Well I am sitting here in the airport in Fort Myers Florida, waiting to get on the plane back to Seattle and I was going through my notes on the conference (Search Insider Summit). First of all, this conference was unlike any I have ever been to. The size and location, meant that the content was very focused and the discussion was very open. Despite the serious content the event had a lot of great moments to “network” and hangout with some of the best online strategists, marketers and agencies. The conference bills itself the following way:
The purpose of the Search Insider Summit is to bring the best minds in the industry together to share leading edge information and experience on search marketing in a think-tank environment, while exploring new technology, strategies and tactics for effective campaigns.
I highly recommend if you work in online strategy or search marketing to attend. Ken and his team do a great job! A couple of highlights:
Attribution
In the current economic climate, attribution is a becoming more and more import to the business reporting and justification of spend. It seemed to be the buzzword of choice at the conference as most folks were spending more time leveraging and reporting to help optimize impression-based marketing initiatives as well as other types of initiatives and justify their budgets. The hope seems to be to simplify the analysis process and demonstrate how campaigns across the Internet influence website visitor acquisition, conversion and retention.
Relationship Development
Both in conference sessions and out in the hallways it seemed that there was a significant discussions on how to get the most from agency and in-house partnerships. Especially given the current economy, companies are making a greater effort to establish better relationships and improve the cost versus the impact of the engagements.
My favorite session on the topic was led by Aaron Goldman was on how to improve the RFP process. I really enjoyed it, because it is clear that corporate accounting and relationship processes can be real pain for setting up the right kind of engagement. My (mostly uninformed) opinion is that both sides of the house could do a better job of determining the quality of engagements.
I spoke on a panel about agency vs. in-house with Topher Kohan, Marshall Clark and Erica Forrette. We discussed the need for transparency and what ideal models may look like. A funny moment for me came when Erica asked me if I had any thoughts about a comment from Marshall, and all I could muster was a “No, I am still groking what he just said.” It really was an ideal panel and I was happy to be a part of it.
Some other stuff
As always it was great to see folks like Laura Lippay from Yahoo, Just Jenn, Gord Hotchkiss and many others. We all spent a ton of time on the beach and doing other activities together. It made for a great week.
UPDATES: Here are some great follow-ups by people who spent more time thinking about what to write than me. I will add more as I find them:
- Top 10 post-click marketing tips from Search Insider Summit
- Gord Hotchkiss Proved What I’ve Always Suspected About Him – That He’s a Nerd (But I mean that in the good way)
- The Future of Search Engines from the Search Insider Summit
Jeremiah Andrick
