Search. Click. Find.

I was listening to American Public Radio's On the Media yesterday, which is how I heard about a recent Wired story titled, The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

The Web...dead? Why wasn't I notified??

Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff make two key points in their article. The first one (which I initially violently opposed) is the differentiation of the "web" versus the "internet." The former is defined in the article as sort of an online destination which you arrive at via a Web browser. The latter is the hardwired (or wireless) network that you use to get to that destination. But what if...(cue threatening music here)...the destination changes? What if suddenly people use the Internet to get to very different, non-web destinations?

That brings me to the second point Mr. Anderson and Mr. Wolff hammer away at and what spurred the title of the article. That is, the notion that the web is "in decline" because of the proliferation of devices and entry points that are not accessible via browsers (e.g., web-based applications, password protected communities and non-html content, among other things).

One could argue that most password-protected content is accessible via browser, just not via a crawling spider. One could also argue that there's a symbiotic relationship between services like Google, which searches for, indexes and links to content, and services like the New York Times (or Wired) which create content. But I guess that doesn't address the issue of huge collections of pages that cannot be indexed (like Facebook) because they are "gated."

But let's all see if we can agree on what exactly the WEB is before we start digging its grave. I'll defer to Wikipedia, my go to source for everything (which is how I KNOW that Henry VIII was obese by the time he married Anne of Cleves in spite of what Showtime would have me believe). Take it away, Wikipedia:

"The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them by using hyperlinks." Source: Wikipedia

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about defining the Web as the infrastructure itself. It does appear that the Web is a bunch of HTML pages which we navigate to via a web browser. But something is bothering me here. The article's premise that the web is in decline is based on the fact that people are moving away from the browser and the 'open web" in favor of devices like the iPad and smartphones. But aren't these devices essentially portable computers? Don't they all come equipped with browsers? Why would these new devices have browsers if no one is navigating the open web anymore?

Ha! see how I did that? Gotcha Wired!

I don't think we'll ever completely move away from hypertext pages. I do think we're (rapidly) expanding beyond HTML. I also think the barrier of entry isn't as high as the Wired article implies. Back in 1998 I would've killed for an application like Drupal (for example) which enables me to build and update my web site with very (very) little programming knowledge.

But let's see what Wikipedia has to say about the Internet:

"The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies." Source: Wikipedia

Gentemen, so far you're right and my violent opposition is based on the wrong assumption that the Internet and the Web are one and the same.

Still, is the Web really dead?

It seems like an oversight to say that apps (wireless or otherwise) are taking over from the browser-based "wide open" web. To my point above, what is a browser, if not an app?

I open my browser, I point to Google, I do a search - and I get a list of results. It works, I'm happy, I don't care if the site I go to is programmed in HTML or if it was somehow cobbled together with fairy dust and magical beans (my programming language of choice). I'll say this once, but I'll try to be clear - only those of us immersed in the world of media, online media, and the "Web" give a crap about what content Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs own.

The wireless apps and subscription-based services that people are spending so much time on (e.g,. Facebook), are probably taking market share away from web sites like Google, but Google is also beginning to gnaw at its own confinement. Why, just the other day I saw it on my Android phone!

BUT let me continue down the road of walled online communities stealing online markets before something shiny distracts me. In the old days, we used to call online market share "eyeballs." No one cared that the web sites themselves were sort of crap, they just cared that people were spending time on them so they could serve up ads (in the form of really ugly banners). Have you ever studied a Facebook page? I mean, really looked at it compared with a well-thought out web page like Amazon's or Zappo's home page (for example). Zappos, you know I love you.

Well, if you have spent any time looking at a Facebook page, then you'll pretty much agree with me that it looks like someone threw up all the contents of their hard drive onto that page. Do advertisers care that Facebook pages are a veritable testament to bad design and ADD? No, they do not. They care that people's eyeballs are on the page. There's not just an inordinate amount of useless content posted by Facebook's growing base of 500 million users, there's also lots to do on the site.

According to Facebook, "There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages) "

Okay, awesome - 900 million is a very large number. Google can't claim to have 900 million pages, can it? Oh hang on...if a search results page is considered an actual page, then Google gets 3 BILLION (with a "B") searches per day.

Should we debate the merit of a search results page with the merit of a Facebook "object" in terms of the value each one offers? If we're an advertiser, then probably not because all we care about is that people are there and we need someplace to display our ads.

