|
Monday, March 24, 2008
As anyone in our industry will tell you goes without saying, the people are some of the warmest and most genuine you'll ever meet.
This year's SES New York was particularly rewarding from that standpoint. Along with getting to know several people better - yes,  even people I already knew, like Kevin Ryan and Rory Brown, along with new faces (to me) like Pauline Ores, the social media expert at IBM - the week was fantastic.
But particular special mention has to go out to my friends Bryan Eisenberg and Larry Chase. Prior to SES, Larry hosted a dinner at one of his favorite haunts in Manhattan, where we got a chance to network with several new people as well as old gurus. Larry's tales of a long-ago trip across Canada, running out of money, and working his way across the prairies and the Rockies, were particularly fun. (That's Mona Elesseily and me deciding what to order.)
Larry has a detailed recap of SES New York here. Highly recommended.
As anyone hanging around in the speaker room (Tim Ash, Li Evans, Rory Brown, Matt McGowan) knows from the leftovers they scarfed down, Bryan kidnapped a few of us and took us on a little walking tour of Brooklyn, complete with genuine delicious Brooklyn pizza. Search people are nothing if not authentic.
Thanks, guys.Labels: bill barnes, brooklyn pizza, bryan eisenberg, jill whalen, larry chase, mona elesseily, pauline kerbici, ses new york
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
Friday, August 03, 2007
My colleague Mona is celebrating a birthday over the weekend. What a great coincidence, because I've just received the final layout of her great new report, Mastering Panama, which will launch to the public in a couple of days (oh the joys of self-publishing). They won't let you send champagne through the mail in socialist British Columbia, so for now we'll have to get creative in wishing her the best.
Mona's been driven to distraction by this project -- nothing like being the author and layout supervisor all at the same time as holding down your day job -- hence this, um, sympathetic cartoon whipped up by the good folks over at Search Engine People portraying a gaggle of industry authors who have most certainly been there.
Stay tuned for launch!
Congratulations Mona!Labels: cartoon, mona elesseily, yahoo search marketing
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
Saturday, February 25, 2006
 It's now available! Page Zero has just released the world's first Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook, meticulously researched and written by my colleague Mona Elesseily. We appreciate all the input from the SEM community that helped in fact-checking and understanding advertisers' particular frustrations with Y!SM.
As you'll see, Mona doesn't pull any punches. And the 102-page illustrated guide to improved Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns (formerly Overture) is practically formatted with action items that correspond to the analysis.
From readers, I've heard time and again that Yahoo! is just frustrating to work with. In fact this week, I heard that exact story in sales calls with prospective clients, both Canadian. One e-commerce project manager, from the government, had actually budgeted more for Yahoo in 2004, but found nearly all the legit traffic and customer support came from Google, so the budget for 2006 is being radically reshuffled. That's fair enough, though it's a shame, and she did take the trouble to point out that "Yahoo! are just hopeless! They just don't help!" Hey, don't shoot the messenger.
Another, a North American telecommunications firm, sang a familiar tune: "our Yahoo performance has just continued to drop as our business has grown -- mostly with the help of organic referrals and Google AdWords -- over the past three years. We call Yahoo up begging them, telling them we *want* to spend money with them, but we seem to get different answers all the time from uninformed reps."
But just saying that kind of stuff doesn't help you if you actually want to make money in this channel.
I've noticed people are now talking more about the details of how these online ad platforms work, especially now that MSN AdCenter and some other competitors are rolling out robust new services. And it's the details you need to master if you want to consider yourself an ROI marketer instead of one of those blase people who just "buy media." With Yahoo!, there are a *lot* of details. Not all of them pleasant. But if it's your full time job (as it is for Mona), isn't it time you confronted your demons and slayed that Y!SM dragon once and for all?
The regular retail price of the Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook will be $64, but for the next couple of weeks -- call it March Madness -- it's 40% off, so take advantage now.Labels: mona elesseily, ysm
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
View Posts by Category |
