Last week’s announcement that the Interpublic Group acquired Reprise Media set off a round of self-congratulatory praise up and down Madison Avenue. It was as though they stopped hitting the snooze button and finally addressed the importance of search in any advertising campaign. But take a close look beyond the buzzwords like “integration” and “broad marcom mix,” because the acquisitions and partnerships merely put a pretty face on some of the deep, troubling issues at play.
There’s a lot more to search engine marketing than examining the pros and cons of all the hot new Google AdWords services.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, and nothing I say should be taken as any sort of informed legal opinion.
Thank heavens that the SEO contest to rank #1 in Google for “Dave Pasternack” has finally revealed the truth: SEO is rocket science. It’s clearly rocket science. This frog can finally be free to express his true feelings, and boy, let me tell ya, it sure is liberating.
There's been a lot of soul-searching that's been going on in the world of SEM lately and it's good for everybody. Some of this introspection has doubtless been stimulated by the comments of my boss, Dave Pasternack, when he noted that "SEO is Not Rocket Science," but as pointed out by others, including Danny Sullivan and Gord Hotchkiss, both the SEO and Paid Search components of what we call SEM are on the cusp of a paradigm change.
Advertisers must carefully weigh pros and cons when considering whether or not to use Google and Yahoo's automated bid optimization tools. The two biggest PPC search advertising networks are getting into the campaign optimization act, Google with its "Budget Optimizer" tool and Yahoo with its "Campaign Optimization" tool. While the cost can't be beat (hint: they're free), in general marketers should avoid giving the networks the keys to the car.
Privacy advocates are busy stirring the pot over the allegedly illicit invasiveness of behaviorally targeted ads, but a close examination of available data reveals that their hand-wringing is little more than hot air.
SEM clients who deal directly with the search engines expose themselves to greater inefficiencies than those who hire agencies.
In my last column, I scoured the web, drumming up angry AdWords users from the depths of blogs and message boards and consolidating their suffering into a plaintive against Google's customer service.
In May 2005, a CNN article quoted Dana Todd, president of SEMPO as saying: "Google has always beenworse than bad [at customer service.]"
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