Gasta Tech News: French to create new tax for web

Google and other net firms could be taxed under plans being considered by the French government.

A report, commissioned by the government, suggests firms such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook should pay a new tax on their online ad revenues.

The money could be used to fund legal alternatives for buying books, films and music on the internet.

But critics say the tax would be difficult to implement and Google says it could slow down innovation.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has taken a tough line on the increasing dominance of digital content.

France has just introduced tough new legislation aimed at removing those who persistently download illegal content from the net.

It has also gone head-to-head with Google over its plans to digitise the world's books, with a project to set up its own digital library financed by the government to the tune of £700m.

And it is considering a law which would give net users the option to have old data about themselves deleted.

The proposals for a tax on content is still very much in the early stages and there are few details of how it would exactly work.

Patrick Zelnik, who contributed to the report and is also the founder of the French president's wife's record label, hopes the idea will be taken on board across the EU.

But Google is among those to have voiced opposition to the plan.

"We don't think introducing an additional tax on internet advertising is the right way forward as it could slow down innovation," said Olivier Esper, senior policy manager for Google France.

The better way to support content creation is to find new business models that help consumers find great content and rewards artists and publishers for their work."

Gasta Tech News: Yahoo Reportedly Shutting Down MyBlogLog

Yahoo Reportedly Shutting Down MyBlogLog Very Soon
By Chris Crum


Yahoo will reportedly shut down MyBlogLog in January. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb claims to have heard from "sources close to the project" that this is the case.

"Yahoo! has let the service atrophy for years and will now put it to rest," writes Kirkpatrick. "To think that this service offered publishers and developers access to personal, demographic, taste and activity data of a website's readers - and yet that offering has in the end gone no where - that's downright crazy."

MyBlogLog was originally developed by Cloudspace out of Florida, but was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007. The company paid over 10 million dollars for it. According to Wikipedia, there were over 45,000 blogs subscribed to it at the time, and it currently has 275,000 registered users.

It's no secret that Yahoo is cutting costs wherever it can. For example, earlier this year, they shut down the once popular Geocities.

Gasta Tech News:Online display advertising picks up again

David Kaplan
twitter @davidaKaplan

The tentative comeback in online display ad spending appears to be by-passing newspapers. Signs of the recovery started well enough this summer, as the NYT notes that big marketers like Mercedes began showering hundreds of thousands of dollars on dynamic, 3D display ads in newspapers.

But it was short-lived, as ad networks began getting the bulk of Mercedes’ online budget, thanks to the promise of lower costs and the promise of greater targeting. The NYT’s Stephanie Clifford finds marketers use of online newspaper ads and display networks akin to wearing expensive shoes: for a big debut, marketers will splurge on premium newspaper ads; but it when it comes to everyday business, ad networks make more sense.

The latest earnings reports bear that out. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), two of the biggest online ad bellwethers, saw display revenues tick up slightly. But when it came to online ad revenues at the NYTCo (NYSE: NYT), its web ads fell 18.5 percent. Gannett’s operating digital revenues were also about 20 percent lower. Meanwhile, McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) posted just a 3 percent gain for web ads.

Last spring, there was a lot of hope that the Online Publishers Association’s new display ad formats might help draw more dollars from marketers. But ad nets quickly adopted the larger formats for those who wanted them, while other advertisers have complained about the complexity attached to these buys.

So far, the only things major publishers can do to pry advertisers’ dollars is put a greater emphasis on selling the non-premium ads—which Denise Warren, SVP for advertising/chief advertising officer for the NYT Media Group, insists the company is doing to positive effect—and stress the brand building capabilities that come with being attached to a popular web destination.

Gasta Tech News: Search Advertising remains king of the Marketing world

Search engine marketing, like nearly all digital media forms, is evolving rapidly. Text ads
accompanying search results came into the world with little fanfare, but the real-time,
individually targeted, bid-based buying system they spawned is now on the verge of
becoming the dominant method for all commodified media buying. During the most
difficult economic times that the search marketing industry has seen in its decade-long life,
search marketers are more relevant than ever.
The Web itself is getting ―smarter.‖ Web 1.0 was mostly static with publishers
communicating to consumers. Web 2.0 is two-way, with consumers talking back to
publishers. Web 3.0 uses information from the consumer to tailor the experience to
individuals. Gmail ads already do this. By taking advantage of email content, Google is
able to serve ads that are immediately and individually relevant. The new search site
Hunch.com asks searchers to tell the site about themselves in order to predict interests and
suggest searches. Why this matters to search marketers is that the entire infrastructure of
the Web 3.0 economy is built on what‘s known as the ―semantic web.‖ Having a
background in search engine optimization and PPC advertising is just about the best
possible way to prepare for the new ways of doing business this technology enables.
While the consumers of the world get nervous about change, it won‘t be long before an untargeted
―dumb‖ ad provokes as much consumer backlash as the first targeted ads did in
the last few years. As advertising undergoes a transformation from annoyance to utility, it
will be the semantic marketers of the world who make it happen. It‘s a very good time to
be in this business for a variety of reasons. You represent the first wave of a new media
economy. If that isn‘t enough to convince someone of the increasing relevance of search
marketing, perhaps the promise of money to be made will.

Microsoft and Yahoo struggle to catch up with Google

Another week, another demonstration of Google’s dominance. While Microsoft and Yahoo have posted poor Q2 results this week, with online ad revenues down by 14% and 16% respectively, last week Google revealed its revenues were up 3% for the quarter.
It’s clear that, despite the economic slowdown, Mountain View’s finest are still doing something right. That something, of course, is search, which these result demonstrate the others are still not making work.
The announcements of Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s online revenue shortfalls has inevitably led to more discussion over whether they’ll join forces – a saga that has been dragging on for almost 18 months now. Clearly, Microsoft will want to see how Bing affects its bottom line first. It will be encouraged by the reaction among the industry which, for the most part, has looked on Bing favourably.
However, any market share increase has so far been minimal. Microsoft hopes new initiatives will help drive this, of course, not least its forthcoming ad-funded online Office Suite. It’s move in this space was inevitable due to the increasing popularity of free offerings such as Open Office and Google Docs, so it’ll be interesting to see how Bing and other online ad services will be integrated.
Perhaps most worrying for Microsoft and Yahoo is Google’s move into the multi-million-pound ad exchange sector (nma 23 July 2009). This is an area in which Yahoo, with Right Media, is an established player but will be looking over its shoulder with concern. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said it’s the big focus for the company, but Microsoft has said its own exchange, currently being tested, is still a couple of years off. It’s a potential goldmine for any company that gets it right.
Microsoft and Yahoo have both undergone significant changes this past year, not least redundancies and launches like Yahoo’s new home page. However, it’s clear that both still have a long way to go before they start worrying Google.

