Post-PubCon Ponderings

Highlights from last week’s PubCon Conference

As we mentioned previously, folks from Yahoo! participated in last week’s PubCon 2007 conference in Las Vegas. Here are some practical tips and lessons learned from the event to help you in your search marketing goals.

Breaking Down the Break-Outs
On the first day of PubCon, Yahoo! participated on a session called “Major PPC Engines: Vendor Panel.” Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Patrizio Spagnoletto answered questions from the audience and shared great tips for creating ads from keyword research to writing ad copy, including:

• Always use the Keyword Suggestion tool
• Review your site for keywords and build from there
• 80 percent of your volume is probably coming from 20 percent of your keywords. Adjust accordingly.

Elaborating on the topic of writing effective ad copy, the session “PPC Marketing 101” featured search luminaries Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance, who also moderated the panel, and Mona Elessiely, Director of Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media. You may remember Mona as the author of “Mastering Panama.”

The panel tackled a common challenge that many search engine advertisers face: How to make your ads compelling and different from your competitors.

Here are some of the tips offered in this session:

• Urgency—By implying a sense of urgency in your ad, such as “Buy Now,” you may trigger some response among customers who feel they have to click on your ad because time is running out.
• Keywords in title—Try using keywords in your title to stand out from your competitors.
• Benefits—Mention why what you sell or offer benefits your customer.
• Humor—Sometimes a funny ad sets you apart from the herd and attracts attention, which in turn may attract more customers.
• Testing—Find out which ads work best for your business.

For more detailed coverage on this session, check out Search Engine Roundtable.

One of the many great moments at PubCon was the special evening event, “The Open Search Forum with the Engines,” a.k.a., “The Search Engine Smack-Down.” The panel was hosted by the legendary Guy Kawasaki and featured executives from the major search engines. Yahoo!’s Tim Mayer, VP of Product Management, and Dan Boberg, Managing Director of Sales Technology, were there representing Yahoo!.

Kawasaki posed questions on topics ranging from social media, quality control issues and more. He asked the panelists, “What is the philosophy of your search engine?”

“Our goal is to do and have it done in one search,” said Tim Mayer. “That’s why, with our many different products and services, we’re looking into user intent and queries to provide a bundle of information to the user.”

Kawasaki also asked the panelists to put themselves into the shoes of an entrepreneur today and explain what kind of model they would use in today’s new media landscape.

“It’s important to think as a marketer,” said Yahoo!’s Dan Boberg. “All webmasters out there can learn from brand marketers and how key influencers are very important. You have to ask yourself how you are going to create this spark. You want to continue to draw in customers and keep them there.”

Overall, the conference provided plenty of insight and illuminations. You might lose some money when gambling in Vegas, but PubCon was a win.

For further detailed coverage, please visit Search Engine Roundtable event reporting.

—Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

Photo courtesy Marc Levin via Flickr