Author: George

Change is coming, and it’s about time!

Data and other observations indicate that holiday 2009 should be a good one!

To some minds, search engine marketing got a bum rap in last week’s Ad Age article reporting on a recent Nielsen report. Teasing out the context and some follow up questions with Ken Cassar helped to clarify the point.

Quality Score and Bid play equal roles in determining an ads visibility, but that doesn’t mean you should spend the same amount of time working on each.

Do coupon affiliates drive incremental sales? I’m doubtful, but willing to eat my words if one of the big dogs is willing to participate in this test.

Study the data carefully before making rash moves.

Anticipating traffic value shifts at the holidays is the key to a successful Q4.

A new study on search engine loyalty from the RKG skunk-works

Thin data impacts every paid search program.

More ideas from more people.

Success in paid search demands first rate processes for anticipating and reacting to changes in the landscape. 30 – 60 – 90 day plans usually hinder paid search success.

Google predicts shifting from CPC to CPA and keyword-free advertising. Sounds great…er, maybe not.

Simple isn’t always better.

Part 2 of our study: much of the conventional wisdom around paid search driving store sales may be wrong.

The delay between clicks and orders can make it difficult to evaluate performance of tests in the early stages.

Neither we nor anyone else can predict the future, so why do people keep asking?

The findings are very interesting…but not what we expected!

Google finds what we found to be true years ago.

A really good idea (probably not ours) for testing the incremental value of display ad impressions.

Microsoft is willing to buy share and Google may give them the opportunity.

PPC is evolving and it’s getting harder and harder for full-priced and high-end retailers to make it big.

The term “portfolio” has more than one meaning.

How much time should you spend watching others?

When your SEM says “those keywords didn’t work”, it’s time to find a new agency.

The data shows that geographical considerations matter — not just simple regional preferences: factors like population density, home values, average incomes, retail proximity etc. impact performance of PPC ads. Now we just need more tools from the engines to act on this data.