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In the early 90's, one of the clients I had was an auto after-market
repair chain that was a mix of corporate owned and franchise locations.
The corporate client opened a new store not too far from a franchisee.
The franchisee was up in arms. He shouted that the corporate location
was stealing his customers, and as proof he show decreasing sales
trends vs prior year. The client asked us to run some numbers. Since we
were 'third' party and both had business with us, the analysis would be
accepted by both.
Well, ... |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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| Kevin Heisler's article in SEW points out a dilemma that Google faces; in an attempt to homogenize the desires and intents of the masses, they will please some while angering, annoying or frightening others. I am not nearly as bothered by this as Kevin. |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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At
AdTech last week, I was going to meet some folks for dinner. I knew the
name of the restaurant and the street name, that's it. No address. So,
I pulled out my blackberry, went to Google, and wham! nothing. There
were some reviews, but not a listing. Next Yahoo! Go!. nothing. Again,
some web sites with reviews. Then Live. Bingo. No websites, no links.
just Name, Address and Phone number. Then click, a map. Oh, and I was
probably just a few feet from a yellow pages directory. But, I wanted
to use the technology.
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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| Based on their queues, we use our experience to delivery what they want, including options. We can provide easy links to options that help the consumer. Google's 'search' circumvents all that. It delivers the user to a poor experience that the retailer had no opportunity to cultivate. It frustrates the consumer and will hurt the retailer. |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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The
way I see it, local search is not just about a technical definition, it
is a mindset. I started out in local search and at the time, the
technology was not quite what it is today. But as I said, its as much a
mind set as it is a technology.
Geo targeting is about what
makes areas similar. No? Seems counter intuitive? Most companies enter
into geo targeting grudgingly. They look for as much commonality as
they can between areas, see what is not common and make ... |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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| Just some thoughts. Think about Auto manufactures providing review feeds, spec feeds, images, or video. Theses feeds can be provided as a Yahoo! app that dealers can then add to their
listings. Any product manufacturer can do this. Menus for restaurant chains? Product reviews from Consumer Reports? This really opens up great information access at very relevant times. These data
sets, media, and other information can be used by many sites, and the providers of the information gain exposure and traffic. This is a great tool for the site publishers and for consumers. ... |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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I received and email last week from Joe Spector who launched the dating site QuieroLatino.com, targeted to the Hispanic market. He was put off by AdCenter's lack of targeting
ability toward one of the fastest growing segments of the US population and wrote about his experience here.
I would say that it was not just the lack of targeting ability, but
what set Joe off was the refusal to even accept sites that are in
Spanish. I understand this in the early parts ... |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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| I mostly focus on the numbers when I write about our industry. But the truth is, the numbers are only a reflection of how well people work together. If we work well, the numbers show it. If we don't, the numbers show that too.
We work with good people in both houses. Our success is aided greatly by these folks and my hope is that we will be able to continue those relationships. |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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| Even as analysts call (SEW) for Yahoo! to break off search and outsource to Google I think there is a long term benefit even to Yahoo! shareholders in the dedicated Yahoo! effort to search. |
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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Planning for any marketing campaign is challenging. Most of what we
read about starting the program is focused on keywords, campaigns, urls,
etc. These all should be. But there is a missing element. In today's
dynamic business environment, there is a lot that search marketers need
to coordinate along with the campaign itself.
I have read about launched campaigns being rejected or with an
inflated min bid because the site was down. Or the product page text
was not search engine friendly, or the offers did not match up. So, a
quick review of things to proactively get into.
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| Posted by Steve Haar at | | | |
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