Author Archives: ghotchkiss

The Ebbs and Flows of Market Share

First published July 16, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

It’s been just over six weeks since the birth of Bing. While I didn’t actually say Microsoft’s new search baby was ugly, I was less than optimistic about its chances of unseating Google in a popularity contest. So, with every measurement panel carefully following Bing’s debut, I think it’s time to see just how the little engine is doing in the search (oops, make that “decision”) sandbox.

Let the Record Show

First of all, much acrimonious commentary has been attributed to me about Bing. I just want to say I never said Bing was a failure, a bad search engine or a step backwards on Microsoft’s part.

I simply said Bing would not break the Google habit, despite 100 million dollars of advertising.

In fact, here’s exactly what I said would happen. Driven by the advertising, people would temporarily disrupt the playing out of their habitual Google script, try Bing and find that it wasn’t all that different from using Google: better in some ways, worse in others. Without having a compelling reason to consciously break the Google habit (which is hard cognitive work) they would just go back on autopilot and continue to use Google. A temporary blip upwards for Bing would soon disappear, at roughly the same time as Microsoft’s $100 million ad budget, and we would all go back to mindlessly Googling what we’re looking for.

Survey Says...

So, what’s happening in terms of market share? Well, the various numbers seem to show that Bing has gained a small uptick in market share (the exact amount is difficult to determine, but Compete puts it at a 0.3% gain in share), Google’s up as well, by about half a percentage point, and Yahoo and Ask are both losing ground in what seems to be an irreversible death spiral.

If you just look at the Google and Bing numbers, the words “I told you so” naturally spring to mind. And this is still with the $100 million tap fully open. Google could come out of this with the biggest net gain, paid for by Microsoft’s ad budget.

But the story gets much more interesting, and more compelling for Microsoft, if you look at what’s happening with Yahoo and Ask. This is something I didn’t think about in my original forecast, but the logic seems clear in hindsight.

26% Still Up for Grabs

When Bing debuted, there was a 26.7% percent of the U.S. search market not owned by Google, again according to Compete. At the end of June, that shrunk to 26.1%. And that’s the share that Microsoft should be paying close attention to. Don’t worry about breaking the Google habit. Concentrate on picking off the weaker contenders. And right now, when it comes to search, Yahoo and Ask are lying limp and lifeless on the side of the road, easy pickins for a Bing drive-by. In the past year, Yahoo is down in market share by almost 3 and a half points, and Ask is off by a full point. All of this has gone to Google, plus some. They’re up almost 10 full share points in the past year.

Is Google Domination Inevitable?

If these are the trends, is it inevitable that Google will eventually own the entire search market? No, because we always like alternatives. We get nervous when there is a de facto monopoly, so we’ll keep even a weak contender on life support just to give us an alternative. At the height of the Window’s OS dynasty, Mac still managed to hold onto 4.5% of the market and Linux 0.5%. Since then, Mac has come back to take almost 9% of the market and Linux almost a full point (according to Net Applications).

That’s the other thing to remember about humans. If we have a viable underdog, we’ll throw it more than its fair share of support. Case in point: the browser wars. In 2004, Explore owned 91.35% of the market. The fledgling Firefox was its biggest competitor, at 3.66%. But over the past five years, the balance had shifted decidedly in Firefox’s favor: 65.85% for Explore vs. 22.39% for Firefox. The fact that Firefox improved its product at a much more aggressive rate than Microsoft didn’t hurt either.

I believe Google is getting very close to its natural market share cap. And the stronger the alternatives, the lower that cap will be. Yahoo and Ask have lost their appetite for competing in the search arena, but Microsoft has a viable contender in Bing. I still don’t expect it to break a Google habit, but it could well become our No. 1 alternative when we’re ready for an occasional break from our habitual search rut.

How ironic! Microsoft’s Bing playing the White Knight to Google’s Evil Empire!

