Buying Search Engine Advertising - SES San Jose 2005

Our Buying Search Engine Advertising session dates back to the very first SES show in 1999, though obviously the content keeps getting updated to take into account the constantly changing search advertising marketplace. It's designed as a Search Ads 101 session, something to bring those new to the world of search ads up to speed.

What you won't get is a lot of stats on why you should do search advertising. That's generally a waste of time for our audiences. They're already "believers" in search advertising that don't need convincing. So, we skip the trend charts, stats snapshots and jump instead right into actual tactics and strategies to consider.

Dana Todd of SiteLab does the heavy lifting in this session, taking the audience on a 20 minute overview of who takes ads and how they work. I said this session dates back to the first SES show. So does Dana's participation on it.

In particular, Dana's renowned not just for her flamboyant hair color but for the quality of her presentation, especially her no holds barred approach. She'll tell you what she likes -- and dislikes -- in a forthright and honest fashion. She also doesn't just cover the major ad outlets of Google and Yahoo but other placement options you may not be aware of.

After Dana, both Google and Yahoo have 10 minutes each to cover unique aspects of their programs and anything particularly new or interesting that they want to share with the audience. Neither company has yet confirmed for the session, but they always have in the past for our US shows, so I expect they'll do the same for San Jose.

Chris Churchill of Fathom Online brings up the concluding presentation, sharing for 10 minutes with the audience information gleaned from his company's Keyword Price Index and other tips that come from managing large campaigns for clients.

The remaining half of the session -- a good 40 minutes or so -- is reserved for Q&A. This is especially where the search engine speakers get a chance to shine. Got questions for them? There's lots of time to ask and get responses.