Extra stress aside, I do enjoy operating a booth and I do enjoy search conferences. This year's SMX Advanced seemed to come and go without warning, like the craptastic weather we had this week (only that's not "going" so much as "lingering like Paris Hilton's herpes"). I barely got to see some of my friends and colleagues before they headed back home (though the office was bustling with visitors yesterday, making for both a welcome and annoying distraction: welcome because it's nice to see the Critchlows, Eric Enge, Rob Kerry, Dean Chew, and Gab Goldenberg, annoying because we only have one bathroom...d'oh).
Anyway, I'll provide a few tidbits of notes I scratched down from a few sessions I attended and then weigh in with how I felt this year's SMX Advanced compared to last year's (first) conference. If you don't want to read the session recaps, skip down to the part where I get all opinionated.
Getting Ad Copy Right
I didn't take notes on every speaker, but here's what I did capture:
Jason Dorn from Yahoo!:
- Poor ad group structure and keyword selection drive >90% of the failing ads we see.
- Your creative is a 2 second dialog with a searcher. It's crucial that your creative looks like you spent more time, interest, and energy creating the ad than the searcher took to find it.
- Most clarity issues stem from carelessness. Take some time to review how your creatives will scan, because even simple errors (such as typos) can cripple your ability to compete.
- Call out a competitive edge. Determine what your edge is by looking at the competition. If everyone's talking about the same "edge," it's not an edge, my friend.
- Cater ads to different buyer needs.
- Test price, information that reassures buyers (e.g., "official site," "24/7 support"), and time sensitivity (e.g., "Offer ends soon").
- Your ad copy should be appropriate "in feel" to the industry category (e.g., no slang or informal ads if your business is formal/professional).
- Understand what makes you special and why people choose you.
- Test for your desired outcome, not just your clickthrough rate.
- Keep an eye on your competitors' keywords, messaging, deals/offers, and conversion flow.
Tom Leung from Google:
- Band landing pages are where good leads go to die.
- Ad creatives are viewed in 0-3 seconds, occupy 3% of pixels, and capture no commitment.
- Landing pages are viewed in 0-20 seconds, occupy 100% of pixels, and capture demonstrated commitment.
- Closing pages are viewed in 2-3 minutes, occupy 100% of pixels, and capture significant commitment.
- It's a fact that consumers know more about what they want than you ever will.
- Flip the funnel/sales triangle. The top of the triangle should be content (location), then context (relevance), then intelligence (content), then tools (search).
- 87% of paid search advertisers aren't satisfied with their campaign conversion rates.
- 60% aren't doing testing/optimization of any kind.
- The majority are testing using manual A/B testing.
- 3 key steps to optimized campaigns are analyzing your audience and its needs, embracing marketing and design best practices, and testing everything (all of your assumptions).
This was my favorite session because it was different than any other panel I've attended. Michelle Goldberg, Ignition partner, SEOmoz funder, and Rebecca Kelley mentor (the latter position being the most important of all), gave her insight:
There are three types of companies in our industry:
Type: Agency/Consultancy
Valuation: 1x net revenue (what you're making) or 5-6x EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes)
Criteria:
- Client list (deep in a vertical, fill a hole, customer profitability, concentration). Understand how profitably you serve your customers. You also want predictability and the ability to measure based on that.
- Scalability (sole proprietor vs. training others; repeatable methodology; tools). Are you starting to create tools that can scale your company?
Valuation:
- Up to 12-20x in revenue and bookings
- Purely tool-based can be valued less. The tools market has been commoditized, but Michelle thinks it can come back based on whats' going on now in SEO/SEM.
- Technology valued more than creativity or strategy
- Sell to a strategic/financial buyer. Strategic buyers are more likely because they'll want to keep you out of the hands of a competitor.
