2 Percent Creativity

Another class action lawsuit has been launched against Google over click fraud allegations. Unfortunately, one of the Internet’s dirty little secrets, click fraud must be seriously addressed and marketers need to start asking more serious questions. One of the problems that exists today for most marketers, is that no one in the marketing world or the SEO space is willing to take the issue on. To do so will get you branded a whiner and just not a smart marketer. After all, Yahoo and Google are winners right? They have built successful brands, er stories right? Let’s not get caught up with issues like disclosure, accountability and metrics for advertisers. That’s just not something a smart marketer does. She’s too busy finding her next great story to tell. Sheeesh!

Check out the news story…

Link: Google sued over ‘click fraud’ in Web ads - Yahoo! News.

Aaron Wall of SEObook.com, has posted an interesting rant about a recent article by the East Bay Business Times and their concern over the fact that search engines do not label ads properly. The article points out that both the FTC, Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Reports, have led the criticism of the search engines and that the problem is not really improving. In fact, it is probably getting worse. I will suggest that there is little hope advertising on search engines will ever be properly designated and here’s why…

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a great article as a downloadable PDF that makes a powerful point. The point is best taken verbatim from the opening of this insigthful piece…

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of talk recently about reports that are critical of the major search engines and their tendency to keep the consumer in the dark regarding ’sponsored’ advertising. This issue is much more serious than simple disclosure. There are billions of dollars at stake and both consumers and advertisers are, for the most part, unaware of the real under belly of PPC (pay-per-click), click fraud, affiliate scams and paid inclusion. We have been documenting our research into this specific issue for the past year and will begin an indepth series on our findings starting later this month. The information we will be providing is critical to every marketer who has a vested interest in their search engine postings, PPC and the consumer’s failing faith in organic search.

Link: Report Suggests Paid Search Disclosure Could Be Better.

Carol Lloyd is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and in this article she has exposed, for the first time that I have seen, some of the under-belly of the online, lead generation business in real estate today. If REALTORS® were perceived by some people as lazy opportunists before (very unfair to the true professionals in the industry, but some people don’t like it when you make a $5,000-10,000 commission), the details in this story will only add fuel to the fire. Check out what she has to say….

Link: Referral madness — an innocent e-mail is bait in the trap.

I guess it is safe to say that Seth Godin’s new book, ‘All Marketers Are Liars’ and all the buzz surrounding it, has tweaked my senses as I go about my daily surfing. And, as the lady with the trendy ankle bracelet is still saying, “that’s a good thing”.

Today, I was looking into the new Audi A3 and found that they have turned the art of lying up a notch. Here’s a remarkable example of making the search for a new car into much more than comparing specs, features and price.

Go to the site and be sure and check out the RED button in the middle of the page about the ’stolen’ A3. Once the flash loads view the trailer and The Stolen Car section, which has a message from Audi America and more lies. This is great stuff.

Link: Audi Luxury Models at Audi USA - official US site.

Now, I am going to date myself with this one, but this is a story too long in the making. First, I want you to know, I am a die hard MAC user. I bought my first MAC in 1985 and had the first (bootleg to boot) copy of Pagemaker, courtesy of the MAC rep at the time, on my 512k, in Canada. Simply put, I was there…

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, numerous blogs have reported on yet another excellent book release by author and marketer extraordinaire, Seth Godin. His latest volume entitled, ‘All Marketers Are Liars’, is essentially a book about storytelling. Well, there is more than that between the pages, but after thumbing this volume I was reminded of a great little book i read about 6 months ago—Squirrel Inc.

Read the rest of this entry »

B.L. Ochman’s What’s Next Blog, has a great interview with popular author Seth Godin. There have been a raft of articles and interviews in the past few weeks with Seth on his new book ‘All Marketers Are Liars’. I heartily recommend Ochman’s blog post on this release as she delivers some very good insights into why Seth blogs and the outstanding results he gets by just giving ideas away.

Every real estate professional or marketer who wants to learn about the power of blogging should check out this post. It wouldn’t hurt to purchase Seth’s book either and learn even more.

Link: B.L. Ochman’s weblog - Internet strategy, marketing, public relations, politics with news and commentary: What’s Next Blog’s Interviews with Successful Bloggers. Seth Godin: Don’t Take Blogging Too Seriously.

Interesting. Very interesting. Yahoo! Search has just let the cat out of the bag. What they want us to believe is relatively simple. They have this great, new, all dotcom idea, to help keep organic search true to its roots. They call it MindSet. Really? We tried the beta site and found it more than wanting. Do a search for just about anything and when you slide the bar over to ‘research’ you often find that many of the sites in the first 10 are commercial and worse, affiliate or Google Adsense websites that offer zero relevance or value. Smoke and mirrors kids, smoke and mirrors.

Read the rest of this entry »