changes. 
  • in place now for Lego, but as this expands, watch a whole new way of buying houses, cars, approving a landscape plan or seeing your yard in the future based on how plants grow, etc., etc. etc., especially if it was originally put together in 3D/CAD.
  • Its like Minority report come alive - and frankly made the day completely worth the time.  INSANE technology.  Watch for this company to explode and be acquired fast.

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Futuresearch Panel - big panel of speakers and SEMPO that discussed the future of advertising (in the context of "advertising" as an industry).

Factoids:

• Search is still a $16B industry
• integration and digitization of all content
  • research > experience planning > optimization > advertising > cross-channel reporting

Q's presented to all panelists

• biggest opportunities for growth of brands
• What challenges will face brands with regard to search

Speakers:

• Jane Butler - google - search is part of a consumer's behavior
  
  • Opportunities:
  • Make all forms of media/assets discoverable
  • 100% of assets always on
  • Connecting offline & Online
  • Reach out to consumers throughout the funnnel
  • Obstacles:
  • Standards
  • Sales Attribution
  • Measurement
• Jen Dorre - microsoft
  • Opportunities:
  • power of 2 - search and display are better together - combination of search and display has a lift of 22% when used in combination.
  • stronger analytics & yield management - Microsoft is developing a new keyword discovery tool
  • engagement mapping - through acquisition aQuantive Msft is getting more involved in engagement mapping, which weighs clicks and activity and combines them for a more real picture of what a conversion looks like.
  • Obstacles:
  • Growing the advertising Ecosystem
  • data warehouse > buy side > sell side
• Lauren Coberly - Dir WW Marketing, Kodak
  • Opportunities:
  • more and more entrants (paid & organic)
  • ways companies utilize search is evolving
  • model is extended into traditional marketing creating an auction model
  • advanced targeting  - enhhanced behavioral, remarketing, contectual, personalization, and customization
  • social media - open dialogs vs. intermittent campaigns, key integration point in 360 degree marketing
  • Obstacles:
  • measurement poses a significant challenge
  • quantification of web 2.0 activities
  • privacy - must take caution with customer/member information
  • content - supporting the advertising - dynamic website, content distribution vs drive to sites, have to "let go" of your brand.
• Grazia Ruskin - Manager WW consumer online market development for AMD -
  
  • Opportunities:
  • use marketing leverage to keep momentum & increase budgets (huh?)
  • advance strategic alliance to benefit the parters and the corporation
  • rethink virtual merchandising strategies
  • Obstacles:
  • Stick with what youre doing - online strategies need to be sustainable  - target cant be a moving one.
  • drive demand for brand using a global footprint (if you can - a-hem)
  • Budget!
• David Kidder - co-founder/CEO - clickable - GREAT 2 Slide Presentation - Couldnt be more dead on.
  
  • Opportunities:
  • reputation transparency (voice) - brand core is dependent on this
  • universal brand penetration (reach) - meet customers where they are with digital ubiquity
  • authentic customer experience (RT touch) - experience drives quiality and value of digital media impression
  • Obstacles:
  • trust - brand needs to be in concert with corporate ethos ( authenticity)
  • data quality - a conversion, is a conversion, is a conversion (Gertrude Stein)
  • Simplicity - WWAD (what would apple do)
  • 3x hurdles - hurts ability to see through (actually 9x when it comes to user experience) incumbent v. competitor
  • Clickable-NINJAS - participation concept

Overall

• I always feel like this conference is a place where people laugh at their own jokes, prop eachother up, and generally "agree" with themselves.  Hard to see who is doing anything new...back to my consistent sentiment: there are no more unique ideas, just bastardizations of previous ones.
• TREND: "let go" of your brand.

SMX West Day 3 - marathon day

Last day of SMX West i am spent both from full day sessions, paired with martini-based client dinners, and the next leg of travel ahead. Only 3 more days of this fun stuff to go.  This post i went ahead and weaved my thoughts into the post a little tighter. Hopefully my 10s of readers will follow along.