SEO Success: Sign of a Healthy Corporate Culture

First published July 9, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’ve been working with companies on SEO for over a decade now, and there’s one thing I’ve noticed: all things being equal, healthy companies with great cultures seem to do much better in organic search results. And by organic success, I mean the good, white-hat, Matt Cutts-approved kind of success. I bet that if you found the companies that do well in organic search, you’d also find companies that Jim Collins (author of “Built to Last” and “Good to Great”) would be proud of. This correlation can’t be coincidence, so I’ve outlined some reasons why this might be so:

Flatter and more-responsive organizations. Working on SEO is like taking your Web site to the doctor: a good SEO consultant will tell you what you have to do, but the hard work is up to you. Companies that listen and respond will do better than companies that justify, finger-point and go on the defensive. Healthy companies look for ways to improve; dysfunctional companies offer reasons why improvement is impossible. Companies that refuse to do the heavy lifting required to whip their site into shape generally are equally negligent in other areas of their business.

Better communication channels. SEO is by nature a cross-functional exercise. It involves many different departments, all working together toward a common goal. This approach is well within the comfort zone of healthy organizations, but totally foreign to dysfunctional ones. An SEO initiative severely tests the communication and cooperative capabilities of an organization. It requires marketing, IT, product managers and often legal to all work together, and the faster they can do this, the more positive the results will be. SEO is not a one-shot tactic. In the most competitive categories, it’s a full-out and ongoing war. The companies that can respond and adapt quickly will win that war. The ones mired in bureaucracy and butt-covering will inevitably sink in the rankings.

Healthy community connections. The new era of digital communications requires companies to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with their community of customers. Great companies do this instinctively. Bad companies put up huge corporate communication barricades, keeping the angry hordes at bay. Because much of this dialogue happens online, these dialogues tend to generate reams of content and links. Raving customers generate link love; angry customers generate link hate and reputation management problems. A company that can effectively engage in conversations with customers will find a natural lift in organic rankings is often the result.

Efficient execution habits. Companies that keep a clean house do better organically than companies that keep skeletons in the closet. Both approaches are symptomatic of the company’s overall approach to business. Highly effective companies constantly upgrade systems and infrastructure, both in their organizations and their online presence. They invest in best of breed tools and technology. And they are able to quickly prioritize and executive as the landscape shifts. Again, a clean technical online infrastructure makes SEO much, much easier.

Executives that “get it.” C-level executives who make SEO a priority realize that the marketing landscape is shifting quickly. They’ve been paying attention to customer behavioral trends and have committed to being proactive rather than reactive. This usually indicates well-placed intelligence gathering “antennae” and feedback loops. It also indicates an executive who isn’t hopelessly mired in “old-boy” thinking and outdated command and control management models.

Corporate pride. Content might not be the sole king anymore (SEO is more of an oligarchy now) but it’s still part of the ruling class. Great cultures tend to engender pride that naturally precipitates an explosion of content. People blog about where they work, people tweet and product managers enthuse verbosely about what they’re working on. All of this generates great, searchable content online.

Companies get the SEO rankings they deserve. I’m guessing that if you asked any SEO consultant in the world, they’ll tell you their favorite clients are the ones that are the easiest to work with: clients who listen, are proactive and for whom continual improvement is a religion. Based on what I’ve seen in the past decade, this attitude extends beyond the SEO team (indeed, it has to) and permeates the entire culture. There are those who game the system and gain undeserved rankings, but more and more, “organic” rankings are just that: rankings that come from the very nature of the company and how they conduct themselves in the marketplace.

The New Metrics of Fame

First published July 2, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” — Andy Warhol, 1968
When Warhol made his oft-quoted prediction, he was referring to the ability of media to push anyone into the bright glare of the spotlight for a fleeting brush with celebrity. What he couldn’t have anticipated was the strange twist the Web would throw on this issue. The Web democratized media and accelerated Warhol’s prediction. Viral fame doesn’t depend on tightly controlled channels like newspapers and TV networks; it seeps, oozes and sometimes gushes, propelled by users. All of us, including middle-aged guys from New Jersey lip-synching to pop songs, kung-fu-fighting bears and teen-aged “Star Wars”-obsessed wannabes, can now be famous.

But it’s not just the opportunities for fame that have undergone drastic Web modification. It’s also the ways we measure fame. Humans are obsessed with status. We are mesmerized by social rankings, and thanks to the infinitely measurable nature of the Web, we have a legion of new status metrics available to see how we stack up against the world at large. And I’m just as big a sucker for this as everyone else. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I regularly check my status on various Web-based metrics. Here are a few of them.