If we're talking about the death of the Web then we should because, bottom line, neither "destination" provides any real information. Rather, they are both conduits to more in-depth content. So, just like you wouldn't want Google to index your web site until it was complete and had some actual meat within its pages, you really don't want to put up a Facebook page unless you have some kind of content strategy to in mind with which to leverage that page. Does Google need to index that Facebook page? Not really - not if it's linking to a public web page that has the actual content on it. Which brings us back to the open web...

So what does this mean for users? And what of all this talk of apps, and walled networks replacing the open web and Mr. Wolff's hero-worshiping of Steve Jobs and Apple?

Here's what I think - there's enough room for all of this stuff, and people aren't going to abandon Google in favor of Facebook or their favorite iPad app that allows them to do one thing (e.g., navigate somewhere, find a local pizza joint, track their cardio workout, etc.) People are still going to search for things on the "open web" and we are going to continue to embrace the wireless web in a way that we couldn't ten years ago because technology is changing.

I actually think what's happening now is more the convergence of traditional media via the Internet rather a supplanting of open content (e.g, HTML pages) by traditional media. So what do I have to say about that? Welcome, Hulu and iTunes and Netflix and Pandora. Thanks for joining us! Please stop hogging my bandwidth because my daughter needs to spend some time researching the origins of chocolate on Google this evening.

I'm just saying...

I also think the idea of a closed environment - of going back to the old days of media moguls and big Hollywood studios who control everything, will come back to shoot Steve Jobs and Apple in the foot. Because not all of us like to be forced into closed applications like iTunes - this is precisely why I invested in an Android phone (which required me to switch my wireless provider which was a big P.I.A). And let me just state, for the record, that I adored my ipod touch and miss it terribly.

The scenario of waking up in the morning and going from app to app to app without interacting with the "open web" is a false one. At least for me, and just about everyone I now.

Yes, I may wake up and check my email on my Droid phone, listen to Pandora as I wash the dishes, listen to my Rachel Maddow podcast as I drive to work, chat on Skype before digging into my pile of Monday a.m. tasks, etc. etc. But I also spend a few minutes each morning browsing Google News to see what's going on in the world, searching actively for things I'm interested in (e.g., a new netbook for my 9-year-old) and, yes, browsing the open web to see what the hell Snooki is up to lately.

Applications existed before the ipad and they will exist after it - we'll just be accessing them via a chip implanted in our heads which will make the ipad look like a stone tablet. We'll all laugh about how we used to carry devices OUTSIDE of our bodies! But to claim that the web is dead and that (the horror!) we all WANT it to die because it's just so much easier letting our ipads, ipods and iphones do all the work is underestimating the resolve of a lot of people out there who love to produce and consume real content.

The open web has spoken. Over and out.

Change is hard, folks. I know it. You know it. But we can't put off the inevitable any longer. It's time to deal with the Yahoo/Microsoft search alliance and the upcoming impact it has on your PPC campaigns. I'm going to stay away from the organic side of things, but here's a handy post on Yahoo's blog that provides more info on that if you want to dig in.

First, the basics. Yahoo & Microsoft are aiming to have the transition completed by the 2010 holiday season which we all know is fast approaching. There is no specific cut off date though, so at this point my best guess is that the transition should be complete by or before October. Also, it may not happen until after the holidays if something goes horribly awry.

Now, whether you advertise on Yahoo or Bing (MSN Adcenter) or both or just one, ALL campaigns will be managed via the Adcenter. As such, here's what you need to know for a seamless and headache-free transition.

If you have an existing Yahoo account but are not currently advertising on Bing

You're going to need to transition all of your accounts to Microsoft's AdCenter. This means you'll either need to create a new Adcenter account or link your Yahoo account to an existing Adcenter account. There will be an Adcenter tab within the Yahoo Search Marketing interface that is meant to help with the transition process. The timing for this is some time in August per this recent blog post by Yahoo. Once the transition is complete, then your ads will start showing up on Bing. It's not clear if you can opt out of serving ads on one or the other engine from this post though, be careful of spend if you're not already advertising on Bing - as volume may go up (it may not go up very much though, depending on the category).

If you have an existing Bing account, but are not currently advertising on Yahoo

As far as I can tell (and this may change), you don't need to do anything if all you have is an existing Bing (MSN Adcenter) account. Per this blog post on MSN's Adcenter blog, "If you do not have any PPC campaigns running on Yahoo!, there is no action for you to take with this post." However, MSN recently changed their editorial guidelines which will disallow certain types of ads (e.g., electronic cigarette ads, usenet ads, (possibly) drug ads) - so you should familiarize yourself with the new guidelines to make sure you're not suddenly going to be banned.

