Archive for the ‘Specials’ Category

More Lessons from The Hoxton Hotel’s £1 Sale – April 2011

really, seriously hoxton april

As you may remember from January of this year, we took an in depth look at how to integrate online and offline marketing efforts and to do so we used the Hoxton Hotel as a case study. In this case we saw a number of things that the hotel was doing well, and a number of areas in which they could improve. I tried to focus on the benefits of their efforts and the amazing success they have had in taking a (mainly) offline brand and making it work online.

When I heard that yesterday there was going to be yet another £1 Room Sale taking place I thought that I would get my snipping tool ready to take some screen shots and see if they have taken to heart any of the lessons from the last sale. The last story was largely upbeat, however I have decided to take a more scrutinizing look at the areas of opportunity on which they are still missing out, as well as some of the failures in the current sale as I found this sale to be more frustrating as a particpant/customer. (more…)

Predictions for 2010, how did we do?

2010-predictions

First of all: Happy New Year! I hope 2011 will be the best year we have all ever seen.

2011 has started. It’s the first Monday of the New Year and many of us are starting the New Year fresh with good resolutions. And a new year also means you can get yourself (mentally) ready for a lot, and I mean a lot, posts on almost every site predicting the future of search and social in 2011. After all, every self-respecting blog is making these predictions.

Why? Well for one because its ‘easy’ content, secondly it might be a link worthy article (I’m linking to many of them in this post) and third, it’s always fun to look into a Crystal Ball and predict the future.

The thing is with these posts, hardly anyone dares to look at them again 12 months after they were published. How did we do in the predictions? Did we really have an idea of what was going to happen? Or did the industry caught us by surprise? Time to take a look. Note: I can’t talk about every prediction made out there, there were too many, but I collected some interesting ones. (more…)

Brand bidding & Ad-Hijacking insights – Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the definition of brand bidding and ad-hijacking, on how to prevent it and what „evil“ affiliates do to book trademarks that are „protected“ by Google’s complaint form.

As promised, today I will talk about the methods these affiliates use to hide their strategies and how you can monitor your brand to find out if your brand gets hijacked.

Affiliates have several possibilities to hide their strategies when they are abusing trademarks and hijack ad copies. First of all, most of them will use geo-targeting  for their campaigns. When they know that the trademarkowner’s office is for example in Munich and the agency is in Berlin, they will cover other cities then Munich and Berlin, to prevent them to see the hijacked ads. (more…)

Brand bidding & Ad-Hijacking insights – Part 1

Editorial note: This post is not meant to give tips and tricks on how to do Brand Bidding and Ad-Hijacking, its meant to give insights on what is done and what is going on.

Two weeks ago, at SMX Munich, I was invited to speak on the blackhat PPC panel. I covered the exciting topic of brand bidding & ad-hijacking in Google Adwords. The topic is pretty actual at the moment, because of the decision of the European Court of Law of March 23 2010.

So what are brand bidding & ad-hijacking? The term Brand bidding is probably pretty clear for most: the use of brands as keywords in Google Adwords. Normally this is done not only by affiliates, but also by competitors, e-commerce shops, auction platforms, price comparison sites etc. (more…)

Step away from your site, I dare you

Not too long ago Search Engine Optimization was all about optimizing your site. Getting the right title tags, writing the right content and using the right techniques. The only thing you were doing outside of your own site was trying to get links to your site.

Things have changed. Of course optimizing your pages is still important, important to get your own site ranking. But what about those nine other results on the first page of the SERP? They are interesting too. And theoretically they can all be yours. And for that you have to step away from your site.

Anyone who has been paying attention at SES Amsterdam and SES New York knows what I’m talking about. Stepping away from your site can mean dominance of the SERPS. Using social media together with clever usage of news-sites is the key to the success. And no, I’m not just talking about Twitter. (more…)

Why Bartz Won’t Sell Yahoo! (Just Yet)

Microsoft want Yahoo! Search… All of it.

It is no secret that Microsoft wants this business, and those who have been in the industry will recall previous attempts, most significantly the shennanigans of 2008, which saw an unsolicited proposal to buy the whole Yahoo! business in February of that year, for $44.6 BN dollars in cash and shares. Following the rejection and counter-position of the offer from Yahoo! to $53 BN, (equivanlent to $33 a share and almost double the then shareprice) Steve Ballmer, in a letter to Jerry Yang, announced Microsoft were pulling out of the offer and would not be willing to meet the asking price.

Later that year an opportunist alliance between activist investor Carl Icann and Microsoft, saw yet another unsolicited bid; this time for the search business only, under the terms that Icahn would depose the board of directors for the remaining Yahoo! business and install a new board of directors under his leadership. Chairman Roy Bostock issued a statement resoundly rejecting the proposal (which was issued with a 24 hour response deadline) on grounds that a carve-up of the business would be damaging and undervalued the company’s assests. Again the “buy the whole company for $33 dollars a share or get lost” message was loud and clear. (more…)

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