Vertical search engine marketing agencies are truly clueless. 

Search Engine Marketing is Dead…at least as we have come to know it in the past. The days of bid power have dwindled, and a time of synergy has emerged. Synergy between account structure, keyword bids, ad copy and landing page quality is now the undeniable recipe for search success.  Never before has a thorough understanding of the mechanism or funnel of search been more important. In fact, not being an expert on the various pieces of search will leave you in a constant state of bewilderment: Why can’t I get to the top of the listings for my best converting terms? Why does the chart mapping my ROI show a continued movement toward higher CPC’s and less profitibility?

The answer is easy…its called Quality Score Optimization (QSO), and it’s the only way to professionally approach search engine marketing in 2007.

***Gotta take some credit here. During a brain storming session earlier this year with fellow Pepperjam execs (myself, Kris, Ken, Aaron, Brock) we came up with the concept of Quality Score Optimization (QSO) - to be fair, it was Ken Mohn, Jr., Pepperjam’s VP of Search that came up with the term. We’ve been building out our SEM management offering around the concept of QSO ever since and the results are incredible.***

Here at Pepperjam we spend countless hours testing the various synergies that are encapsulated by the paradigm of QSO. Through an unyielding dedication to testing, an advertiser can find the perfect quanity of keywords in an adgroup, the best CTR generating ad copy, and tie it together with professionally managed bid strategy and landing page destination.  The perfect synergy of these factors is truly the “Holy Grail” of SEM, and any agency taking a different approach is driving your account into the land of the Obsolete.        

QSO is where it is at…..it is as simple as that.  As CPC costs consistently rise across just about every vertical market on the web, arming yourself with QSO will shield you from this ROI busting click inflation, and allow you to thrive where the competition is literally priced out of the market.  

QSO is mandatory on Google right now, and will be so on Yahoo and MSN inside of three (3) months.  If search is an important advertising channel for your business I would find out all I can about QSO right now…..the life of your SEM initiatives literally depends on it.   

Let me start by saying that I am blown away by this new move by Microsoft. Word is out today that the software giant reached a deal with aQuantive (owner of Avenue A/Razorfish) to buy them for 6 billion in cash. This news just throws gasoline on the white hot fire of current internet advertsing consolidation.  

We are without doubt in the hottest markeplace on the planet and all serious companis in the online advertsing space should be feeling good right about now. 

My prediction is further consolidation as we are lilkley to see ValueClick aquired in the next few months (my guess would be Yahoo).   I will follow up shortly with more information as the details unfold.

Most advertisers have no idea how to work with Google’s PPC Quality Score algorithim.  As a veteran, somewhat sophisticated PPC expert, I even surprise myself with the secrets I continue to uncover.

One thing I can scream from the mountaintop with utter confidence is that short term thinking and action can trash your PPC marketing efforts on Google (and now a Panamized Yahoo) in a hurry.  Let me give you quick example of how to use the Google quality score index to your advantage, and how treating it like a now fading memory of the ultra-transparent Overture system can bite you in the ass:

With the holidays fast approaching, I took one of our gift oriented merchants and used the Quality Score to cement them into the first position on an exhaustive list of their most important keywords.  I bid the hell out of those terms in October and November while testing copy and maximizing CTR. What resulted was fascinating:  No matter how much our competitors bid on those terms in their holiday push, our client remained number 1.  And the best part was that they had number 1 at a lower cost than when I started the experiment.  Take the other side of the coin: 

As many advertisers chose to OVER FOCUS on keyword level ROI, their bids are constantly changing via their PPC managers or their rule based PPC bid management software. They think they are being clever but as those bids go up and down, their quality score suffers. Now comes the time for top level holiday conversions and a little flexibility on their part as to CPA and ROAS.  Too bad the short term thinking left them with a low quality score and the inability to make up for lost time.  Now they are paying a premium for a lower position and they will never know how good things could have been.  

The moral of the story is that a short term dedication to keyword level ROI can actually harm your SEM efforts.  As the engines become more sophisticated in their ad delivery. you need to think globally about your efforts and understand that a dollar saved now can be thousands of dollars wasted later. With the enrty of Yahoo into the quality score landscape, you can simply no longer afford to think short term about your paid search strategies.

A district court just came down with a decision that makes sense…and simply put… I love it.  As it related to PPC and meta tagging, trademarks are fair game…and why the hell not?

When you walk through a shopping mall on your way to footlocker to buy a new pair of Pumas, should Payless be banned from exposing their corporate logo or special offers to you simply because your initial intention was to buy from Footlocker?  As a consumer, don’t you have the right to change your mind and go with Payless even if you are a few steps, or in our case a ”click” away from Footlocker?

 How are search engine results any different than your local mall? When I type a merchant’s trademark into the search box aren’t I taking that first metaphorical step in the mall towards that merchants store in search of my Pumas?  The SERP’s are merely the halls of your local mall and the keyword trigger is merely your inetention.  That intention is not a binding contract to shop at the initialy expressed trademark store. It is only an intention, and intentions can change on a whim.

Let me the consumer see the deals on similiar products or services that Google, Yahoo and MSN permit in 25 characters or less available on a PPC ad, even if I have expressed interest to shop elsewhere with my search query. 

Way to go U.S. District Court! You finally got one right.

This story seems to be gaining some traction on Revenews and on Digg.

In an unprepared proposal, Kristopher Jones, Founder and CEO of the internet’s hottest company, dropped to a knee and pulled out the rock!  A weepy eyed blond bombshell on the other end of the plea answered with a resounding (and somewhat releived) YES!!!!! You heard it here first…..Kris Jones of Pepperjam and Robyn Martin of the same have decided to tie the knot in a summer ceremony to be remembered. 

 After two years of a loving relationship and a little sinful cohabitation, Kris mounted the nerve to ask the girl of his dreams to be his wife, and lucky for him she accepted.  Let me break the couple down for you so that you can truly appreciate this exciting turn of events:

 Kris is a serial entrepreneur who wages a daily war between an unrelenting drive for capatilistic success and an equally unyielding pull towards new age spirituality. With Kris’s vision and determination, Pepperjam has risen to the top of the internet marketing world.

 Robyn is the total package, with a look that will turn the head of any sane warm blooded male, coupled with a mind and attitude as sharp as a vaseline coated razor.  Kris hit the lottery with this one, and anyone that has had the pleasure to see Robyn at an affiliate summit conference will back my words without reservation.

 With so much joy around at this time of the year, the news only makes this holiday that much more special.  Kris and Robyn, let me be the first to offer my love and best wishes to two of my favorite people in the world. May your future together bring you true happiness, and may you grow in spririt and love as the new Mr. and Mrs. Jones!

 P.S. I am the best man so, look out for the bachelor party in Vegas this summer. Anyone that wants to come just hit me with an email at michael@pepperjamsearch.com.  It won’t be boring…I can guarantee that!  

Imagine you had the ability to drill down into your marketing efforts to the point where you can literally track a sale in real time at the keyword level! Let me repeat that…IN REAL TIME AT THE KEYWORD LEVEL!. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t that finally give advertisers real control over their marketing budgets?

Anyway. I am sure that most of you “die-hards” who would actually be reading my post, have immediately called me on the sarcastic overtones of my paragraph above. Real time ROI metrics at the keyword level are much more than the daydreams of a broke advertiser looking for someone to tell him how many sales have resulted from his 20k a month billboard hanging over the highway for the last six months. In fact, real time ROI metrics are the basic foundation of anyone who dares call himself an internet marketer in today’s landscape of overblown marketing egos and paper champion companies with no true idea of innovation.

The problem, however, is that the power to tie one’s marketing so closely to one’s ROI has created an expectation level as big and bloated as the U.S. government after eight years in the hands of the Democrats. Advertisers want results yesterday, and not just any results, they want them within the guidelines of a CPA specific ROI metric that better be trending toward explosive growth at lower costs, and oh ya, it better happen in ten days or you have failed! Branding, lifetime value, sales deeper down the funnel, these are all nice, but they mean shit if that CPA target of $20.00 is coming in at $20.03.

What does it all mean? It means the “ROI Revolution” has created the largest imaginable pain in the ass for marketers. It means that as marketers your job is infinitely more difficult because now you can actually be held to something concrete. It means that when an advertiser screams and yells obscenities at you for last month’s performance, they actually have what they see as the proof of your failure to rub in your face.

But I sympathize for you, the marketer, because alas, I am one. All too well I understand the trials and tribulations of your valiant attempts in a world mired by Google quality score updates and garbitrage affiliates in search of a quick buck. And all too well I have come to learn that five years from now, when CPC’s are averging $2.00 and several new Fortune 500’s have built their empires on the back of search branding that they didn’t even know they were doing, you will be hailed as a hero, even though you couldn’t keep that CPA under 20 bucks.

Peace