I Spoke At MediaPost Search Insider Summit

Last week, I had the honor of attending and speaking at MediaPost Search Insider Summit. What is Search Insider Summit? It’s a special digital marketing conference for top tier executives in our space. It’s typically an invite-only conference, and I was lucky and fortunate enough to be invited to attend and speak at this amazing conference on Amelia Island, Florida. I wanted to start off this post by sincerely thanking Rob McEvily, Junmian Sun, Jon Whitfield, and the entire MediaPost team. You guys put on the best digital marketing event ever.

Have you heard of ion interactive? These guys build the best and most impressive post-click marketing platform in the world. ion makes it easy for digital marketing professionals to test big ideas via landing page experiences, increasing their conversion rate. They not only offer an amazing platform, but they also offer amazing agency design services as well. As an ion power user of several years (I highly recommend checking them out), I was lucky enough to be invited to Search Insider Summit as ion interactive’s VIP guest. ion was gracious to sponsor me and pay for everything! And, they connected me with one of my most exciting public speaking opportunities ever (more on this later).

Ian Lopuch and David Rodnitzky (PPC Associates)

It all started last Sunday. I took an early 6:00am flight from here (San Francisco) to Houston, Texas. Then, I took another flight from Houston to Jacksonville, FL. Just 45 minutes away from Jacksonville is the beautiful oasis called Amelia Island. The day of travel was super long, but incredibly worth it! We stayed at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort. This place was absolutely beautiful and spectacular (check out photos below and throughout this post). My room directly overlooked the pool and amazing Atlantic Ocean. I arrived late in the day so I decided to grab a burger and catch some sleep. While the day was crazy with travel, I felt some true hospitality from everyone around. Those living in Jacksonville and surrounding areas are a great group, truly kind people.

The next Morning (Monday), the conference started! Monday was a really super day. I got to sit back and listen to some truly inspiring keynotes, presentations, and panels. We’re talking about the best and brightest in our industry. I took diligent notes on ideas I want to test first hand. I had lunch with Scott Brinker, Co-Founder at CTO at ion interactive. What an awesome lunch!

Later that day, I had the pleasure of partaking in a Segway tour of the island. We covered some great mileage (the place is huge) and networked as a team. It’s during the Segway tour I met Prashant Puri (CEO & Co-Founder) and Johnny Shami (Head of Business Development) from AdLift, the Bay Area’s SEO Agency. I was really impressed with AdLift, and it’s especially funny that I traveled across the country to meet two amazing marketers who live right here next to me! Speaking of Bay Area / Silicon Valley agencies, I got to spend some great time at the conference with my good friend David Rodnitzky, CEO of PPC Associates. David is such a great guy and guru within our space, I had a blast connecting with him several times throughout the conference. What a great opportunity to spend time with friends, both new and old.

Avish Dahiya (Baby Cache), Johnny Shami (AdLift), and Ian Lopuch

After the Segway tour, I enjoyed the cocktail hour and then the Yahoo! dinner. Dinner was a true blast. I got to sit with Leo Polanowski, VP of North America Account Management at Yahoo! Leo is my personal friend and a true leader in our industry. He has built one of the best account management organization around (special shout out to Justin Hill, the man). I enjoyed sitting at Leo’s table and chatting with my friend David Rodnitzky. I also enjoyed meeting George Michie, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at RKG. Earlier in the day, George was on the Segway tour with me. Fun times, thanks Leo and Yahoo! for the amazing dinner! The best part of the dinner: Leo introduced Yahoo! Stream Ads. I’m a huge fan of Yahoo!’s new ad formats. There’s huge upside here, talk to your account management team today.

After a huge and eventful day one, I was so amazingly pumped up. I got back to my room to find some amazing gift bags from Google and also adMarketplace. Search Insider Summit sponsors sure know how to make the digital marketer feel at home! I caught some sleep and then day two went very much like day one. However, instead of the Segway tour, I opted for spa services. What a great way to relax. Day two’s cocktail and dinner was sponsored by yieldbot. I got to catch up with my good friend David Rodnitzky (PPC Associates), the folks from adMarketplace, Dave Zinman (CEO at Infolinks), Laura Fell (Caterpillar), and others. Day two I went to bed a bit early because day three was my big day.

