The online search universe is expanding, and everytime Google is making a change to its engine, the world notices and the competition follow.
The latest Google project “Google Universal Search” is taking the search experience to Web 3.0.
But what is “Google Universal”? The title in itself is self explanatory, Google wants to become the one stop shop to all search queries and bring the user everything associated with the keyword that is searched for. So to give you an example the next time you search “Aurelia Noel” in Google (just like you do every day ), not only you will get all the articles in this blog, testimonies, linkedin profile, but you may also find pictures, videos, articles and maybe one day books on me
The example may not be the best but I think you get it, Google will make it extremely simple for you to find everything on a particular query rather than having you search several times for queries related to the same subject. We are entering in a “new” (well not so new anymore), era in search marketing, combining text links and multimedia.
So far Google is taking a gradual approach in developping the project but this is definitly the way forward.

Now how will it affect competition?
This is difficult to say, as ever since Google annonced the GUS project, hybrid (copycat?) projects came from Yahoo and Ask! and Live Search revamped the whole interface to combat Goggliath.

But will Yahoo new search experienced (launched earlier this week) be good enough? My personal take on that is as long as Yahoo (and others) will copy instead of being innovative, it is unlikely to get people type something other than Google. 

I was at the Adtech last week and was really surprised to find so many search agencies, all of them claiming they were the best and had the best service offering on the market. I can understand why so many agencies want a part of the pie (Globally paid search investment shall reach the $10b mark this year) but this is getting complicated for companies to find the best providers.

So here is my £2 worth of wisdom and tips for identifying good companies to work for:

- Meet the team: a sales pitch is always good, but you need to meet the people who will be working on your account. Meet them on their premises and have them walk you through what they will be doing once your account is on board. This will also give you a unique opportunity to discuss with the “experts” and have a feel of what they can really deliver and how.
- Don’t be fooled by “Google advertising professional” logo: It only says the agency passed the Google test, they know how to run a campaign, but they may be pretty poor at managing it.  What I mean is they will make a great job sending traffic to your website, increase your ranking and make you look good on ”google.com” but it does not necessarily mean they will look into the strategic aspects of the campaign, integrate the campaign into broader marketing initiatives and increase your convertion and ROI.
- Ask for customers insights: The agency will usually be happy to give you case studies and customer references, if they are not you may want to think twice before signing the contract. If you are still not sure, ask your agency to meet one of their client so you could get a better idea of how the service and offering are translating into real “life”.
- Look at what they charge: If your agency is happy to work on a revenue share model or a tiered fee structure based on performance, it will indicate they have the same interest as you have: GROW revenue.
- Put them to the test: as part of RFP you can ask your agency to do a test campaign for you. You could then judge the results from one agency to another. You will also have agencies refusing to invest money without a firm commitment from you so you may want to have a couple of month contract to have them show what they can do.

It is important to keep an open mind while selecting search marketing agencies, also never be too shy to run through blogs and forum to gauge your search agency reputation.  

A new Live Search platform is born, I think today is the official launch date. So what’s new in the Live Search world?

Well everything have been revamped and improved, Live Search now has some really cool functionnalities such as the “celebrity xRank”, which gauges whether online buzz around a certain celebrity is currently positive or negative. This is great for the gossip industry on a more professionnal note Live Search may now be able to compete with Google as the new platform offers:
- A more pertinent algorithm: Live Search interprets what users are looking for, even if they misspell a word, type in two separate words or else.
- A more powerful engine: “Microsoft is quadrupling the number of sites it searches for new information and overhauled the core technology that decides which results to display”, said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s search and advertising group.
- A complete search experience that combines not only images, videos or maps but also shopping guides and reviews if you are looking for a particular product.
- A focus on the 70M users that are already using Live Search. Microsoft hopes to get them to use Live Search for more of their daily online tasks. This way they can also get the momentum, build the reputation and work on customer loyalty in a world dominated by Google.