Googling One’s Self

I think everyone’s guilty of this one at one time or another. You check to see what ranks for your name, who else of the same name shows up (my doppelganger is a photographer and musician in Scotland), and how many mentions Google finds of you out in the Web wilderness (22,900).As your digital fame grows, you broaden your search parameters. For example, do you break the top 10 for just your last name? This is admittedly dependent on how common your name is. Hotchkiss is not a household word, but I am competing with a prep school in Connecticut, a town in Colorado, a civil war cartographer, a precursor to the Jeep, the owner of the Calgary Flames and a ballroom dancing instructor. Or how about your first name? Gordon Lightfoot, a video game storeowner and a comic book about ultra bondage offer stiff competition for “Gord.”

Here’s a new variation: Search Suggestion Wheel of Fortune. With the search suggestions feature now available on all the major engines, see how many letters you have to type in for your name before you appear on the list of suggested searches. I come up in 5 letters (on Google.com — my home country is a little less kind. I need to go to 7 letters on Google.ca).

Techno-Rate-i

If you’ve joined the blogosphere, a number of destinations offer updated stats on how you stack up against the Seth Godins, Guy Kawasakis, Michael Arringtons and Arianna Huffingtons of the world. I have been tremendously delinquent here. I was once in the top 100,000 on Technorati, but have slipped back to the lowly 200,000s, due mainly to posting neglect. Still, with somewhere over 100 million blogs in existence (exact numbers seem hard to find) that still puts me in the top 0.2%, so my ego can live with that.

Twitterholics

The newest addiction for those seeking digital attention is Twitter. Now that the celebrities have glommed onto tweeting (come on, Kutcher, DeGeneres and Spears, can’t you share a little love?), it’s not as easy to gain top tweet status, but Twitterholics can get their fix of ranking reporting at Twitterholic. I do better here than on Technorati, once again breaking top 100,000 status. 1,649, 378 more followers and I beat Oprah (@outofmygord if you care).

Fame is Fleeting

In the new wired world, we are constantly reminded of our own notoriety, or lack of same, compared to everyone else in the world. In the pre-Web world, not only were we not famous, we were also blissfully ignorant of the fact. Today, it seems that everyone should strive to have some small sliver of fame. Keeping up with the neighbors isn’t about what’s parked in your driveway, it’s how many hits your blog gets. Social status is now measured in backlinks, hits and followers. My brother-in-law dealt my ego a devastating blow when he gave me a T-shirt that said “More people have read this T-shirt than my blog.” But I’ll get even. He won’t be getting any link love in this column.

Grandma Via YouTube

First published June 25, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

This week we had a Webinar on Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. We featured brain scanning images, survey results and the work of Marc Prensky, Gary Small and other researchers, showing how technology has created a generational divide between our kids and us. For me, though, it all came into sharper focus when I walked past our computer at home and saw my youngest daughter, Lauren, sitting there with crochet hooks in hand.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Learning to crochet.”

“On the computer?”

“Yes, there’s a video showing how on YouTube.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Dad, YouTube has now replaced Grandma.” (Smart mouth on that kid — not sure where she gets it from.)

Adapting With Our Plastic Brains

Prensky and Small have written extensively on how exposure to technology can literally change the way our brains are wired. Our brains are remarkably malleable in nature, continually changing to adapt to our environment. The impressive label for it is “neuroplasticity” — but we know it better simply as “learning.”  We now know that our brains continually adapt throughout our lives.  But there are two phases where the brain literally reforms itself in a massive restructuring: right around two years of age and again as teenagers. During these two periods, billions of new synaptic connections are formed, and billions are also “pruned” out of the way. All this happens as a direct response to our environments, helping us develop the capabilities to deal with the world.

These two spurts of neuroplasticity are essential development stages, but what happens when there are rapid and dramatic shifts in our environment from one generation to the next? What happens when our children’s brains develop to handle something we never had to deal with as children? Quite literally, their brains function differently than ours. This becomes particularly significant when the rate of adoption is very rapid, making a technology ubiquitous in a generation or less. The other factor is how much the technology becomes part of our daily lives. The more important it is, the more significant the generational divide.