- IPO potential
- Types of revenues
- One time vs. recurring
- How profitable the company is (look at gross margins and bottom line of EBITDA)
Valuation:
- Multiple bookings/subscribers
- 5-6x revenue (20-30x EBITDA if there's any cash flow positive)
- Average of $10 per monthly unique, or $0.10 per page view
- Offline avenue acquiring online content
- Growth (maintenance)
- Seamless customer experience
- Segment/niche
- Engagement
- Digital marketing firms
- Traditional agencies
- Agency holding companies
- Website aggregators (for blogs and content sites)
- Offline media
- Private equity firms
- The team. She looks for people who have been in the space and have some thought leadership but are really thinking deeper. She also looks for companies that can be very big companies. Michelle prefers to fund companies rather than just features or products, which are really just smaller ideas. These companies really have to go for the big idea in order to exit in a way that makes sense for everyone.
- The market. You have to be in the right timing of a market. You can be right on trends but wrong on timing (in which case your money will run out), so it's imperative to be able to hit things in the right way.
- Technology/tools
- Repeatable, scalable, recurring revenue
- Are focused but have a growth plan
Rod Lenniger from iCrossing spoke next. He said in 2007 the marketing sector had a record year in deals. It was a $60.3 billion deal value in marketing overall, and seven of those deals were for greater than $1 billion. There were 758 total transactions (an increase of 63% I think from the previous year), and of those transactions, 225 were in digital services (amassing $16.2 billion). There were 19 deals in the online marketing services sector, and the average revenue multiple was 5.2x, while the average EBITDA multiple was 22.8x.
If you're buying an SEM business, what should you do right?
- Have a target profile at the start
- Make sure the culture fit is as important as the financials
- Grasp the business model: how do they make money
- Plan scenarios
- Sell to owners committed to their employees
- Communicate!
- Don't have an overly aggressive timeline
- Scrutinize over term sheet details
- Be wary of a "no shop" clause (the company shopping around to find the highest bidder)
- Prep the board
- Communicate!
- Set realistic time frames (double your time frame for international dieals)
- Involve team leads from both companies early and often
- Communicate!
Why should you consider selling? Think "What's in it for me?"
- Planned exit/reward strategy
- Greater upside potential
- Better position the company for success
- Timing
Aside from the "Give It Up" session, this was my favorite panel simply because I learned a wealth of new information about valuing SEM companies and was able to glean some insight from a purchaser's perspective. It was a refreshing angle after having attended countless conferences and hearing the same panels over and over again.
Those are all the notes I took. I didn't attend too many sessions because I was at our booth on and off throughout the conference. I did sit in on the Analytics and the Give It Up session, both of which I found to be entertaining and valuable.
Okay, now for my super awesome opinion of how SMX Advanced 2008 went. Overall, I have to say that it was an improvement from 2007. The organic tracks I attended felt more advanced than last year's tracks, and this year's Give It Up was a vast improvement as well. I do think that the paid search sessions were still kind of weak--as you saw in my above notes, many speakers gave pretty straightforward information like "Don't be careless with your ads." I'm a huge paid search noob, but these sessions all felt pretty basic to me. Is there any way to beef up PPC and drill down into the meatier stuff, or is this as advanced as it gets?
I did prefer last year's "After Dark" party over this year's. Last year's party was hosted by Google and it had a bar, music, and a rollerskating Susan. This year the "After Dark" party felt like last year's kickoff event--didn't have the same vibe to it. Oh well. I did get to stuff my face with Skittles. I tasted the rainbow, all right.
Lastly, I agree with Jane's recap post. I don't think Advanced was overtly black hat. Most of the sessions seemed informative and not shady. The only exception was some of the tactics shared in the Give It Up panel, but most of the panelists shared at least one white hat tactic in addition to their more "sinister" stuff. Plus, you and I know that the reason people attend the Give It Up session is to hear a deliciously top secret, hush hush tidbit that isn't common knowledge, and "Content is king!" ain't gonna cut it. Black hat tips are entertaining. The audience loved them, and it's up to them as to whether they're smart enough to understand the risk involved when dabbling in the black arts and will STFU, as Brent put it, if they actually do have the balls to try one of the tips offered up.
