Welcome New Thread and Moderator

[AussieWebmaster]

David Szetela - CEO of Clix Marketing - has joined the SEW forum team as moderator of this new thread on Content Advertising. His knowledge of paid search is considerable and his addition gives us another expert to help our members.

So do not hesitate to ask him questions.

[David Wallace]

Welcome to the fun and games, David.

[szetela]

Thanks, guys - great to be here.

Forum-ites: a short introduction: I'm the owner of Clix marketing, a PPC-only ad agency. I've been researching and writing about Content Advertising for over a year, on our company blog (http://www.clixmarketing.com/blog) and my Search Engine Watch column (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=sew_experts/content_advert).

I'm interested in getting into discussions about all aspects of Content Advertising. These days that includes:

1. Best practices for creating ads and ad groups
2. Placement Targeted campaigns
3. Quality Score
4. Bidding best practices
5. Analysis using Placement Performance reports
6. Non-text Content ads (e.g. banners, video)
7. Gadget advertising
8. Mobile Content advertising

This short list will get longer as Google maintains its dizzying pace of rolling out new capabilities. Though Google's obviously the leader in this space, we'll also discuss developments from the other leaders (Yahoo and Microsoft) as well as smaller technology and market innovators. We'll undoubtedly also touch on the capabilities offered by the bigger display ad networks like DoubleClick (now owned by Google), aQuantive (Microsoft) and Right Media (Yahoo), as well as AOL's Advertising.com.

We won't be discussing the publisher side of Content Advertising (e.g. Google Adsense and the Yahoo Publisher Network) - that's ably covered elsewhere in these forums, most notably here (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forumdisplay.php?f=30).

Thanks again - let's talk!

[Ron Jones]

Congrats David! Looking forward to great things.

[szetela]

Thanks, Ron.

[beu]

About time for a little content advertising around here!

Welcome szetela

[Mel66]

David! Great to see you here. Can't wait to hear your insight on content advertising - we're looking to expand what many of our clients are doing in that area.

Of course, now that I'm at an agency I guess we're sort of competitors.... but hey, friendly competition makes us all better at what we do, doesn't it?

Welcome to the world of SEW mods!

Melissa

[jimbeetle]

Welcome, David.

Focusing on content networks is a great idea and I'm sure you'll also get plenty of views from rabble rousing publishers like me.

[szetela]

Beu - thanks - and from the looks of your bio, seems it might be worthwhile to introduce you to one of our favorite clients (http://www.replayphotos.com).

[szetela]

Hi Melissa! I had no idea you'd switched jobs - great to see you here.

One of the great things about being in the PPC "space" is that demand far outstrips supply - so there can be more "co-opetition" than there is competition.

I'm gonna add your blog to my Blogroll and Big PPC List (http://www.clixmarketing.com/blog/2008/01/06/our-favorite-ppc-blogs/). Looking forward to hangin' with you here!

By the way, I'm one of the few people who gets your blog name - Beyond the Pale, right?

[szetela]

Thanks, jimbeetle. Who are you, really? Your profile is intriguingly opaque.

Wait - are you Jim Fazzina - that kid who beat me up in 3rd grade?!?

[szetela]

Thanks, David Wallace. Over drinks at a future conference, I'll tell you the sad and sordid story of my attempt to run a PPC agency business out of an RV that parked in Bullhead City and Goodyear AZ.

[Mel66]

Hi Melissa! I had no idea you'd switched jobs - great to see you here.

One of the great things about being in the PPC "space" is that demand far outstrips supply - so there can be more "co-opetition" than there is competition.

I'm gonna add your blog to my Blogroll and Big PPC List (http://www.clixmarketing.com/blog/2008/01/06/our-favorite-ppc-blogs/). Looking forward to hangin' with you here!

By the way, I'm one of the few people who gets your blog name - Beyond the Pale, right?

Thanks for adding my blog - appreciate it! Yes, you're right about the name. I wrote a post about it way back in the beginning. :)

I switched jobs in October, and have been unbelievably busy ever since! I'm still getting around to updating all my profiles and contacts.