Keynote
Interesting (moderately) session on how search will be used as it evolved.  Reps from Google, Yahoo, and Live were on hand with Gord and Chris Sherman as part of a panel of experts.  I personally believe that they are right regarding their take on Mobile search (that GPS based search would be very powerful, and that the experience on the small screen needs to improve).

My take on most of this keynote and the conference in general is that search is obviously evolving, but has been VERY SLOW in terms of features and functions. Needed improvements to search (way more long term) will include some much better presented results (vs. the same 10 blue links we have all been seeing since 1996). Search engine technology development has been very much based around ways to exploit ad revenue (for good or evil (your call)).  As humans continue to expect more, and with more mediums having relevance, search engines results need to be much more fuzzy and comprehensive and all reaching.  Its an interesting pattern and topic i have seen resonate here since day 1 here at SMX.

I also sincerely believe that Mobile mashups and Local search are areas search engines do absolutely HORRIBLY. Everything with a city qualifier pulls from city center. LAME.  If you are on your mobile, and you do a search for something in a city (ex. san francisco sushi restaurants near nob hill) why cant a search engine see your GPS location, and match that with the query, and realize a more accurate search result may be based on a combination of that, vs. word match globally across the webisphere.  One other space that is RIPE for improvement is integration of live data integrated into auto nav systems - live traffic, simple searching, all using hot, live data.  That would be a much welcomed change and the data & technology to do both are here today.

Not really cool how search engines treat "mom & pops" as being on the hook to provide them all the data.  They claim thats the only way to improve local, and i call this a cop out.

one great thing about search both now, and in the future is that Search and Search Marketing are 100% quantifiable.  That makes it better than almost ANY other form of media and advertising.  Search will continue to grow and evolve and we can thank social networks and social media for this new set of eyes on how people search, interact, and research online.

Attended a session on: Growing Your SEM Firm
Moderated by Chris Elwell
Panelists: Fionn Downhill, Damian Finley, Lisa A. Williams

was only moderately engaged in the discussion for several reasons, but didn't hear anything overly compelling (to me).  Ahem...next.

Analyzing the competition

Its pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised. - Frederick The Great

Christine Churchill - Key Relevance

• do searches for key terms (paid & organic)
• Determined how competitive sites are optimized
• look up WhoIs information to get information about the competitor
• archive.org is also a useful history tool
• Study their backlinks, how many, what sorts of relationships
• check their traffic estimates - compete, hitwise, alexa, comScore - great for seeing what terms your competitors are getting traffic from and where people go before/after
• PPC review - what engines they are using, phrases, bid strategy, quality of ads, SEO effort
• Tools in the PPC space - keywordspy, keycompete, adgooroo, spyFu
• Reputation management - google alerts, forums, blogs, etc., bbb, d&b, epinions

HitWise

• bill tancer, GM Global Research
• New book - CLICK
• not much to say other than talking about how he and HitWise have the best tools on the planet for uncovering stats, research data, competitive analysis, keyword analysis, etc.
  • cheaper alternative is trellian or competitious.com

Jake @ STN Labs
Loose informal conversation on the realities of the visible web and how to research and more important, protect yourself from spys.  My guess is that 90% of the folks in the audience thought Jake was advocating hacking madly, but what he was trying to point out is our false sense of security that our websites are just securely chugging along and that all our information is safe from inquiries and prying eyes so nobody needs to mind the shop. Peoples answer that "my host takes care of that" is an absurd false sense of security. Almost as mad as having life vests on commercial airlines...whats the point?  The only way you're escaping a commercial airline "water landing", is if you have jumped out of the plane with your own parachute before impact. Wow, that's a tangent...i digress.  Here are some of his thought provokers.