If I were Danny, I wouldn't apologize just yet. Wait to hear more feedback before feeling remorseful about a conference that ended less than 48 hours ago. I certainly didn't have many bad things to say about it (and I'm arguably the most critical person employed here)--contrarily, I think it's essential to have a conference that specifically focuses on advanced search issues, and you shouldn't discount your audience and think that they won't understand or appreciate black or gray hat tactics, not even from an adopting standpoint but merely as a way to further understand search methodologies.
So, to summarize:
Location: good
Weather: atrocious
Food: good
Booth: stressful, but rewarding
Networking: brief but fantastic (it was great meeting SEOmoz members like Brent D. Payne, Richard Baxter, John Tompkins, PixelBella, the woman whose avatar is the cartooney bandit girl, troublemaker Darren Slatten, and many more folks)
Seeing colleagues and friends: All too brief. Unlike those bloated-ass three day conferences, SMX Advanced is blissfully short, but the downside is that it felt like it came and went far too rapidly, so I didn't get a chance to hang out with some buddies as much as I would have liked (I did have a fantastic dinner with Chris Winfield, Brent Csutoras, Adam Sussman, Todd Malicoat, Lauren Vaccarello, Tony Adam, and Greg and Shari [whose last names I forgot]).
Conference: solid
Advancedness: improving
Parties: fine
SEOmoz party: explosion (there were tons more people than last year!)
Okay, I'm done. Now it's time for me to try to sleep the entire weekend and fail miserably when I realize I have mounds of work to do. Bummer. Nap time in July? I hope?
Thanks Rebecca is was a pleasure to meet you as well. I found that all the people I met were either as cool and fun in person as they are online or even more so.
My take on the conference was that it still needs to be more advanced without going into the black hat realm. I heard nothing about widgets or gadgets, didn't hear of any good brainstorming marketing ideas, and the only stuff I didn't know about were blackhat tactics. Granted I took notes on all the black hat to make sure that they aren't used against me (the search form thing was a few months ago for example and I'll keep my eyes peeled for some of the others I heard at the conference).
Things I'd like to see more at an "Advanced" SEO conference include:
1. Google News - How it is different than Google Web and specific tactics that work well in having success with Google News.
2. Google Images - As SEOmoz is aware from a previous post I'm too lazy to find, there is strong reason to believe that Google Images are treated strangely. Some information specifically on ways to tailor success (beyond the basic, alt, image file name, images folder, surrounding text ... crap).
3. Enterprise SEO - It's a different world when you are dealing with PR8 sites with millions of pages and hundreds of content writers. I personally met with people from Time, Inc., National Public Radio, Viacom, and several other enterprise companies. Advanced shouldn't be about the guy that is running his own small site and wants to find out how to get ranked for 'blue little widgets nowhere, north dakota". It should be about ways to capture terms like Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, George W. Bush, politics, weather, digital camera, hdtv, travel, viagra, and porn. Again, it's Advanced.
I could go on but I've made my point.
HOWEVER, the social networking aspect of SMX Advanced made it a MUST ATTEND conference. The known SEOs of the industry were there with only a few exceptions. The ability to build stronger relationships with them made it well worth the few thousand dollars to attend. But that was an accidental benefit that made it all worth it.
If content is king then the content at an advanced SEO conference should be better. The conference was saved by the social aspects and the people that attended but not by the content itself. Because of the social aspects, I'll do everything I can to attend next year but I'd really like to see an improvement in content.
Brent D. Payne
I think you've just provided some of the best constructive feedback Danny will see from this show: the three things you'd like to see are really solid, and they'll lead to other topics, too. If Danny's taking pitches for topics in the future, you should copy and paste those into an email.
It was wonderful to meet you too, although I'm still a bit put out about my bowling game ;)
Thanks Jane. There were some large companies there and from the conversations I had, they were there for the networking aspect not the content because they have already given up on learning much from the content. I find that to be really sad, but I can see where they are coming from to some extent.
Frankly the most powerful information I got from the conference floor was via a couple of friends of mine (which I won't mention and let them respond in the comments if they wish to be called out) that did a 15 minute 'tune-up suggestions' session with me and then gave me one hell of an idea for a widget that I've already put the process in place of getting built. They also mentioned a great way to help flow page rank more precisely around the site. But that great information was given while the conference rooms were being tore down and put away.