Our Lives: As Seen on TV

The last adoption that met both conditions was the advent of television. There, 1960 to 1965 marked the divide where the first generation to be raised on television started to come of age. And the result was a massive social shift. In his book “Bowling Alone,”   Robert Putnam shows example after example of how our society took a U-turn in the ’60s, reversing a trend in building social capital.  We became more aware and ideologically tolerant, but we also spent less time with each other. This trend played out in everything from volunteering and voting to having dinner parties and joining bowling leagues. The single biggest cause identified by Putnam? Television. We are only now beginning to assess the impact of this technology on our society, a half-century after its introduction. It took that long for the ripples to be felt through the generations.

You Ain’t Seen Nuthin Yet.

That’s a sobering thought when we consider what’s happening today. The adoption rate of the Internet has been similar to that of television, but the impact on our daily lives is even more significant. Everything we touch now is different than it was when we were growing up.  If TV caused a seismic shift of such proportions that it took us 50 years to catalog the fall-out, what will happen 50 years from now?

Who will be teaching my great grandchildren how to crochet?

Why Wolfram Alpha is Important

First published June 18, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In the new Bing-enabled world, search is hotter than ever. Your entire Search Insider lineup has been trading quips and forecasts about the future of search. Aaron Goldman thinks Hunch may be the answer to my call for an iPhone of search. Today, I want to talk about why Wolfram|Alpha is very, very important to watch. It’s not an iPhone, but it is changing the rules of search in a very significant way.

Search is more than skin-deep. To most users, a search engine is only skin (or GUI) deep. And anyone who’s taken Wolfram for a spin has judged it based on the results they get back. In a few cases, Wolfram’s abilities are quite impressive. But that’s not what makes Wolfram|Alpha important. For that, we look to what Stephen Wolfram has done with the entire concept of interpreting and analyzing information. Wolfram|Alpha doesn’t search data, it calculates it. That’s a fundamentally important distinction.

Unlike Bing, which is promising a revolution that barely qualifies as evolution, Stephen Wolfram knows this is the first step on a long, long road. He says so right on the home page: “Today’s Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.”

Words are not enough.  Wolfram’s previous work with Mathematica and NKS (New Kind of Science) shatters the paradigm that every search engine is built on, semantic relationships. As revolutionary as Google’s introduction of the linking structure of the Web as a relevance factor was, it was added to a semantic foundation. PageRank is still bound by the limits of words. And words are slippery things to base an algorithm on.

The entire problem with words is that they’re ambiguous. The word “core” has 12 different dictionary definitions. It’s very difficult to know which one of those meanings is being used in any particular circumstance. Google and every other engine is limited by its need to guess at the meaning of language, one of the most challenging cognitive tasks we encounter as humans.

Potential advancements in relevance require gathering additional signals to help interpret meanings and reduce ambiguity. Personalization is one way to do this. Hunch, Aaron’s nominee for the iPhone of Search, requires you to fill out a long and rather bizarre quiz about your personal preferences. All this is to learn more about you, making educated guesses possible. If you’re going to stick with a semantic foundation, personalization is a great way to increase your odds for successful interpretation.

Another way to interpret meaning is to go with the wisdom of crowds. By overlaying the social graph, you can make the assumption that the one meaning people like you are interested in, is also the meaning you might be interested in. Again, not a bad educated guess.

Knowledge as a complex system. But what if you could do away with the messiness of language entirely? What if you could eliminate ambiguity from the equation? That’s the big hairy audacious goal that Stephen Wolfram has set his sights on. If you look at the entire body of “systematic knowledge,” you have a complex system — and in any complex system, you have patterns. Patterns are abstractions that you can apply math against. In effect, knowledge becomes computable. You don’t have to interpret semantic meaning, which is intensive guesswork at best.  You can deal with numbers. And unlike language, where “core” has 12 different values, the number “3” always has the same value.

Wolfram|Alpha is not important because it provides relevant results for stocks, cities or mathematical problems. It’s important because it’s taking an entirely new approach to working with knowledge. It’s not what Wolfram|Alpha can do today; it’s what it may enable us to do tomorrow, next year and in the year 2015.

Wolfram|Alpha could change all the rules of search. Keep your eye on it.