Gasta launches new Flash apps search engine for USA

Gasta has launched a third of its web2.0 white label search engines in USA. Gasta has partnered with Chris Nielsen Technologies to launch www.flashseek.com

The flashseek.com search engine was created to focus on Flash services and Flash development Chris Nielsen owner of FlashSeek and WebDomination (a second Gasta white label search) said " Having the opportunity to work with Gasta has been a great experience, the search engiunes were launched in a matter of hours and now it all about bringing people in to share the experience, I think local newspapers around the world who are suffering from the downturn, would do well to look closely at this service. The social marketing tools are great and certainly the in touch with the web2.0 genberation."


If you would like to hear more about Gasta hosted white label search engines contact the gasta website.

Gasta Tech News: Web2.0 in daily business

Web 2.0 gains momentum in Europe, with companies looking for new ways to stay productive

LONDON – 26 May, 2009 – The year 2008 and economic downturn have changed the way companies are going about their daily business. In response to the current recession in Europe, businesses are seeking new ways to stay productive while significantly cutting costs with the help of Web 2.0 solutions. From lower-cost versions of enterprise applications, to utilising cloud computing, ‘crowd sourcing’ business owners are taking advantage of what Web 2.0 has to offer.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.conferencing.frost.com), Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses, finds that Web 2.0 will supplement both Web and Audio-web markets that were valued at $190 million in Europe in 2008 and are likely to grow to $860 million by the end of 2014.

“Web 2.0 solutions may be part of the cure for the recessionary headache that many European businesses are now experiencing; social networking sites, wikis, and blogs are just some of the more well-known examples of Web 2.0 technologies that can play an important role here,” observes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Iwona Petruczynik. “These solutions are becoming more prevalent in the European small and medium businesses (SMBs) arena, especially at a time like this, when workers are being forced to do more with less.”

There has been an increase in the usage of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 solutions like Blogger and WordPress. Until recently, they were primarily associated with consumer applications; however, currently, they are finding usage in more professional areas.

“As an interesting side note, social networking sites are gaining popularity in unexpected places, for instance, the world’s most popular online virtual reality, Second Life, was used by Sweden to open their ‘embassy’ in the virtual world to promote Sweden’s culture and image,” remarks Petruczynik. “In addition, Second Life is used in the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration, where the Ministry has a room, which a person can visit to find out what the Ministry is doing and even ask the Minister questions.”

However, experts are unable to agree on one definition of Web 2.0 and this becomes a challenge in defining its market size. Yet, it is unlikely that Web 2.0 will become a stand-alone market, as it is a set of technologies and ideas driving the development of existing products and services. The full potential influence of Web 2.0 is only now playing out, as the concepts and technologies are finding their use in manufacturing, customer service, product development and sales.

Innovative modes of interaction among workers, enabled by Web 2.0, contribute to company cohesion and employee retention. Telecommuting staff too can collaborate with each other speedily and effortlessly, outside of the formal e-mail stream.

Despite the evident advantages, some businesses are apprehensive about fully embracing Web 2.0 tools. The popularity of companies’ in-house intranet and concerns about security and confidential information leaks are just a few examples of the restraints faced by the European Web 2.0 market. Moreover, a culture of ‘busyness’ retards the adoption of Web 2.0. If employees are not seen working all the time, they are assumed to be inefficient and unprofessional, when, in fact, they could be conducting their business through utilising solutions such as blogs or social networking sites, like Twitter or LinkedIn. In addition, Europe tends to be more conservative in accepting new solutions. Therefore, the adoption rate of Web 2.0 in Europe is lower than that in the United States.

“In Europe, there is a common misconception that a true deliverable is measured in how many kilograms of paper one produces and hands over to a client,” explains Petruczynik. “This belief is hindering the adoption of Web 2.0 solutions, as more end products are being delivered in the form of a wiki or a blog.”

Moreover, the security concerns that many chief information officers (CIOs) face are equally important. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), a programming technique used by Web 2.0 programmers, poses security risks that in the worst-case scenario include uploading malicious codes onto someone’s computer or hijacking an account.

According to the European Commission, small and medium businesses (SMBs) constitute 99.0 per cent of all enterprises in Europe and provide almost 75.0 million jobs. With such significant market potential, Web 2.0 vendors should not have problems with deploying their solutions in the SMB sector.

“The best practice for those employing Web 2.0 solutions include creating and implementing clear and easy policies, describing how to use social media to avoid security risks, and leaks of confidential information, adapting their corporate culture to promote openness and collaboration, and educating employees on how to use Web 2.0 tools to become more productive and efficient,” concludes Petruczynik. “On the other hand, Web 2.0 vendors should help in creating supportive policies, providing seamless integration with existing advanced corporate communication tools, and offering a variety of ‘a la carte’ Web 2.0 technologies.”

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides a brief synopsis of the research and a table of contents, then send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country. Upon receipt of the above information, a brochure will be sent to you by e-mail.

Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses is part of the Conferencing & Collaboration Growth Partnership Services programme, which also includes research in the following markets: web conferencing, audio conferencing, video conferencing, telepresence, unified communications and collaboration market. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 35 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses



Joanna Lewandowska
frost.com

Gasta News: Bebo expands into more of Europe

Social networking site Bebo has made the leap into Europe, teaming with
local media partners to gain a foothold in France, Germany, Italy, Spain
and the Netherlands markets in which Facebook, MySpace and Netlog are
already active players.

AOLs People Networks division announced yesterday that the site will use
IP-based geo-targetting to provide services in the users first language.
This brings to six the number of language options it offers, including
English and Polish.

Bebos Open Media platform is now open to established and emerging media
brands AlloCiné, Clipfish, Telecom Italia owned Yalp!, Diagonal View and
Preview Networks’ Filmtrailer who will get a Share on Bebo button that
will allow users to share media content via status updates to their Bebo
Lifestream.

Our TechCrunch colleague-across-the-pond Robin Wauters rightly points out
that while Bebo is taking the smart approach to rolling out services across
Europe by partnering with local media organisations, they are likely to
find the competition from entrenched big media companies as well as local
players to be pretty stiff.

Gasta Social Networking: Facebook

Facebook Becoming Major Traffic Driver; Will The Revenue Come Next?