The next morning (Wednesday), I woke up super early to practice my presentation. A bit later that morning I had the privilege of presenting at Search Insider Summit on the topic of Big Testing and Better User Experiences Through Post-Click Marketing. I specifically focused on my partnership with ion interactive. The half hour presentation went fast and was densely packed with enthusiasm and tips. I heard from several folks in the audience that they enjoyed it quite a bit! Thank you to all who provided the positive feedback, it truly means a lot. My presentation marked good times and a true opportunity from a career and public speaking standpoint. Below, I have a bunch of photos from the conference with the first one from my presentation on day three (thanks David Rodnitzkey for taking the photo). Thanks, ion and MediaPost for the opportunity to present, it was an honor and I can’t wait for next time!

After my big presentation, I enjoyed some more great presentations and panels (diligently taking notes). Then, I’m sad to say, the three days of fun and excitement were over. Those thee days at Search Insider Summit went by way too fast. I learned so much, networked like never before, and had a super great time. On the way out, I shared the shuttle to the airport with my friends Bill (Scottrade) and Avish Dahiya, CTO at Baby Cache. Avish and my planes left around the same time, and Avish was kind enough to treat me to lunch at the airport. I was truly impressed with Avish’s role, Baby Cache, and their impressive business model. There is no conference I have ever attended in our industry that has this level of executive talent. What a wonderful experience. Thank you ion interactive (especially Scott Brinker, Jessica Collier, Mary D’Alatri-Ward, Stephanie Tunis) and MediaPost (especially Rob McEvily, Junmian Sun, and Jon Whitfield) for the best week ever! More pictures from the conference below…

Cool Pictures From Search Insider Summit

Presenting At MediaPost Search Insider Summit

Ian Lopuch (Me) Speaking At MediaPost Search Insider Summit

Fun Times On Amelia Island Segway Tour

View From Hotel Room Omni Amelia Island

View of Ocean Omni Amelia Island

View of Trees and Landscape Omni Amelia Island

Turtle (Tortoise) Amelia Island

Image of ion platform © ion interactive
All other images in this post © PPCIan.com

Check Out My Geo-Targeting Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 3 0

I’m a huge fan of geo-targeting. While it’s been around forever, there are so many unique and great ways in which you can leverage advanced geo-targeting. So, when I got the opportunity to write a guest post on the amazing PPC Associates blog, I thought it would be a super idea to share my Top 5 Geo-Targeting Tips. Have you heard of PPC Associates? They are Silicon Valley’s SEM Agency, and have a truly great blog (one of my favorites). Also, they have one of the best teams around. I’m really honored that my guest post got a lot of interest and even made Search Engine Land’s Day In Search, May 2, 2013. Please check it out and let me know what you think! Do you have any special geo-targeting strategies?

Image in this post © PPCAssociates.com

Business Travel Tips For Busy Professionals

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 28 0

Whether you’re an online marketing professional, or any other business professional for that matter, it’s likely you will need to travel for your career. You may need to travel to meet with clients. You may travel to attend conferences. You may travel to local offices around the world, if you work at a larger company. There are many different use cases when it comes to business travel and today I wanted to share a quick list of tips I have learned first hand.