• If you are doing research...
  • good webmasters are already researching their competitors
• whois.sc is the best whois research
• regional IP databases - first step to social engineering
  
  • find the ip, pump it into completewhois.com and find their ISP.
• social engineering - getting someone to tell you something they're not supposed to
• allinanchor - can be your friend
  • will return webpages linked to that target them
• protecting yourself
  • watch for unnatural traffic - allinanchor, link:, cache, whois.sc
  • track them and send them on their way with 301redirects
  • serve 403 pages, send to differnt pages with different pricing, send them to their own site, serve midis and wavs to piss them off, or just silently track them

Search Marketing B2B Style
Slightly different slant on SEM which is a big element of our business, we are vested in the B2B space.  Tactics are different, distribution of ads and optimization activities are also different than B2C.  Some outlets that are interesting for B2B clients.

• Ben Hanna @ Business.com went through their offers and advantages. They have a simple ad network and paid inclusion model.  We tried this at IDWholesaler a while ago, but it just didint work for their audience...almost NO conversions. But Business.com ads may work better for our clients like Graylift who are selling forklifts, or clients like Entrust Group who targets a professional influencer audience like Estate Planning Attorneys and CPA's.  Both clients search terms could be supported by articles and placement in the Business.com directories.
• Patcicia Hursch - SmartSearch Marketing - focused more on tactics and things to do
  • she stresses getting beyond lead gen to things like: visibility, traffic, in addition to Lead Gen
  • also stressed the post click behavior that needs an effort.  These could include site UI optimization, landing page optimization, and/or microsite optimization.
  • have to get to buyers at the start of the process so you can influence their decisions
  • advertising in the tail is a valid concept that emphasizes the important of targeted long tail terms.
  • using ad copy to pre-qualify clickers - being specific will help you weed out lookie-loos that you don't want clicking your ads (ex it outsourcing vs. national it outsourcing service provider for companies with 15 to 300 employees)
  • align ad copy with query - depending on the type of search based on your sales lifecycle, your paid ads should adapt as the process moves.  learning > research > narrow options > buy
  • microsites focused on specific industries - or focused on specific solutions
  • test all your page elements on the landing pages
    • page layout
    • images
    • benefit statements
    • action triggers
    • names of downloadables
    • etc...
  • offer action options
    
    • trial
    • seminar
    • buy
    • not always one size fits all
  • simplify reg forms
    • 15 fields 5 %
    • 5 fields 9%
    • 2 fields 15%
• Galen deYoung - Francis SEO - Organic search for B2B - focused purely on b2b seo
  
  • business purchasers - are different
  • matters what they search for and it matters what they type in...even if seemingly insignificant:  healthcare consultant, health care consultant, healthcare consultants
  • people search by:
    • subject, problem, person role, product, industry, geo
  • each distinct set of keywords needs a distinct landing page
  • see acousticsbydesign.com for one of his clients
  • page strategies
    • know keyword target and 3-5 long tail term modifiers
    • could be 3-5 words or even up to 7-8 words
  • great slides with good points.  fingers tired and cant keep up the typin.
• covered some interesting tactics regarding lead management and lead nurturing

Okay, thats it for me.  I am off to the bar for a pre-flight round and then its off to San Diego for the Miva Developers Conference. No rest for the weary.

BL

Bleeding Edge Thoughts From The Leaders In Search - SMX West Day 2

Today I managed things at the office, learned loads, fired a client, negotiated a deal, made 5 new Twitter friends, inked a new partner deal, found 2 new freelancers, and bought a house all from the floor of SMX West here in Santa Clara, CA.  Not a bad little Wednesday all in all.  Here is my conference Day 2 wrap up.

Keynote Louis Monier - cueil
Topic: Past, Present, Future of Search
Started his presentation off on the wrong foot with me by using the extinct font Comic Sans for his slides.  I digress.

• The web is only as good as its index
• Claims that the only way search will work is to have robotic index (Mahalo & Clusty would disagree)
• Future - long tale terms, which don't have a single answer, do not offer any guidance from search engines (today).
• eCommerce search works differently because they allow you filters and guidance to complete and structure the query. 
• Current engines work very similar to the way that they did in 1995.
  • word soup - build points based on frequency and structure and shingles within the doc.
  • links and anchors - page rank and inbound links increase relevance
  • user behavior - whatever gets the most clicks gets the highest rank
  • UI - still sitting around 10 blue links.
  • is anything new other than "scale" (millions to billions of pages)
• fundamental q - what portion of the web are they indexing and ranking - search can be a lot more than it is today.
• The Future
  
  • search should provide insight
  • is Human Powered search the answer (Wikipedia, Mahalo, Squidoo) - he says no.
  • is personalization the answer - filling in the blanks? It will only help so much because it cannot discern what you want or desire based on your basic demographics like age, geo location, language, etc.  that would assume we are all the same.  not true.
    
