This SES Chicago recap will cover the Google sponsored lunch session along with two additional sessions that I attended from Day 1.  This recap includes “What’s New and Exciting with Google Analytics?”, “Online PR: Where to Next?”, and “What’s the Link Between Search and Social?”.

My recaps will include some useful tidbits that I picked up during day 1 of SES Chicago.  Tweets were made from @marketwire as well as my personal handle @shinng using the hashtag #seschi and #rt2eat.  So what is the meaning of the latter hashtag?  Well, the creative marketing team @marketwire wanted to give back for the holiday season so we decided to take advantage of the Marketwire presence.  For every ReTweet of our tweets that include the hashtags #seschi #rt2eat, Marketwire will be donating $1.00 per RT for a max contribution of $500 to benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

SES Chicago Lunch Sponsored Session – What’s New and Exciting with Google Analytics

Speakers: Phil Mui (Google Analytics)

I was able to catch the major announcements made by Mui through all the chatter and utensils hitting plates.   I’m sure 75% of those at this session were too focused on the surprisingly delicious conference food.

The emphasis of this session was on segmentation.  “Context is the queen of analytics; segmentation is the king.”

So what is exactly was “new and exciting with Google Analytics”?

• Segmentable custom variables – segmenting your website traffic can now be accomplished using advanced segmentation.  Ahhh, the beauty of utilizing feedback to offer convenience.
• Ability to add notes to data and share with other account users – you can make these notes public or private and you can also favorite notes.
• New tracking code wizard to allow for easier, accurate, and customizable tracking
• Enhanced API including the support for advanced segments among others.  More details to be announced.

SES Chicago Session – Online PR: Where to Next?

Moderator: Sally Falkow (PRESSfeed)
Speakers:  Beth Harte (MarketingProfs), Duncan Alney (Firebelly Marketing), Marty Weintraub (aim Clear), Andy Beal (Trackur)

The Online PR session was a great refresher, but I wish I had attended another session during this time slot.

• What is public relations? – 2 way mutually beneficial relationship between company and public
  • Media relations
  • Advertising
  • Press agentry
  • Public affairs (government)
  • Public affairs (community)
  • Issues management
  • Lobbying
  • Investor relations
• Why should you care about PR? (key points)
  • The past
  • Listening works
  • Being found works
  • Communicating works
  • Partnering
  • Telling your story works
  • People talking works
• Social media tools will change.  People being social won’t change.
• Online video: used more than all major network stations
• Video is not democratic – the best content doesn’t always win.
• Video=power
  • Video can be found easily via blogs, text, tags, links, tweets
  • Good video pulls journalists
  • Video is shared
• Predictions
  • Video – ability to capture and upload from any device
  • Integration will matter most (video+search+social+PR)
  • Strategy and execution is hyper critical
  • Experience will be the differentiation
  • Tools – allows one to stay in the flow, remain relevant and access info

Andy Beal of Trackur went into press releases to end the session.  Lots of good tips.

• What to look for when analyzing your press release effectiveness
  • Where’s your press release landing
  • Which countries (unless, of course, you use a service like Marketwire and can pick and choose so you know exactly where your press release is going)?
  • Which search terms?
  • Compare press release headlines
• Find the experts to send your pitch
  • Identify the influencers
  • Check google rankings
  • Check blog links
  • Who gets quoted?
  • Compete.com data
• Advanced technology helps your monitoring
  • Industry trends
  • Competitors’ keywords
  • Track reach
  • Identify allies
  • Google alerts
• Take a closer look at your analytics
  • What keywords bring ROI?
  • Look for single source increases
  • Are there changes in the top entry pages?
• URL sharing
  • Make it easy to share links
  • Track clicks, shares, RTs (on Twitter)
  • Bit.ly (url shortener)
  • Build your own with awe.sm
• Don’t hold on too tight with your content / This was one of my favorite parts of Beal’s presentation because there are too many companies that are too close minded.
  • RSS
  • Videos on YouTube
  • Images on Flickr
  • Delicious link page
  • Presentations on slideshare

• The future – Andy Beal talked about his “want list” of press releases in the future
  • Dynamic press release – ability to test different headlines, ability to change keywords in links, automatically fix typos, automatically update content
  • Link tracking across platforms
  • Performance based press release writing/distribution as opposed to the flat fee – example: Beal stated that he would rather pay $1000 for getting ‘x’ coverage than pay $200 for press release distribution and hope to get that ‘x’ coverage

SES Chicago Session – What’s the Link Between Search and Social?