Facebook’s willingness to work with third-party developers and pull in third-party content, and its encouragement of content-sharing between members has helped the social network’s population surge to more than 175 million members. That openness is also boosting Facebook’s status as a traffic-driver: the social net has topped Google (NSDQ: GOOG) as the number-one source of traffic to a number of large sites, including PerezHilton.com, Gasta.com,CafeMom.com and events site Evite.

And it’s a trend to watch, since, as AdAge notes, Facebook now only gets about a third of Google.com’s unique visitors, per comScore, and the traffic—both the clicks and the eyeballs—is what generates search revenues. Companies spent over $12 billion on search marketing last year.

Much of the Facebook-driven traffic comes from links that members post via areas like “Notes” and photos. If Facebook’s influence as a traffic source continues to rise, the next step would be to figure out how to monetize the traffic to those areas with paid search. That would be one way to entice Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to renew its search deal (and give Microsoft a better return on its $240 million investment in the social net).
By Tameka Kee

Gasta Vertical ad network

Can Advertisers use Ad Networks for Brand Advertising?

That depends on the network. Over the past decade we have seen some very creative advertisers do amazing online brand building programs. Yet, most of these clever programs that come to mind were executed on an individual site or portal. Are ad networks only going to attract the direct response campaigns and the low CPMs associated with direct response? The answer is: “No”


The more complete answer is still “that depends” on such things as the quality of the network’s members and the networks ability to execute hi impact ad opportunities. Most ad networks are often associated with remnant advertising on lesser quality sites. This is often why the network does not disclose a complete list of its sites. Call me old fashioned, but if I am responsible for building a brand I want to know where my hard earned ad dollars are being invested, and I probably don’t want my ad impressions only showing up at 2:00 AM (unless of course I am selling sleeping aids).


More and more ad networks are willing to show a complete site list, offering things like geo targeting and even day parting. Yet, that is still not enough to satisfy many brand advertisers who care about things like editorial quality and high impact ad campaigns. That is why vertical ad networks associated with real media companies are becoming more popular.


Media companies like IDG, Forbes, Martha Stewart have been creating some of the highest quality content in their respective verticals and have been executing big online brand campaigns for year. Now these established media companies, and many more like them, are expanding the brand solutions they offer by building online ad networks. This creates a great opportunity for brand advertisers looking to expand their market share.


When you stop and think about it, a media company like IDG already is an ad network with over 450 “owned and operated” technology websites around the world. It makes sense for IDG to expand to include selected independent technology sites. For example, IDG already knows how to recognize, recruit and nurture the best editorial experts in technology media. IDG also has executed countess online branding campaigns across its network of sites. IDG’s TechNetwork is a natural extension. Plus, IDG’s vetting of each partner site insures advertisers will get the quality editorial environment and multiple site execution which are critical to an ad network branding campaign.


The best part for big brand advertisers is when these high impact ad campaigns arrive on these independent sites the impact can be well above average. That is because independent sites often miss out on the online brand campaigns until they partner with an establish media company. Many experts predict that more and more established media companies will be building high quality networks of sites which is good news to brand advertisers looking to find uncluttered ad environments and independent sites looking for access to brand advertisers in their markets.

By Kevin Normandeau on Jul 21, 2008 in The Aggregation of Fragmentation

Gasta News:New domain to be web's phone book

source: BBC
The .tel addresses will be reachable via mobiles too

From 3 December companies will be able to buy addresses associated with a new web domain.

Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites.

Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted.

The domain is designed to work on the web and with mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone and Blackberry.

"All other top level domains like .com use the net's domain name system in the same way," said Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry. "They all store IP address and they are all about websites."

By contrast, he said, .tel had been designed to act as a repository for all a company's or individual's contact details. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call.

Mr Mahdavi said it had some similarities to the Enum projects that aim to bind phone numbers and e-mail addresses into a unified contact system.

The flaw, he said, with Enum was that it demanded people be on the web. By contrast, .tel will work with many different devices such as smart phones.

Phase one

Owners of .tel domains will be able to manage their contact details via a simple dashboard and surrender as much or as little information as they desire, said Mr Mahdavi.

He added that .tel domains have a "friending mechanism" that will grant close friends access to private areas that give more ways for a person to be contacted.

"It will become their place on the cloud," said Mr Mahdavi.

Access to the domain is being granted in three phases. The first begins on 3 December and is the "sunrise" phase for trademark owners to get domains related to their brands.

The second phase begins on 3 February 2009 and is a "landrush" phase open to anyone though domains will be on sale at a premium.

The final general availability phase starts on 24 March 2009 when the domain will be open to all comers.

Phil Kingsland, director of communications for Nominet, the firm that manages the .uk domain, notes that a number of new domains will go online when a new process for allocating them rolls out next year.

"Businesses will need to be aware of the potential uses of .tel and how it can work for them," said Mr Kingsland.

"They should have a clear and robust domain name strategy in place, so that when new top-level domains such as these come onto the market, they are ready for them."

Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.

Gasta Long tail keywords

Keywords can be split into two main groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords, or broad keywords and narrow keywords. The term ‘long tail’ was coined by Chris Anderson and is used to describe the strategy of targeting less-competitive niche markets rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. A long tail keyword is something like ‘Small Business Web Design’ while a short wail keyword is something like ‘Web Design’.

When you compare the two keywords, ‘Web Design’ has about 30 times as many competitors as ‘Small Business Web Design’ but ‘Web Design’ also gets far more searches each month. A small number of broad terms such as ‘Web Design’ and ‘Marketing’ account for a large proportion of searches but an equally large proportion of the searches are made up of millions of more specific search queries such as ‘Small Business Web Design’. This search distribution can be understood through the following graph.

Long Tail
A real life example
I speak about www.NarutoWallpaper.biz a lot and I will speak about it again in this article, each day NarutoWallpaper gets over 1000 visitors from search engines from roughly 200 unique keywords but the best keyword brings almost 50% of those visitors, following is a list of the top 12 keywords. Notice that the first keyword brings 45%, the second keyword brings 20% and the remaining 198 keywords account for the remaining 35% of the searches.

Keywords List


This distribution seems very similar to the graph I displayed earlier, the top few keywords account for a lot of the searches but there is many, many more specific searches which cumulatively total a significant figure. Let me display the keywords in graph form.