@dannysullivan if you do read this comment and want more feedback, call me. I'm easy to find online just Google 'Brent D. Payne' or follow the link in the blog post above.
Obviously I wasn't there this year, but found that most of the benefit I got last year was in the apres-conference bar sessions. Ditto at PubCon.
I wonder whether this is simply unavoidable at shows of this size...
I heard on a podcast once that your best conference value is just to get yourself to the city, get a room, and then buy people drinks in the bar - you'll learn far more useful stuff than you will at any of the panels.
I obviously didn't attend, but when I think of Advanced SEO one of the first things I think about is Enterprise SEO.
This was a great suggestion Brent. Not only should Danny take these into consideration - but you should be on a panel.
Thanks Vinny. If he asks, sure I'll do it but I'll let him approach me. I do think Enterprise SEO is something that needs to be covered. It really is a different game. The number of times I heard people state that PR funnelling isn't worth it . . . make me want to scream. No it's not worth it if you have a small site and little PR but if you have a massive site with literally hundreds of links on a PR8 page . . . damn straight it's important.
Brent D. Payne
Nice review Rebecca, and nice suggestions from Brent.
Sounds like everyone had a good time, and that most people took something useful away with them.
I always wonder what the "9 to 5 SEO people" get out of shows like this, those sent by their employer to bone up on SEO and what it is; those that just do SEO as a job, rather than a way of life.
I'm not so sure that your regular SEOmoz reader/Sphinn participant/forum (wmw, sef, sew, hr, etc, pick one!) contributor is all that typical of your "average" SEO operative or conference attendee.
Several times, I've sat next to people at conference sessions who were from multi-national companies, and they had no idea about the online SEO community, and have never heard of sites that we all use and perhaps take for granted every day.
It would be interesting to find out what they get out of the sessions, and what their perception of the level and focus of the content is. I guess that relies on the feedback forms given to all attendees to fill in.
It would be interesting to hear from Danny if there is a marked difference in feedback from those types of attendees (as long as it doesn't give away data that is too sensitive to fall into competitors hands).
This is such a good point. I've met lots of people at shows who are just like that. I dare say they're in a vast majority.
Similarly, lots of our PRO members are active within Q&A, use our tools every day, but don't comment much, write YOUmoz posts, etc. Different people get different things out of both conferences and sites / services. Of course there is cross over, but it's always good for us to learn who values which part of our site and the same goes for conference organisers.
I have spoken with marketers and developers from A*gos, N*kia, H*lton, V*rgin, C*annel Fo*r, and other large brands, at various shows, and to me, their perception of what the conference offers and their goals of what they wanted out of it, seem quite far removed from what your average poster here was looking for.
Heh, lots of welcome activity from you Mozzers this weekend. Normally we don't hear or see much from you guys over the weekend. It's like the Mozplex closes down for two days.... Rand paying overtime now is he? :-)
Ooh, there's an idea! ;)
Networking: brief but fantastic (it was great meeting SEOmoz members like Brent D. Payne, Richard Baxter, John Tompkins, PixelBella, the woman whose avatar is the cartooney bandit girl, and many more folks) Oh I see how it is. :.(
Haha, sorry, I fixed it.
Immortalised in an SEOmoz post - thanks Rebecca, good to eet you guys too. I wish SMX could have been 3 days, though that might blow for you! Got some cool new stuff coming your way - will be in touch.
@darren slatten - LOL!
Rebecca - nice work, but I notice you seem to be indulgiging in some rather gray tactics yourself, in your naming of this post.
You call this the R. Kelley version, but I couldn't find anyone pi**ing on anyone else at any point in the post, or even anyone claiming that they could fly.
Please can you explain?
Of all the panel recaps I've seen the "Funding, Valuing, & Selling SEM Businesses" panel seems like it would have been the most interesting.
Any chance you can get your mentor to guest post on SEOmoz?
