1) Please give us your background and let us know what you do for a living.
I started working in digital in college. I was a full time co-op at DuPont for about 8 months, where they tasked me with implementing what was then Omniture Sitecatalyst enterprise wide. Seemed like maybe a dicey task for an intern, but I got a TON of experience that I’d never have gotten otherwise. I also got a chance to set up AdWords for a few of the business units there and was blown away that a 20 year old could have pull in the marketing department because nobody else knew what was going on! I quickly learned the stodgy old school Fortune 500 world wasn’t for me, and progressed to a few agencies and marketing channels (affiliate, email, SEO, Display) over the years before landing here at Elite.

At Elite, I oversee what I’ll call the mid-Atlantic SEM experts-onlye an experts only approach, so my team ONLY works on SEM, GDN and a tiny bit of shopping. Better to be an inch wide and mile deep than an inch deep and mile wide. We focus primarily on enterprise, working with big budgets and navigating the complexitites of where SEM fits into a well defined marketing program. I like to say my role is to support rather than govern, so I spend most of my time evaluatng long term strategies and industry trends to make sure our clients are equipped for years to come.

2) What is your current assessment of the quality of Google’s various “Smart Bidding Solutions” and is there still a role for manual bidding?
They’re trending in the right direction. I must admit I was skeptical when they first launched (smart is the new enhanced…), but it’s pretty tough to compete with auction-time bidding for signals we can’t see. The challenge with Smart Bidding and all Google-developed products is they can only see what they can see. That is, the success of Smart Bidding depends on the data you feed it.

If you have a re-marketing audience that’s performing well, Smart Bidding will drastically increase bids there because it sees a high propensity to convert. It won’t see “oh these may be current customers,” it will ONLY see a high conversion rate. Or, if you’re generating leads and it sees a display placement with covnerting well, the tool will go HAM and bid like wild without regard for lead quality.

The other challenge facing smart bidding now is that it has a short memory and, for all intents and purposes, starts from zero after every change. I’d love if future state would allow us to “coach” Smart Bidding, telling it to bid down on weekends hard since we know those converters are worse rather than waiting for it to figure out. That, and waiting for it to “learn” from more than 30 days of data.

I’m an advocate of automating bidding as much as possible, so I would say avoiding manual as much as possible is a benefit. BUT, I don’t think we’re ready for a fully automated world until we can get some additional (or any) levers in place. There’s still a place for classic rules-based bidding and maybe a few truly manual bids.

3) How should a client evaluate the performance of their agency?
Loaded question! To be successful, an agency must always be forward facing. You as a client, should always know what’s coming next and should always be prepared for the future. You should understand what the present scenario is, what caused your account to get here, and what you can do to keep progressing in the future. I’m wary of any agency that treats search engines/bid tools like the enemy. We may not like any changes, but those who try too hard to preserve old tactics are the ones who wind up getting left behind.

This is going to sound a bit um, agency friendly and excuse-y, but here goes. Take caution evaluating your agency on media performance alone. The PPC marketplace is a tumultuous one; sometimes Google + Bing change the SERP for your top performing terms. Sometimes a new competitor comes in with an unlimited budget and wanting to “own” a term. There’s likely nothing anyone can do to stop either scenario, but you as a client should have a full understanding as to what’s changing in the landscape and how your team is doing their best to move forward in stormy seas. If you DON’T have a reason and a forward facing plan for why the current scenario is the way it is, that’s when it may be worth evaluating a new partner.

I’ll also advocate that you evaluate what you’re getting for your money, to make sure your agency is providing value for price you’re paying them in whatever form that value takes. If your agency is saving you time, that’s value. If they’re improving performance, that’s value. Spending less but making the same revenue, value. If they’re just keeping the lights on… well, call me.

Go to Aaron’s Session on the Agenda

Go to Aaron’s Bio Page

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SEMpdx is offering a 20% discount off the registration price when you use Promotion Code SEMpdx

(NOTE: This is a non-profit event, with proceeds used to support K-12 arts education programs in Oregon.)

For more details and to register, visit https://cre8con.com

Speakers confirmed so far* (1 more TBA):

• Kiki Wolfkill – Studio Head, Halo Video Game Entertainment Franchise, Microsoft. Fast Company Most Creative People in Business 2017.
• John Gourley – Songwriter, Lead singer, and guitarist for Portugal. the Man. Grammy winner 2018.
• Arianne Sutner – LAIKA feature film Producer (Kubo and the Two Strings, ParaNorman). Academy Award nominee 2018.
• Richard Ting – Global Chief Experience Officer, R/GA. Cannes Titanium Lion winner, Grand CLIO winner.
• Raamla Mohamed – Screenwriter/Story Editor/Supervising Producer for ABC’s Scandal television series
• Ronnie Wright – Jordan Brand @ Nike Footwear Design Director, Singer/Songwriter
• Paige McKenzie & Mercedes Rose – A mother/daughter team from Portland who went from a hit Web Series to a hit YA Book Series to a TV deal

