So thinking outside the box is going to get Thomas known, get him links (from posts like this) and do a great job at establishing his name in our industry.  Again, I thought it was brilliant and wanted to give him some props.  I know that he made shirts for a few others too, and also gave out some regular ones, but again – hat tip Thomas!  (and thanks again for the shirt)  I would love to have Thomas (if he sees this, which I am sure he will) share some more and how he made out after doing all this?  Even cooler?  I found out he lives a few miles away from me in the Phoenix area.  Lunch?

So think outside the box like Thomas, and do something that will make people talk about you and remember you!  SMX Advanced 2010 was a blast and I am so glad I had the opportunity to speak, enjoy old friends and make new ones!

I am really looking forward to SMX Advanced this year for many reasons, but the biggest this year is being able to hang out with some of the most awesome friends on the planet.  Another reason is because I am on a pretty kick butt panel with some amazing fellas called “Location Services: The new local search?”

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speakers:

Vince Blackham, Founder & CEO, Primary Affect
Michael Martin, Owner, Mobile Martin
Will Scott, President, Search Influence
Dylan Swift, Director of Local Business Marketing, Yelp

I look forward to seeing you all there, please make sure and come up and say hi!  Some of the best friends I have in this industry came about by going up and saying hi!  Some of the best info I have gotten out of other speakers was when we were hanging out, chilling in a bar or eating dinner!

Matt McGee, a great friend of mine was such an awesome sport about this. Ok, maybe he was a little upset at himself for making this bet (The Arizona Cardinals would get further in the 2009 season than the Seahawks), but we had fun with it. To show my appreciation to Matt I wanted to make sure and post the pics for ALL to see. Here ya go Matt:

Matt McGee hesitant to put on the jersey!

This looks hard for this Seahawks fan

Matt still not looking "happy" with this fake smile here.

What a good sport wearing the jersey during his Twitter clinc

Love this, Thanks Matt for being such a good sport!

A couple of us from Dream Systems Media will be speaking at SMX West, and we are pretty excited about it.  Myself and David Mink are going to be speaking on a combined total of 4 panels.  They are some awesome subjects with some even cooler speakers!  Here is a run down of our speaking schedule.  We are very excited to be speaking with some of these other awesome speakers!  We are also very thankful that our 3rd team member Andy Melchior will be holding down the DSM fort for us while we are gone!

Matt Siltala speaking schedule:

Local & Mobile Search Track

Mobile Search Apps & Opportunities – Away from your computer, but need to search for something? There’s a smart phone app for that! More than 100,000 for the iPhone, 20,000 and growing for Google’s Android. This session looks at popular search apps on different devices, how they gather data and opportunities they offer to search marketers.

Moderator: Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster

Q&A Moderator: James Zolman, CEO, semvironment

Speakers:

Addie Conner, Director of Search Marketing, Course Advisor Inc.
Craig Danuloff, President, ClickEquations Inc.
Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director, AdWords, Google Inc.

NOTES:

Addie Conner, Director of Search Marketing, Course Advisor Inc.
Topic: Fact vs. Myth with Google Quality Score

1. There is a different CPC forumula if you are the only advertiser on the page? Fact.
2. Quality score is lost once you  make changes? Myth, QS is changed, but not lost.
3. Match type impacts QS. Myth.
4. Conversion rate impact QS? Myth.
5. Ad Rank QS included landing page quality? Myth.
6. Certain tuypes of site/business models carry a quality score penalty? Fact.  There is a Google FAQ about this.  There is a penalty, but not a blacklist.
7. Long tail keywords are given lower quality scores? Myth.
8. It takes two weeks for Google to determine quality score? Myth.  QS is a real-time factor and QS is determined really based on the amount of clicks your campaign is getting.  A campaign getting 10 clicks a day takes longer to build a QS compared to an account that gets 100k clicks a day.
9. Absolute CTR is the most important QS metric? Myth.  CTR relative to others is the most important QS variable.  You need to compare relative to other in the auction at that rank, this accounts for 95% of your QS rating.
10. QS is carried over to a new account if kw/creative all stays the same? Fact.
11. Landing page quality score is tiered? Myth.  Landing score QS is binary.
12. Quality score is the most important optimization method? Myth, what really matters is ROI.
13. You can help gain higher QS though high bidding? Fact.  Bidding high can put your ad in a position to increase your QS, but bidding high in and of itself will not help.

End Addie.

Craig Danuloff, President, ClickEquations Inc.
Topic: Quality Score (QS) (duh)

Ad rank formula: Bid x QS = Ad Rank.  Working quality score is just as important as raising your bid.  Having a high quality score will allow you to rank righer while paying less, thus netting you a greater ROI on each and any campaign.

Check out the campaign impression share report in Google to get an idea of how bad your ads are within the target search market.  If your ads are not showing 70% of the time, than people typed keywords that you have bought specifically, but your ads are not showing because your QS is so bad.

There are many Quality Scores and QS is figured in real-time during a search:

1. Keywords QS.
2. Ad Group QS.
3. Account History QS.

What QS should you start to shoot for: seven (7).  Seven is the mark showing that if you are below seven you are probably penalized, while above seven you are probably benefiting from QS.

Final thoughts:

1. QS is very important.
2. There are clear steps you can take to improve QS.
3. Advertisers should demand more clarity.

End Craig.

Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director, AdWords, Google Inc.
Topic: What Makes a Good Quality Score?

Defining Quality:

1. Relevant
2. Reputable site
3. Honest page
4. Specific page
5. Fast loading page
6. Trust for landing page

The bulk of quality is the CTR.  Click through tells them that everyone that looked at that ad thought it was this % important.  We try to capture things beyond the CTR, but it by far matters the most.  Quality score is then combined with the advertisers bid to rank that ad in PPC.

What we can do as advertisers:

1. Key point is to focus on the user and think about what users would want.
2. Keywords:
   1. Thing about what the user would search for.
      1. Diamonds is better than diamond for jewelers.
   2. Keep keywords to 2-4 words in length.
   3. Don’t use to many keywords: 10-15 per ad is about right.
3. Creative:
   1. Invite the user to do something; be compelling!
   2. Be specific.
   3. Be transparent about what he user will get.

Match types have no effect on quality score (QS), ad position does impact quality score, QS does not suffer when your ads are not showing, ad conversion rate does effect your QS.

Summery: Focus on your users and your customer (come on, please get more specific then that!)  Go to: www.google.com/domorewithless