Make sure to get plenty of rest. As digital marketing professionals, we tend to work long hours and get little sleep. This can work when you’re working from your home base, but is not going to cut it when travel enters the picture. Get too little sleep and you may feel extra bad during your flights and meetings. You will not be on your “A” game without proper rest.
Make sure to eat healthy and hydrate. This ties into the last tip. If you eat fast food at airports, you will not perform at your best. Combine bad food and lack of hydration with flying, and you may feel ill.
Try to avoid small planes if you get motion sickness. When booking flights, you can see the plane’s layout. Make sure to pick planes that are larger. I recently took a United flight that was really small, two seats on one side and one on the other. If small planes are not your cup of tea, make sure to plan ahead.
Try to accumulate points. Find the airlines you like the most, enroll in their frequent flyer programs. If you enroll in the United credit card, as one example, you always get to board in “group 2”. This is especially helpful if you are trying to avoid checking bags (next tip). Airlines want to reward you – make sure to take advantage of the rewards programs.
Carry all of your luggage on the plane. Checking bags can be quit slow. If you are trying to make connections and are busy with business meetings, it’s essential to optimize your time. Make sure to avoid checking luggage and pack smart!
Go all out on your home court. If there are events/meetings in your local area, take advantage of those opportunities.
Keep careful track of all your receipts. There are so many miscellaneous expenses when you’re traveling. With good records, you will be able to file accurate expense reports after your trip.
Divide and conquer! Digital marketing and business in general is a team sport. One person can’t do all the traveling. Divide and conquer by sharing the travel/conferences with your colleagues.
Set an out of office assistant in Outlook, if you will not be responding to emails. Point people to someone on your team (or a colleague) who can cover for you. While you are traveling, business needs to continue as normal.
Have fun and try to speak at events. Travel and conferences provide a great way to practice your speaking skills. Moreover, they offer an amazing networking opportunity.

Do you like business travel? What travel tips do you utilize? (Related post: You may want to check out my post from a few years ago about how PPC Jobs Are Great For Travel.)

Bing Is Integrating Quora Into Search Results

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 21 1

I’m a huge fan of Quora (you can find me on Quora here). A while back, I Started Answering Questions on Quora. Now, I have a pretty cool and growing presence within online marketing on this cool social site. I really enjoy Quora for a multitude of reasons, with the following ranking towards the top of the list:

Quora is a great way to build your authority and presence within your field. I’m always looking for ways to “get out there” within the digital marketing community, and Quora truly provides a great platform for achieving this goal. Next time someone looks you up online, your Quora profile will rank high and make you look great.
Quora offers an amazing way to give back and contribute within the online marketing field. Giving back is always at the top of my list. It’s all about helping others succeed. Invest time to answer questions in great detail and you can easily make someone’s day!
This social platform drives sales. From time to time, I include recommendations on Quora, especially when someone asks about an online marketing platform or agency. I have received “thank yous” first hand from several platforms and agencies that mentioned my responses drove new partnerships / business relationships.
Quora offers an excellent avenue to network with others. One of my answers on Quora led to an email conversation and then eventually a phone call. Deliver great content and build your network!

Today, I was absolutely thrilled to see a new social media widget when searching on Bing. Check out the screenshot below, featuring Bing results for “auto insurance”. You’ll see the standard stuff: paid results at the top, paid results on the right rail, and organic results. However, now there’s a new social media widget / right rail as well. It includes a connect with Facebook placement at the top, followed by several Quora placements right after.

What does this mean for your the savvy online advertising professional? Your Quora program is going to gain even more exposure than before. If you are not investing in Quora, this is just one more reason (in addition to the ones listed above) to go all out. I really commend Bing for testing/featuring these Quora results!

Image of Bing © Bing

Fun Times at ad:tech San Francisco 2013

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 10 2

I’m a huge fan of SEM conferences, especially ad:tech. I attended ad:tech San Francisco 2013 earlier this week, on Tuesday, and wanted to share some thoughts and fun pictures from the event. After reading today’s post, you may also want to check out my recap of ad:tech 2012. To everyone I connected with at ad:tech, it was really great seeing you!

ad:tech Was Super Busy

PPC Ian with Maria and Rylan From Acquisio

I really enjoy a busy conference. The energy is contagious and truly makes you feel part of something big. That’s exactly the feeling I got at ad:tech. Because ad:tech spans not only SEM but really anything related to digital marketing, the conference has a very large audience. This was incredibly apparent with the convention center, expo floor, and sessions being packed. Some of the sessions got so busy that they had to close the doors and enforce a cutoff. The lesson: If there’s a session/panel you must attend, get there early (or else you may be out of luck, even after paying for your all access pass).

I Had A Blast Networking

Ryan Bukevicz (President of Bevo Media) and PPC Ian

The main reason I attend conferences is the networking. In business and life, it’s not only about what you know but also who you know! ad:tech totally delivered on networking, and I especially enjoyed catching up with my good friends from Acquisio, performance media platform. Check out the picture above of yours truly with my friends Maria and Rylan from Acquisio.