Get It or Die: Online is Your Core Business

First published June 11, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In a recent survey, we asked B2B buyers how they prefer ordering the things they order all the time. Sixty-three percent said they prefer to order them online. The next largest group was the 15% who would go the traditional route of ordering from a local office over the phone. Another 12% said they’d prefer to order from a real live sales rep. In a recent presentation to a client, I kept that pie chart of results up for a while, allowing it to sink in, because I think the implications are astounding.  After it sunk in, I asked what I believe to be a fundamentally important question: “Look at the chart and ask yourself, how closely does your company’s strategic direction and resource allocation match that pie chart? That’s where your customers are going, and they’re moving fast. Are you going to be there when they get there?”

“getting it” vs. “Getting It”

Lately, I’ve also talked a lot about “getting it.” To me, there are two levels of getting it.  There’s the safe level: the proficient e-business unit that understands search and executes effectively, realizes that online strategies have to be planned across channels, is struggling to put attribution models in place that work, and is continually testing and optimizing landing pages. If we look at digital marketing alone, they understand it and are skilled practitioners. This level, “getting it” with a small “g,” is rare, although there are several examples to look at.

But then there’s “Getting It,” with a capital “G.” This is the company that realizes that online forms the core of the customer experience and that everything else has to support that — if not today, then in the very near future. This is the company that is rapidly and aggressively moving to digital as its primary way of doing business, that is already making the painful but required transitions and is willing to cannibalize its traditional core in order to support the move to online. Outside of pure online plays, this level of “Getting It” is so rare as to be basically nonexistent.

Digital Butt-Covering

Companies pay lip service to “getting it,” but they’ve hedged all their online bets. They have treated online as an incremental revenue channel, putting in rigorous ROI thresholds so that it can be separated from the core business and risk can be balanced against returns and investment, thus minimizing it. E-business is a siloed sandbox, relegated to the sidelines so it doesn’t rock the mother ship.

What these companies fail to realize is that this safe, incremental approach to moving online is probably the riskiest thing they can do. Here’s why.

Online is a discontinuous innovation in consumerism of all kinds. It’s a huge step forward for the buyer in almost every way imaginable. It’s easier, more convenient, more useful and more effective. If people aren’t buying online, they’re researching online. And no matter how much they’re doing both those things, they would like to do more. The only thing holding them back is a lack of destinations or a quality user experience on the destinations they do have to choose from.  Your customers are adopting online at an incredibly fast rate.

By easing towards online at a safe, incremental rate because you’re mitigating risk to your core business, you’re allowing your critical mass of customers to get in front of you. Whenever a mass of customers is underserviced, someone will fill that gap, and you can bet it will be a nimble, online pure play that’s moving at light speed compared to you.

Internet Speed Defined

Jim Lecinski from Google’s Chicago office has a chart he loves to show in client presentations. It slaps you upside the head with the reality of “Internet speed.” He first recounts a typical conversation with a client that falls squarely in the first category of “getting it.”

Jim: “What are you doing with your online campaigns?”

Client: “Oh, we have a lot happening. We’re expanding our keyword list next quarter and we’ll optimize that campaign over the following quarter. In Q3 and 4 we’re going to run some experiments with social media that we’re excited about. For the next fiscal, we’ve built more into the budget for better tracking and attribution. That will help as we move to cross-channel optimization because we’ll get great data showing us what’s working and what’s not. That will also allow us to step up our landing page testing and optimization.”

Jim: “So, you’ve got your plans set out for about 18 to 24 months ahead?”

Client: “You bet. We’re moving very quickly.”

Then Jim shows them the Google Trends graph that reminds them that both YouTube and FaceBook went from zero to Internet domination in under 24 months. Further, few people had heard of Twitter 12 short months ago.

That’s Internet Speed.

That’s “Getting It.”

Hold Up the Bing Bandwagon

First published June 4, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I seem to be in the minority. Everybody (including fellow Search Insider Aaron Goldman) seems to be jumping on the Bing bandwagon. It’s generated some good initial reviews, and Aaron goes as far as to say, “Bing is far and away the most serious challenge to Google that anyone’s ever posed.”

I’m not so sure. Don’t get me wrong. Bing is a good step forward for Microsoft. It shows they’re serious about search. But unlike Aaron, I don’t think Bing is going to make a significant difference in market share numbers. I think Microsoft will get a temporary blip, causing everyone to rush to pronounce Google’s imminent death, and then everyone will go back to searching the way they did before: on Google.

Wanted: Revolutionaries!