In addition to several keynote presenters, there will also be attendee receptions after the conference at Wieden+Kennedy and the Wacom Experience Center. For complete details and to register, visit: https://cre8con.com

Sponsored by:

Overview:

Portland Creative Conference
Gerding Theater at the Armory, Pearl District
Friday, September 28, 2017
8:00am – 9:00am Check-in and networking
9:00am – 5:00pm Conference
5:30pm – 7:30pm Wrap Party @ Wieden+Kennedy and Wacom Experience Center
WEB: cre8con.com
EMAIL: events@cre8con.com

*Times & speakers subject to change

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cre8con

Facebook:  https://facebook.com/cre8con

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cre8con/albums

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/cre8con 

The post Portland Creative Conference 2018 Discount appeared first on SEMpdx.

SearchFest Videos Now Available

Over 17 Hours (1,000+ minutes) of Presentations and In Depth Q&A

View online or download and watch anytime

Presenters in the video bundle include keynote Tim Mayer, President of Heddle Marketing and eCommerce Quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rand Fishkin & Rae Hoffman, Marty Weintraub & Will Scott, Joanna Lord & Mark Traphagen, Larry Kim, Marshall Simmons and Ian Lurie. Please visit the 2015 SearchFest Speakers page for a complete list of presenters.

Presentation topics include SEO, Marketing Dashboards, Mobile Strategy, Social Content & Branding, Big Data, Content, Social and Mobile Strategy, to name a few. Please visit the 2015 SearchFest Agenda for a complete list of topics.

Get SearchFest-Smart Year Round

Nine short years ago a rag-tag team dreamed up the idea for SearchFest. Their main goal was to bring the best of our industry together to impart their knowledge on us regular folk. They didn’t know that personal connections, elbow grease and a lot of beer would help grow SearchFest into what it is today — a top conference drawing speakers from 14 states and 4 countries, with an expanding audience base that includes attendees from such faraway places as Kangaroo Island in Southern Australia.

They also didn’t know that that the industry would greatly expand, making it necessary to create four concurrent tracks — Deep Dive, Future Web, SEO Fundamentals and Social & Paid — to incorporate every discipline found within the ever-widening scope that is digital marketing.

Even if you were able to attend SearchFest, how could you possibly take it all in? Our solution: the SearchFest 2015 Video Bundle. For the first time we hired professional videographers to capture all of the SearchFest moments you may have missed, weren’t able to get to or simply can’t remember!

This is great news for those who were either:

1. Torn between seeing the Wizard of Moz (Rand Fishkin) present alongside SugarRae (Rae Hoffman) on Competitive Intel or Marshall Simmonds get into the nuts and bolts of Big Data and SEO.

2. Wishing your entire team could benefit from the learning opportunities offered by these enthusiastic and entertaining SearchFest speakers.

3. Unable to hop on a plane, bus or bike to get to this year’s SearchFest for any multitude of reasons.

4. Distracted by Marty Weintraub and Will Scott’s running tights and couldn’t jot down the wisdom infused throughout their social media presentation. Possibly you just need to revisit the workout moves that were featured to change up your routine.

The industry’s brightest minds are all yours for a relatively small investment, considering the value you’ll gain. You will be able to stream the videos to your various devices unlimited times. Each video will be packaged with the presenter’s slide deck (if available). Downloads of each session video are also available.

View SearchFest 2015 Videos Here.

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This year’s conference has expanded to the renovated Lincoln Hall 450+ auditorium and suites and will feature 3 tracks, 25+ speakers including keynote/futurist Brian David Johnson of Intel, a digital marketing boot camp, and an Ignite DMC.

Hear presentations on hyper-local to international business in Track 1 ranging from the local grocers’ use of social media to music, the arts and interactive media.

Interact with our Digital Marketing Strategies certificate instructors for Track 2’s boot camp. Submit your story for Track 3’s Ignite DMC and we’ll choose the most compelling to engage audiences in a theatre-in-the-round.

Interact with content, speakers, and industry professionals at the backstage lunch, Powell’s Books photo-lab, and evening wrap party.

Register by November 12 to get the early bird package for both the conference and the Backstage VIP lunch. SEMpdx members can save 15% with a promotional code from the member discount page. The event is sure to rock the house.

Don’t miss it.

The post SEMpdx Sponsors Digital Marketing Conference appeared first on SEMpdx.

AuthorityLabs is a rank monitoring service that lets you easily track and analyze ranking performance on Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

There’s no credit card required to set up a trial account, and you can track multiple domains for multiple keyphrases.

