The Pubcon 2009 SEM Conference which was held in Vegas on November 9-14 covered many aspects of Internet Marketing. After I filtered out all the advertising / self-promotion noise, I came up with a couple of major and related developments regarding the Online Marketing Industry. Firstly, much more attention is now being paid towards revenue generation rather than hype or non-business claims of success. Also, the SEM Industry has sufficiently evolved to the point where marketers are genuinely focused on conversions, results and actual ROI.
My Observations:
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has taken off in the past 3 years. Affiliates are smarter about SEO and conversions than they ever were. This is one of the few mediums that work for the advertiser and the publisher. Since the compensation is based on actual conversions and sales, advertisers Affiliate Programs attractive and desirable due to the direct correlation between sales and dollars spent to get the sales.
Lots of serious revenue is being generated using affiliate marketing. SEO experts are using their knowledge to build long lasting, rich-content sites to generate traffic and commission dollars. Many marketing companies are attracted to Affiliate Marketing as the marketplace itself is still ripe for continued innovation and opportunity i.e. niche content and concepts.
If you are an Ecommerce company, at least 20% of your revenue should be from affiliate programs. If you are an affiliate, you need to be involved in more networks and generate higher quality and quantity of content.
PPC Management
Optimum7 does not rely heavily on PPC. We believe that PPC is not an appropriate long term strategy for the overwhelming majority of clients unless they are seeking to promote a brand name where visibility is equally important in all search segments including paid search. Typically, we use PPC as a short to intermediate term strategy for our Internet Marketing clients while our organic SEO processes take hold. In this way, the client can get immediate visibility, traffic and conversions while SEO is “in the oven.” PPC was not discussed a lot during the PUBCON conference. I think everybody knows what it is and that, for the most part, the only company turning profits from PPC is Google. However, there was some discussion of paid search as many agencies still rely heavily on the management fees / commissions from PPC and Yahoo Paid Inclusion programs.
We do use PPC at Optimum7 and we are an Adwords Qualified company. We believe that PPC should be used only if it’s absolutely necessary. The panelists discussing PPC merely confirmed what Optimum7 has written about so extensively; that PPC can be very effective but this cannot be done without a strong commitment to statistical analysis to optimize conversions and click-throughs.
International SEO
This was the most impressive panel for me. Optimum7 does provide service internationally; language and translations are issues that require serious attention and commitment. However, the opportunities are enormous as both developed countries and the emerging markets are in serious of need of SEO and all Internet Marketing Services.
Baidu, the largest Search Engine in China was discussed and a point that we were well aware of was made; “What we consider to be gray hat or black hat SEO in USA, might be white hat SEO in China”. This means that Baidu (China) and Yandex (Russia) technology is still not as good as Google’s. However, in our experience with Google in countries like Turkey (google.com.tr) and Africa (google.com.za), we observed the same thing. High concentration of terms and meta tags still play a huge role in rankings in other countries.
In-House SEO
There was a lot of emphasis in “In-House SEO” during Pubcon. Some of the reasons include;
- The bad economy
- The unwillingness of certain companies to outsource SEO
- Large companies trying to do more and better SEO
- Too many bad experiences with existing SEO Firms
We believe that for a small or a medium sized business, it’s ideal to outsource SEO to a proven professional as this will be much less costly and much more revenue producing. We have an obvious bias, but it is based in the proven understanding the a dedicated Internet Marketing Company or SEO will always produce better business results at considerably less cost., It would be impossible to fully fund an in-house effort for less than $100k; compare that number with an average of $15K-30K for better results … there is no comparison.
Social Media
The hype about social media continues. As the panelists were speaking, many attendees were on Twitter instead of listening to what’s being said. We agree that Twitter is a good place to get across a message however I find Facebook, LinkedIn and the Social Bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, Stumble) much more useful in terms of generating traffic and actual revenue for businesses.
I actually specifically asked the question to the panel, “Traffic is always good and visibility cannot hurt; but how about conversions and ROI from social media? Will it ever happen?” I wanted to see the reaction. After a period of silence, the answer was “Not yet.” Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?
Contextual Ads & Google Adsense
This segment of Internet Marketing is similar as to its present stage of development as Affiliate Marketing. There are many individuals generating great revenue from contextual ads. There are also many advertisers spending a lot of money on Adsense. I believe that there’s potential there for the both. However, the technology to monitor clicks still needs to be improved by Google. For publishers, niche sites with rich and unique content can get a lot of ad revenue. This is one of those topics that include SEO, Conversion Optimization, Design and a lot of science to find the right combination towards generating reliable sources of revenue from contextual ads.
Conversion Friendly Design
Conversion Optimization is a big part of what all good online marketers do. Whether you are seeking actual sales directly on the site, leads, subscriptions, etc, it all is ultimately measured in ROI. All internet marketing must be solidly focused on increasing the rate of conversions through visibility, increased traffic, relevant and engaging content presented in a carefully crafted to lead the visitor to a favorable conclusion and ready to act.
