There’s an argument that’s been circulating in social media marketing circles about how “dangerous” it can be for marketers to rely on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, as compared to more organic ways of building traffic. You know, social media doesn’t have to be positioned as the destructor of advertising to justify its existence. The gist of the argument: a deep-pocketed competitor can come along anytime, say flush with VC cash, and outspend you. One day you …

Risk in PPC vs. social media marketing Continue Reading »

Here’s a brain teaser for you: 1. Most people claim to dislike advertising on the web. I know, display advertising is probably despised more than less flamboyant search ads. But in my recent survey, 71.4% of the respondents who don’t work in marketing claim that they never or rarely look at the sponsored search ads on Google or Bing. (Interestingly enough, even 31.6% of the people who do work in marketing made the same claim.) …

What if advertising were dead? Really? Continue Reading »

Forgive me, I was going to title this post something more subtle like, “Social media’s sin of omission,” but as a blogger shamelessly vying for your attention, I find myself succumbing to the very social media marketing arms race of “say what?!” that I want to push back on. I know, as a marketer, it’s politically incorrect to be anything less than doe-eyed ga-ga about the Wonder Bread that is social media. And to a …

Social media marketing stole my woman and ravaged my cattle Continue Reading »

As part of my adventure in academia at Harvard to explore new ideas in marketing technology, I’ve been taking a class on the intersection of economics and computer science. It’s an incredibly vibrant research area these days, particularly because online advertising auctions such as Google AdWords have provided a fruitful real-world application for software-driven market mechanism design. One of the topics that comes up a lot is the objective of making a system “incentive compatible,” …

23 strategic factors in search marketing bids Continue Reading »

This is one of those rare, cross-over posts related to my work at ion, but the concept at play is something that I think you’ll find relevant in many contexts. The recent popularity of two posts of mine — 8 dimensions of excellent landing pages on Search Engine Land and the 7 levels of landing page optimization on ion’s own Post-Click Marketing Blog — made me realize a common theme between them: sophisticated marketing arising …

Landing pages as atomic marketing Continue Reading »