Upload your logo to brand the environment, and even provide logins for your clients. It’s fast, it’s easy to set up, and there’s a 25% discount for SEMpdx members for the first year of service. That’s $6 off, each and every month, so you make back a pretty good chunk of your SEMpdx membership.

To get the discount code, SEMpdx members can log in and look under “Ongoing Benefits and Discounts” on the member discount page and you can visit Authority Labs here.

The post Authority Labs Ranking Reports appeared first on SEMpdx.

Although many other conferences offer similar content and speakers, only PubCon is held in fabulous Las Vegas!

The thing I used to actually dislike about PubCon in Las Vegas was that everyone is so spread out, that it was hard to get people together, and hard to find the parties, afterparties, and the unsanctioned get-togethers.  In a smaller venue where everyone stays primarily in one or two hotels, it’s just easier.

Now however, the conference has grown so big, that there are always multiple events going on nightly, and even during the day sometimes, whether they’re official PubCon parties (2009) or “unsanctioned” events like the Purpose Inc. gatherings.

I’ll be speaking at Pubcon again for my 4th year running, and there may will certainly be other SEMboard members attending too, and maybe even speaking…

November 8 – 11, 2010 at the Las Vegas Convention Center

There are always lots of people to meet, and valuable lessons to be learned at PubCon.  (Last year for example, I learned that climbing the 10 foot wall across the Strip from the Hard Rock was a really bad idea.  –

If anyone has a photo of the gash on the bridge of my nose, feel free to send it to me

If you’re an SEMpdx member, get your discount code here…

The post PubCon Vegas 2010 Discount appeared first on SEMpdx.

As a special offer for our members, OMS is extending a 40% discount (that’s $150 off!) and a FREE signed copy from one of these Keynote Speakers (you choose the book) when you register for an OMS Regional event between June 7 and June 14.

Go to https://bit.ly/cMe9Do and use code bookplus150 before June 14 to get your free signed book and get $150 off.

Feel free to share this offer with your friends and colleagues and remember that it is only good until June 14th.

Lori Little is the Marketing & Communications Director for the
Oregon Lodging Association (soon to become Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association or “ORLA”)
www.oregonlodging.com

She managse and develop all communications and marketing efforts, internet marketing and social media to engage Oregon’s lodging industry; manages content and promote website as a resource; augments communications related to member services and advocacy with electronic newsletters; manages special events and programs to engage lodging members in educational, networking and advocacy programs; and continues to build awareness of OLA as an indispensable resource to lodging members.

The post Congrats to Lori Little For Winning The Free OMS Portland Pass appeared first on SEMpdx.

As you may already know, the Online Marketing Summit 22 City Tour is about to kick off this week. Two new thought leaders have just been added to the long list of expert speakers; Jeff Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak and author of best-selling Mirror Test and Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era.

As a special offer for our members, OMS is extending a 40% discount (that’s $150 off!) and a FREE signed copy from one of these Keynote Speakers (you choose the book) when you register for an OMS Regional event between June 7 and June 14.

Go to https://bit.ly/cMe9Do and use code bookplus150 before June 14 to get your free signed book and get $150 off.

Feel free to share this offer with your friends and colleagues and remember that it is only good until June 14th.

The post Tell Us Why You Want To Attend OMS Portland And You Might Attend For Free appeared first on SEMpdx.

Mark Knowles helped put together the conference and was kind enough to answer some of my questions.

1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.

I studied Computer Science & Business Management in college. There I learned FORTRAN, a dash of Unix, some assembler, etc. I was never good but, I loved what it could do. Then the PC happened, DOS, WordPerfect, Lotus, Novell, LAN Manager, OS/2, Windows, NT, Citrix, etc. In those days, gaming was snipes and Zork. Social networking was borrowing a floppy disc from a colleague. I think it was 1996 when I met John Audette at Multi Media Marketing Group (MMG) and he had some interesting little projects for us, he called “Ad Apps”. We were writing software and creating websites and saw MMG as a leader in the world of online marketing. John’s work piqued my interest and I ended up getting into search engine optimization and added that to our website design business. That was a long time ago. Today, I work with Pixelsilk and Smart Solutions doing somewhat similar work. The more that things change, the more they stay the same ;-).

2) Why did you decide to put on a 2 day conference in tiny Bend, OR containing full tracks for both SEO and Social Media?

Our clients said “Why don’t you put on a 2 day conference in tiny Bend, OR with tracks for Search, Social Media, and Creative Marketing?” We said “yes”. Just kidding. Actually, AdFed (Advertising Federation of Central Oregon) shared their vision with us that they would like to combine search, social, and creative marketing into a single conference to engage both sides of your brain. Like real life. We loved the idea and started pitching in to help immediatly.