Live Search is not going to change the world of Search Engine in a day, especially when people tend to pick the industry leader. But I really think they are heading in the right direction and have a fair chance to make a difference in the years to come.

You know, that we Fench people like romantic stories and love prude heroins.
Joanof Arc is one o them or shall I say was, as historians are now doubting the veracity of the myth.
As demonstrated by Marcel Gay & Roger Senzig in “L’affaire Jeanne d’Arc” (The Joan of Arc case), Joan is a forgery, a legend built by the 15th century media industry and revived in the 19th century quest for French heros.
So the Brits may have not killed her afterall, and she even lived happy ever after, she did not marry a Prince but was of noble descent.
Well in a sense it can be applied to today’s world where media are so powerful that a large majority of the population believe their every word without questionning.

Does it mean French and Brits will fell in love again? Well I don’t think so but I thought it was funny enough to share. 

Lot of affiliation posts lately, I must be really inspired or paid search is becoming so boring that I need something fresh

If you are asking yourself the question, then you are definitely heading in the right direction, affiliate marketing is probably the best idea you have ever had !

There is more than one good reason to invest in affiliate marketing, to cite a few:
- £2.16 billion revenue was generated through affiliation last year in the UK alone (source Econsultancy)
- Top networks are now focusing on a better and broader service offering, giving your affiliate program a strong chance to make the right impact on your company
- Affiliation is performance based but is also a great way to generate leads and attract B2B customer via per per call or hybrid models
- Affiliate is now a mature media and now a bible of best practices any good networks and/or affiliate managers will apply on your program. The pionners of the early 2000’s have done most of the hard work for you and tried and tested anything you can imagine
- And of course it drives revenue, reduces cost of acquisition, gives you a better understanding of customer fullfilment path and ultimately improves branding and on-line impression shares.

One last thing to bear in mind, Affiliate marketing is not ONLY about authorising paid search affiliates to do a great job for you. There are many good sites out there so you’ll need to consider the broader pictures as there aren’t so many so called search affiliates that a program can take. Think blogger, think content sites, think cash back and loyalty scheme…    

Another day, another Google challenger, this one is called Cuill and is the idea of Tom Costello (CEO), Anna Patterson and Russell Power. Tom created Webfountain when he was at IBM and Anna and Russell were formerly employed by Google and worked on the TeraGoogle.

This is how they describe their web engine: Cuill Inc. (pronounced [kool]) is a startup company that is pioneering a new approach to Search. The company was founded by Anna, Russell, and Tom. Our offices are located on a quiet street in Menlo Park, CA. If you’d like to learn more about Cuill or the people behind it, please get in touch.
The site is still a work in progress but you can have a peak here .
They seem nice enough, they know from previous experience what search on the Net actually means and their project may be an interesting one to follow.
Cuill is inspired by techniques based on the semantic analysis of data and should go out some time in 2008.
Lets hope the Cuill project does not bite the dust before launch.

Long ago I created a post on affiliate do’s, now I tried to put together a list of don’ts.

1) Do not think Affiliate is a cheap media: Merchants seem to think affiliate marketing is a miraculous media that does not need investment and will get you a great ROI in no time. Well, guess what you cannot expect something for nothing! AM is a great media and it does deliver fantastic results but you have to invest to get something back. I am not talking only money but TIME. Affiliate need to be motivated, informed, they need to be in a competitive position so all their efforts are worth the pain.

2) Do not overpower your network: Networks are great and in 99% of cases the people I worked with were top consultant who were taking really good care of my programs.  BUT I will say the brand is yours and you can sell it to your affiliate better than anyone else. No matter how good the network is, it cannot substitute for commitment and involvement from your company.

3) Affiliate are business partner: Not treating them as such is a mistake. Give them all the tool they need just like you’ll do with other partners.

4) Do not think short term: A good affiliate program reaches maturity in the first year. You have to give your program the time to grow and think about it as a long term investment. This will need you may have to fight internally as the media can potentially be ROI negative (if you add setup fees, amangement fees, network access fees, internal resources…) in the first 3-6 months. 

