TGI Friday and Random Thoughts

TGIF! Have I told you lately how much I love weekends? No? Well I do. Don't get me wrong I have a pretty awesome job all things considered, but there is nothing as wonderful as coming home on a Friday night (especially if I was industrious and did some housework during the week).

For the next two days I can sleep in, wear my jammies all day or I can drag my poor husband out to watch the latest chick flick at the local theater. There will be no keyword lists, no bid tracking and most importantly (at least today) no spreadsheets to occupy my mind. There will be itunes at full blast on my laptop all weekend long, dinner out with my wonderful in laws and many hours spent catching up on my blog reading.

Do you ever wonder what is running through someone else's head? Here is a quick list of the things I have been thinking since I started this post:

1. I really should add links to the blogs I read regularly

2. Why is everyone so obsessed with how Britany Spears looks in skimpy undies?

3. Why does the lead singer for Matchbox 20 always look stone and homicidal at the same time?

4. I wonder if my boss will let me make "Crazy Bitch" by Buck Cherry my ring tone at work?

5. Should I go buy the new Radio Head cd just to give them props for being brave enough to self market and let people pay what they think the cd is worth...and just in case I actually like them now.

6. Is "The Dude" really trying to attract all the vampiric, World of Warcraft playing car dealerships?

Have a great weekend :)

Microsoft to Help Small Businesses Enter the PPC Market

Today Microsoft announced it's newest "feature" , they are going to offer PPC assistance inside of their Office Live Small Business edition. Personally, I think this is asking for trouble not only for them but for many small businesses who may not be ready for the challenges of adequately managing a PPC campaign. Doesn't this reek of conflict of interest to you? As a consumer I am definitely going to sign up to have my campaigns run by the company who owns the third largest search engine in the world, no questions asked. I am almost guaranteed a fantastic ROI (or so I would think) as it would be stupid of them not to give my campaign a healthy cost per click discount.

The press release says they are going to offer three classes at 19.95 to teach the essentials of SEM and SEO. Wow, I bet my boss would have loved a deal like that when he was spending thousands of dollars training us on SEO and SEM. The reality is that at best these businesses will get a crash course in Live Search, ROI, Adcenter and some basic information on what PPC is. My guess is there won't be real training that covers a/b testing, negative keywords, proper geo targeting by population, the importance of meta data, dynamic landing pages, effective ad copy writing, etc, etc, etc.

If 60 bucks was all it took to become an SEM/SEO expert then every campaign out there would have a fabulous ROI, a 25% conversion rate, and a CPC of under $3.00. The majority of these companies are going to set up their own SEM campaigns and then forget them, which is terrible for the industry as a whole. These businesses need to have a strong, well formed online marketing presence handled by a qualified professional who not only has the time but the skills necessary to coax these campaigns into success. The changes to search engine algorithms change regularly which often sends even the most seasoned SEM/SEO experts scurrying to regain lost conversions. Now imagine the effect one of these changes could have on "Jim the Plumber" who believes the hype that this solution is all he needs to secure his dream of retiring next year. It's Microsoft and they are the good guys... Right? When will Microsoft learn from it's own mistakes?

Double Clicking is for Windows

Today, while we were doing research for our PPC applications, I sent my co-worker the link to MSN's Ad Center Labs http://adlab.microsoft.com/. The ad with "Search Master Steve"really made me laugh. Sure the ad is targeting non professional SEM folks but I find it hard to believe most people won't consider the ad slightly insulting. How did they miss the lessons that Dell taught with their "Steve" in the early 2000's? I mean come on the guy was arrested for pot possession and completely ruined millions of dollars in advertising...

On initial review there are some cool little tools (demographic approximations!) but the real value seems to be diluted by MSN's outlandishly cartoon like presentation. Any statistical value these tools may actually hold seem to be so far buried in cute that they are rendered pointless. MSN would do well to just give us the info we need in plain html without all the "pizazz".

As my co-worker was reviewing the site he also pointed out that the site was extremely Microsoftish with its bright, surreal, cartoon like graphics and cheesy interface (I knew that was coming as he is a self proclaimed "website snob"). After getting over his "snobbery" he decided to check out some of the links anyways. After a few moments of discussing the relevance of some of the new information potentially available for our PPC campaigns he exclaimed "Double clicking is for Windows not the Internet! No one wants to double click on the Internet!"