Moderator: Aaron Goldman (Connectual)
Speakers:  Marshall Clark (Organic, Inc.), Tobias Peggs (OneRiot), Brian Boland (Facebook), Bryan Simkins (FedEx)

Unfortunately by the last session, I was too exhausted to listen attentively.  However, I managed to jot down a handful of notes and capture a few screenshots.  The content and images were provided by Tobias Peggs (OneRiot)

• The core of Facebook is identity, connections, and sharing
• Facebook becomes powerful because of the trusted source of information
• In regards to Google’s clickstream, Facebook is #1 for clicks in both upstream and downstream click analysis
• Social sharing replaces SEO in the realtime web
  • Optimize your pages for indexing –> Create compelling content
  • Solicit inbound links to your content –> Make it easy for people to share your content
  • Get to the top of the search results page –> Get to the to of the search results page
• SEM needs to work in realtime on the realtime web
  • Buy positions that deliver predictable traffic flow –> Hot topics are bursty, interest moves on quickly
  • Show your company next to brand-sensitive content –> Buzzy content is frequently not brand-sensitive
  • Know with certainty where content is being viewed –> Users engage with various modes of consumption
• 

Day 1 of SES Chicago 2009 was all about search, analytics, and conversion.  I posted a recap of the Jeff Jarvis keynote.

This SES Chicago recap will cover 2 of the 5 sessions from Day 1.  The 1st two sessions include “Search Analytics” and “Search: Where to Next?”.

My recaps will include some useful tidbits that I picked up during day 1 of SES Chicago.  Tweets were made from @marketwire as well as my personal handle @shinng using the hashtag #seschi and #rt2eat.  So what is the meaning of the latter hashtag?  Well, the creative marketing team @marketwire wanted to give back for the holiday season so we decided to take advantage of the Marketwire presence.  For every ReTweet of our tweets that include the hashtags #seschi #rt2eat, Marketwire will be donating $1.00 per RT for a max contribution of $500 to benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

SES Chicago Session – Search Analytics

Moderator: Richard Zwicky (Enquisite)
Speakers: Jim Sterne (Web Analytics Association), Matthew Bailey (SES Advisory Board, Site Logic Marketing), Dennis Mortensen (Yahoo!)

The panel started off the session with a simple question, but it set the tone for the rest of the session.

Question: When it comes to analytics, what should you use?
Answer: Behavior

• The goal is to optimize process.  Focus on single process and optimize it.
• 4 Big Optimization Metrics – presentation, content, and images provided by Jim Sterne (Chairman, Web Analytics Association)
  • Behavior – what do they do
    
  • Attitude – how do they feel
    
  • Competition – how do you compare
    
  • Outcomes – what are the results
  • 
    
• How to prioritize analytics
  • Revenue is at risk
  • Boss asks for it
  • Does not overwhelm
  • Requires an analyst rather than being self serving
• Not all visitors are the same.  The key is segmentation – what did the user want and expect.
• 7 segments for search success – Presentation, images, and content provided by Matt Bailey (SES Advisory Board, SiteLogic)
  
  • Keyword buckets – “segments”; Sub-buckets – brand name, other terms
  • Segment acquisition
  • 
    
  • Segment bounce rates
  • Segment behavior
  • 
    
  • Segment content into persuasive pages, entry pages, time on page, and search
  • 
    
  • Segment entry points
  • Action – do something
• Keep analysis in context.  User behavior is different depending on the page they came from.

SES Chicago Session – Search: Where to Next?