Search needs an iPhone. Bing is a Razr. Bing is a repackaging of the same old experience, the same blue links. Microsoft has added some filters and additional navigation. But at the core, there’s nothing revolutionary about it. It won’t break a habit.

Here’s the fundamental problem. Microsoft says search is broken, and Bing is the answer. If Bing is the answer, it must mean that search wasn’t really that badly broken. In fact, it must have been barely scratched. Because the Bing experience really isn’t that different than my Google experience. Bing narrowed the gap, but they didn’t jump to the other side. It seems to me that it wasn’t search that was broken. It was Live Search that was broken. And, if we agree on that, than Bing is a pretty effective band-aid.

What We Need is an iPhone of Search

But what if Microsoft is right (as I suspect they are), and search is broken? What if we could have a significantly better search experience? What would it take to deliver that? It requires scrapping all preconceived notions and starting over. It requires an approach like the iPhone.

The iPhone isn’t a mobile phone, it’s a mobile Web and computing device. The phone is secondary. The iPhone is in the middle of changing the way we interact with online. We squeeze, spread, stroke, tap and shake. The iPhone also opened up an ecosystem of functionality. The App Store is the true genius of the iPhone: little bits of integrated functionality, making our lives more fun, more productive and more connected. Apple never intended to catch up. It intended to vault over the competition, changing the rules and opening a new marketplace. Apple strategists had nothing short of revolution on their minds.

What Bing has done is heated up the search race again, and that might be the best thing that comes out of its launch. The amount of ink generated already shows that we all want a more competitive search space. Google has had it relatively easy for a long time.

Catching the Wave

Ironically, the most exciting thing I saw last week got lost amongst all the buzz about Bing.  Google’s Wave does for email what I am proposing for search: it takes the current status quo and completely shatters it. Wave may be an integral piece in a new, richer world of online functionality, delivered to you through the Chrome Browser. Google is slowly assembling a critical mass of SaaS applications that threatens to change our concept of how we do things digitally. As those pieces come together, count on search to be at the core of it.

If I were Microsoft, that’s what would be keeping me up at night. Its empire was built on a foundation that’s over 20 years old: the concept of desktop applications. It has struggled to move into the new world of SaaS. But Google seems to be getting it and building a new world order around it. Now, that’s a revolutionary concept.

Conversations from Northwest Flight 033

First published May 28, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

“So, what is it you do?”

Oh, no! It was the question I dread. I froze.

The question was posed by a very nice woman in her mid-50s who was returning to Bellingham, Wash. from a one-month trip to Europe. She was my seatmate on yesterday’s flight back from Amsterdam.

Since I got into search, I’ve hated that question, mainly because I don’t know how to answer it. I’ve tried several times, and it’s never been a terribly satisfying experience.

There was my mom, who was trying to understand what her eldest child did. I believe really, truly, she asked with the best intentions.  But this was before she had a computer and Google was just one of those words you hear that has no frame of reference, like antebellum, Shevardnadze or Hezbollah. You know the word is important to someone, just not you. 30 seconds into my answer, I knew it was hopeless. “I work with computers, Mom, on the Internet.”

“Oh, my friend was talking about that. She’s having problems with her computer. Could you fix it?”

“Sure, Mom.”

Then there was the U.S. customs agent in Sumas, Wash., who asked me the question while I was trying to gain entry into the country to go talk at a Google sales conference.

“So, you work with Google?

“Kind of. I’m not an employee of Google, but our clients use them.”

“To search?”

“No, to advertise.”

“Advertise? Where?”

“On the results page.”

“There are no ads on Google.”

“Well, actually there are.”

The conversation could have gone two ways here. I could have explained the entire monetization of search, or I could have looked for the nearest available exit from the conversation. I opted for the latter. I gained entry into the U.S., but never did convince the agent that Google sold ads.

Just to be clear: I hate the question, not the answer. Search has been extraordinarily generous to me. It’s not a job. It’s not even a chance at a multi-million-dollar buy-out. It’s the passion. It’s a chance to wake up every morning and discover something nobody knew before. It’s knowing that your opinion counts just as much as anyone’s, because we’re all figuring it out and none of us, not even all those Ph.D.s at Google, are experts yet. It’s getting the chance to explore the potential with some of the most exciting companies in the world, around the globe. And it’s the absolute blessing to be able to spend your time doing that and make enough money to provide your family with a good lifestyle. I’m not rich, but I am very happy.

