Microsoft Yahoo Deal Makes SES San Jose 2009 Must-Attend Event

Microsoft Yahoo Deal Makes SES San Jose 2009 Must-Attend Event

So, I’m sure you’ve already about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. If you haven’t, check out the news stories and blog posts below:

It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal

It’s official: Microsoft-Yahoo ink 10-year search pact

Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Most Important Facts (And Some Opinion)

But if you want to figure out what MicroHoo means for your search engine marketing campaign, including your search engine optimization and pay per click advertising programs, then Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 is a must-attend event. It was already the right place to be and August 10-14 was already the right time to be there. But now it is the hottest ticket in town.

For example, you might want to attend the session entitled, “Don’t Call it a Comeback: Semantic Technology and Search.” Among the speakers who will be there for Q&A are: Othar Hansson, Software Engineer, Google, Kevin Haas, Senior Engineering Manager, Yahoo!, Mark Johnson, Program Manager, Bing, and Dr. Tomasz Imielinski, EVP, Global Search & Answers, Ask.com. I imagine they are all busy preparing for the event.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “SEO Tools of the Trade: What’s in YOUR Toolbox?” Among the speakers are Rajesh Srivastava, Principal Group Program Manager, Bing, and David Roth, Director of Search Marketing, Yahoo!, Inc. Will they play nicely and share the same advice?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Phones & Local Search.” Among the speakers are Josh Siegel, Product Manager, Mobile Local Search, Google, and Justin Jed, Group Product Manager, Bing Mobile. Will we see the SES version of PubCon’s Search Engine Smackdown?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations.” Among the speakers are Marc Canabou, Senior Director, Product Management Leader, Yahoo! Search Advertising, and Ari Levenfeld, Manager Client Services, Ask Sponsored Listings. Do you think they are updating their presentation as you are reading this?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Credit Crunch: The Death of Last Click Attribution and its Impact on Paid Search Advertising.” Among the speakers is Mark Grote, Sr. Search Advertising Manager , Microsoft. Do you think you should be taking notes?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues.” Among the speakers are Greg Grothaus, Search Quality Team, Google, Sasi Parthasarathy, Program Manager, Bing, Ivan Davtchev, Lead Product Manager, Search Relevance, Yahoo! Search. The moderator may need to keep this from turning into a tag-team wrestling event.

Or, there’s the sponsored session entitled, “Bing Toolbox: Your One-Stop Shop for Better ROI.” The speakers are Rajesh Srivastava, Principal Group Program Manager, Bing, and Alessandro Catorcini, Senior Program Manager, Bing. This has just become a must-attend session.

Or, there’s the afternoon keynote by Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director, AdWords, Google. I wouldn’t skip this one, if I were you.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns.” Among the speakers is Mark McMaster, Senior Planner of B2B and Technology Markets, Google. This was a must-attend session already, but now you will really need to run, not walk, to get a good seat.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Real World Multivariate Testing.” Among the speakers is Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager, Google. What new messages will he be testing at this event?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Ads in a Quality Score World.” Among the speakers are Tomaso Pozzi, Product Manager, Core Model & Optimization, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Jonathan Alferness, Group Product Manager, Google. I want a ringside seat for this one.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “The New Search ROI: Measuring More than Conversion.” Among the speakers is James Colborn, Director, Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft. I know James. I’m sure he’d rather be invited to the White House for a beer with the Google guy, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. So, he may just have to make the best of it at this pivotal time in the industry.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Images & Search Engines: Getting the Full Picture.” Among the speakers are R.J. Pittman, Director of Product Management, Google, Todd Schwartz, Group Product Manager, Bing, Microsoft Corporation, and Kaushal Kurapati, Director of Product Management, Yahoo! Search. I want photos taken of this panel discussion.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “In-House SEO: Structuring the Organization for Success.” Among the speakers is Laura Lippay, Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo! Do you think it’s too soon to ask if Microsoft-Yahoo are structuring their organizations for success?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Search Becomes the Display OS.” Among the speakers are Rajas Moonka, Group Business Product Manager, Google Inc., and Josh Jacobs, Vice President and General Manager, Advertising Technology, Yahoo! Inc. Oh, boy, this is going to be great.

Now, the last time that “Microsoft-Yahoo deal” was a search term was back in February 2008. Microsoft Corp. had just announced that it had made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion.

Since it was an unsolicited bid, nobody wanted to talk about MicroHoo when they turned up at SES London 2008 two weeks later.