Note to my existing clients: you are all fine in terms of allowed content, except one of you, and you know who you are.

If you have accounts on both Bing and Yahoo
The best way to manage the transition is to link your existing Yahoo account to the MSN Adcenter via the aforementioned tab in the Yahoo Marketing interface. If you prefer not to link the existing accounts (possibly because one of them has been inactive for a long time), then you'll need to create a new Bing account and link it to the existing Yahoo account.

Here are some resources that will help you manage the transition:

Yahoo! Transition Center
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
MSN Adcenter Blog

Existing Advertisers of both engines should also be getting email updates about the transition, mostly from Yahoo.

It's been nearly one whole day since SMX ended and I didn't want to wait any longer to blog about this year's SMX Advanced in Seattle, which really far exceeded my expectations (and they were high). Please forgive any rambling, run on sentences and incomplete thoughts which are bound to come up (often) in this post. I'm still recovering from my red eye home from Seattle to NY which got me into JFK at 5 a.m.

I learned a lot this year and I'm really, really excited to start applying all the delicious new tactics. I plan on boiling down some detailed info (and giving out much-deserved props to the presenters) when I'm more coherent and have had a good bike ride to burn off all the fried food I ate last week.

For now, here's a summary of my key takeaways (let me preface this by saying I went to EVERY single paid search session at the conference). There were seven.

• How’s Your QSO? Quality Score Optimization For Pros
• Targeting The Search Funnel
• Pump Up Those Conversions!
• Test That Ad!
• The Mad Scientists Of Paid Search
• Ads On The Move: Mobile Paid Search
• Amazing PPC Tactics

The first four sessions took place on day one and seemed more focused on strategy, metrics and overall campaign best practices with day two drilling down into specific, tactical "flip the switch and get better performance" advice .

So, key takeaways:

1. PPC is no longer the bastard step-child of SEO (which was sort of the feeling I got at last year's SMX-Advanced.) This conclusion is based on the amount of really in-depth PPC sessions available this year. I got good ideas from each and every session - more than one in most cases, so I have a good 14 to 20 things I can tweak, test and review for all my clients' campaigns. Which brings me to my second key takeaway...
2. Wow, do I have a lot of work to do. There's nothing like a really focused, advanced conference to re-ignite the enthusiasm for one's chosen profession. I love listening to really smart people take something I thought I knew everything about and show it to me from a completely different angle. One big example was looking at Google Analytics as a key tool in helping optimize a PPC campaign, particularly for BtoB campaigns that involve long sales cycles. I will get more into that with my next post.
3. Search marketing IS online marketing and vice versa. Now I kind of get why people call it intent-marketing or decision-marketing instead of "search marketing" - though lord knows the last thing this industry needs is more buzzwords. It almost sounded like Ad:Tech up there at times with people talking about various techniques for maximizing exposure on Google's content network (one big advertiser pulled all their CPM buys down and now only runs banners on Google's content network on a CPC basis), mobile targeting and optimization, stuff you can do on Bing's content network (something I have NEVER thought about) and one really great tip on getting ad exposure in the search results of sites like Walmart and Target (oh the fun I shall have!)
4. I'm not looking at the web analytics enough. Google Analytics is a powerful tool - it became clear very early on in the conference that I'm not using all the capabilities and reports that are available. I plan to change that.
5. The best campaigns are the ones that integrate organic AND paid search. This is particularly true now that search results are more universal in nature - with things like product images from Google's Merchant Center (for example) being pulled into the organic search results. Another key point - organic and non-search traffic and user behavior (of the type you can monitor in Google Analytics) is something that absolutely needs to inform paid search strategy.
6. I'm not testing enough. This was actually a key take away I had from last year's conference and I did integrate more consistent testing into my PPC management process - but I really got some great ideas on how to test as well as a few tools that will make the process easier to streamline.

So, there you have it - lots of work, not a lot of specifics yet, but that will come with my next post.

