How did you get into search?

I was the General Sales Manager at the Talk Station in Baltimore who’s lineup included Howard Stern, G. Gordon Liddy and Don & Mike.   I helped the station setup their first website, and we created a form for listeners to fill out.   It was 1999 and we were already garnering great listener information.  Don & Mike always used to ask their listeners “What celebrity do you most resemble?” So we added it to the survey and people actually filled it out.  It was amazing to me that the internet had so much power to cultivate data so I joined the company that built our website.  We were optimizing sites for the engines back then and even today those basics are still a major factor in search marketing.

In your days with Advertising.com and Local Roll Call, what are some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced?

I do have to say this economy is the toughest thing I have ever seen.  There are major clients in the industry that have cut their spend in half and some that are just holding tight until 2010.  I do see that the economy is starting to improve, but I just wish it was faster.    January – March were probably the worst for many businesses as the stock market collapsed, as the stock market continues to climb so will the confidence and the pocket strings will open up.  It’s a vicious cycle – clients want conversions and to hit a manageable CPA, consumers are clicking but not converting as they did two years ago so the CPA is higher, conversions cost more and the market is more competitive. The strong will survive and stay in business, Best Buy will be a stronger force coming out of this since Circuit City is gone.  The same goes for Bed Bath and Beyond now that Linens and Things has left them with a larger market share.

What’s been your greatest success/proudest moment in search?

I love seeing a site get to the first page of Google by utilizing white hat SEO tactics.   Sure hitting a client goal with Paid Search is definitely gratifying, but seeing all of the hard work and forethought you put into helping a client optimize their site to receive an influx of traffic for free: that’s what search is all about.  People finding the proper information and knowing that you can provide it against a client’s target audience is key.  Not to mention seeing the Google Analytics meter go off the chart when you help a small business gain that growth.  It can make their year, even if it’s just someone downloading a menu.

How do you keep current with search changes?

I attend various conferences across the country not only speaking but also writing articles for online publications.  By sitting in on the session I can pick up a tremendous amount of information to help keep me up to date on an industry that is ever expanding and rapidly changing.  Conferences I recommend are SMX, Search Engine Strategies, Affiliate Summit and Internet Retailer

As you’ve focused primarily working at an in-house level, what are some of the advantages as opposed to an agency?

The advantage of in-house is complete control and speed to change.  No campaign is ever perfect because there are so many fluctuations in the marketplace.  If a CPA skyrockets you need to determine the issue and in some cases it might take an agency a little longer to notice it.  It might also take them 24-48 hours to make a change in a campaign and as business fluctuates you need that extra speed in-house provides.   By having complete control the campaign falls on you. Agencies are totally beneficial some have great technology to better optimize campaigns, seasoned search copy writers and managers that can better A-B and build out landing pages.  Agencies are key if you are overwhelmed and you lose control of your campaign.

Do you have any agency horror stories?

I had a client I was working with that sold virus protection software and they were using an agency.  They asked me to take look at the campaign to see if there was anything I would do to improve it.  There were so many issues I didn’t know where to start.  The one glaring issue was that they had no negative keywords associated with the campaign.  In one month alone they would spend well in the lower five figures bidding on terms that had to do with human viruses – terms like Hepatitis, Ebola and Chickenpox.

Where do you see search heading?

Most people don’t know what they would do if they weren’t connected online.  We are a society that gathers data and makes a decision based on billions of results that are gathered are brought back to us in the form of a search result.  Smart phone usage is also on the rise and with that more laws will be passed to limit use while commuting.  This will prompt manufacturers to work with the major portals in developing voice recognition systems for use in our daily commute and interact with our GPS system.   Search queries are seeing a rise in length, 5 combined keywords is not unusual anymore, and the results are improving rapidly.  It won’t be long before we can ask our car where the best place local place for bagels is and it will give us a community answer on the data it finds.

What advice would you offer to a company looking to start their own in-house marketing effort?

I once spoke at SES about building an in-house marketing team.  You have to have a team that watches the campaign every minute of every day.  Depending on the spend levels one person cannot do it all.  You need a creative specialist that reviews the ads and the quality scores across ads, give them an incentive to hit a quality score of 10. You also need a numbers cruncher on the staff, someone who can run pivot table and populate tens of thousands of keywords with just a few excel formula’s.  Quality people make the difference if you can justify the expense to hire an experienced individual you should.  If you hire someone that has less experience and they get on the job training be prepared to pay more as their experience climbs.   A search marketing manager is a hot commodity and in high demand.  Beware, agencies and other competitors will want to pick them up if you aren’t taking care of them.