FYI . . . for those of you that think domain strength doesn't matter take a look at the position this blog post has for the term 'R. Kelley' in google. It's first page (log out of google if you didn't already know that personalization is playing a larger and larger role in search results today).
Now let's see is this site about R. Kelley? Does this site have anything to do with music? Does the site have to do with anything that R. Kelley has to do with? Nope!!!
BUT . . . R. Kelley does also stand for Rebecca Kelley which was mega smart of her to play off the term and do the post with that title. She could have done some more advanced trickery in the title such as "R. Kelley's Take on SMX in Seattle" and she would have gotten a lot of single pageviews. Now, granted SEOmoz doesn't make money via impressions (that we know of) so . . . not a good model for her. However, I wonder how many clicks she is still getting for the article based solely off the R. Kelley play???
Brent D. Payne
It's turning the fans of bad music into PRO members that's the trick... Hmm. I foresee a meeting in Whiteboard Studios at 8amon Monday.
except that the the singer/paedophile/urine fetisher's name is spelled Kelly, not Kelley.
Sorry to piss on your parade Brent... ;)
LOL, ooops! Tells you how much I know about rap music. Nice call out. Surprised someone didn't do it sooner.
When I'm wrong . . . I need to be set straight.
Brent D. Payne
However Google will blend in results with alternative spellings when there are enough of them, so you're still half right...
Still, how awesome is it that I've conditioned Brent to think that "Kelley" is the more common spelling of that last name? In your face, R. Kelly!
Rebecca, I thought of you this morning as I was trying to figure out if I had enough time to go to the gym today.
The fact that you kept not one but two workouts when you could have easily skipped them for what amounted to a once in a year situation - work related at that - is to be commended and applauded.
Following your example I have to keep to my workout schedule for anything short of a kidney transplant.
I hate you.
You hate me and my healthy, healthy kidneys! ;)
Finally got to read your whole write-up. Thanks for the PPC info - I missed all the PPC stuff as there was always a different session I wanted to be at, but reading the presentations this morning, it does feel a little 101. As with what Brent said, perhaps there is room for an 'enterprise PPC' session - about the challenges of managing large inventory?
Oh, and thanks for having us round for the finals and taking us to play ball ;)
"taking us to play ball" well according to Rand's answers this morning -
"As for Distilled playing Cricket.... Not bloody likely."
Think some negotiating needs to be done Will...
apart from that a good write up and agreed Enterprise level SEO is tough, but the basics still apply, you just have to train every person in the company...
To clarify, the 'ball' we played was basketball... And we didn't embarrass the UK :)
:) all good then! Maybe SMX london sees the cricket :)
No, you didn't! You represented your country admirably. Jason was impressed. :D
I heard they won! Okay, sooo far off topic.
(Congratulations boys!)
3 out of 5 games...though to be fair, Jason had a mediocre teammate (no, it wasn't me). ;)
Still, the Critchlows played very well. Good shooters they are!
Yeah - we won, but Jason had a duff team-mate and I think he was taking it easy on us (until he realised it was too late and we might actually win).
Oh, and the shooting was mainly Tom. I was mainly fighting in the post.
You forgot about me again :(...I was at dinner too! First you forget my name, then you forget me all together...(read as: where is my link love! =P). Great seeing you again Rebecca!
Haha, damnit, you noticed. ;)
Just kidding--sorry for the snub. I added you, so quit yer whining. :P
Thanks for the session notes, missed those ones.
Please improve the weather for next year though mmkay?
I'll see what I can do. ;)
This is the first time I liked an "R. Kelley" version of anything. (Did you ever hear Ignition? - case closed)....
Great seeing you as always Rebecca!
Wow, just realised how amusing the name of our venture capitalists' comany is in regards to Rebecca...
Nice vocational article.
It's funny how often success on the internet can be summed up by "Don't be sloppy and lazy, do a little research". I think a lot of more classicly minded people still view it as new ground, where you can put up some crappy content and magically get rich.
"Haters want to hate, lovers want to love, I don't even want none of the above, I want to p*** on you."