The focus of this conference seems to be on getting the message through to the influentials. The Google Open Forum was an excellent example of how large companies are working this crucial group of people – this session was an extended ad for Google.
Discuss AD:TECH 04 in WebProWorld.
I had my badge scanned on the way in – they’re tracking who attends. The session started a little late. Jazz played and the audience of 140 or so marketing professionals chatted boisterously despite the early hour (for West Coasters).
I suspect that thet presenters, Esurance and Table For Six (Bay Area dating) received payment for speaking at this session, payment in AdWords. They’ve both been successful, but what about people who have been less successful? Those who have tried AdWords and found they didn’t work might actually have more interesting and valuable information for the attendees.
Table For Six was an interesting choice for Google to make too. They’re looking for clients in a specific area and Google wants everyone to know about their local products. It’s amaing how Google has their clients up there describing their products. I wonder if Google wrote their speeches too…
It’s interesting to me that there are no online ads promoting the purchase of AdWords. The conferences are really the only place Google’s advertising.
My first reaction after the Google rep introduced the two customers who were giving presentations was that attendees would be better served by spending some time in webmaster forums that discuss AdWords. That’s where people talk more freely about what is and isn’t working.
I found it interesting that both presenters mentioned they’re looking forward to buying image ads. There’s been some recent stink from ad sellers who claim they’ve been working hard to prove that the value of a banner ad lies in the branding it provides. Google’s Image Ads program measures click throughs only, which flies in the face of what the industry’s been trying to do.
Esurance offered some good advice – optimize your landing page. She said she had a 30% increase in her return.
The audience question session was a bit disappointing – the Google representative didn’t have much to say beyond “we strive to create a good advertiser experience and a good user experience.” Seriously – that’s what he had to say about just about every question, and not much hard data to really address the audience.
One audience member asked about the people who are bidding on her company’s name. I was hoping for some blood but the Google rep managed to avert wrath with “good user experience” repeated several times.
Also, I didn’t realize that Google offers tracking tools you can acutally put on your site. One audience member said the reason he didn’t use the tool was that you have to put a Google logo on your pages.
The rep said they put their logo on pages so that users know they’re being tracked by Google. Duh! Doesn’t everyone track anyway?
Well, now I’m off to catch the tail end of the keynote. Stay tuned for “Unique Online Ideas for Business Marketing.”
Garrett French is the editor of Murdok’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.