I also have a few suggestions for the SMX folks:

• It would be nice if Danny Sullivan could moderate at least one paid search session too. Come on Danny, those of us on the paid side love you too and value your insight, particularly when panelists recommend things that I would consider "black hat". Several panelists recommended things that are in direct violation of Google's TOS. I found myself thinking..."what would Danny - or Google - say about this?"
• We need more engine input, again, particularly on panels where speakers are recommending questionable tactics be used to gain a competitive edge. Last year's SMX had a Google engineer on several panels and that was really helpful because he ended up agreeing with a lot of things that had been purely speculative in the past (e.g., bidding high for the first few weeks after launch).
• Small business/campaign strategies were not covered nearly enough. And by small, I mean less than 20K keywords in an account and less than 50K/month in budget. Don't get me wrong, I love to hear what the big guys are doing, but there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of smaller advertisers out there that could use more specific guidance.
That's it for now *yawn* Seattle was fun - thanks to Bloofusion for the bike tour and boat ride!!



Here I am (left) with Steve, Bloofusion's SEO guru


All five us us during the bike tour. Oh, how geeky am I?? Good lord...going to bed now.

Search marketing (of the paid variety) is one of the more complicated forms of advertising mainly because you have to navigate the dangerous landscape of mystifying acronyms, deep and cumbersome performance statistics and terms that are completely made up (e.g., "quality score").

If you launch a search campaign and throw money at it without really understanding how all moving parts fit together, you can end up with very little to show for the money you've spent on your search ads. So I get that companies are reluctant to launch a paid search campaign without enlisting in expert help, and I get that a really good search partner can maximize your ad spend, and this makes me happy because (quite frankly) it's how I make a living, but...

Lately I've had a few uncomfortable conversations with prospective clients who have had bad-to-terrible experiences after hiring an agency to manage their paid search campaign. When I ask companies to elaborate on what the issue(s) are or were, they often just say the performance is poor but can't really explain what specifically is going wrong. But when I hear how an agency manages a client, I tend to listen for some specific red flags which industry outsiders may not be aware of.

As such, this post is meant to help educate you about what to look for (and what to avoid) in an industry that's brimming with "experts."

In thinking about these tips, I've considered how I manage my own business and also what I look for (and try to avoid) when I work as a contractor for a search agency. I won't keep you in suspense anymore, here are my words of wisdom - take 'em or leave 'em.

BEWARE:

• SEM management vendors that have absolutely no transparency at all when it comes to PPC pricing. If they claim to take all the hassles of set up and invoicing off your hands, and instead present you with one convenient invoice which bundles their fees in with your media fees (e.g., what you paid to Google, Yahoo or Bing) - then beware! I know it seems like a good deal, but it likely means they own your account and if you decide to cut them loose, then your ads go down immediately and you're back to exactly where you started from before you hired them. Plus, depending on their reports, you'll have no idea where their fee stops and where Google's fee starts and absolutely no idea of what the cost per click is for your keywords.
• Exuberant sales people who will ultimately have little to no involvement with your account once the contract is signed (see image, above). If you're dealing with a sales person (usually their title is something like Account Executive or Business Development Manager) then keep in mind it's in their best interest to close the deal and the agency isn't necessarily a right fit. Make sure you ask to speak with the account manager who will be assigned your account if it closes or, at the very least, speak with someone who has experience in your industry. Also, it doesn't hurt to ask for references from existing clients of the agency. Find out what their response time is to inquiries, how transparent they are with their reports and if they've actually provided value in the form of increased traffic, sales or ROI.
• The CEO and VP of Search who lavish you with attention, only to fade quickly away once you've signed the contract. Usually these are people very knowledgable in the industry. Maybe they're well-known bloggers, maybe you saw them at a conference and their expertise hooked you. The bottom line is that people at the top of the agency food chain do not have time to manage accounts - if it's a mid-to-large agency with a staff of 20 or more, then you'll likely get assigned a much lower level manager to handle your campaign. Find out what this process is and BEWARE the temptation of working with leading experts who are really just glorified sales people that won't (or can't) add value to your campaign.
• The pull of automation. I actually love automated tools. The scourge of my existence is having to pull weekly campaign data from three engines and migrating that into Excel because it seems so inefficient and old school. However, automated tools are not necessarily all they're cracked up to be. They distance your campaign manager from the account performance by aggregating all the performance data into one report. They often increase the cost of management by virtue of adding yet another third-party layer to campaign management and bid tools such as Atlas and Dart are questionable in terms of their value to help manage small to medium-sized campaigns. Now, having said that, I'm not completely opposed to automation and from what I've seen, the best tool out there for large to enormously large campaigns looks like ClickEquations, but that's only because I'm a big fan of the company's founder Craig Danuloff - who seems to really know his stuff.
• Agencies that charge a percentage of the media spend, particularly if you spend more than 10K/month on search. Percent of spend is an archaic model. Paid search budgets fluctuate monthly based on campaign optimization, quality score, season, etc. etc. Why would you want to reward an agency for spending all your money just because it's there? Paid search spending should be based on efficiency and effectiveness and agency's should be compensated based on the work they put into your campaign, regardless of the spend. That may mean spending a larger percentage of your overall media budget in some months than others, but in this industry (as in many others) you get what you pay for.