3) For a first time conference, you got a heck of a good speaking roster…please give us some of the highlights.

That’s a tough question to answer because with this speaker line up, any session could be that memorable highlight. We do have three great keynotes from marketing leaders Chris Winfield of 10e20, Tim Girvin of Girvin, Inc. and Jim Riswold of Wieden Kennedy, a top drawer social media panel moderated by Chris Winfield, a live SEO hot seat where several websites will be reviewed by our star studded panel and moderated by Todd Friesen of Position Technologies, Oh, and we can’t leave out the Brew Ha-Ha Thursday night. The social event of the conference for all attendees.

If a topical overview would help, here are some of the things you can learn about next Thursday and Friday… SEO Framework, Reputation Management, Bold Collaboration, Working Search, Link Building, Radio and Audio Love, Expert Social Media panel examines sites, incredible networking event at the Brew Ha-Ha Thursday night with Four of Bend’s finest beers. Local Search, Zappos Case Study, $6 Million Creative, Lessons from Search Failures, Viral Campaigns, Humanitarian & Cause Related Branding, What you need to know about Social Media, Straight up SEO, Social Media Butterfly, and employment branding.

Another helpful angle may be to understand who our speakers are and who they have worked with. It’s an impressive lineup including… Microsoft, OutSpoken Media, Weiden + Kennedy, Apogee Search, Search & Social, Xhang Creative, Girvin, Inc., GetListed,org, Audette Media, Zappos, 10e20, Creature, Position Technologies, Yahoo!, Saatchi & Saatchi, Nike, Nieman Marcus, Rose City Radio, SEMpdx, New York Times, Boston Globe, Seventeen, TV Guide, Hewlett Packard, Citygroup, TicketMaster, Lending Tree, About.com, American Express, T-Mobile, Expedia, Capital One, Edmunds, AT&T Wireless, K2 Skis, Starbucks, HBO, Pepsi, Palm, Apple, Nordstrom, Warner Brothers, Procter and Gamble. Clearly first class experience to learn from.

4) What sorts of people are you hoping to draw to your conference?

Professionals, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, managers, and front line operators who’s job involves a website or any sort of marketing. All businesses and individuals that are or should be utilizing the search, social, and creative marketing for their business. Just them, no one else.

5) One can’t hold a conference in Oregon without beer being a featured component…please tell the audience your plans in this area.

Thursday night, October 15th, Audette Media and Pixelsilk are hosting the first annual “Brew Ha-Ha!” at The Blacksmith Restaurant in Bend. Every conference attendee can enjoy a flight of local brews. Four of Bend’s tastiest breweries are featuring one of their craft beers on the flight. The conference speakers will be at the Brew Ha-Ha too so, come meet them and have a round. Are you thirsty yet?

6) Many don’t know how many prominent folks in the SEO community live / used to live in Bend…please expand on this.

You’re right, there are a lot of folks unfamliar with the history of Bend, Oregon and SEO. About 13 years ago John Audette founded MultiMedia Marketing Group (MMG). It is arguable that MMG was the first company in the United States to do Internet Marketing and only Internet Marketing. The tag line was “The Internet Marketing Company”. Some of the folks on John’s early roster you may have heard of, Disa Johnson, James Gunn, James Puntney, Derrick Wheeler, Marshall Simmonds, Andre Jensen, Jeremy Sanchez, Bill Hunt and more. If you follow these guys you will find that most of them are leaders in the SEO community today. It is a fascinating story. Today, John’s son Adam runs AudetteMedia and may be the first second generation SEO in the world. To better understand those early days, we started a site several years ago, The The History of SEO where we ask prominent folks in the SEO community how they got started and what they were doing beforehand. I find it very interesting and some of it is hilarious!

7) Your company Pixelsilk has become very visible in the SEO community with its new CMS…please give us a high-level overview.

Wow, thank you for that question. Pixelsilk is a content management system that provides full HTML and URL control for professional web development while making site editors jobs easier than ever. Check it out online, it’s a must see but, then again, I am biased.

The post My Interview With Mark Knowles (Bend WebCAM) appeared first on SEMpdx.

Media planning is a dramatically different marketplace i.e. “push-pull” – which has developed as a result of the current economic situation.

come explore what we’ve earned from the BIGresearch data about consumption by consumers and customers in both good economic times and bad. Find out what’s currently happening with media consumption all across the U.S. marketplace.
Register Now

April 28, 2009
7:30am – 11:30am
Portland Center Stage
128 NW 11th Avenue • Portland, OR 97209

COST: $50 non-members
$40 for Members of PBA, AMA, PAF, ISF and PARC

Save $10 by using SEMPDX as the ID CODE, when you sign up here…

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