NarutoWallpaper Long Tail


You can see that the top two keywords bring in lots of traffic and the remaining keywords each bring minute amounts of traffic that cumulatively totals a significant amount, but separately are not significant.
Benefiting from the long tail
You may be wondering why anybody would want to target hundreds or thousands of keywords which bring only small traffic. Well the answer is simply that there is less competition so you can rank on the first page of Google for long tail keywords far easier than ranking for short tail keywords. Yes, they don’t bring a lot of traffic separately but if you target lots of long tail keywords you can get lots of easy traffic. Not everybody is capable of ranking highly for highly competitive keywords but anybody(!) can rank for long tail keywords.

Another benefit of long tail keywords is that the visitors convert amazingly well to sales and ad clicks. The visitors searching for long tail keywords know exactly what they want, be it ‘Small Business Web Design’ or ‘Half Price Armani Suits’, they know exactly what they want and hopefully you can provide it to them.

To put this into numbers, in general my websites might make $5 per 1000 impressions but from long tail visitors I can earn $100 per 1000 impressions, that’s 20 times the revenue if the traffic is equal. Although admittedly the traffic is not equal, my best keywords bring in more visitors than the long tail keywords combined, but the long tail keywords still bring in nice revenue.

On this website I have two pages providing free business resources: Free Business Card Templates and Sample Marketing Plan and Marketing Plan Template. Both are targeting long tail keywords such as ‘DJ Business Cards’ and ‘Massage Business Cards’. Those two pages make a lot of revenue per 1000 impressions but currently have low traffic. The keywords I am targeting are very specific and the visitors are getting what they came for so they convert well.
Conclusion
Whether you can achieve high rankings for competitive keywords or not, long tail keywords could be highly beneficial for you. If you have a website selling ‘Armani Suits’ but can’t pull any search engine traffic, rather than targeting the keyword ‘Armani’ or ‘Armani Suits’ try targeting more specific keywords such as ‘Armani Mens Suits’. Hopefully you will see an increase in conversions and sales.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Gasta Search Network:New Report Documents Insanely Long Tail Of Search

New Report Documents Insanely Long Tail Of Search

When something seemingly insignificant is able to control a more powerful entity, talk of the tail wagging the dog occasionally comes into play. But according to a new report from Hitwise, the long tail of search is capable of something more akin to launching the dog into orbit.


Dustin Woodward, a Seattle-based SEO and Web analytics expert, tried to look at the top 10000 search terms recorded by Hitwise during a three-month period. What he got was a very strange-looking graph, with data displayed in almost invisible amounts along great stretches of both axes.


"Top 10,000 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)

So Woodard then examined just the top 100 terms, and this sample generated a graph more normal in appearance. He writes, "However, this is just 100 search terms out of the more than 14 million."

It turns out that, at least in this particular three-month data set, the top 100 terms accounted for just 5.7 percent of all search traffic. Expand to the top 500, 1000, and 10000 terms, and just 8.9 percent, 10.6 percent, and 18.5 percent of all search traffic is involved, respectively.


"Top 100 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic" (Source: Hitwise)

Woodard concludes, "This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you'd still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There's so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles."

Lone bloggers, SEO professionals, and small businesses (among all other sorts of things) should be able to take comfort in this discovery. Woodard's analysis makes it look like there's plenty of traffic for everyone, without a need for cutthroat behavior and the spending of huge sums of money over the top few search terms.

A better approach might be to optimize for a lot of truly niche terms and see what happens. Be careful not to confuse increased holiday traffic for success - and also not to put your holiday income at risk in the event of failure - but some small-scale testing seems appropriate, at least.

Anyone wanting even more reasons to experiment should know that the Hitwise sample only included 10 million U.S. Internet users, adult search terms were removed by filters, and the three spotlighted months were relatively slow ones.
By Doug Caverly

Gasta News: PAID SEARCH: How the paid search industry is killing itself

PAID SEARCH:
How the paid search industry is killing itself
It may not be as bad as the banking industry, but SEM could use some help. Here's how paid search can get itself back on track before things get worse.
As the financial markets continue to turn out bleak news, I've begun to think about the many parallels existing between Wall Street and the SEM industry.
Mergers, acquisitions and shotgun marriages
To start with, we're now in the middle of a wave of consolidations that are reminiscent of the successive mergers and takeovers now taking place in the banking sector.
Range Online is the latest independent SEM agency to pack up its tent, as it was folded into iProspect, which was itself acquired by U.K.-based Aegis some time ago. Range follows Outrider (bought by ad holding company WPP, which also owns 24/7 Real Media), Reprise Media (snapped up by Interpublic) and Inceptor (purchased by Verizon).
It's clear that many SEM agencies are having a tough time going it alone, and the shotgun marriage M&A trend will accelerate if the macroeconomic environment continues to deteriorate and the SEM industry -- like the financial markets -- continues to suffer from ills that are largely of its own making.
Search engines enabled this mess
The SEM industry has no direct equivalent to sub-prime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations or over-leverage, but it suffers from structural issues that are largely a product of its ostensibly self-serve nature. Google and the other engines have stoked the fever of irrational optimism by encouraging everyone to believe that all it takes to succeed at search is a credit card and a couple of hours studying the AdWords help file.
The result is a world in which marketers behave like self-medicating patients who believe that watching a webinar on urinary tract infections is equivalent to getting a consultation with an experienced urologist. The fact that a number of people believe they are more qualified to run search than the experts reflects a dismal lack of confidence in SEM agencies. So it's no surprise when expert companies feel that getting swallowed up by a larger conglomerate is preferable to going it alone.
Killing the golden goose
But the search engines aren't the only ones to blame. Like Wall Street's "shadow market," in which trillions of dollars worth of complicated instruments are traded without any oversight, the SEM industry has its own shadow industry -- the conference and trade show business. This business depends on a simple proposition: if you go to enough shows, attend the right panels and rub elbows with the right people, you'll walk away knowing enough to run a competent search campaign. This is as absurd as saying that you can become a qualified mechanic by attending an auto show.
The only reason conferences and trade shows are so profitable for the people who run them is that exhibitors remain willing to buy very expensive booth space. Heaven help the trade show people, however, if exhibitors ever actually read the shows' agendas, which are chocked with seminars on how to succeed without an SEM agency!
Greed may destroy us all
And now let's talk about greed, which is as rampant in SEM as it is on Wall Street. Too many SEM agencies seem to have taken their sales approach directly from Moe's Mortgage Shop. These agencies are commission-driven -- not service-driven -- organizations that don't realize that overselling their services actually hurts long-term revenue goals by disappointing clients, creating client churn and destroying reputations.
Unfortunately, even good SEM agencies get tarnished by the continued operation of the fly-by-nighters. The SEM industry has failed to purge itself of these people and I have zero confidence it will do so at any time in the future. If it turned out that Macy's was filled with pickpockets, don't you think people would stop shopping there? So yes, the SEM industry needs to choose responsible conduct over unrivalled greed, or we're all headed over a cliff.
How to bail ourselves out
I don't think the SEM industry needs a billion-dollar bailout, but I do think it needs to clean up its act. Cancerous companies, much like toxic CDOs, need to be cleansed from the SEM books before confidence can be restored. Paid search practitioners need to be meaningfully accredited, not merely rubber-stamped, before they can run search campaigns. The search engines and the shadowy SEM conferencing business need to stop pushing the ridiculously destructive notion that neophytes can become as qualified as those with years of experience after only a few quick lessons.
Finally, SEM agencies should start thinking seriously about sharing risks with their clients. Hopefully the seasoned, expert agencies will launch programs to limit clients' downside risks and help stabilize the SEM industry once again. After all, the world has more than its share of uncertainty to navigate through on a day-to-day basis, and all the "black boxes" in our industry can be mind-boggling. The least we can do for our clients is present the clarity they deserve when we engage with them.
Mark Simon is vice president, industry relations, Didit.