Moderator: Simon Heseltine (AOL)
Speakers:  Eli Goodman (comScore), Justin Merickel (Efficient Frontier), Ronald Burr (WebVisible), Douglas McMillen (Microsoft Advertising)

• The session started off talking about the changing SERPs (search engine results page).  The point?  Advertisers need to think about the new multimedia SERP that displays products because information is adding more depth into the search page.
• The “bottled water” example
  • Image results dominate the search results
  • Concern raised regarding the user experience put out by Google, but it also shows how important it is to leverage the multimedia search results page
• Look at local business, product extensions, and comparisons.  The benefits:
  • Creating long tail automation
  • Enabling creatives to be more specific
  • Automates significant manual efforts
  • End result: greater coverage in search results
• The Zappos “Asics running shoes” example specifically regarding above-the-fold in Google
  
  • #2 in paid search results and 6 individual images from Zappos above the fold in Google
    
  • The Google user experience is questioned because who wants to see image results from the same company repeatedly?  On the flip side, it goes to show that leveraging this changing SERP is important.

• Creative management is:
  • Developing feeds
  • Mapping feeds to creative template
  • Generating ad variations from creative template
  • Assigning/matching to ad groups based on feed data
  • Pushing to search engines via API
• Is display now search like?  There are 2 big trends driving display towards search like performance
  1. Rapid expansion of auction based access to inventory
  2. Access to targeting data decoupled from media
• When exposed to both PPC and display ads, consumers were found to be 2 times more likely to complete a transaction.
• To get search like content, you have to retarget and use 3rd party data to do it effectively.
  

The speaker I was most looking forward to hear speak, Eli Goodman from comScore, ended the session.  His 3 talking points: Branding, In-Text Search, and Social Search

• Branding - you always want to be on the short list for the consumer
  
  • Stat: $118 billion for branding vs $68 billion for direct response
  • As organic searches become richer, sponsored results must keep up.  Expect innovations.
  • Don’t just think about the obvious terms, but related concepts and terms, i.e. “assistive terms”
    
  • Think of search as the traffic driver to the brand mechanism.
  • The GE “ecoimagination” and “clean energy” example – none of their pages rank highly for the latter term in the SERPs.  Very few people actually search for the term “ecoimagination”.
    
  • The point: Focus on what people are searching and related terms.  GE can focus on “clean energy”, “energy saving”, “energy saving tips”
• In-Text Search – search results that show up when you mouse-over content.  When hovering over a link, a pop over appears with a relevant link.
  
  • This mixes content consumption with search possibilities.
  • Value of in-text offers a way to be informative, useful,  and entertaining.
  • The most useful content increases user engagement.
  • As functionality increases, so does CTR (click through rate).
  • The Hellman’s Recipes example – when hovering over related key terms, a pop over appears with recipe ideas and ingredient lists.
• Social Search
  • Alternative search properties such as Facebook show strong year-over-year search growth from September 2008.  The exception is MySpace.
  • Social search is the next frontier, thus social search results need to be more relevant.
  • Food for thought: think about how you trust your friends for one thing, while you trust other friends for different things.
  • Optimize content for social networks.  This presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers.
• The guy from Microsoft Advertising specifically Bing, was too sales-y so I went in-and-out mentally.  The few tidbits that I did jot down include:
  
  • Bing’s upcoming mobile search will be similar to the online search user experience.
  • Stat: Mobile broadband users will reach 30% penetration in 2010
  • Now is the time to start testing and learning because mobile inventory is much cheaper for broad terms and mobile search is seeing 2-3 times higher click-through-rates.
    
  • Stat: In 2008, 5.2 million mobile search users, by 2013, the number will jump to 56.2 million
    

Every Friday, I plan on posting the most useful online marketing stories of the week.  The majority of you have probably seen the top marketing news via Twitter, but it’s also a way for me to archive for my own benefit and learnings.  Selfish and helpful at the same time right?