    • ex. diamond = jewelry if you are a woman, baseball if you are a man
  • is vertical search an answer - the more specialized or niche, the more likely it will work but only on a VERY THIN scale so this doesn't scale.
  • what about natural language processing? problem with natural language is that there are too many variations on written language.  wont match the realities of the web.
  • semantic search/semantic web - everything gets marked up...issue is that there is no motivation to put this level of detail into the META and backgrounds...also it is too exploitable.
  • !spell checker - the concept of type a word in and see what version has more matches.  That returns the "norm" and allows you to make a decision.
  • !aggregate information - structured data comes into play and returns better results based on known options and frequent selections - this leads to research assistant as a concept...
    • research assistant - part of the evolution of search
  • Bottom line - size matters - you have to have the whole web.  Nobody will ever be able to decide based on any robotic factors what, or what is not important to you.

Multi-variate Testing

• Johnathan Mendez - interesting base level knowledge presentation. worth reading this optimization blog, he has some great ideas.
• Closed Loop Marketing - getting more from your multivariate testing
  • have a plan & a goal
  • choose the right starting place - get your program to the right place first, then start testing...not before!!!
  • gather inputs
    • who
    • baselines
    • other info
    • apply best practices
    • integrate usability testing
    • work with designers that GET IT
  • elements - what elements matter headlines, call to action, button, hero image, bulleted benefits, tables & charts, forms, etc.
• seth rosenblatt - optimost/interwoven
  • another great presentation that outlined countless justifications for testing, optimization, and design.
• Jon Diorio - google
  • discussed Google's free analytics process
    • identify impactful page, section or element
    • develop hypothesis for each element
    • test a few variations (2-4)
    • repeat (if needed)
    • google.com/websiteoptmizer - upcoming seminars for beginners
    • review tom ash landing page optimizer book
• Gregg Makuch - Widemile
  • current Fuze partner and experts in multivariate testing and optimization - lots of traction in this area

SEO & Social Media Marketing

• Rand from SEOmoz.org had a great presentation about "cool shit on the internet"[his words] - Rand is a great speaker and always offers a wealth of information about social media marketing (SMM).
  • why is social media so important? its BIG. growing at an exponential rate (especially globally)
  • blogosphere is fully engaged and the way they find blogs is that they click links on other blogs.
  • influencers spread content via a number of social media methods.  There are a number of turn on's/off's
• Neil patel from acs - ran through a number of great case studies on different business types and how they use social media.
  • HP example
    • photo sharing
    • social news
    • social networks
    • blogs
  • american greetings
    • assisted with a popular photo/flash combo to raise their presence on "greeting cards" in search because of the viral video
  • life insure
    • embraces the fact that publishing content on dying which resonated in the social networks
  • Gawker media
    • 90% of their traffic driven from social media efforts.
• Barbara Boser from 3 Dog Media - added some insight on how important commitment and participation are required to be successful in social media.
  • prepare to be consumed for at least 2 months
  • read what is popular in the different communities
  • look for tools you can use within sites and on the web
  • subscribe to as many feeds as you can - particularly popular sites in the community you want to break into
  • keep your profile and persona unique
  • memorable avitar
  • match gmail account ad IM that match your username
  • see top users and associate with them - watch out for people who are too high maintenance
  • vote fast and often
  • dont submit more than 2-3 stories and dont submit stories from your own site
  • avoid hitting top users too fast and hard
  • make sure your profile is listed on all the sites you are in
  • never make multiple accounts on the same site
• michael grey - greywolf seo blog & atlas web services - took the leading edge tact and had a number of new concepts and topics to discuss
  • current event social media (oscars, deaths, etc) - oscars/prius post good for auto blog
  • twitter is seen as a great traffic generator - lots of great plugins with twitter that make it possible to publish where you are.  try not to "sell" in twitter, but rather use it for persona development.  Can also be used for product releases or service
  • let people who monitor you know you're out there.
  • jetblue, carnival, southwest, amazon gold deals, woot, all use twitter as a sales channel
  • tactics: look into your profile, make it real
• Top social sites for marketers are:  Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube,