Overall, Pubcon 2009 was very useful and a bit of an overdose for many newcomers. It’s always good to see an industry move in the right direction.
-Duran Inci
Related posts:
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- Affiliate Marketing – Why Advertisers Do it
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PUBCON: Internet Marketing Tools and Strategies
My Observations:
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has taken off in the past 3 years. Affiliates are smarter about SEO and conversions than they ever were. This is one of the few mediums that work for the advertiser and the publisher. Since the compensation is based on actual conversions and sales, advertisers Affiliate Programs attractive and desirable due to the direct correlation between sales and dollars spent to get the sales.
Lots of serious revenue is being generated using affiliate marketing. SEO experts are using their knowledge to build long lasting, rich-content sites to generate traffic and commission dollars. Many marketing companies are attracted to Affiliate Marketing as the marketplace itself is still ripe for continued innovation and opportunity i.e. niche content and concepts.
If you are an Ecommerce company, at least 20% of your revenue should be from affiliate programs. If you are an affiliate, you need to be involved in more networks and generate higher quality and quantity of content.
PPC Management
Optimum7 does not rely heavily on PPC. We believe that PPC is not an appropriate long term strategy for the overwhelming majority of clients unless they are seeking to promote a brand name where visibility is equally important in all search segments including paid search. Typically, we use PPC as a short to intermediate term strategy for our Internet Marketing clients while our organic SEO processes take hold. In this way, the client can get immediate visibility, traffic and conversions while SEO is “in the oven.” PPC was not discussed a lot during the PUBCON conference. I think everybody knows what it is and that, for the most part, the only company turning profits from PPC is Google. However, there was some discussion of paid search as many agencies still rely heavily on the management fees / commissions from PPC and Yahoo Paid Inclusion programs.
We do use PPC at Optimum7 and we are an Adwords Qualified company. We believe that PPC should be used only if it’s absolutely necessary. The panelists discussing PPC merely confirmed what Optimum7 has written about so extensively; that PPC can be very effective but this cannot be done without a strong commitment to statistical analysis to optimize conversions and click-throughs.
International SEO
This was the most impressive panel for me. Optimum7 does provide service internationally; language and translations are issues that require serious attention and commitment. However, the opportunities are enormous as both developed countries and the emerging markets are in serious of need of SEO and all Internet Marketing Services.
Baidu, the largest Search Engine in China was discussed and a point that we were well aware of was made; “What we consider to be gray hat or black hat SEO in USA, might be white hat SEO in China”. This means that Baidu (China) and Yandex (Russia) technology is still not as good as Google’s. However, in our experience with Google in countries like Turkey (google.com.tr) and Africa (google.com.za), we observed the same thing. High concentration of terms and meta tags still play a huge role in rankings in other countries.
In-House SEO
There was a lot of emphasis in “In-House SEO” during Pubcon. Some of the reasons include;
We believe that for a small or a medium sized business, it’s ideal to outsource SEO to a proven professional as this will be much less costly and much more revenue producing. We have an obvious bias, but it is based in the proven understanding the a dedicated Internet Marketing Company or SEO will always produce better business results at considerably less cost., It would be impossible to fully fund an in-house effort for less than $100k; compare that number with an average of $15K-30K for better results … there is no comparison.
Social Media
The hype about social media continues. As the panelists were speaking, many attendees were on Twitter instead of listening to what’s being said. We agree that Twitter is a good place to get across a message however I find Facebook, LinkedIn and the Social Bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, Stumble) much more useful in terms of generating traffic and actual revenue for businesses.
I actually specifically asked the question to the panel, “Traffic is always good and visibility cannot hurt; but how about conversions and ROI from social media? Will it ever happen?” I wanted to see the reaction. After a period of silence, the answer was “Not yet.” Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?
Contextual Ads & Google Adsense
This segment of Internet Marketing is similar as to its present stage of development as Affiliate Marketing. There are many individuals generating great revenue from contextual ads. There are also many advertisers spending a lot of money on Adsense. I believe that there’s potential there for the both. However, the technology to monitor clicks still needs to be improved by Google. For publishers, niche sites with rich and unique content can get a lot of ad revenue. This is one of those topics that include SEO, Conversion Optimization, Design and a lot of science to find the right combination towards generating reliable sources of revenue from contextual ads.
Conversion Friendly Design
Conversion Optimization is a big part of what all good online marketers do. Whether you are seeking actual sales directly on the site, leads, subscriptions, etc, it all is ultimately measured in ROI. All internet marketing must be solidly focused on increasing the rate of conversions through visibility, increased traffic, relevant and engaging content presented in a carefully crafted to lead the visitor to a favorable conclusion and ready to act.
Overall, Pubcon 2009 was very useful and a bit of an overdose for many newcomers. It’s always good to see an industry move in the right direction.
-Duran Inci
Related posts: