Things are crazy here at Pepperjam - staff members going knutz, Roxy barking, me kicking Mike’s ass at Ping Pong, having fun with Meet the Pepperjam Team, and so much more.

To be honest, I’ve never had more fun in my professional or personal life. The quality of our incoming clients has never been better, while the energy at the pepperplex is outstanding.

The point of this blog post is to provide you with some news that I intend to blog more about over the next few weeks.

First, I pre-recorded a panel that I moderated for ecomXpo yesterday on Social Media. The panel includes Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl), Neil Patel (PronetAdvertising), Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney), and myself. All I’m gonna say at this point was that the panel was amazing - the interaction and discussion between each of the panelists was awesome. More info to come on how you can listen in and participate in a LIVE Q & A with Shoemoney, Stuntdubl, Neil, and myself.

Second, it’s been confirmed that I’ll be speaking on two panels at Search-Engine Strategies (SES) - New York, including (1) Search Arbitrage and (2) Affiliate Marketing Issues. I’ve spoken on these panels at previous SES’s and the Search Arbitrage panel is especially hot. I can tell you now that Ive received some inside info that a senior person from Google will be on the arbitrage panel to defend Google’s arbitrage position. Remember, I’ve blogged about this before HERE and HERE - in short, Google has made a # of policy decisions regarding Google Adwords that has attempted to rid the system of Garbitragers (MFAer’s), but in the process have created a system that is rampant with false positives…most notably the fact that many affiliate marketers are forced to pay as much as $10 per click for a keyword that others pay 10 cents. Come to think of it, the Google Adwords product is resulting in quite a bit of collateral damage to advertisers these days - more on that HERE and HERE. More news on this soon.

Third, the Meet the Pepperjam Team is really hot - we’ve had over 6,000 views since inception. If you haven’t checked out any of our videos you can do so HERE.

Fourth, Pepperjam is hiring - if you have internet marketing experience and want to work for a progressive, fun company, send your resume to maggie @ pepperjamsearch.com.

Finally, we’ve decided to take our entire executive team to the upcoming Tony Robbins “Unleash the Power Within” conference in NYC. Michael and I have done this conference before but this time around things are different. Now, Tony is our client - we recently launched a program for him on Commission Junction and we are working on other opportunities for his company within the internet marketing space - we will actually have a booth at the conference to promote the program (stop by if you’re there.) If you’d be interested in attending the conference drop me a comment and I’ll see if we can get you a discounted ticket. If you want to take your life to the next level, think about going to a Tony Robbins conference.

If you’ve already gone to a Tony Robbins conference or have read any of Tony’s books we’d love to get your feedback - just leave us a comment.

I’ve included a video below, which is a promo video for the conference (note that it’s a bit outdated and we had nothing to do with putting the video together).

One of Pepperjam’s longtime industry friend’s, Shmuly Tennenhaus is featured in Monday’s New York Times print edition, as well as on the NYtimes.com website. In the article Shmuly is referred to as a “YouTube Celebrity” by NY Times writer Bob Tedeschi.

I’ve been telling Shmuly for months now that his career was about to blow-up.

The article suggests that professional YouTubers like Shmuly are in high demand and have become a hot commodity in the video community, especially in light of the fact that companies like YouTube have decided to pay vloggers a percentage of advertising sales.

Now all Shmuly needs is a good agent like “Ari Gold” - no pun intended.

The time has come to share with you one of Pepperjam’s most prized and influencial team members: Roxy, Pepperjam’s English Bulldog Team Mascot.

Roxy is 1 1/2 year’s old and she has grown up at the Pepperplex - Robyn and I have brought her into the office everyday since she was just a puppy. To say that Roxy has made an impact on the moral of our team would be an understatement - dogs (especially Roxy!) have a way of reminding us that we are all human beings and that while life at times is a challenge, life is truly a gift.

Anyway - we hope you enjoy Roxy - we think she’s great!!!

Meet Roxy:

If you want to check out some cute pics of Roxy from the Shoemoney Blog click here.

To watch a hilarious YouTube video with Roxy click here.