SEO 2.0 for Web 2.0 sites
interesting set of concepts/opinions on the new emerging programming and development techniques that are having influence and are buzz-ie on the web.  Lots of opinion, all of which i agree with.

• Sherry Thureau - CSS & Search engines
  
  • obvious advantages of using CSS
  • couple refreshers:  make sure you create a sense of place - make sure your CSS clearly shows visited and non visited links.
  • keep your headings and H1, H2, Text matched up.
  • title tag should be 40-60 characters - cant H1 a page
  • CSS should never be used to exploit search engines
  • images are not satan and can easily be optimized.  THINK OF YOUR USERS!
• mikkel deMib Svendsen - web2.0 and ajax etc.
  • web.2.0 importance - new types of applications, deeper interaction, embrases power of human interaction, but may be exclusionary to some
  • Mikkel says say NO to AJAX - it breaks a unified model of the web - it breaks the standards of the web. can only link to the application, not to the page.  people cant be referred back (by search engines) to the same piece of information...thus search engines may never fully index AJAX apps
  • always ask WHY, when people say they want to use AJAX or FLASH.  They can be used for good, but usually for no real reason.  Must improve conversion or make something better.
  • be careful when using AJAX applications...they are NOT secure.
  • social web 2.0 is great [duh] for SEO
    • higher freshness, grammar issues (but it doesn't matter, the message comes through)
    • great to have 20,000 SEO's - you want their comments, but be careful with SPAMMERS

great conference so far all in all.  Much different than SES.  A tad more out on the bleeding edge, but cool for me and lots of great ideas to take home to the Fuze Basecamp.

More coming for Day 3.

BL

Blended Search is Hot | Fuze reporting from SMX West | Day 1

Arrived a little late so that i could hang an extra night at home with Lori & Cole. Lots going on at the homestead.  More on that later.  Reporting from the floor [literally] from SMX West 2008 in Santa Clara, CA.  Since these are mainly my shorthand notes, some of it will make sense, some of it will be Greek to most. I'm sure some of this will end up in someones "hack-ie" presentation slides - i just hope i get to heckle them with questions about the source when i see them.  Anyway, here are some topics that are pretty hot...

Blended Search Revolution - When 4th place Ask.com started their ad campaigns showing off that they got rid of Jeeves (something i will never forgive them for), they introduced something more profound than i think they imagined.  They introduced the concept of blended search.  Blended search is nothing more than a mashup of data on a search result screen.  This lets people see local results, combined with video (YouTube), with images (flickr), with reviews (yelp), and alas, with paid and organic search results.  This is VERY logical and for the last 10 years has never really had any attention.  Now it is getting attentions it aptly deserves.  Here are some thoughts...

• People use search in 3 primary ways:
  • In & out - answer a question, settle a bet, move on
  • discover - research, spend time looking to buy something, monitor a concept, etc.
  • Explore - Browsing with no specific goal, surfin the net, etc.
• To accommodate these very TYPICAL search results and keep people on their sites longer, this mashup/blended result is their answer.
• What this finally means for the industry is that what we know now as the concept of "search engine optimization" (and the one that all those jackass "SEO Experts" call to solicit you about), is GOING TO DIE.  Pack your bags snake oil salesmen.
• SEO experts wont be able to influence or exploit results through "service" it will require companies to get involved in the conversation, put their information everywhere, and let natural search take their course.
• What's this mean for web users? This makes search engines USEFUL again.  Once again, the playing field is going to level.What this means for monitization and the Web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...companies building and evangelizing their powerful social tools...your space is on RED HOT fire.  You own a concept, you get rich.
• Watch for UI changes from Yahoo, Google, Live, and refinements from Ask.
• I think i like search again.  :-)

Search Marketing and Persona Models

• Decision process factors: knowledge, risk, reward, emotion - low to high
• Objectives - criteria, candidates, budget/scope, research (basic), research (detail), options, decision
• Humans can only consider 4-5 chunks of information, decide what meets their criteria, and move on.
• Use REAL PEOPLE on your site to identify faster with your visitors.  Stock images are USELESS to show you are approachable.
• understanding the way men and women differ in their browsing, navigation, and selection criteria is critical to success.
• All great marketing requires empathy
• Establishing personas - practical personas - view 37signals.com/svn
  • research (demographics & psychographics) - adlab.msn.com, quantcast.com, compete.com, trellian for keyword discovery, wordtracker, claritas.com
  • NOTE: you cannot build personas based on keywords
    
    • brainstorm - narrow from 5-10 to 1-3 focal personas.  Some may need to be driven away.
    • write
    • create campaign
    • segment audience
    • measure, adjust, repeat

More Blended Search - Focus on Local

• Blended local search differs on Live, Yahoo, & Google
  • Live - getting started, varying results based on relevance and distance
  • Yahoo - looks like google present
  • Google - new local one box, added 10 listings, varies display wise depending on how they interpret what you are searching by. Same amount of space
• overall - the closer you are to any city center, the better you will show up in local search
• good strategy to run your blog on a separate domain that is keyword loaded - interlinking will add to your link popularity.
• create a review function - part of link building
• verified listings - business profiles
  • manual verification - small number of businesses (google, yahoo, live)
  • feed based verification - reach local, localeze, infousa
  • trusted sources - internet yellow pages, feed providers, social review & niche sites
• strategies
  • cross link contact pages

Blended Search Results - ecommerce/retail tactics - What works?

• dont forget about how to's
• ratings and votes - are relevant
• who links to you in important
• research what people search for
• keep your profiles up to date
• re-energize forums
• implement ratings and review
• analytics
  • track referrers
  • add paramaters to URLs
• build relationships with customers - it is ABSOLUTELY not about SEO anymore
• Optimization
  • product feeds need keep titles tied to what people search for
  • each engine will represent product based searches different (currently Live does it best)
  • brand name is very important for search results from feeds
  • use long tail terms in title, especially for highly competitive products
  • always include photos! - no photo = no show! in MS Live
  • insure photos are available through image search
  • seller rankings matter in google - manage ratings at contributor sources
    • dealtime, nextag, shopzilla, etc.
  • other important factors
    • page rank, prices, popularity for keywords, click behavior & time on page, quality scores based on keyword density
  • Chris from NetConcepts was an excellent speaker
     
  • Getting products into results
    • optimize prod feeds
    • optimize yahoo ssp

• Blended search is a work in progress - its mostly experimental until things settle out
• Organic's goal is a research and brand vehicle,alternatively, SEO refocuses from keyword user relevance
• search results, universal search anyway, have changed the users eye patterns from
  an F to an E pattern
• Other tips
  • respect sources
  • become a reference
  • test now
  • embrace the new dimensions of search

I think that about covers day one.  I can sum all this day up with a quote I heard at a session: If Starbucks can learn to make coffee again, we can also learn a new way to optimize search. All of it left me thinking this should be a great conference. More to report on day 2 & 3.

BL

Wanna look up the definition of "real-man" - Start at Mavericks

I am one who has a tremendous respect for Mom Nature and all her power & glory.  Those who tempt MOM eventually lose.  That said, here in the bay area (cali), folks are all chompin' at the bit for Mavericks Surf competition to start tomorrow.  They cancelled 2007 because the swells "didnt qualify" size wise (no SPAM pun intended).  Now, as someone who has ridden in 6'+ swells on a jetski, and broken bones as a result, my respect goes out to those who stare 20' waves in the face and say..."ya, I'll have a bit of that."

So if you want to look up the definition of "Real Man" you can start your search at:

• Mavericks Surf 2008

This year Maverick's got a good healthy dose of "technology" with realtime streams, and a number of other cool web tools on their site.  If you're down here, and have never witnessed Mavericks, the waves and competition are a must-see.

Surf's WAY up!

WBV

Christmas is dead sexy!

I am not sure who decided to put the sexy in Santa Claus this year but 2007 sure seems to be the year that the exhibitionists get to whip out their revealing costumes and make it a par-tay before the dust even settles on Halloween's Grey Goose soaked bustier.

I find these sort of events the equivalent to caddie-day with alcohol, so I will probably be a great indoorsman this weekend. But, that doesn't mean I don't admire the efforts and creative savvy of those who vow to make Jesus' birthday as sexy as it can be.

Party on Wayne!

WBV

The Reno Tahoe Open has a new title sponsor: Legends

Senator Randolph Townsend speaks at Reno Tahoe Open Press Conference at Montreux.

We are excited, as always, to be so involved with the Reno Tahoe Open and today we are very excited for our PGA tournament who just announced their new title sponsor. The tournament will now be known nationally as:

The Legends Reno Tahoe Open

Title sponsor, The Legends at Sparks Marina (a RED Development project) is a little $1.2 Billion master development in our home town of Sparks, NV.  The Legends project is terrific for Sparks, and will be a giant entertainment, dining, residential, gaming, resort destination and is under construction now. Today's press conference had an amazing turnout and demonstrated a great amount of support for the event from sponsors, influential leaders like Senator Townsend, Mayor Geno Martini, RSCVA, Montreux, and on and on.

This new title sponsor is a great fit and will energize this tournament. As I have said before...get out and support this tournament. It is a fantastic event that supports our communities and drive enormous traffic to this area.  More press to follow.  For more information about the event visit: www.renotahoeopen.com

Sparks is on the map folks. Game on!

WBV

[another treo post - sorry for the typos]

Future of Web Design - and why i am not there.

I was simply bummed that i had to cancel my New York trip to FOWD this year. I paid for the conference and travel but had to bail out and i have been head down, pouting like a child, kicking rocks around the office and bitching ever since. 

I heard mixed reviews of the conference, but regardless, i would have much preferred to be there.  The trip was also a visit to our new New York client Lazaro Jewelry - a SoHo New York based jewelery designer to the stars, and one killer little storefront that we are excited to have been selected to represent for their electronic marketing efforts.

At any rate, with this trip on top of my other business travel, and our pending vacation, i would have been out of the office for 3+ weeks in November, during a very busy time.  So alas, i had to let this one go.

I'll be back in NYC in March and we'll see FOWD in London in April so life is good folks.  Life is good.

Fly safe.

WBV

Ad:Tech 2007 San Francisco Recap

Randomized thoughts from Ad:Tech 2007. I have to say that this was my least favorite Ad:Tech in some years.  Nothing exciting, not much new.  Other than getting to meet and talk with the CEO of Organic, i have to say i would give this conference a B+.

Here are some of my notes and ramblings.  They all make sense (to me):

THEMES FOR THE SHOW
» the new ROI is Return on Involvement
» the search box: Pontiac. Increasing use of branding search vs. Url's because consumers browse this way anyway.
» open branding - let customers interact with you and your brand however THEY choose.
» Community concept - good for Entrust, clp, idw, etc...monitor but get at the 'naked truth'
» immediate access to content
» jargon watch "video snacking"
» short form
» video video video
» monetizing ad spend...tougher to realize
» next gen set top boxes based on telco tv. All the players want your bundeled bill. Wave will meld all mediums together. 20Megabit to households within 3yrs.
» 3 screens
» have to create a brand that is "the life of the party" so people will want to hang out with it
» get the web to the core of campaigns - tough shift for big advertisers
» chat and email is not the right time to reach me
» user 'profile' generated content is a huge opportunity...ability to serve ads focused on buyer behavior - don't show me a WalMart ad if I don't buy at WalMart