Gasta News: Music goes portable again.

In a week that will see heavy coverage of MySpace Music when it launches, SanDisk (NSDQ: SNDK) has announced an ambitious venture to sell its microSD memory cards pre-loaded with DRM-fr*ee MP3 music from all the four majors EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The service, dubbed “slotMusic”, will launch this coming holiday season in U.S., at Best Buy and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), among others, and then will be launched in Europe, though no specific timeline was given.

The MicroSD format, a SanDisk invention, is used mainly in mobile phones, and also in some MP3 players. When slotMusic goes on dale, these cards will be packaged with a tiny USB sleeve so that they can be compatible with various PCs and laptops, and any other device with a USB connector, including say an in-car sound system. The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kbps, the company said. With 1GB of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other content that an artist/labels may choose.

There have been previous attempts by SanDisk and others to sell music and content cards through retails, though with limited success.

SanDisk is also in the midst of a takeover attempt by Samsung, which made its $5.85 billion public bid for the company last week, but the company rejected it as too low.

Gasta Advetising set to grow

Find the online opportunities in your own backyard: Gasta.com

Billions of local ad dollars will be moving online in coming years. Find out which outlets offer the best potential returns.

These days, the advertising community is focusing its attention on how to create ads for online media -- including video, rich media, Flash, etc. -- and the revenue potential associated with these channels. However, a less-often-asked but vitally important question in terms of industry shift, as well as dollars and cents, is this: Where will these ads be placed?

Industry estimates suggest that mobile advertising will reach nearly $10 billion in the next few years, with online video reaching nearly $3 billion. However, advertising at the local market level -- although not as frequently discussed -- has the potential for even bigger numbers and greater growth. What's more, local advertising isn't at odds with mobile and online video, as many assume. Rather, rich media and geotargeted place-based mobile advertising are likely to be big components of that local online ad spend. Within the context of the changing media landscape, local online advertising represents a massive opportunity that is coming into its own -- and bears more attention from the advertising community.

Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." And while that's not quite true of advertising, it does resonate when assessing this new shift into hyper-local marketing and advertising. According to eMarketer, $97 billion of the $157 billion -- more than 60 percent -- of the advertising market in the U.S. is focused on local. The online portion of that has thus far lagged behind the other advertising channels, with only about $2.1 billion -- 2 percent -- of local advertising being online at the end of 2007. However, that number is expected to more than triple over the next four years to more than $7.8 billion. That's a huge movement of dollars shifting toward reaching local audiences online.

But where are these dollars going to end up?

Although traditional local media -- Yellow Pages, newspapers, radio and broadcast television -- all have an online presence, none of them enjoys the dominance on the web that they do in their "home markets." Yet their audiences are moving online at faster and faster rates, resulting in major drop-offs in print subscriptions to newspapers, broadcast TV audiences, terrestrial radio listenership and Yellow Pages customers.

For example, the Kelsey Group recently found the erosion of print Yellow Pages is going to increase from 2-3 percent to more than 10 percent this year. That's a pretty massive decrease year over year. And even the Yellow Pages Marketing Association concedes that although online usage of Yellow Pages is growing, a 10 percent drop in print usage dwarfs the increase in online searches. Newspapers are in a similar boat with their advertising; online ad sales are climbing, but offline usage declines are taking a larger chunk of ad sales away from the industry as a whole.

And yet, projections show online ad sales more than tripling -- and there has to be a place for all that advertising to land, outside of the traditional media's online presences mentioned above.

With Google, Yahoo and online Yellow Pages growing their audiences, there is certainly going to be growth in local business searches. But what about brand advertising and trying to reach people who are migrating away from traditional television, radio and newspaper outlets for their news?

The numbers are a little grim. There are about 1,400 daily newspapers and 7,000 television and radio stations in the U.S., and back-of-the-envelope math shows that they each produce about three to six stories per day, or about 22,000 local stories for the entire U.S. This for an audience of roughly 20,000 individual cities and towns. All these players used to be able to back up their locally produced content with national stories, thereby providing a full news experience for their viewers or readers. But, the internet has changed all that; people get their national news from national sources. Instead of competing with other local newspapers, papers are competing with every news site that has a web page. Given this fragmentation, local news sites are not maintaining their market share.

So what's going to take up the slack?

Well, nature abhors a vacuum. Thus, amateur, user-generated content and commentaries are taking off in local markets. The internet's solution to the dearth of local news coverage is the same as it has been with other problems of scale: let the people build it themselves. Similar to Wikipedia, the Open Directory and Usenet, truly local content is going to be provided by the people who live there.

In looking at sites like MetroBlogs, Gothamist publications, Outside.in, NowPublic, Baristanet and Topix (the site that I run), it becomes apparent that a massive amount of attention and investment has been paid to giving people a platform for engagement with the places they live. And while social networks (based on who you know) like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace have generated a lot of usage, and even more buzz, none of them has really provided a locally contextual venue. You are unlikely to meet the neighbors who live two blocks away via Facebook or LinkedIn. However, when that same family starts blogging about your neighborhood or commenting on something another neighbor wrote, it's a compelling discussion -- one that you're likely to read and possibly even join.