5) Do not throw the all catalogue to affiliates: You know your product better than your affiliates or your Network, if you have hundreds of products, how do you want affiliates to know which one to promote? The best is really to categorise your products and let affiliates know what are your best sellers, top deals and hot items. 

6) Do not let the program take care of his own: Affiliate program and management is not something you can implement and then let go expecting the program to take care of itself. COMMITMENT is the word when starting an affiliate program.

7) Do not let issues ruin your program: Be grateful for your affiliate to come back with issues or problems as if they report them, it also mean they care. Make sure all affiliate queries are top priority on your list. If you don’t it is going to be harder to get affiliates back and program on the right track.

Don’t let the cost be out of your control: Affiliation is not only about commission and incentives. True, if your program is good money, affiliates will be more than happy to join. BUT make sure you are not throwing the cash, affiliates would rather go for a good program in the long run rather than a program that pays LOADS but is not viable for the merchant.

9) Do not let the program fade away: by allowing stagnation. It is tempting but affiliates should always get something to talk about and fresh creative. If you do not make the choice to grow your program it will eventually die and affiliates will move on.

10) Don’t make your affiliates work too hard: The only thing affiliate should have to worry about is PERFORMANCE and nothing else. If you ask them to be copy writer, brand managers, content manager and web merchandiser you are asking them far too much. By providing the right tools to affiliates you will have them concentrate on what is best for you (ie Conversion). 

HAVE FUN and make sure you team up with a great network that delivers to expectations rather than selling you services you won’t need

PS: Sorry I messed up a bit with this article, I have now amended it to what it was supposed to be

Well, this is not new Google launched a beta version of its Pay per Action model in March this year and extended it globally in June still as a beta, but in a recent speech Marissa Mayer called it the holy grail.

Why? Well anybody involves in emarketing knows that CPA (cost per action) or PPA is good for an awful lot of reasons: it reduces your cost of acquisition, helps you get a better grip on your budget and your spend, drives your ROI up, increases transparency…BUT in the case of Google, I would not call it the Holy Grail yet.

Looking at the model I would like to share my pros and cons with you so you can have an idea of what we are dealing with
Google PPA is only available as a beta for Adsense customers (so using the Google content network not the Google search network). To be able to participate you need to have Google tracking in place so Google can track the conversion themselves (to that extend it does not differ much with other PPA model providers).
Pros
- Pay per action model so you only pay for conversion
- You set your own conversion price so if you decide to pay $1 per conversion it is up to you (only thing will be that your ads will not be ranked as high)
- You can select the categories of sites you can work with
- Choice of format PPA works with text links, banners and ad copy format
- Reduces click fraud on Adsense (not that it does not exist anymore but since you only pay for conversion and not for click, you do not really worry how many clicks it will take to generate a sale)
- Acquisition costs are easier to control (as you set up your own conversion price)

Cons
- Available to Content Targeting only. PPA works only with Adsense (content network), not with Adwords, so volume is low and Adsense is known for low conversion level (traffic is not qualified so more difficult to convert into sales).
- Low click volume, so far Google is allowing less than 10% of its adsense traffic to go to PPA ads so it can take a while before seeing any conversion and even more difficult to optimise fully
- Purchase Fraud, Google is not building an affiliate platform so they do not have the tools to differentiate a valid order from a bogus one. Also no process is in place for order reconciliation. Meaning that whatever your conversion price is you will have to pay it even if the order is not genuine.
- Limited to a few players so far: to participate in the program, your site must be tagged for Google conversion tracking and you need to meet the requirement of high number of total conversions (500 conversions in the last 30 days).
- Some content sites are reluctant to switch to PPA.
- No de-duplication with your other marketing initiatives so you will end up over counting conversions on Google especially if you also have an affiliate campaign in place where affiliate use the content network as well as the search network.
- Google conversion tracking is not 100% accurate and depends on how the tracking is implemented on your site.