For those of you who don’t know the “rules” behind the Meet the Pepperjam Video Series, here they are:

Every Friday Pepperjam will post a new video interview of a member of our staff - everyone will be included - affiliates managers, executives, search-engine marketing managers, directors, software engineers, assistants, online media buyers, and interns. The person being interviewed won’t know he / she has been chosen until about 30 seconds before the interview - this way you’ll get an unrehearsed, real world look at the employee…hopefully, this will make it interesting and non-corporate, which is what we are known and respected for across the internet marketing industry.

Why are we doing this? Well, I am proud of our team and I think you’ll find them as interesting and intelligent as I do. Also, I’m a student of viral video and the social media space and I want to test the waters as it relates to what corporate america is doing (and not doing) to spread buzz and build next generation work places.

Finally, I just thought it would be cool to put some people in front of a video camera that have never done so before, have a little bit of fun, and see if Pepperjam can spread some additional buzz about why we are the leader in online marketing.

FYI - all videos will also be posted to YouTube. If you think what we are doing is outside-the-box and interesting please blog about it and share the story with the world.

Our previous videos include:
Maura Goodwin
Tara Lou
Dean Karasinski
Kim Noler (dated YouTube founder)
Stephanie Yachim

By the way - if you haven’t seen the “Naked Crazy Man” video that Pepperjam’s own Brock Siegel shot during the recent snowstorm you’ve missed out - check it out HERE.

Man, this Google stuff is getting out of control. Kris blogged earlier this week about the problems that just about everyone seemed to be having with their Minimum Bids following the Quality update on Friday. Supposedly that has been corrected although I did hear some murmurs around the office today that led me to believe there were still some issues. I didn’t follow up on it; I have bigger and far more frustrating issues to deal with.

Michael Gray wrote a great piece today entitled Poor Poor Michael Gray in which he illustrated that Google had given his own name a “Poor” Quality score. He then added other, more unique names to his keyword list and found that they received “Great” scores and a lower Minimum Bid. It’s a great article and I recommend everyone check it out.

I could relate to Michael because I’ve been having similar problems. While I have no need to target my own name in Google, I do have clients with Trademarks. As everyone with any PPC experience knows, one of the first, and most important, campaigns you create is your Trademark campaign. Well, everyone besides Google that is.

This week I found myself slapped with a minimum bid of $5.00 for a term that a client not only owned the Trademark for, but it was also the name of the product that was plastered all over the landing page. How can that be a “Poor” keyword? And what could I do about it? I have to bid on the name of the product I’m advertising, I have no choice in that matter.

I haven’t spoken to a Google representative about this issue yet but I’m hoping there’s something that can be done in special circumstances where the Quality score backfires. If anyone else out there is having similar issues I’d love to hear about them and if you’ve been able to have it corrected. Right now I’m just going to have to pay what Google tells me to pay and hope the conversions make up for the ridiculous cost of advertising a product by its name.

[Note: I also just noticed that Yahoo disapproved a common abbreviation for the same product stating, “Insufficient content on the landing page.” Argh!!!]

It looks like ShoeMoney is not only beloved by internet marketers around the world; evidently the search-engines, especially Yahoo, are also having a love affair with the blog, Shoemoney.com.

In the past ShoeMoney has ranked in the top 10 for all kinds of crazy terms like “Paris Hilton Picture” and “Texas Hold ‘em” - I’ve got some idea how he achieved those rankings but I’m not at liberty to disclose his secrets - let’s just say, Jeremy may claim he’s not an SEO, but he certainly knows SEO.

Anyway, this time around ShoeMoney has scored a #1 position for the keyword “Britney Spears Shaved Head” on Yahoo.

I don’t know for sure but my guess is that this single listing is accounting for 10″s of thousands of uniques per day.

For those of you that are curious, Shoemoney made this POST and provided the below pic to his readers. Apparently, Shoemoney’s authority in the blogosphere - coupled with his denounced SEO prowess, has convinced Yahoo’s algorithm that he should be #1 for a pretty hot Britney keyword.

What do you think - do you think Shoemoney is an SEO master or does he just put out good content (like he suggests)?

Dave Naylor and Greg Boser, two of the top (if not the best) SEO’s in the world, along with Jennifer Slegg (YPN / Adsense Guru) announced today the launch of SEO Days - an intimate conference / training series that will begin later this year with two-day events in Europe, USA, and Canada.

