Search Engine Strategies Chicago - SEM Ad Buyer’s Forum
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Written By Reprise Media | December 13, 2005 | Share This
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I’m finally catching up on my notes from last week’s Ad Buyer’s Forum at the Search Engine Strategies event in Chicago, which means it’s time to dive into another session recap.
Over the past few years, the SEM Ad Buyer’s session has been a chance for some of the biggest search ad buyers to…well… to complain about the engines and everything that we wish we could change about them. It’s been cathartic. Group therapy, in fact. Thankfully, this panel was more of the same. Given the time of year, the panelists were each asked to provide a holiday wish list for one of the engines.
The discussion was moderated by Dana Todd of SiteLab International. Other panel members included Chris Churchill of Fathom Online, Misty Locke of Range Online Media, Brian Mark of ToolBarn.com and last, but not least, Reprise Media’s own Josh Stylman.
Todd led off the discussion by presenting a few high-level stats on the state of the SEM industry. The most prominent? A claim that 65% of advertisers plan to move 100% of their SEM efforts in-house. Or at least that’s what they say now.
She went on to compare the other engine’s efforts to date with Google, noting that most of them, including Yahoo, are still struggling with the same integration issues Google is facing. While comparatively little guys like Miva and LookSmart have made improvements in attracting audience and establishing differentiation, it may be a case of too little, too late.
Locke was the first to skewer an engine, presenting her wish list for MSN. Misty called herself a “faithful MSN servant” who only wants the company to “launch something that works.” Ouch. They’re trying! Locke advised the software giant to take its time in beta and develop an engine that will truly pose a challenge to Google and Yahoo. The first step? Remove eBay listings from MSN Shopping. She cited a sample search for shoes that yielded 7 consecutive eBay results, resulting in a poor user experience.
For the industry in general, Locke called for a greater number of viable competitors, and more transparency on network buys. “I want to know where I’m running, not based on what you think I should know, but what I want to know.”
Josh Stylman was up next with a wishlist for Google. First target? The veil of secrecy draped around everything they do. (Hey guys - It’s internet advertising…not national security.) According to Josh, questions to Google representatives are typically met with one of two types of responses: On one hand, you receive a stiff, overly-coached prepared statement. Everything on message, like a White House spokesperson. On the other? Ask 10 people in Mountain View a specific question about their products, and you’re likely to get 10 wildly different answers. Josh pointed out Google’s recent launch of Quality Score as an example. Sure, we all know the coached responses (It helps relevance of our ads, and factors in CTR, landing pages, ad copy, etc. etc.) but ask a question about the actual ranking mechanics and your answers will vary based on who you’re talking to.
Josh also took a look at Google’s product rollout process. Or, I should say, their lack of one. Case in point: Google’s recent decision to separate contextual and search bidding in the AdWords system. While the SEM community has been asking for the change for years (literally), the only way we learned about the change was logging into Google’s system the morning they launched it. While he was “astonished to say this”, Josh suggested that “Google should be more like MSN…rolling out products in an organized fashion.”
While MSN has had their own product problems, we’ve been really encouraged by their approach to the market. They’re clearly listening to feedback from Google and Yahoo!’s customers, and trying to involve them in the build out of a new system. The same kind of consideration would be nice from the big two.
Brian Mark then took over to discuss Yahoo. Lack of standardization on editorial reviews was his number one beef with the big Y. Mark said sometime his firm has submit them two, three, four times to get them through the system. Some editors will let things pass through right away, others will mangle it so bad they can’t even tell what it was. Mark said Yahoo should “either make them consistent or eliminate them.”
Mark also expressed his desire for exact match targeting - The concept “Impact Wrench” is not the same as “Impacted Wrench” but Yahoo serves ads against them the same way. This causes problems in properly targeting ad creative, as well as obvious performance problems.
One last plea was for unilateral service to clients, regardless of spend. While Mark considers himself a big spender, he doesn’t get the one-on-one time with a rep that the SEM community often recieves. Instead, he dials into a faceless 1-800 number, being put on hold for hours at a time.
Also, no more name changes: Over the course of a few years we’ve seen the product change from GoTo to Overture to Yahoo! Search Marketing. “What’s next?” Mark asked. “Yahoo! S&M?”
Last up was Chris Churchill. While Chris was originally offered the opportunity to speak about Ask Jeeves or LookSmart, (”Thanks a lot guys” - his words, not ours) he bowed out and instead gave three wishes for the batch campaign submission sheets that the major engines use.
While these sheets can undoubtedly save a lot of production time on a campaign, they’re so different from each other that they actually can create more work if you’re running a cross-engine campaign. Differences between the file contents, formats and data transfer methods make this process far more cumbersome than it needs to be - especially if you’re making regular changes to your campaign. Church ran through a quick model that showed how much time and cost is put behind managing and customizing these submission sheets. Bottom line: it can get really costly really quickly.
Panel moderator Dana once again took over and did some panel Q&A -
QUESTION: A centralized profile for users - will it work?
Stylman: It could. Portals are making a big play at capturing your attention. Root.net is one company that comes to mind that hopes to monetize this attention.
Locke: I don’t think the vendor should own the profile. A third party maybe.
Mark: We’ve been approached by people that claim they can do that, but if they’re spyware do we really want them as customers?
QUESTION: Standards, standards, standards. Some clients are being asked to place as many as 30 pixels on their pages. What about a universal pixel? Who should do it?
Church: We don’t all track the same because we don’t optimize against the same stats. If we standardize there, do we lose innovation?
Stylman: I’m not in favor of a universal pixel, because it opens up a whole different problem. Google’s analytics tool won’t be able to capture any of your data.
Mark: That’s fine, as long as we don’t end up with 640 pixels on a single page.
The panel closed out with a very brief audience Q&A. For more on this session and SES Chicago 2005, check out the awesome, comprehensive coverage here on SEORoundTable.com.
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