EU Antitrust Ruling: Google vs. Forces Bigger Than Even Itself
Whether it’s in the field of trade, tax, foreign investment, antitrust, culture, or anything else, initiatives that block foreign companies from doing business – while often well-meaning, and sometimes aiming for consumer protection, local justice, or even some international development objective – perhaps fail to realize their own flaws. Primary among them is protectionism. In […]
SEO Firm Spams Awards Ceremony (And Other Tales From Pubcon)
Some things happened at Pubcon, and I’m finally ready to talk about them. No, I wasn’t traumatized — just a bit woozy from the desert heat. A current ad campaign from Bermuda Tourism contends that “some things are better experienced than explained.” That would be an apt way of putting it for Pubcon, and Vegas. […]
Google Announces Premier Partners Designation for Agencies
As a PPC-focused agency, we’ve always hoped that our story would be easy to differentiate from the roughly several million wannabes who would like to dabble a bit in Google AdWords. If that differentiation were to come in part with the blessing of Google itself, we thought, so much the better. Google’s push to encourage […]
Massive Cash, Uncertain Attribution: Automotive Ad Spend Trends
Along with insurance companies, car companies have been one of the major holdouts when it comes to their lingering attachment to relentless, expensive television advertising. It has its place, but how much is too much? The ads show to everyone – over, and over, and over again. That feels wasteful, if ROI is your thing. […]
11 Ways Search Has Changed Since the Last Google Dance
To put it in perspective, the last time Google held its on-campus Google Dance in conjunction with the SMX West conference, George W. Bush was still President. In the Democratic Primaries following Super Tuesday 2008, it was far from clear that Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton for the Presidential nomination. Obama had a slight […]
Goodbye, Right Rail: 7 Incredibly Cogent Points About the New-Look AdWords
Everyone’s talking about Google’s recent decision to remove AdWords ads from the right rail. Let me humbly add the most incredibly cogent response to date. A few folks noticed Google’s tests prior to the rollout. Some folks, like Moz’s Dr. Pete Myers, noticed a lot more than others. Are some observers overreacting? Probably. Some of […]
The Death Of Search Marketing Expertise
Recently, I had dinner in Orlando with Bill and Ted (not their real names), some pretty successful digital agency owners. (By successful, I mean more than 50 employees and strong annual revenues.) They’ve been friends of mine for a long time, so I assumed they’d be up for a little of the usual expert banter. […]
PPC Geo-Bidding, Simplified
Recently, I came across a social media post that — honest to goodness — went on at length about the price the poster would be willing to pay for a new brand of ketchup. “I’d need 50 percent off to give it a try,” opined the timid tomato tester. “If I turn out not to like the […]
Are Paid & Organic Distinct Channels? Not So Fast
At our company’s informal book club, we recently had a nice discussion of David Hand’s The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Belief in causation where there is only correlation, faulty assumptions about how “randomness” works and similar errors are shockingly common, even among the educated. Superstition can be a nightmare for the […]
Reactive SEO vs. Proactive SEO
I, for one, love and respect our spam-fighting, quality-content-loving overlords. Perhaps because I’m mainly associated with the PPC side of our company, I and my paid-media contemporaries can get a little cantankerous about the details of paid search products, as addicted to them as we and our clients may be. That can tend to overshadow […]