EMBRACE

• The small boutique agency. Okay, so I'm probably biased since technically I would consider myself to be the smallest of small agencies - e.g., an army of one. Even so, I've found that small SEM shops tend to be the best at providing the strategic direction and expertise that add value to your campaign. They will get to know you, your business and your goals better than a team of optimizers who have thirty other accounts to manage. Many of them have blogs (ahem) and the person managing your campaign is doing the blogging. So you can sort of get a preview on their approach before you buy.
• Shops that let you own your own account. I know it's a pain in the neck to get invoices from Google and possibly Yahoo and possibly MSN not to mention the agency as well. But owning your own campaign has MANY benefits, particularly on Google. First of all, the history of your account is taken into consideration when Google factors the quality score. If your account has been live for over a year and has excellent quality, you lose a lot of that value by starting over with a new account. You also have the ability to log in and pull reports any which way you choose if you own the account. This enables you to begin to learn the ropes (so to speak) and demystify the management process so you're not tied to a third party management company indefinitely. True, some companies would rather pay someone indefinitely to manage their search campaign - but smaller businesses with monthly spends of less than $3000-$5000 can probably manage the campaign in house and save themselves the agency fees.
• Flexible contract agreements. I never lock prospects into long-term contracts. Let's face it, sometimes an agency/client relationship is not a good fit. if I made all my clients sign for a minimum of six months, then I'd be selling them an uncertain solution that they were locked into for, um, at least six months! Work with agencies that are flexible about contract lengths and give you the ability to terminate any contract within 30 days notice. I tend to to think a 90 day agreement is the absolute longest amount of time needed to test the waters (and your new agency). After that, you'll both know if the relationship is a good fit.

This post is longer than expected and is to be continued. I'll let you digest the above info for a while. There may be a quiz.

I guess I should thank Google for their recent announcement about the Certified Adwords Partner program, which I actually think is a great way for them to acknowledge the very large role we SEM agency types have had in their tremendous growth and success. But I'm sort of on the fence about the whole "hours and hours of studying" thing.

As much as I enjoy the acknowledgment from the Googleplex, I feel like the whole thing is slightly ridiculous. I mean, they're requiring the following:

"Individuals must achieve a passing score on two exams — Google Advertising Fundamentals, along with one advanced-level exam — as opposed to one exam."

The advanced level exams cover the topics of Advanced Search Advertising, Advanced Display Advertising, Advanced Reporting and Analysis (per SearchEngineLand).

First question - who made Google the expert in online advertising? The last time I checked, they didn't even assign you a rep unless you spent over 30K per month for at least a quarter, but I digress. The other last time I checked, they didn't actually allow display ads on their site. Oh, right, they still don't...(and thumbnails of products do not count).

Isn't this kind of overkill? Google claims to offer "better training" and "more rigorous certification" than what they already had. That is, six hours of guided videos about their "self-serve" advertising platform and the NINETY questions on the Google Professional Exam (for beginners) which takes nearly two hours to complete. I thought the whole self-serve PPC model was supposed to be simple for advertisers.

And, for the record, some of the questions on the basic exam were absolutely ridiculous. They don't prove anything about my level of skill managing client campaigns. So does this really raise the bar and make it easier for advertisers to find good SEM talent out there? I really...don't...know.

I think it's a slippery slope when Google starts handing out seals of approval (yes, I know I have one on my site) to more and more people (they've also lowered their spend threshold for certified professionals). It kind of implies that Google endorses the given agency or individual when, in fact, they've gotten around providing any actual endorsements by automating the whole process of certification with a huge battery of tests and training modules.

It's easy to fake a good grade is what I'm saying. Not that I did. but, you know, I have pages and pages of blog posts about how I manage search and I've dedicated a good 10 years of my life to the industry and now I have to take this stupid test...again!

The kicker? The ONE requirement that forced people to get some actual hands on experience with Adwords - the $1000 minimum spend - has been waived. The agency minimum was reduced from $100,000 per quarter to $10,000. That's a big difference, folks. Trust me. So, now anyone who passes these two tests is labeled an Adwords expert even if they haven't managed a single account.

Oh well. I have to go study now.