I could not help myself but taking a few pictures today. Apparently, lots of people were doing the same thing today. We were exchanging tips on the best shots. I am not a good photographer but here are my favorites, as souvenirs of this special day:

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Vancouver covered in snow

The last few months have been really busy for eMarketing 101 and I am glad to take a well deserved week off between December 24-31. Among other things I have been working on which you may want to check during the holidays, there is francouver.ca, a site for the francohones and francophiles living in Vancouver, which I am very proud of. If you have not done so, please read the prove your frenchiness section of the site, and I promise a good laugh, especially the last question of this 30 second survey. Before I collect your feedback on this, please enjoy a terrific holiday season and see you all soon for more search marketing stuff in 2009.

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The Enquiro webinar series on Search Marketing topics is the best you can find out there and here they strike again with a really cool & important topic: Tactical Methods to Coordinate your SEO and PPC Campaigns. The webinar is this week, Thursday December 18, at 11h00PST (2h00PM Eastern). If you do SEO and/or PPC concurrently to some degree, you have to attend this webinar. Please find some more below about it.

How do SEO and PPC teams work together on achieving joint targets?  What real estate, like the Golden Triangle or “top shelves” of the search results page, can the marketer control?  On December 18, B2B search marketing agencies, Enquiro and Covario, will present tactics and demonstrate how they best leverage one another based on real life examples.  As an attendee, you will also have a chance to interact with the presenters by posting questions during the event, which will cover:
- How to leverage paid search ads to drive organic traffic
- Know when PPC ads compete with, and when they enhance organic listings
- How to measure cannibalization or synergy that comes with joint PPC/SEO efforts - the best testing methods.
- How organic traffic changes when a PPC campaign starts up
- Using paid search as a testing bed for SEO strategy, messaging and keyword exploration

We recommend this webinar to:
Interactive Marketing Managers and Directors, as well as search marketing practitioners.

Register for the webinar now

Date & Time:
Thursday December 18, 2008
11:00am Pacific, 2:00pm Eastern
45 minutes including Q&A period

Panelists:
Gord Hotchkiss, Kyle Grant, and Matthias Blume

Please see bio’s below

Gord Hotchkiss
President and CEO, Enquiro

In understanding search user behavior, no one is a more respected voice than Gord Hotchkiss. He and the research team at Enquiro have built a solid reputation as the leading experts in understanding not only what happens on a search portal, but also why. Gord’s voracious personal curiosity extends into areas as diverse as neurology, psychology, genetics, sociology and anthropology, always with the goal of understanding why we do the things we do and what that means for marketing strategy.

In addition to being the CEO and co-founder of Enquiro, Gord is a director and the past Chairman of SEMPO, a columnist for MediaPost and Search Engine Land, a regular presenter at all the industry shows and a popular keynote speaker.

Kyle Grant
Senior Search Marketing Strategist, Enquiro

As Enquiro’s senior sponsored search strategist, Kyle provides strategy for some of the company’s most demanding and complex B2B and B2C paid search accounts. He has a wealth of experience designing and managing behaviorally targeted local campaigns to multi-million dollar international e-tail campaigns. He is able to combine his skills in data analysis and marketing ability to develop highly targeted ad messaging and campaigns, aiming to not only access the correct target market but to speak to them with the right language. Kyle is also a student pilot and applies the same thoroughness and critical analysis to his sponsored management strategies that keeps him safe in the air.

Matthias Blume
Chief Analytics Officer, Covario

Dr. Matthias Blume develops advanced analytics capabilities to help Covario’s large advertising clients better manage cross-media optimization and to drive automated decision management.  He invented Covario’s patent-pending Paid/Organic Synergy Score and True ROI assessment that are now available in Covario’s Paid Search Insight and Organic Search Insight products.
Prior to Covario, Matthias led targeted marketing, fraud detection, and government R&D projects at Fair Isaac Corporation, Reticular Systems, MESCO Engineering, and the Rockwell Science Center.  Matthias earned his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego and a B.S. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology.  He has been active in neural network and statistical pattern recognition research for 20 years and has authored over 25 papers, book chapters, and patents.

About the B2B Expert Series
To address current questions facing business to business marketers, Enquiro launched a package of online seminars titled the B2B Expert Series.  The webinar series brings together industry researchers, analysts and practitioners and covers topics such as web analytics, sponsored search marketing, and website user experience. The webinars can be accessed at www.b2bexpertseries.com.

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Every time I meet with friends, I end up talking about Google, its core business, its vision, why they are not affected by the current economic crisis that is on everybody's mind and a gazillion of other related topics that touches everyone. Apparently I am not the only one who is being asked all sorts of questions about Google. Now, I just got from James from Adhack.com a really thorough presentation about Google that highlights its core competencies in many areas. This slideshow is about everything you always wanted to know about Google (but were afraid to ask) and is useful for everyone who wants to know more about Google and its related businesses.

Here are a list of topics that are presented in the slideshow:

It is good stuff. Future still looks bright. Shades not included.

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I came across a really cool & important article this morning on why your website doesn’t it a traditional call to action. Anyone with a site should read it. It mentions a few things about the use of video on your site, how important it is to introduce yourself and other cool concepts that have nothing to do with what is commonly known as traditional call to action. 

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