But, this time the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is a done deal. So, I’m betting that everyone wants to talk about what MicroHoo means for the search engine marketing industry.

And since I was already planning to be at SES San Jose 2009, now I’m going to have to scramble to get seats in the front row.

Search for SEM conference and find SES New York 2009

Search for SEM conference and find SES New York 2009

When I conducted a search yesterday on Google for “SEM conference“, the top sponsored listing was for Search Engine Strategies New York. However, the top organic listing was for the Society for Experimental Mechanics.

Welcome to the real world. The organic search engine results don’t always reflect the way we’d define a three-letter acronym (TLA).

And that’s why the SES New York 2009 agenda overview features a ton of conference sessions and training workshops devoted to search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Sometimes, PPC ads are the only way you can get found for a TLA.

If you are wrestling with similar, real-world challenges, then you have two options. First, you can read Andrew Goodman’s book, Winning Results with Google Adwords. (The photo on the left is Andrew signing his book at SES London 2009.) Second, you can get over to the Hilton New York next week and register for what should be the leading SEM conference by anyone’s definition. (Of course, you can do both.)

If you select the first option, here are the sessions and workshops that you should attend:

Monday, March 23

8:00am-12:00pm — Making Pay Per Click Pay - Best Practices in Pay Per Click Advertising

1:00pm-5:00pm — Landing Page Testing Crash Course

Tuesday, March 24

10:30am-11:30am — First Timer’s Guide to SES and SEM

11:45am-12:45pm — Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

1:45pm-2:45pm — Pay Per Conversation

3:00pm-4:00pm — Publishers & Agencies: New Business Models for Changing Times

4:30pm-5:30pm — The Dozen Most Common Search Marketing Mistakes That CMOs Make

6:15pm — SEMPO Networking Event

Wednesday, March 25

9:00am-10:15am — Search Advertising 101

10:45am-12:00pm — Google Workshop: Preview the new AdWords interface

1:00pm-2:00pm — The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?

2:15pm-3:30pm — Slash Your Search Budget: What Are Your Alternatives?

4:00pm-5:15pm — Wpromote Workshop: 8 Things You Aren’t Doing That Will Boost Your SEM Results

Thursday, March 26

9:00am-10:00am — Morning Keynote by John Gerzema, Author of The Brand Bubble

10:30am-11:45am — Advanced Keyword Research

12:45pm-2:00pm — Advanced Paid Search Techniques

2:15pm-3:30pm — Ads in a Quality Score World

3:45pm-5:00pm — Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Black Hat PPC Tactics

Of course, search engine marketing means more than just pay-per-click advertising, even if it commands the lion’s share of most SEM budgets. And SEM needs to be integrated into the rest of a company’s marketing mix. Last month, I interviewed Bill Hunt, the CEO of Global Strategies Inc. and Director of Global Search Strategy at Neo@Ogilvy, about this topic at SES London 2009. Listen to his insights below.

Bill Hunt, Global Strategies Int., on collaborative marketing at SES London 2009

Bill is just one of the many SEM experts who will be speaking at the SEM conference that our industry calls SES New York. How do I know that he’s also a top thought leader on Search Engine Marketing? Bill is the co-author of the best selling book “Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Traffic to Your Companies Web Site” from IBM Press. And Bill, you magnificent SEM, I read your book!

Google AdWords Launches New Traffic Model for Ad Planner

Google AdWords Launches New Traffic Model for Ad Planner

Last year, Google launched Ad Planner as a way to help media buyers plan their advertising campaigns. Now, they’ve updated their traffic models to improve planning.

Here are the updates:

• Added Unique Visitors (cookies), a new cookie-based metric, to help you cross-check and compare metrics, similar to Google Analytics unique visitor metrics.
• Changed Unique Visitors to Unique Visitors (users) so it’s clearer that you’re reviewing estimated numbers of real world visitors.
• Placed the Unique Visitors (cookies) and Unique Visitors (users) metrics on a site’s profile page so users will have a more comprehensive view of how a specific site can support their media planning.
• Added country demographics for Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Switzerland, which brings the demographics total to ten countries
• Created Pre-defined Audiences that represent commonly used audiences. Uers can experiment with various criteria without having to manually select them.

What do you think of the update? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Google Wants Feedback on Ad Planner
Google Ad Planner Now Available to Everyone
How Will Google Ad Planner Promote Network Inventory?

Keyword Research Services | SEO Research Labs

Keyword Research Services | SEO Research Labs
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