Glad you're here!

Melissa

[jimbeetle]

intriguingly opaque
Hmmm, I guess much of my online rep management has gone more to privacy management than anything else. I'm actually much more gregarious at conferences and meetups ;-).

So, here's my recently added details:

Age: 56
Biography: Self-employed since early '80s as a freelance writer until fulltime as an affiliate marketer in '97.
Location: New York City
Interests: MLB, NFL, Food, Books (history, bios, mystery), Tech gadgets
Occupation: Affiliate marketer with a side in SMB SEO

[AussieWebmaster]

jim find me at NYC SES.... you should join IMNY

[jimbeetle]

We've met at the last couple of IMNY charity do-s, AW (not a member, just trying to be a bit sociable). I'm the Brooklyn kid now in Manhattan.

Sheesh, how soon they forget. Guess I gotta' get a personality one of these days. ;-).

[AussieWebmaster]

lol... was not sure if we had met

[szetela]

Melissa: Thanks - I'm glad I'm here, too! Thanks to Frank for inviting me.

Jim: hope we meet up soon - we can work on that shy thing.

All: I may be a little less responsive for the next week - leaving for London tomorrow for a week.

[Chris_D]

Welcome David. Great to have you here.

Chris Dimmock, Sydney Australia

[szetela]

Thanks, Chris.

[rustybrick]

Welcome!!! Nice to have you here!

[jewboy]

Congrats David Szetela from the only non-moderator in this thread.

[AussieWebmaster]

avi you are getting there... lol

[beu]

Beu - thanks - and from the looks of your bio, seems it might be worthwhile to introduce you to one of our favorite clients (http://www.replayphotos.com).
Totally, they don't have any DAWGS photos!
:)

[szetela]

Sorry for the late responses - I'm in London this week and waaay overworked.

Thanks for the welcomes, RB and JB!

[Discovery]

Welcome, nice to have your input here... and joined straight out as a mod. I guess I have to show my face at an SES or SMX some day.

1. Best practices for creating ads and ad groups
Well that’s the secret sauce and about 50 pages.

2. Placement Targeted campaigns
Google - not working - in my view too easy for bad publishers to scam the PPC and Impression side of the equation. Not enough incentive for good/rookie publishers to accept CPA bids. Lastly, why would a publisher want to place his/her revenue squarely on the shoulders of an advertiser’s landing page? Honestly, my landing pages would go from a come one come all entry to a strict dress code policy with a huge visual emphasis on calling in.

3. Quality Score
I think its doing its job for the most part. I see junk from time to time hit the top, but it quickly falls.

4. Bidding best practices
The finer the bidding detail the better the results. Goes back to campaign set up - how best can you isolate your campaigns so that themes are tight and bids are highly controlled. Editor is the way to go.

5. Analysis using Placement Performance reports
Placement reports are a great start and have helped to slow down the surge of junk click offenders, but are we working backwards here? Google's model creates an ad network from the top down. Throw our ads on millions of sites and slowly roll out tools to help us chisel it down into an acceptable network. It's obvious all advertisers want a much higher degree of control over the ad's distribution. Would they ever start from the bottom up? This is essentially what Placement targeting does, but since its not required by the publishers the whole model collapses.

Perhaps when data sharing has matured we can establish a content network starting point based on vertical. Hell it could even be viewed like a mutual fund...This network fund has a junk bond delta, this a blue chip, that a Bears and Sterns.. ouch. When will G move to a custom built, advertiser defined, ad network? This will be a separate product, no?

6. Non-text Content ads (e.g. banners, video)
Doesn't play well with our vertical - Video may in the near future.

7. Gadget advertising
Doesn't play well with our vertical

8. Mobile Content advertising
Still some tech hurdles to cross to make this a viable medium. Screen size, browser issues, bandwidth and so on. Still have yet to see a working model or a good vertical for this outside of add-ons pushed by the service provider


Discovery