My guess is that SEO Days is going to be a huge success for at least two reasons. First, to get Naylor, Boser, and Slegg in one room and be able to have them educate you is an extraordinary opportunity - each of these individuals are extreme experts in their field. Second, the concept of training versus listening is a new concept and I think these guys hit the ball out of the park if they take this approach - my two cents is that three hours of SEO training with these guys is worth 3-days of SEO listening at SES.

For those of you wondering, in a response on the DaveN blog Jenn Slegg suggests that SEO Days is not a direct competitor to the Elite Retreat, a conference that I’m involved in with Shoemoney, Lee Dodd, Aaron Wall, Neil Patel, and Darren Rowse. In her comment Jenn says, “While this is training in a more intimate setting, it doesn’t really compete or have the same audience as Elite Retreat. We are doing other things beyond the conference itself, such as onsite Seodays where the three of us go on-site to offer training to companies or even local groups.”

I have to agree with Jenn. First, there is an enormous opportunity for conferences like SEO Days and Elite Retreat, among others. Next, it’s in the intimacy and exclusiveness of the event / training that makes these kind of events different - the reality is that intellectual capital in the online marketing space is scarce - the supply (expert online marketers) versus the demand (thousands of businesses wanting to harness the power of internet marketing) isn’t even close.

Knowing each of them personally, I’m sure they will experience similiar or superior success to that which we are enjoying with Elite Retreat.

I wish Dave, Greg, and Jenn the absolute best of luck!

Google Adwords is causing ulcers within the marketing divisions of tens-of-thousands of businesses and agencies across the globe.

Let me attempt to shed some light on this issue. Let me also STRESS the point that it’s my personal and professional opinion that this issue didn’t just begin this past weekend; instead this issue has been going on for months, it’s just that this time around it’s effecting more advertisers.

In short, the Google Adwords system is becoming more and more of a black box and too often the system is ahead of itself and just doesn’t treat ALL advertisers fairly. It would not be unfair to conclude that, in general, the Google Adwords system is actually unfair and doesn’t work.

In addition, there appears to be growing fear among advertisers that Google has too much power to control market prices, which has resulted in apparent price gouging. If the Google Adwords Quality Score debacle that occured this past weekend is an example, I believe advertisers should be seriously concerned about price gouging.

In many cases, Google is penalizing trademark owners from bidding cost effectively on their own trademark. In other cases Google is increasing bids as high as $10.00 for keywords that in the past cost advertisers pennies on the dollar. Previously, this issue has primarily hit search arbitragers. However, the problem continues to spread like a nasty virus unjustly hitting advertisers of all shapes and sizes, including some Pepperjam clients who spend lots and lots of money on Google Adwords.

And with Yahoo Search Marketing starting to look more and more like Google Adwords, advertisers need to be concerned.

I’ve made the argument multiple times over the last 12-months that Google’s Adwords system is rampant with false positives and injustices.

Here’s the problem - since the Google Adwords system lacks transparency, advertisers are forced to rely on Google’s Adwords algorithm to determine how much they pay for an ad. There is no way for an advertiser to make sure that Google’s system is being fair - the advertiser just has to rely on the fact that Google’s system works and treats everyone the same (fairly).

Google does provide some direction of what Quality means, but keep in mind that Google controls the system - they provide very boilerplate language to advertisers, which provides little or no direction on how their automated system actually works.

Here is what Google says of Quality Score:

“Quality Score is the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword’s clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page.

We believe high quality ads attract more clicks, encourage user trust, and result in better long-term performance. To encourage relevant and successful ads within AdWords, our system defines a Quality Score to set your keyword status, minimum CPC bid, and ad rank for the ad auction.”

On its face, Google’s “Quality Score” system makes sense. However, in practice it just doesn’t treat all advertisers fairly and in other cases the system just doesn’t work at all.

To appreciate what I mean by “doesn’t work” think with me about the scale of Google Adwords - hundreds of thousands of advertisers are part of the Google Adwords system, which results in quarterly profit for Google of over $1 billion. If the system isn’t fair, for instance by charging thousands of Adwords advertisers an extra 20 cents per click because that advertiser has a low landing page quality score, Google ends of reaping millions in profit and the advertiser has no way of knowing they were treated unfairly. That is a serious problem.

Is Google Price Gouging its advertisers?