I enjoyed chatting with them in addition to Robert Schneider, Managing Director of Western and Central Region. I was totally thrilled to learn about Acquisio’s new enhancements around bidding (they now update bids every 30 minutes). I’ve said it time and time again: Online advertising is just like Wall Street, except business is open 24/7/365. In such an environment, near real time bid updates are mandatory. Acquisio is leading our industry forward with the highest frequency bid management platform around, way to go Acquisio!

I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with Ryan Bukevicz (see picture above), President and Founder of The Bevo Media Exchange. The world of online marketing is truly exciting because it offers amazing opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs. Ryan is just that. He’s an expert affiliate marketer turned startup founder. His Bevo Media Exchange is quite impressive, allowing affiliates to manage and optimize their entire world in one central dashboard. I enjoyed learning about Bevo Media and highly recommend checking it out if you are an affiliate marketer or affiliate network.

It Was A Short Conference For Me

These days, I’m juggling a ton of priorities. As such, I was only at ad:tech for half a day. I’m truly thankful for the time I spent there and the amount of great interaction I packed into my half day. We’re in the middle of conference season for digital marketers and I look forward to covering more great online marketing conferences in the near future, stay tuned!

More Pictures From ad:tech San Francisco

ad:tech San Francisco 2013 Expo Floor

ad:tech 2013 Google Engage 2

ad:tech 2013 Google Engage

Images in this post © PPCIan.com

Kenshoo SmartPath Attribution Whitepaper

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 5 0

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on PPC Ian. The last several weeks have been incredibly busy (in a good way). I’m now back into the swing of things and wanted my first new post to highlight a truly remarkable whitepaper: The Conversion Attribution Revolution by Kenshoo. If you are a serious online marketer, you absolutely must stop everything and read this whitepaper right now, or at least sometime this weekend/early next week. It’s 18 pages of pure education on the topic of conversion attribution. Most importantly, it will change the way you look at conversion attribution and unlock opportunity for you and your company.

Conversion attribution is a hot topic in our industry and a very important lever. At the end of the day, accurate data drives great results. Accurate data powers everything we do! At its core, Kenshoo’s whitepaper introduces their SmartPath technology, a machine learning algorithm that dynamically applies appropriate conversion credit to media sources in the conversion funnel. No longer do you have to apply the same conversion attribution model across the board. SmartPath takes things to a whole new level and dynamically applies appropriate credit based on the particular customer flow in question. Kenshoo rounds up their whitepaper with two practical case studies (complete with real numbers) that drive home the power of SmartPath.

I’m not going to do this whitepaper justice by writing too much more here, so I urge you to head on over to Kenshoo and download the whitepaper for free. Also, I recommend contacting Kenshoo to see how they can help your company. Kenshoo has been a true leader in conversion attribution for years and I’m incredibly impressed with their latest invention, SmartPath.

Images in this post © Kenshoo

Tips For Business and Life

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 21 13

In both business and life, it’s not all about your knowledge, skills, and accomplishments. It’s also about how you go about your day-to-day. It’s been a while since I wrote a post about attitude and perspective, however I got inspired this week! This is probably one of the more important posts you will read here on PPC Ian. It’s a shorter one, but I’m telling you, these tips work. Above and beyond “working”, following these tips will make the world a better place. Enjoy…