Given the aforementioned advertising growth and the decline of the traditional places for it to go, user-generated content is where the action is going to be. The local online outlets that make the most sense for a given campaign will vary greatly depending on where you live and who you're trying to reach with your advertising. But the potential audience size available through these channels is impressive. Speaking for Topix, we've seen comment rates go from around 30,000 comments a day in the middle of 2007 to more than 140,000 comments a day -- or more than 3.5 million comments a month -- across more than 20,000 cities and towns within the U.S.

Media consumption and local audiences' preferences are shifting. Advertising is going to shift as well. So along with that cool viral video and mobile campaign, consider how you can make the most of region-specific opportunities as the $97 billion gorilla of locally targeted ad dollars spent in the U.S. starts to move online.

Chris Tolles is CEO of Topix

Gasta Ad Network

Does your ad network make the grade?

With an explosion in the number of ad networks over the last 18 months, it has become increasingly difficult for agencies and clients to identify which network is their best long-term marketing partner -- the network that can deliver a brand's objectives year in, year out.

It will come as no surprise that I believe in the value that a strong network can provide a brand, but the operative word in that sentence is "strong." Ad networks are emphatically not interchangeable, and the business relationships you create in this sector can make a big difference in how well you exceed your business objectives.

As one of the pioneers in this space, I have seen a lot of brands and networks work together over the years. That experience has led me to conclude that there are nine key considerations that should be used to determine what ad networks a planner should choose to have as part of their marketing plans. In my experience, these factors are relevant to both the "vertical" ad network sector, as well as the "horizontal" or general market sector:

Take a look at your ad networks checklist.

Site quality and transparency

• Site quality: Some ad networks truly represent the best sites online. Some mostly sell junk. In my view, the quality of content has both qualitative and quantitative benefits for a brand. On the quant side, sites with better content hold viewer eyes longer on each page, and that enduring exposure makes it far more likely that a user will notice an ad, interact with it and process its message. Qualitatively, there is evidence that the strength of content surrounding an ad can have an impact on brand perceptions. Quality content gives a brand increased credibility; in the vertical sector, having ads placed in quality content can also demonstrate brand support of a user's interest areas.

• Transparent site lists: There appear to be three kinds of site lists out there now: 100 percent transparent, ersatz transparent and "black box." The first and third categories are self-explanatory, while the second refers to networks that are willing to provide some "example" sites, but not the entire list. Although our network does share its entire site list, I don't believe that is an essential consideration for an advertiser. This is because the sites not on your plan have no bearing on your brand, but the sites on your plan do have a profound bearing on your brand. You deserve to know where your ads are running -- all of your ads.

Reach and targeting

• Reach: You don't need to go with the biggest network, but focus your major network spending on players with large numbers of your users/prospects, for practical reasons. Digital planning, buying and reporting are complex enough without having to deal with 25 networks for every buy. By choosing a mix of larger vertical networks and a leading horizontal or two, you can simplify your efforts considerably.

Targeting options: Whether or not you are currently using advanced targeting approaches, having access to some of the methodologies can be a boon for a planner. Behavioural, retargeting and audience segmentation will likely be a part of your future plans, and creating working relationships with highly capable networks can make capitalizing on these technologies easier and more productive in the future.

Cross-platform and growth

Cross-platform opportunities: Just when most marketers are becoming reasonably comfortable with online ads, the media environment has begun to diversify across digital media platforms in a big way. While vehicles like mobile, gaming, social media and widgets aren't new, they are all rapidly reaching a critical mass state that makes ignoring them shortsighted. Some networks have already recognized this glacial change and can offer you entrée into such platforms as part of your standard buys. You would do well to consider these networks more carefully, as they can help guide your efforts through our dramatically changing media environment.

Growth trends: Networks and sites that are growing make under-delivery less likely and ensure that your ads appear in highly involving content. Additionally, when more and more sites are joining a network, you can be assured that they are offering a quality marketing environment.

Exclusive sites and reporting

Exclusive site representation agreements: The polar extremes of the network business are "leftover" networks that sell remnant inventory versus "exclusive" networks that are the outsourced sales arms of publishers. Naturally, most networks fall somewhere in between. But particularly in the "vertical" side of the business, working with networks that are the exclusive sales agents of at least some of their sites provides assurance that they have unique understanding of that vertical, and can provide value-add insights that help make your efforts more efficacious.

Reporting capabilities: If you think about how much time your team spends futzing with spreadsheets, it'll be immediately apparent why working with partners that offer strong reporting should be high on your list of considerations. Depending on your reporting approach, they should either offer strong standalone systems or a way to easily integrate data into existing reporting platforms like DFP. Good reporting also makes real optimization possible -- and to actually optimize, you need to free up hours that would otherwise be spent cursing at Microsoft Excel files.

The people: Before you sign with a network, think about the person who will be serving your account? Is he/she responsive? Proactive? Smart? Do they answer your call promptly? Do they really listen to what you want and need? Great networks can be murder to deal with if your salesperson is lousy. Do yourself a favour and skip the networks that have teams that create problems instead of solutions.

Nine simple considerations -- none of them rocket science -- but each of them an important way to filter the 300 or so networks out there down to a manageable short list. If you choose correctly, you will benefit from long-term relationships that really help build your success.

I hope this brief list of considerations helps you find exactly the right ad network for your future efforts

Robert Tas Sportgenic.

Gasta SEO: ThinkMetrics Articles

Learn where most companies misstep when it comes to this crucial component of their online marketing strategies.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of tuning the content and coding of a website in order to maximize its listings in search engines. SEO should be part of every well-rounded online marketing program. Pay-per-click advertising is all very well, but it means you have to pay for every visitor. SEO is about getting free traffic from the search engines. Over the course of two years or more, nothing has a better return on investment than SEO. Thus, if you plan on having a website that runs for more than two years, search engine optimization should be a key part of your online marketing strategy.

I started doing search engine optimization in 1996 when Web Position (the world’s first SEO tool) was in beta. I remember receiving an e-mail from the company that pointed out that its tool would make it possible to sell SEO services to clients. At the time, nobody was doing search engine optimization, but it was instantly obvious to me that such a service would be essential if people wanted to be found on the web. I have now been doing search engine optimization for 12 years -- and in some areas I "own" Google.

The most common mistake that organizations make with regard to SEO is bringing their SEO consultants into the process too late. Many companies fail to give SEO its due consideration during a website's design phase. In fact, many companies don't give it any thought at all until after a site's design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage.