ECOMMERCE
» reviews have value, if you use the information to shape experience.
» lego derives 20% of sales from paid search (6000 english keywords)
» behavioral targeting -

INTERESTING PARALLELS
» runescape - games
» ad guys at SES
» search & viral are what matter
» ad guys are WAY WAY behind compared to search industry...still trying to harness the TV and create convergence...and regain control of the viewers eyeballs
» shift to ebay model...many carriers of the message...payout, or 'toll' are paid to the 'x' that can match a message to a viewer.
» creatives slow to adapt...people who don't have digital in their portfolio will die on the vine
» focus too much on youth and early adopters...low hanging fruit - easy convert - older audience spends the money.
» if you have the choice...always sell to rich people
» the library of congress staffs a full time person whose job is to monitor secondlife!

QUESTIONS ON ADPOTION
» will mainstream ever get it?
» passive people will embrace advertising without noticing it
» think your brand can launch and monetize a social network? You're wrong. If lays builds a social network it makes the assumption that because you like the same potato chips, you are in the same network...not true

The State of Email Marketing from Ad:Tech San Francisco 2007

My takeaway from a session on Email Marketing:

Despite all the rumors: Email marketing isn't dead. [makes me happy since we have a burgeoning practice around email marketing]

In spite of all the woes of SPAM filters, stuffed inboxes, and inundation with information, email is still a valuable component in the marketing quiver.  Email alone is not as powerful as the mix of components such as: landing pages, conversion pages, subscription pages, etc.  Best practices in email assume the same things any of your marketing components...OPTIMIZATION is key. 

Firing into the abyss with any single component will always have limited success.  The more consistent messages, delivered in the most relevant and frequent means that match your target, will produce the best results (novel idea, i know.).

Here are a few bullets on the state of email from the Ad:Tech San Francisco floor:

• VALIDATED SENDERS - Gaining strength but still not main stream  List hygiene and using a good email provider can greatly help with your deliverability and consumer trust
• Deliverability should be in the high-90% range
• Images are being turned off by default for many ISPs and Outlook 2007.  Need to make messages pretty for text as well.  Also need to account for that fact that your open rates will be lower simply because images are set to off.
• Optimize subscription management landing page.
• Co-reg is still good
• Frequency is dependent on audience...only message as you need to.
• most are doing email - landing - conversion
• Most all have an agency handling creative and message craft, then distribution is internal, tracking internal
• All are re-engaging with their aging lists
• product specials work less than good information
• Headcount in email is typically 1-3 internal, 3-5 external

Of course it is always reassuring to know that Fuze's MessgeCenter systems are still state of the art in terms of data collection, message craft, and statistical analysis.  Do you use them?  You really should.  Call us!

WBV

(another treo post - sorry for the typos)

Ad:Tech San Francisco Session: State of the Agency

 

Tom Bedecarre - CEO, AQUA (hiring)
Martin Reidy - President, Modem Media
Ralph Folz - CEO, Molecular (web consultancy), freestyle interactive (creative), iProspect (search), all ISOBAR companies

-------------------------------
Client Perception:
» clients want to be "digitally led"
» no longer acceptable to not have a strong interactive presence
» projects are becoming MUCH more complex
» traditional agencies won't go away but it is hard to ignore that because they didn't have their act together...audiences shifted online and they missed the boat
» agencies aren't going to be able to fake it.
» new niche...online video - possibly video only agencies
» stop thinking the web is "cheaper" than traditional...it isnt...its more effective.
» agencies will be increasingly paid for their time and thought leadership vs. Media commission or markup...cant do it (and prove it) you lose.
» people will want stability, strong & smart, have scale, and agencies that will be around.
» lead with business problems & solutions
» building environments that allow consumers to interact longer with a brand in a useful way. Reebok running example.

TAKE AWAY'S
» work more friendly with agencies (the good ones)
» be the best agency in the digital age
» everyone is hiring
» agencies who have no digital foundation will need to buy their way into buy their way into digital...or time will pass them by
» I started to think for a while that we needed to grow traditional...doesnt seem wise.

(another treo post - sorry for the typos & grammar)