November 9, 2010 – This month’s event began with Tom Hale, of Thomas Creek Concepts, sharing some of his Google AdWords expertise.  He recommends thinking of AdWords as a matchmaking tool.  Know your value, understand your target market, and be honest and engaged.  In return, you’ll find the relevant keywords, ad copy and landing page content needed for a successful campaign.  You also need to be aware of the different traffic to your website and understand what type of “shoppers” these users are.  Above all, keep in mind your value proposition.

Heather Schwartz, from Anvil Media, explained the Yahoo! and Bing transition and how it’s affecting the search landscape.  With 33.8% of the market share (and growing), it’s worth your time to expand beyond Google AdWords and also advertise through Microsoft Ad Center.  In fact, Ad Center has several features that AdWords lacks.  One such benefit is more control over where your ads are shown.  Also advantageous is Ad Center’s capability to target specific devices.  Since users interact differently with each device, it’s important to uniquely target each one.

The evening ended with EngineWorks’ Steve Burnett sharing several Facebook advertising best practices.  As the most popular website in the world and one of the most interactive channels on the web, advertising on Facebook should be a no-brainer.  Facebook users provide a lot of valuable information, allowing advertisers to zero in on refined demographic targeting.  The true power of Facebook is the ability to target not only keywords but ‘likes’ , which lead to a higher CTR and conversion rate.

2 thoughts on “Paid Search – November SEMpdx Event Recap

  1. Sounds like a great event, Sarah. Mr. Hale’s discussion of the “type of shoppers” rings very true and is a key element of our discussions for new website content. Mr. Burnett’s comments about Facebook ads echo what actual FB ad customers have told me about their own experience. Good stuff! Thanks for the great recap. Hope to catch the next meeting.

  2. Nice recap of the evening. Good Q&A afterwards. Would like to continue the discussion on viewer fatigue.

    Also, kudos to Liquid for providing a great space for the event.

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