Coding for success
The coding of a site affects search engine optimization in many ways. In fact, coding has a greater impact on a site's listings in the search engines than the site's content. Many sites -- including those of some top brands -- simply cannot be read by search engines at all. If you want to see for yourself, install the Google taskbar in your browser and start looking at the page ranks that appear when you visit various sites. Page rank is Google's assessment of the global importance of a site. It will not take you long to find major sites that have no page rank. Unless the site is very new, a lack of page rank means Google cannot read it.

The technology used to build a site has a direct bearing on search engine optimization. For example, most search engines will not read a page if a URL contains a question mark. A question mark indicates that the content is the result of some dynamic process, such as a content management system or PHP. In other words, it tells a search engine that the content is being generated automatically.

When a search engine perceives that content is automatically generated, it has no way of knowing if the content is generated every hour or only once a year. There is typically a delay of six to eight weeks between the time that a site is read by a search engine and the time at which it appears in the listings. Thus, the search engine has no way of knowing whether what it has just read will still be there when it sends a user to the page in a month or two. In short, any page with a question mark in its URL is potentially untrustworthy. It was precisely for this reason that the mod rewrite module was produced for Apache. (Microsoft has a similar module for IIS.) Mod_ rewrite enables you to lay static URLs over dynamic ones. Adding mod_ rewrite to a system before you start coding it is a small job. Adding it to a large dynamic shopping site after it is running is a major headache, and may simply be impossible.

If you read Larry Page's and Sergey Brin's Stanford University dissertation, describing the algorithms they wanted to use in a search engine, you will find that a great deal of space is devoted to the analysis of the importance of pages according to their position inside the navigation structure of a website. Therefore, how you arrange the pages and how they link to each other has a direct bearing on the search engine optimization of those pages. I have used this information to look at potential site designs and, in some cases, have found that the core content would actually rank as less important than the site's privacy policy, simply because of the way links were built to the respective sections.

There are many ways of coding the same page, and not all ways are equal to a search engine. Dynamic menus are a case in point. At present, search engines cannot run JavaScript or Flash. The only hyperlinks that they can follow are standard HTML tags. You want search engines to follow your links because that is how they find the pages inside your site. It is therefore important that you create navigation structures that they can follow. Some dynamic menus can be followed by search engines and some cannot. It depends on how they are coded. Generally speaking, menus that are dynamic because of changes to CSS properties are fine. However, those in which the target page is called via programming are not. Once again, it is best to lay considerations like this down during the design brief because changing every link in the site later is expensive.

This becomes more important if you plan on having a content management system (CMS). If software is going to be writing your copy, or code, you need to ensure that what it produces is as search engine-friendly as possible. Many content management systems generate horrific code from a search engine point of view. Once again, changing a CMS after it has been deployed is a major nightmare -- and often impossible.

Early communication for optimal results
You often won't hear complaints from SEO consultants unless search engine activity is absolutely impossible (and sometimes not even then). SEOs are used to dealing with (from their perspective) sub-standard sites, sites that are barely readable by search engines, and sites that contain many problematic elements. SEOs have learned to accept such sites, and they often have no choice but to do the best they can with the garbage they are given by customers. Many SEOs have learned that pointing out problems may result in a client's deciding to go to a yes-man who will not make waves and is happy to take the client's money for a year or two while achieving nothing.

If you want to get the most out of search engine optimization, your SEO consultant should be the first person you talk to when developing a site -- before you even write a brief and start searching for potential designers. The sites that have had the most success when I've worked with them are the ones that asked me to modify their briefs to cover the requirements of SEO. The last time I did this, three of the five design agencies that had been asked to bid withdrew because they could not meet the standards required to make a search engine-friendly site. Throughout the design and construction process, I worked closely with the coders. Most new sites don't get listed by Google at all for months. Our site was No. 1 in Google within two weeks of launch.

Bring SEO experts into the discussions of what will be built at the earliest possible moment. Don't let the design agency or your own designers get their feet under the table until you have spoken to the SEO expert.

There are many elements that need to be considered during the SEO process, and these discussions often result in the SEO expert becoming the most unpopular person at the table. Such conversations often degrade into a litany of "no, you can't do that because the search engines don't like it," followed by "no, you can't do that because the search engines don't like it." Companies have to watch their favorite design features drop like flies. Sometimes designers have even gone so far as to accuse me of trying to cripple their designs. But ultimately, it is not the fault of the SEOs; they are just the messengers. They are simply telling you the way things are. When it comes down to it, if you want your site to get listed in the search engines, you have to give the search engines what they want.

Remember: Search engines do not have to list every site on the Web. In fact, despite what they may claim, they don't even try. All a search engine has to do is provide people with a list of 10 reasonably valid results from which to choose. The lesson: You need the search engines. They don't need you. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to understand what they require and give it to them.

Bringing an SEO in after a site is finished is like deciding to do the electrical wiring on a house after you have moved in. By bringing an SEO into the site design process, you can save time and money later. In addition, your site is likely to achieve listings that it could never achieve if SEO were undertaken after the site was already finished.

Design a site for the search engines, and the viewers will follow. Design a site the search engines can't read, and nobody will ever know it exists.

Brandt Dainow is an independent web analytics consultant and the CEO of ThinkMetrics.

Gasta News: Sky Music

Sky is set to launch a digital music store, in a bid to take on the likes of iTunes, HMV and Tesco.

Sky has partnered with major Universal Music to enable visitors to download thousands of songs from its artists including U2, Girls Aloud and Kanye West.

The service will be available for a single monthly subscription charge and users will able to both stream songs on-demand and download tracks. Customers will be able to listen to tracks through a range of devices such as iPods, MP3 players and mobile phones.

Sky, which plans to partner with other major and independent record labels, for the joint venture service, said it will roll out the digital store later this year.

Mike Darcey, COO at BSkyB, said the service is being set up to meet consumer demand for online music.

"Companies like Sky and Universal Music are well placed to work together to meet consumers' needs. We aim to offer an easy and affordable service for all UK music fans, while ensuring that artists are properly rewarded for their creativity."

Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive, Universal Music Group International, said, "The new Sky service will provide a compelling digital music experience, built for the ever growing digital appetite of music fans. In a world where a majority of UK homes have high speed broadband access, consumers will welcome a safe, state-of-the-art service and legal alternative to those services which exploit musicians without compensation."

Gasta SEM: SXC Marketing

Think you have SEM under control? Think again. Find out how to increase efficiency and lower the boom on the pesky problems of this popular tool.