Most popular post on Marketing Shindig – How to Optimize Your Twitter Page

My Personal Favorites for the Top Online Marketing Posts of the Week

1. 50 Blogging Lessons To Know If You’re Starting Today by Adam Singer of The Future Buzz
   • Okay so we all know the benefits in blogging.  Still not sure?  Then be sure to read Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere.  There are numerous benefits to blogging, blah blah blah, yada yada yada.
   • Why I liked Adam’s post so much – Everyone likes lists, but everyone loves lists that are beneficial in helping one succeed.  I agree that the lessons will help those starting a blog, but it will certainly benefit those who have been blogging for years.  Don’t let the title fool you, it is NOT just for those starting a blog.
   • Out of the 50, below are just some of my favorites:
     • If you wouldn’t do it for free, don’t do it at all.  In other words:  do it for passion and for yourself and you can’t lose.
     • It’s not going to be easy – nothing rewarding is.  /Nick – this applies to life in general, but when it comes to blogging, it takes commitment; no joke.  Many of my sites have fell by the wayside because I just didn’t have the time.
     • …and get involved in conversations with smart, interesting people.
     • The best blogs are products of success from pull, not push.
     • Realize that promotion is secondary to content.
2. HubSpot Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk by HubSpot
   • Why I liked the interview with Gary V so much – Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) is one of the more influential social media users and success stories today.   The “Social Media Sommelier” has used social media to successfully grow his family’s wine business.  HubSpot does a great job interviewing internet celebrities and asking insightful questions.
   • My favorite quotes from the interview:
     • “I don’t feel like a rockstar, I feel ridiculously lucky…” /Nick – love the humble attitude.
     • “Passion gives you the drive it takes to make a product awesome and convince people that it’s awesome…” /Nick – awesome.
     • “…realize that I wasn’t going to own the New York Jets if I didn’t make a change…It took 6 months before anybody really took notice of what I was doing.” /Nick – so incredibly inspirational. This portion of the interview was by far my favorite.  Getting the background of success stories.
     • “You can’t be a fake brand.”
3. 3 Realities of Social Media by guest author Michael Brito on PR 2.0
   • Why I liked Michael’s post so much – The 3 realities that Michael points out in his post hit the nail on the head.   It’s concise and straight to the point, but also very true.
   • What are the 3 realities?  Consumers already get it, brands still trying to figure it out, Brands should focus on people first, No such thing as a social media expert yet.
4. 5 Must-Read Social Media Marketing Studies compiled by Social Media Examiner
   • Why I liked this compilation of studies so much – I personally love stats, but only from relevant and respected sources.  Yes, there are about 5,365 social media “studies” out there, but only a handful of those studies are from reputable sources.  Just a good, take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-but-still-interesting read.
   • The numbers discussed: 26 million (1 in 7) adults will use Twitter monthly, Americans spend 17% of online time on social media sites, over half of marketers will be using social media, blogs are considered most useful tool by over half of businesses, 3/4 of marketers plan to increase social media use in 2010.
5. Future of Deliverability: The Role of User Interaction by Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports
   • With all the talk about social media and how those 5,365 (made up number FYI) studies are saying the usage of social media is increasing in popularity, email marketing is still an essential part of one’s business.  The ROI is tremendous so I was pleasantly surprised to read such insightful posts by Mark on email marketing especially this post.
   • Why I liked Mark’s post so much – Mark talks about the engagement aspect of email marketing by discussing user interaction and reputation.  I liked the fact that he was able to get feedback from several deliverability experts.
6. Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible and Intelligent by Google Analytics Blog
   • Why I liked this post so much – More power to google analytics is always a good thing.
   • The major takeaways on the enhancements: define up to 20 goals per profile, ability to track mobile websites/apps, advanced table filtering, multiple custom variables, “Analytics Intelligence” which will provide automatic alerts of significant changes to your data, among others.  Videos are available.
7. Want More Clicks?  Tweet Less by Dan Zarrella
   • Why I liked Dan’s post so much – I personally like Dan’s analytical approach.  Perhaps it was the pretty graphs and all the neat colors used in the graphs, but let me tell you that you will get at least one takeaway reading Dan’s post.
   • What does he go over: CTR (click through rate) by links per hour, Average CTR by links per hour, CTR by links per day, Average CTR by links per day.
   • What is the main takeaways besides reading the title of the post?
     • “The more frequently you tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get”
     • “If you want your tweet to get noticed and RT’ed, slow down your posting rate”

The Marketing Videos I Enjoyed Most This Week

• I never get tired of the always interesting, extremely fascinated, where-did-they-get-the-numbers-from-please-show-me-the-sources video titled “Social Media Revolution” that answers the question, “Is Social Media a Fad?”.  The answer is obvious -NO-, but the stats in this video are quite amazing.

• Notice how quickly the buzz around Google Wave died down.  I was pumped when I received a Google Wave invite, but after approximately 1 min 52 sec, I logged off.  However, this user has made Google Wave very entertaining by utilizing one of the most memorable scenes of Pulp Fiction.

See you next Friday for more top online marketing posts of the week.