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Posts Tagged ‘search marketing’
Tues News: 3/31 Clemons vs. Sullivan
Michael Block | March 31st, 2009
Let’s get ready to rumble! Last week, we brought to light the debate between Wharton professor, Eric Clemons, and SearchEngineLand.com CEO, Danny Sullivan, over the future of search marketing. This week, TechCrunch provides a great wrap up of the debate where both men weigh in a final time. All in all, both Clemons and Sullivan make good points, however, I remain unconvinced about Clemons’ opinion that search marketing misdirects users. He claims that brands are forced to pay for their own listings, otherwise, competitors will be awarded the top spot. For example: if Pepsi wants to make sure that Coke, or another competitor, doesn’t get listed ahead of Pepsi in a search for “pepsi,” Clemons contends that Pepsi is extorted by Google to pay for the listing. This would go vice versa for Coke. However, if you run a search for “pepsi,” “coke” or most other major brands, you will either see no ads at all, no banner ads at all or, at the very least, no competitor ads in the banner above the top natural result. There are exceptions, however, whenever Google determines that users don’t want ads in their results–user click data is used to determine this–there are often fewer or no ads to be seen. Brands can also keep competitors from using their branded terms and this often has an adverse enough effect on click-through rate to force competitor ads out of the top spot. In general, Clemons’ point seems to be a straw man argument; i.e. Continue reading…
Tues News: 3/24
Michael Block | March 24th, 2009
I wanted to focus on the downturn in Internet advertising revenues overall, focusing specifically on different opinions explaining the trend of what seems to be, at best, a sign of the tough economic times and, at worst, a harbinger of the end of online marketing as we know it.
Tags: danny sullivan, economy, eric clemons, Google, search marketing, sem, Tues News, Twitter
Posted in Tues News | 2 Comments
Chicken Little Didn’t Have Google: A Look at Search Marketing in a Challenging Economy
Michael Block | October 15th, 2008
by Michael Block Vice President, Client Services Wpromote, Inc. “The sky is falling!” –Chicken Little Generally, when it seems like the world is crashing down around you, in all actuality, it isn’t. The “sky” doesn’t simply “fall” of its own accord. It is important to remember that when Chicken Little was absolutely convinced that the heavens were careening earthward, the situation was no more severe than a simple acorn smacking her on the head as she ate her lunch beneath a tree. We are currently in the midst of one of the most tumultuous economic periods in modern American history. The era of the investment bank has ended, there is an unprecedented credit crunch in the global financial markets, consumer spending is down, home values have been falling and people are universally scared. Last week, the Dow Jones had its biggest weekly drop since 1933. Surely, this is no acorn! No, unfortunately, the current economic situation that is especially worrisome to small business owners is no acorn. However, it is the way that businesses react to these challenges that will determine whether or not the sky will fall on them. The common reaction is often to cut costs; one of the first victims of all the slashing usually being the marketing budget. This, in turn, reduces a business’s presence in the marketplace and sales will likely drop as a result. The short-term gains of cost cutting in this fashion inevitably lead to long-term losses in overall sustainability. It is a Continue reading…
It’s not the years, its the mileage – Prolonging Aging, new technologies
KRONiS | October 2nd, 2008
An off the wall topic -> prolonging your life through technological means and preventing the ‘disease’ of aging.
Wpromote Quoted in NY Times
Michael Block | June 16th, 2008
In an article printed on June 13, 2008 regarding the agency backlash to the proposed outsourcing of Yahoo ads to Google, Michael Mothner, President, CEO and all-around head honcho of Wpromote, was quoted in the online edition. Mothner mentioned the frightening potential repercussions of a partnership between the Internet’s biggest two search players: Michael Mothner, who runs a search-marketing firm called Wpromote, said the deal was “really scary from an advertiser’s perspective, knowing that we need Google, and if they decided to raise their prices or assess other fees, they have a lot of power now.” He added: “Even though Yahoo would be a separate entity, outsourcing search is essentially giving the keys to Google. From an advertiser’s perspective, it’s really scary how much it resembles a powerful monopoly over search ads. We here at Wpromote are very concerned with the search landscape, which seems to remain in constant flux. The only consistency with the search marketing environment seems to be inconsistency itself. Mothner’s comments will hopefully elucidate the risks of a Google/Yahoo partnership to some of the right people. Kudos to Mike for his high-profile quotation; let’s hope that this is just the first of many such opportunities for the company. Save this Post!
Tags: ny times, search marketing, Wpromote
Posted in Google, Internet News, Wpromote, Yahoo! | 2 Comments
