Lunch time!!

Apple has the Mac guy, so they called me and yada yada yada….

Microsoft recently launched a $300 million ad campaign in an effort to give its image a makeover. As of late, Apple has been dominating the ad side of things with their successful Mac guy, the hipper alternative to the dorky, stodgy PC. Charged with reversing Microsoft’s brand, the company has decided remake itself into a more family friendly company and also help consumers move past all the negative talk about Windows Vista. I personally don’t have anything bad to say about Vista, but then again I’m more interested in web browsers than operating systems anyway. (Go Firefox!) According to some things I have read, critics aren’t optimistic that Windows can remake its image. Well Microsoft isn’t drinking that Kool-Aid. As part of the $300 million they are spending on the brand, $10 million of that will go to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most popular television stars of the last couple of decades. The ads debuted last night during the first NFL game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. I think this was a great way to launch the ads in front a large captive audience, especially since both of those television markets are sizable, and the NFL as a whole is a national broadcast. In the commercial Jerry actually teams up with Microsoft’s own Bill Gates, who plays his usually nerdy persona to perfection with that type of deadpan acting that most non-actor types (athletes, ceo’s, etc) can get away with. I didn’t catch it live, but saw it on Youtube. I won’t tell you how it ends or what its about, its funny so I don’t want to ruin it for you. Check it out and tell me what you think about it?

Every business has its outlaws.

As of late, I have had a small love affair with getting large volumes of traffic from the 2nd and 3rd tier search engines.  If you are getting the volume you need from the Big 3 (no, not the US, UK, and Russia), then typically these engines aren’t worth the time.  But for certain revenue models they can be very handy.  By purchasing traffic products, such as run-of-network, run-of-category, or run-of-vertical I was able to lift my AdSense revenue by close to 500% !  Well now I am a man-scorned.

Google AdSense has deemed a large portion of some of the traffic I have purchased as incentivized traffic.  Incentivized traffic is when people are paid to visit a site.  Typically you are purchasing traffic from someone who is also purchasing traffic from someone else.  As with any business there are outlaws.  Through no fault of the search engine, they are passing on incenitivized traffic to you.

Well, the Google Bot will find you and destroy you.   Contractually, Google must protect people who are putting ads onto their contextual network and make sure that the clicks they pay for don’t come from bogus sources with no interest in their ads.  According to Google, they aren’t taking MY money back and keeping it, they are returning it to the advertiser, so that includes Google’s cut as well.

Fine.  Great.  Grand!

Well, shouldn’t the person who sold me the traffic be responsible for this?  I mean if I went out and bought a bicycle from a bike shop and then found out the bike was stolen, well I’d point the police in the direction of the bike shop.  Same deal here.  Only this is not what is happening because the incentivized traffic ends up on my site and leaves on an AdSense ad from my site.   Also, AdSense has been monitoring this for some time.  Hey Google, how about a heads up somewhere along the way!  That’s like firing someone at 5pm on a Friday.  At least let em go at 10am so they can catch a matinee or something, geez!

Well, the Dude abides and will swallow this tough pill, but this aggression will not stand, man!  (dont you just love Lebowski quotes?!)  Me too!  You can’t beat Google though, so let’s just have a drink and try to forget about it.

White Russians all around!

Syncing Blog Posting to Office 2007? That’s using your noggin!

Just ran across this nice little feature while looking for a document template in Office 07. Pretty handy, if you ask me and I’m also probably just the last in the blogosphere to find out about it. But that’s ok, cause’ this is just the first day! Anyways…you can choose a blank blog posting document and enter your blog service provider info (one time) and you get one button publishing directly from Office. You manage multiple blogs this way as well. Well, howdy do! I wonder how many bloggers out there are publishing the same blog entries to multiple blogs. I guess that is the only way some of these guys can keep up with all the blogging. Yeah, I know, I’ve posted over three times today….what of it?! But that is mostly due to the “newness” of it all, I’m sure.

An SEO comrade of mine tells me that blogs are a great way to build buzz and create publicity during down times between projects, therefore using blogging to essentially keep the momentum and therefore the money rolling in. I’m definitely looking to use this blogging experience to figure out how to make money roll in for me. Or walk in. Or fly in. Or limp in even. What ev! Seriously, it’s really nice and you have all the same features available at WordPress and then some.

And now to test that one button publishing….

I’m good at SEM, I swear!

My associate, Jeff, recently took the Google exam and became a Certified AdWords Professional.  I must admit, that logo they give you looks really cool.   Jeff now has instant credibility when it comes to his ability to market his Google AdWords skills.  As more and more companies (outside of Silicon Valley) realize the cost benefits of ditcing the large media agencies in favor of in-house SEM professionals, that credibility is gonna come in handy.  It reminds me of all the network certifications that you can get from Microsoft or the ASE certified mechanics you see at your local autoshop.  Credibility is one of the many ways you can market yourself as a professional.  Something about that ‘piece of paper.’

As a matter of fact, my 3+ years in SEM may not mean squat if I’m sitting across from a corporate VP of Marketing one day trying to convince him that I know what I’m doing.  He may want to see my ‘piece of paper’.  I mean, afterall, I look for that ASE patch on the mechanic’s shirt whenever I drop my car off for service.  I guess it’s about time I make myself credible.  Plus it irks me that Jeff has it and I don’t….which brings up another trait that will make you succesful…competition!

Amber, over at Hanapin Marketing, left a great post on PPC Hero recently about how to get certified.  The only way I can beat Jeff now is to get certified in Google and Yahoo and MSN.  Certified in all three?  Now that’s credibility!

 

PPC Management Tools

The Google AdWords Editor is a beautiful thing. I rarely work on AdWords from within the AdWords UI anymore. The current company that I am managing PPC for has over 14 Google accounts, so the Editor is the only real way to get any work done.

My colleague and business partner, Jeff Lane, is currently working on specs for a PPC management tool that will allow us to operate Google, Yahoo, and MSN from one, single UI. There are other applications out there already, such as Aquisio, but we have too many accounts for most applications to manage. Also, most companies want to charge a percentage of spend and a licensing fee.  We are simply interested in an outright purchase.   Perhaps we will have our own custom editor at some point.

The opportunity costs of not properly advertising on MSN and Yahoo are huge.  But Panama and AdCenter leave a lot to be desired when it comes to usability and efficiency.   Perhaps we will have our own custom editor at some point and can leap this hurdle and open up even more traffic volume!

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