Tip Theory Into Practice

Ask yourself every single day how you can help others. Make it your mission to help out. This year (check out my 2013 goals) I’m striving to help 5 people per day. Applied practically, I view myself as an enabler at my job. I do everything possible to help my team, co-workers, partners, and customers.
Try to find a company that has few/zero politics and stay there. There simply is no meaningful benefit that can come out of gossip, alliances, and politics. Once you have found a workplace that has very few politics, hang on tight as you are in a very nurturing and positive environment. If you thrive in an environment of politics or even partake in the gossip, take an unbiased look at your situation and seriously consider an adjustment. This type of behavior will permanently hold you back from true leadership.
Celebrate the success of others. Never look down on your friends or teammates for their achievements. Make sure to share in their excitement. Those that celebrate others have achieved true leadership-level maturity. (Check out my post about Celebrating Your Team’s Success.)
Avoid saying negative things. The spoken word is very powerful. When you say something negative, that word has the opportunity to alter the way you think and perceive the world. That word also has the power to influence others. Even more important: Avoid writing anything negative. The written word, in my opinion, is even more powerful than the spoken word.
Stay extremely positive and speak/write positive statements. This tip is the converse of the last one. Positivity is contagious and energizing. True leaders have the ability to energize everyone around them.
Get into work early, on a consistent basis each day. The consistency and early start is the mark of a true leader. Do this even at the expense of sleep. Never miss your queue.
Always expand your knowledge. Keep learning, have a hunger for knowledge. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can turn new knowledge into actionable results. Become a repository of knowledge and new ideas for your employer.
Be a true perfectionist, take pride in everything you do. Never settle for less. Demand the same quality from others. Inspire true quality.
Develop an unparalleled network. Treat your connections as friends, not just acquaintances or business partners. Treat your friends very well and help them out.

Of course, there are many other tips, however I just wanted to share a few that are top of mind for me this week. I hope these tips help you out in both business and life!

Image of Tip Theory Into Practice © iStockPhoto – marekuliasz

Check Out My PPC Landing Page Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 17 2

Last week, I attended SMX West and bumped into my good friend Hillary Read from PPC Associates, Silicon Valley’s SEM Agency. PPC Associates is a great friend of yours truly, PPC Ian. From time to time, I have the pleasure of guest posting on the amazing PPC Associates blog, and today I wanted to share with you my latest guest post: A Landing Page Checklist For PPC Pros. This post went live last week on Wednesday, March 13th and wanted to highlight it here in case you have not seen it yet!

PPC Associates Guest Blog Post

With ever increasing competition on Google AdWords and Bing Ads, how do you stay ahead? Well, you certainly need to be a world class campaign manager. You need to be on top of your game when it comes to keyword generation, account structure, match types, negative words, ad copy, bid strategy, beta testing, tracking, cross-channel advertising, reporting/analytics, and so much more. However, the lever that perhaps holds the most leverage is landing page testing. Increase your conversion rate and your media margin will immediately expand. You can either pocket the profits or reinvest them via bid increases. Often, it is advised to bid higher since you will get exponentially more traffic volume and oftentimes increased dollar margin, especially if you look at cross-channel attribution (although at slightly lower percentage margin). Thanks PPC Associates for the opportunity to guest post, make sure to head on over and read my guest post today!

Fun Times At SMX West San Jose 2013

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 11 3

If you’re in the online marketing industry, you should definitely attend SMX. Today, I attended SMX West San Jose 2013. I’m thrilled to recap my fun times at the event and share some pictures of PPC Ian with friends from the online marketing industry. (After reading today’s post, you may also wish to check out my 2012 and 2011 recaps.) There are two more days left in SMX West 2013 so you should definitely try to make it if you are in the SF Bay Area!

It’s All About The People

PPC Ian and Hillary Read From PPC Associates

SMX is all about the people. I primarily attend these conferences for networking and today’s conference totally delivered. In fact, as soon as I stepped out of my car in the convention center parking lot, I ran into my friend Snejana Norris. We used to work together at QuinStreet, and now Snejana is Senior Manager, Marketing at LendingTree. What a funny coincidence that we both arrived to SMX West at the same time!

Upon first arriving, the conference seemed a little quiet. There were not a ton of attendees. This surprised me since online advertising is a huge industry and we’re in the online marketing capital of the world, the SF Bay Area! However, I also know just how busy I am right now – so much that I could only spend a partial day at SMX West this year. Perhaps other online marketing professionals are hard at work, too busy to pause for the conference. Despite the quiet feel, the conference was amazing. Those who did attend, speak, and support the conference are top quality online marketers.

SMX West Delivered Great Insights

PPC Ian and Neil Lunagaria From Marin Software

As soon as I arrived at the conference, I went to the paid search track. I was totally impressed. This year, SMX West over-delivered on content. In fact, the paid search track felt almost like SMX Advanced. The quality of the presentations, the insightful tips, and the level of engagement as very exciting. I have been in this industry since 2004 and I still learned a few new insights from the presentations. Nice work, panelists! My favorite session? The remarketing one for sure.