I guess by now, you know where I stand, Google PPA model is a nice gadget but is far from being what Google claims it is. And to those who predicted the end of affiliate networks because of Googliath, I would answer, see you in 10 years

I can be really tough in business but I also have a softer side.

This post is to tell you I decided to participate in Race for Life 5km run this year.
My daughter (20 months), a friend and I are participating in the Race for life event in Reading on the 15^th of July.

Race for Life is a series of UK-wide, women-only fundraising events organised by the British charity Cancer Research UK.

Although participation is limited to women, men can get involved by volunteering and marshalling at the event.

Race for Life involves running, jogging or walking a 5-kilometre course and raising sponsorship from friends, colleagues and family for doing so.

The money raised is donated to the charity and funds cancer research and campaigns.

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/maylysandre

All donations big and small are welcome and will be greatly appreciated, our goal is to raise at least £500 ($1000) in 2 weeks.

Any quid (bucks) matters !
Thanks for us, thanks for them

I do not pretend I am a guru, far from that but hope my experience as I have set up some successful program could be beneficial for advertisers and affiliate marketers alike.

The way I approach affiliate is always the same, I am doing my best to get a win /win situation between the affiliates and the advertiser.
At the end of the day it is in nobody’s interest to have a program that is too expensive to run or with so little commission the affiliate won’t even give it a try.

Not all affiliate programs are the same, but they do share similarities and here is a list of do’s and don’ts I came accross in my Internet marketing life.
I won’t call it a recipe for success too pretentious but it helped me on more than one occasion.

Affiliate Marketing is a system of revenue sharing between one site (the affiliate/publisher) which features an ad or content designed to drive traffic to another site (the advertiser/merchant).

Affiliates do not necessary own a website, they can also drive traffic to a merchant site via Paid Search activity.

1) Affiliate Approach: Affiliates should be considered as an online sales force, and the merchant should provide company information/news, incentives and tools to motivate and educate them to drive revenue. Building a relationship with your affiliates does make a tremendous difference. Merchants should encourage feedback from affiliates. Affiliates can offer valuable suggestions to help you improve your program.

2) Affiliate Recruitment: Constantly look for new affiliates to recruit. They can be potential top affiliates or core producers (affiliates generating a few sales on a regular basis).

3) Commission Schedule: Commission can be a percentage of sales or a flat fee. Commissions should be based on your business objectives, budget, and margins. Commissions should always be paid on time.

4) Link Portfolio: Focus on a comprehensive, effective and diverse creative inventory (Flash banners, interactive banners, storefront, landing pages…)
Bring the visitor to the right page using deep linking, it will boost conversion rates.
The creative inventory should stay up to date and interesting to motivate affiliates and give them a reason to replace links and seek information about your program on a regular basis.

5) Tracking: Tracking is essential. How would you feel if you didn’t get paid for what you’ve earned?

6) Plan your program: Affiliate Marketing is a powerful tool, but make sure you thought and planned your program before getting into it. Yes, you can switch a program on and off but this will ultimatly damage not only your program but also your reputation as a merchant.

7) Get a full time affiliate manager: because affiliation IS a full time job. Not only you have to keep a great relationship with your affiliates and your network but you also need to animate, motivate, educate your affiliates.

Establish tiered commission: a tiered commission is ALWAYS the way to go. Affiliates would need to go this extra mile, if they put money and time in your program they should be retributed.

9) Choose the best product for your affiliate to promote: many merchants are tempted to put the all catalogue and let affiliate decide what to promote. Well this may not be the best option. You know your brand and products more than anyone, put this knowledge into action by choosing the best performing and best value for money products. Don’t ask your affiliate to know your portofolio better than you do.

10) 80/20 rule: Most programs experience a situation where the top 20% of affiliate sales partners drive 80% of sales. It is important to focus on those top affiliates as they will bring immediate high revenues, however core producers are important too as they are producing steady monthly sales at a low cost.