Search allowed me to exceed my dreams. I started off wanting to be Darren Stevens, the ad exec working for the big agency. Sometime in my mid-20s, twenties, I decided I was less of a Darren Stevens and more of a Michael Steadman. If that name’s not familiar, Michael Steadman was Ken Olin’s character on “thirtysomething.” I wanted to be co-owner of the Michael and Elliot Company, a small but dynamic ad agency with a handful of talented and dedicated employees, cranking out great creative for regional advertisers.

Today, my company has over 30 employees and a brand new sales office in San Jose, Calif., and we work with major accounts globally. My opinion is respected in an industry I love. I travel and speak all over the world.  In fact, a research contract with Europe’s biggest telecom and a speaking gig with Google’s U.K. team were what led me to my plane ride back from Amsterdam yesterday. Based on what my life goals were, search allowed me to whiz by them some time ago and there’s still no end in sight.

But still, there was that damned question: “So, what is it you do?” 

Oh, what the hell…

“I’m a search marketer.”

“Mmm. That must be interesting.”

Wow! She got it. She knew what I was talking about. It was just as if I said I was an accountant or a lawyer.

“Yes. It is. Very interesting.”

She went back to her book. Perhaps it was on the Hezbollah, or a biography of Shevardnadze.

A Tale of Two Houses

First published May 21, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I have a difference of opinion with Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore. Actually, it’s not so much a difference as a question of context. He believes there’s room for more visual branding on the search results page. I believe this is a potentially dangerous area that has to be handled very carefully on the part of the engines.

This issue came up during the opening session of day two at the recent Search Insider Summit, when I posed a question  two different ways to the audience. First, I asked them, as marketers,  how many would like to see richer branding opportunities on the results page. Almost every hand went up. Then I asked them the same question, but this time as users. Some hands went down immediately. Many others wavered noticeably, as the paradigm shift exposed underlying hypocrisy. Others remained resolutely high on the idea.

The reason for the mixed reaction was that, for users, the ideal search experience depends on the context of the situation. Visually richer is not always better. There’s some subtle psychology at play here. So let’s explore it in a story.

It’s a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

Imagine we both live on the same street. In fact, we’re next-door neighbors. I travel a lot. I happen to know you might be thinking of taking a vacation this summer. So begins the story of My House and Your House:

Your House

In this story, the reason I travel a lot is because I’m a commissioned travel agent. I get paid if I book you on a trip somewhere. And you don’t know it, but I get paid a lot more if you go to Disney World. So every morning, I come over to your house and knock on your door wearing my Mickey Mouse ears, carrying in one hand a portable stereo blasting “When You Wish Upon a Star” and in the other a fistful of Disney travel brochures. Each day, I visit with a determination to book you on the next flight to Orlando.  Now, if Disney is in your travel plans, perhaps this isn’t as obnoxious as it sounds. But if two weeks in the Magic Kingdom sounds as appealing as the Bataan Death March, my neighborly welcome will wear a little thin. Sure, I got your attention, but you also listed your house for sale shortly after my visit.

My House

Now forget all of the above. This time, I travel a lot because I’m worldly, adventurous and wise. I’m also wonderfully informative. Over the backyard fence, you mentioned that you might be thinking of taking a vacation this summer. In neighborly fashion, I invited you over for a coffee and to ask me any questions about past trips I’ve taken, in case any of my previous destinations might be appealing. You take me up on the offer and ring my doorbell. We sit down and I ask, “So, any particular areas you’re thinking of visiting?”

“Hmmm, I’ve always dreamed of the Mediterranean. Perhaps the French or Italian Riviera?”

“Cinque Terra is wonderful, so is Nice, Cannes and Monaco, but don’t rule out Spain or Portugal. I’ve been to them all.”

A House Divided…

Think of your reaction, first in your house, then in mine. As you no doubt realized, your house represents typical advertising; my house is search.

And the context is different in subtle but important ways. That’s why it becomes dangerous when we start trying to combine the two. In my house, you’re engaged and curious. You’ll ask me what I love about Portugal, or why I didn’t recommend Cannes more enthusiastically.  And you’ll trust me more if you know you’re getting my objective opinion. After I know a little about your preferred destinations, you might be interested if I introduce you to my friend, the travel agent.  You would even find that helpful. You’re open to a sponsored message, as long as it’s relevant to your interests and fits into the rules of the overall experience.