After the first session, I went to grab some refreshments and ran into my friend Eli Schwartz. We used to work together at QuinStreet and now Eli is Online Marketing Manager at SurveyMonkey. What a small world!

After refreshments, I went back to the paid search track. I sat down on the aisle, noticing that someone’s stuff was already on the seat next to me. After a few minutes, none other than Hillary Read sat down next to me. What an awesome coincidence! Hillary is Marketing Manager at PPC Associates SEM Agency. If you have been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know that PPC Associates is a true friend of my blog. In fact, I have a guest post that will be going live on the PPC Associates blog soon (I’ll let you know when it’s live so you can check it out).

Upon completion of a solid morning of networking and absorbing online marketing knowledge, it was time for lunch. Mike (from my team) and I went to Arcadia Restaurant. Arcadia is on the ground floor of the Marriott hotel and is awesome. Arcadia is a tradition for Mike and I, and this was our third year enjoying the burgers there. I highly recommend it – the food is delicious, especially the angus burger.

Google DoubleClick Search Booth – A Conference Highlight

After lunch, I went to the expo hall. I especially enjoyed connecting with my good friends from Marin Software. Their booth was front and center. I enjoyed learning more about Marin’s social platform from Neil Lunagaria, Director of Social Platform. I also thoroughly enjoyed the DoubleClick Search booth (check out the picture below). Google went big this year demoing their new DoubleClick Search platform and I must say I’m impressed. My favorite feature: DoubleClick Search offers intra-day bidding, updating bids 4x per day on both Google AdWords and Bing Ads. Nice work!

It’s at this time that I decided to head back to the office to get some work done. While I only got to spend a partial day at SMX West, I truly enjoyed my time. Also, I am thrilled to know my team will be attending the rest of the week and reporting back on their discoveries. I hope to see you at a future SMX conference!

Fun Times At The Yahoo! Sunnyvale Headquarters

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 2 3

On Friday, I had the pleasure and honor of visiting the main Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale. Check out the picture below of yours truly and Justin, the absolute best Senior Account Manager ever. (Justin just wrote this great post on the Yahoo! Advertising Solutions Blog about expanding your keyword list – make sure to check it out!) Being Yahoo!’s 18th birthday, we picked an amazing day to visit Yahoo!

When we arrived, the guard at the front gate directed us to special VIP parking right up front that was blocked off with cones. Talk about feeling like a celebrity! Next, Justin headed down and greeted us. We went up to the Yodel conference room. Honestly, I cannot believe what I saw there! Our company logo was all over the place! I’m talking about on a sign in front of the door, above the massive TV monitor, etched onto the window, even on the name placards where we were to sit. The room had all the beverages and snacks one could want. The Yahoo! purple was all over the place, even down to the delicious Yahoo! chocolates. It even had some really great gifts! I have never experienced anything like this before. Sure, SEM is an industry where large advertisers are treated really well. However, this experience takes it to a whole new level. Wow, Yahoo! thanks for treating us so well, you are the best!

At this point we were so pumped up that the strategy session was unparalleled. At least 50 actionable ideas were generated. We had senior leaders from Yahoo! stopping by. It truly was a meeting made of greatness. SEM is all about energy and energy is what drove our meeting.

After our strategy session, we headed downstairs to the URLs cafe. I was blown away. The steak teriyaki dish was among the best I have ever hard. This place was pure heaven. After lunch, we went upstairs for more strategy, and then a trip to the Yahoo! store on the way out.

I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few important things:

Yahoo! absolutely rules. I love Yahoo! and am so excited for their 18th birthday!
The Yahoo! account management organization is among the best I have ever worked with. They are so strong. I’m especially impressed with their actionable, tactical tips and overwhelming energy in helping clients implement and enjoy the benefits of those strategies.
Yahoo!’s campus is amazing. The food is among the best I have had in any cafeteria. If you are considering a career in online advertising, I highly recommend looking into opportunities at Yahoo! because they already rule and are also expanding fast.

Justin and team, thank you so much for the best Friday ever!