9:00 - 10:30 a.m.

Harnessing the Power of Search Engines: Mastering the Complexities of Pay per Click and Optimization

Introduction: Search engine marketing remains one of the most popular ways of driving online sales. But between pay-per-click search marketing and optimizing a web site's natural search engine results, web search marketing is a complex and ever-changing form of marketing with many brand new technical and operational developments that even experienced e-retailers must understand. In addition to these challenges, e-retailers must also recognize that the competitive landscape in search engines is rapidly changing, with different search engines attracting different loyal audiences.

Workshop Content: This workshop session will walk e-retailers through the complex maze of search marketing options and point to strategies that are designed to work for them. It will focus on:

• Understanding how the users of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and the other search engines differ from one another.
• Making sure that your search marketing spend is effective.
• 5 steps to identifying the right keywords—for paid and optimization programs.
• Trends in keyword prices—how to beat the high prices of keywords and still get listed high in the results.
• Using new bid management tools.
• Identifying and combating click fraud—how to tell if it's happening, what to do about it.
• Understanding how the effectiveness of search terms changes over time, what today's hot terms are—and what tomorrow's will be.
• How to identify the search marketing agency that's right for you.
• Managing the agency relationship.
• How to scale a program to improve ROI.
• Why yesterday's page optimization won't work today.
• The long tail of optimization—how today's strategies affect tomorrow's sales.

About the Instructors: Tom Tweedie has more than 20 years' experience in direct marketing and heads up e-commerce initiatives and customer acquisition programs for Day Timers Inc., a unit of the $2 billion office supplies company ACCO Brands. Cory Nielsen, Internet marketing manager at Woodwind & Brasswind, has an extensive background in search marketing and is responsible for pay-per-click and page optimization search marketing at Woodwind & Brasswind. Rahmon Coupe, president & CEO of Your Amigo, heads up a leading search engine marketing company that includes dozens of leading retailers as its clients.