It is well known that paid search is in high demand and that Google controls the market. Google is one of the fastest growing companies of all time and has generated almost all of its revenue from paid search. Since Google controls the market and sets market prices, there is no way of knowing whether they are price gouging advertisers. What do you think?

Based on the widespread negative reaction discussed within the blogosphere this weekend where advertisers were forced to pay higher prices because of a malfunction in the Google Adwords algorithm, the answer to the price gouging question is yes.

What is Google going to do to make this situation right?

In my opinion, probably nothing since they control the market and set the prices.

Happy Friday!

As part of our weekly Meet the Peppejam Team video series we thought it would be fun to offer our readers two for the money. In other words, in past weeks we only featured one pepperjammer video per week (on Friday’s) - however, this week we feature two!

This week we introduce two high-energy Pepperjammers: Kim Noler (Senior Affiliate Manager) and Stephanie Yachim (HR intern).

In Kim’s video she says that she went to the same college as YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley - rumor has it that Kim and Chad may have been more than just friends - was Kim just being funny? Watch the vid and you be the judge!

OK - here is Meet the Pepperjam Team Video #4:

Kim Noler - Senior Affiliate Manager

In Stephanie’s pepperjammer video she discloses that she has done some professional modeling in New York City - watch her video to learn more.

OK - here is Meet the Pepperjam Team Video #5:

Stephanie Yachim - HR Intern

For those of you who don’t know what we are up to here is a brief summary of the specifics and the “rules.”

Every Friday Pepperjam will post a new video interview of a member of our staff - everyone will be included - affiliates managers, executives, search-engine marketing managers, directors, software engineers, assistants, online media buyers, and interns. The person being interviewed won’t know he / she has been chosen until about 30 seconds before the interview - this way you’ll get an unrehearsed, real world look at the employee…hopefully, this will make it interesting and non-corporate, which is what we are known and respected for across the internet marketing industry.

Why are we doing this? Well, I am proud of our team and I think you’ll find them as interesting and intelligent as I do. Also, I’m a student of viral video and the social media space and I want to test the waters as it relates to what corporate america is doing (and not doing) to spread buzz and build next generation work places.

Finally, I just thought it would be cool to put some people in front of a video camera that have never done so before, have a little bit of fun, and see if Pepperjam can spread some additional buzz about why we are the leader in online marketing.

FYI - all videos will also be posted to YouTube. If you think what we are doing is outside-the-box and interesting please blog about it and share the story with the world.

Our previous videos include:
Maura Goodwin
Tara Lou
Dean Karasinski

By the way - if you haven’t seen the “Naked Crazy Man” video that Pepperjam’s own Brock Siegel shot during the recent snowstorm you’ve missed out - check it out HERE.

Elite Retreat is an internet marketing conference cofounded by Jeremy (Shoemoney) Schoemaker and Lee Dodd. In January I was invited by Jeremy and Lee to become a partner / speaker in the conference series that will be held at various locations across the Unites States in 2007 starting out in San Francisco on March 19 - 20, 2007.

Elite Retreat is like no other conference - unlike the “traditional” internet marketing conference where you pay several thousand dollars to sit in a crowd of hundreds or thousands of people and listen to speakers, at Elite Retreat your ideas and experiences are shared one-on-one with a small team of well-known experts.

Elite Retreat speakers include Guy Kawasaki, Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney), Lee Dodd, Aaron Wall, Darren Rowse, Neil Patel, and yours truly.

Recently, Joe Whyte from Lunar Pages and Lunartics Blog launched an interview series with each of the Elite Retreat speakers. It just so happens that I was the first interview and from the feedback I received so far it seems that people are pretty surprised that I went into the level of detail that I did. In fact, I was just being honest with who I am and the strategies I (and Pepperjam) use to generate revenue for our clients. That’s what the Eilite Retreat concept is all about and that’s what you can expect if you buy a ticket and go. Anyway, the interview can be read HERE.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Elite Retreat, watch a cool video and to read BIOS of each speaker.

If you have questions about the event please call Andrea at (800) 888-8151.

Pepperjam was nominated today for “Best Affiliate Marketing Blog” at LeeDodd.com.

CLICK HERE to vote for Pepperjam Blog.

Pepperjam took an honorable 2nd place as “Best Affiliate Marketing Blog” of 2006 as hosted by Search Engine Journal.

Thanks for your support!