Your SEM program is terrible. But that's all right because your boss doesn't understand a single thing you do -- he's just concerned that you are doing it and that your numbers look great.

So what are you doing wrong? First of all, stop patting yourself on the back with how great your SEM program is. You're really not that good. Seriously. Now let's move on.

A rock with arms can make SEM look good. Why? Because it's the last stop a consumer makes. By the time they type in a keyword on Google -- and it really is all about Google -- they've already decided what they're looking for. Television, radio, print, banners, events and billboards have all sucked their brains so dry that by the time they come to SEM, they are mindless lemmings.

"I must have product X. Must type in keyword to find product X. Must consume. More, more, more. It will make me happy."

What gets the credit for that last stop? SEM, of course. The consumer sees a television commercial, a print ad, an outdoor billboard and then goes online and types something into Google to find it. Voila!

Did SEM cause that sale or visit? Of course not. It is merely the conduit to it. It's like having an extra door to your store to let more people in. I always marvel at myopic managers who cut their other ad budgets and slowly see their SEM traffic drop and can't figure out why. The trickle may be slow at first, but the curve does become apparent over time. If you want to look like the hero in advertising on the brand side, go into SEM. It's just a shame the creative format requires the writing ability of five-year-old. But it's not about the creative, it's all in the strategy.

In SEM, if you are not maximizing the long tail you might as well be a rock with arms. Why? Google has become the de facto internet navigation engine. Forget portals. If someone wants to go somewhere online, they start at Google. A much smaller entity can compete in the niches of the bigger player's mass reach. It is precisely that "phenomena of choice" that makes the whole AdWords universe work. Unlike in product manufacturing, the price advantages of the long tail are huge in SEM. The fractured niche universe works here, because it's not about someone knowing your brand; it's about them knowing what they want. Going after the long tail in search is different than in product development, chasing after those consumers. As I wrote last week, the costs there can often be quite high, and your business model greatly dictates whether that is advisable.

So how and, more importantly, when do you go after that long tail? Make Google work first
The biggest problem I see with most marketers is diversifying too early. They go on MSN, Yahoo, Google and Ask simultaneously, constantly tweaking each individual program, keyword list and copy. All of that work requires duplicative efforts and drains the time on reporting requirements for your staff. They constantly question why this is working here and not there. It's not strategy, but comparative paralysis.

The Google universe is huge. It is also the biggest market opportunity. Get your entire program to work there first. Build the keyword lists, tweak the copy, expand, optimize and concentrate on making it work on Google. Keep on going down that long tail of keywords. Track performance over months. Expand to the Google Search Network; make the program work there first. Then, once you are hitting the point of diminishing returns, expand the entire program to MSN, Yahoo and Ask. This way it is a strategic approach that is efficient. You just port your program.

Now, are there going to be different performance dynamics across the other engines? Of course there will be. But getting Google to work first is essential. You will end up being able to expand faster than if you work on all platforms simultaneously.

"No time," is what I hear everyone in our industry scream. "Then be more efficient," I scream back. If you can't get your program to work on Google, it's not going to work anywhere else.

Shoot the copywriter, befriend the lawyers
Okay, this is hard for me. I am a copywriter, but seriously, using copywriters for SEM copy is like using a fly fishing pole to catch tuna. It's an efficiency nightmare. A net is coarse, bulky and blunt, but it is a lot more efficient. If you are going after the long tail, where the volume of keywords you will be using can approach the hundreds of thousands, eliminate the process of using a copywriter. A copywriter will grind your process to a halt.

But the copywriter isn't the only drag on efficiency. Remove the approval processes for all copy internally. Your director doesn't need to see it, and neither does your VP. Any approval process on copy just wastes time, a lot of time. And a lot of money, too. It is not about the individual keyword and the copy. It is about the corpus of words. You can A/B test copy within Google all day and keep tweaking it for best performers. A copywriter will never be able to provide copy that is so much better and more responsive that it overcomes the time suck from going after the long tail. The long tail value will far outweigh that. Step back and see the big picture.

In fact, the ones you really want to eliminate from the process are the lawyers. "But legal always has to see the copy!" No one is going to sue you over SEM copy because the search engines will shut you down long before that happens. They are the gatekeepers.

So what should you do with that legal department that is causing you nightmares? Well, befriend them. Sit down with them. Explain the issues, the cost to the company, the time drain on them, the speed to market issues and ask them to draft copy guidelines that you must adhere to. Can't use the word "Guarantee?" Then eliminate it from your copy and post those guidelines in the SEM department. You will save an enormous amount of money, time and frustration.

Look, a legal department once told me that we had to have a disclaimer in our SEM copy. The disclaimer was 120 characters. Ha! Show them the process, the copy and how it works. Set up a meeting with them to walk them through a single keyword posting, copy, the Google Console and then explain that you have 20,000 keywords. They'll get it.

Automate
Utilize ad optimization companies like DidIt or Efficient Frontier. You can try and go after the long tail yourself, but the only way you can effectively manage the portfolio as your keyword list expands into the thousands is to bring in some firepower. It's not about getting a click on your SEM ad, it's about getting the conversion on the back end. Remember that the click is irrelevant. What the consumer does when they get to your site is everything. Agencies like Efficient Frontier and DidIt not only have the tools to help you, their optimization technologies can adjust bid pricing for the most efficient conversion. The money you spend with them will never be more than the amount you save by using them. But it does take time for those systems to gain all of the intelligence they need to properly optimize.

I have heard stories of brands saying they tried optimization software but it didn't work. The only cases where I've seen optimization fail have been when companies did not give it enough time, were short-sighted or when companies approached SEM from a test program they did internally that showed better results. The problem with internal test programs is that anyone in SEM can make a small list of keywords extremely efficient. But when it's time to expand that list, the problem becomes unmanageable.

There are only two companies I know who took SEM in-house and ran it more efficiently. Both had unique business models and both designed their own optimization technologies for their business models. Essentially they have their own SEM agency internally. But Bob, Mary and that intern have no hope of making it scale efficiently internally unless they are given the resources to do so, and the one thing they will need most is time. If you are a small shop, agency or brand, you can do it yourself. It will just take a lot more time to scale, that's all.

Okay, so maybe your SEM program isn't awful, and maybe you're not a rock with arms. SEM is all about efficiency. It may not be the ad venue that's glamorous, and you're not going to be able to point to the television or billboard and brag as you tell your friends you did that. But if you start strategically and approach the process diligently, you will see better results with less of a headache.

Sean X Cummings