All this gets to the context of my difference of opinion with Gian. Visual richness is appropriate if it’s relevant and welcome. It’s annoying if it’s intrusive. And that line would be in the control of the engines and the advertisers.

If I come to your house uninvited, my job is to convince you to open the door. But if you come to my house, my job is to inform and help. You came through the door on your own. The house we live in is a great place, but there are rules we have to live by. Otherwise, no one will come to visit us.

The Search Insider RFP Panel: Truer than You Know

First published May 14, 2009 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Another Search Insider Summit is in the can. And one of the most interesting panels we had was the one put together by Aaron Goldman about the RFP process in search. Aaron picked up from where he, Steve Baldwin and Janel Landis left off in a string of columns talking about the frustration of RFPs and RFQs. Aaron posed the question of whether the RFP process was fundamentally broken to a balanced panel of clients (represented by  Olivier Lemaignen from Intuit and Tom Bombacino from Restaurant.com) and agencies (represented by Tom Kuthy from Resolution Media and Janel from SendTec).

It was a fascinating session. We heard from both sides about the challenge of finding the right search partner. Panel members said the RFP process was overly rigid and bureaucratic, an attempt to avoid risk that ended up putting agencies and marketers into an adversarial relationship right from the start. Tom Kuthy said he often refuses to play the game, either trying to change the rules to a more mutually enjoyable alternative or just picking up his ball and going home. On the client side, Olivier was sure that RFP stood for “Request for Pain.”  Surely, the panel agreed, there has to be a better way.

Where Have I Heard This Before?

I found the panel so enjoyable not because of Aaron’s able “steermanship” — although he was his usually engaging self — but because the stories of pain we heard rang so true to my past experience.

As luck would have it, Enquiro is midway through an extensive webinar and white paper series on organizational buying behavior. It caps off several months of research that involved talking to hundreds of B2B buyers about how they make purchase decisions. And what I heard on Friday afternoon at Captiva was exactly what we heard time after time from these people. B2B buying is a huge pain in the butt.

There’s a sales maxim that is often quoted: “People want to buy, but they don’t want to be sold.” While this is generally true, there’s an interesting variation in the B2B world, which, as vendors, we all live in: “B2B buyers definitely don’t want to be sold, they’re ambivalent about buying, and the only thing that really matters is covering their ass.”

Here’s the Rub

When we buy things for ourselves, there’s usually an element of risk, but also one of reward. Human decision-making balances the two against each other. And we do it by gut instinct. There’s often a degree of rational deliberation, but the engine that drives consumerism is emotion: the thrill of possession vs. the fear of loss. There is a yin and yang to most purchases that carry an element of pleasure. That is why we love to buy. But some purchases, like life insurance, carry no inherent reward. There’s only risk to consider. Buying life insurance is no one’s idea of fun.

Most B2B buying is like life insurance. There’s no reward side to the equation, only risk. If we make the wrong decision, we can lose our job. If we make the right decision, we don’t get a new car, or a TV, or even a new pair of shoes. We just get 10 tons of ball bearings, or a new search agency. Where the hell is the fun in that?  Avoiding risk is all there is to most B2B buying.

Buyers and Doers

Now, some people are occasionally thrilled about B2B purchases. These are the people that get to use the new equipment, or software. They’re the ones that get to work with the new search agency (fully staffed by exceptionally fun people), taking a huge burden off their shoulders. Surely there’s an element of reward in it for these people? Yes, and that’s why they almost never give the final OK to a purchase. They’re too highly motivated to buy, so somebody needs to apply the brakes. In our research, we call the people wanting to buy the “Doers” and the people applying the brakes the “Buyers.” It’s the Buyers who insist on the RFP process. As far as the Doers are concerned, RFPs are a waste of time.

Tom and Olivier were “Doers.” They had little time for the ass-covering pretense of RFPs. On the vendor side, no one likes an RFP. But what we were missing on Aaron’s panel was a “Buyer.” I’m pretty sure the procurement people at Intuit are in no great rush to scrap their RFP process.