aimClear® Search Marketing Blog

Greetings, guys and ghouls. Halloween is just around the corner, and I don’t know about you, but here at aimClear we love a good scare. Any seasoned search marketer will tell you that in our industry, there’s blood-curdling terrors and freak-shows to behold… if you know where to look. From downright dreadful habits of search conference speakers to positively hair-raising social media faux pas, the petrifying threat of intra-community bloodshed… sometimes it’s like we’re one bucket of pig’s blood short of a B-rated horror flick. (Side note: Carrie = not B-rated.)

But perhaps one of the most spine-chilling aversions the search marketer could encounter is a so-called marketing must-read filled with outdated, misguided, flavor-of-the-month type garble, all held together by a gaudy eyesore of a book jacket and a really god-awful title.  In the [evil] spirit of sharing a spook and scream with our friends in the online marketing industry, we tapped into our Twitter communities this morning to help assemble the quintessential bookshelf of horrors. I give you: 66 of the Worst Search Marketing Books You’ll Never Read. Read the rest of this entry »

Obama for America’s team, or some troublemaker, is buying YouTube InStream pre-roll ads on a video featuring nude pictures of Scarlett Johansson. The President’s paid “follow-me” pitch introduces soft-porn.  This is a classic example of what can happen when demographic targeting is not carefully conceived and channels properly vetted.

Revenue from YouTube InStream ads is shared with the video’s publisher, so a percentage of every dollar Mr. Obama spends functionally subsidizes celebrity hacker-porn. Google, owner of YouTube, is the middleman. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, we published the second half of 44 Must-See Internet Marketing Conference Speakers– a two-part blog post that paid tribute to industry luminaries who color the conference landscape pretty with smarts, sass, and everything in between. We believe search marketers are among the most beautiful people in the world, and that mini-series was one way to give back to those who give it their all. We also believe that there’s two sides to the conference-speaker-coin, and not everything can be all sunshine and pussy cats… Read the rest of this entry »

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‘Tis the season for peace, joy… and spamtastic holiday emails! No, this isn’t a rant about eCommerce direct email marketing campaigns– though life certainly would go on without explosive email blasts every morning at 3:25 am from a certain popular clothing store just itching to promote sweater sales & shipping discounts. The luxury of crossing everything off that mile-long gift list in a cool 60 minutes of online shopping whilst wearing sweats & slipper booties, sipping coffee spiked with Baileys is totally worth those pesky, more-often-than-not opt-out email blasts.

Our digital culture has almost grown accustomed to seasonal junk mail– sure, it kind of sucks, but it’s part of the package deal: with online shopping comes emails about online discounts, etc. However… when that holiday spam-mail isn’t coming from a chain retail store, but a church… and the recipient is a feisty marketer… eyebrows contort Grinch-style in curiosity, and the question begs to be asked: WWMWD? Read the rest of this entry »

The disdain on their faces is usually palpable.  I’ve been experiencing subtle Facebook derision from mainstream SEOs now for two years. Last week’s edition was a conversation with Greg Boser, President and CEO – 3 Dog Media, a new friend and brilliant speaker on the SMX Search Marketing Conference series circuit.

Dude is a salty-dog SEO genius. However, as we each shared what we were planning to discuss with Australian conference attendees, I had barely started when Greg made it clear, with nary a word, that Facebook demographic segments are a bunch of bullshit.  He actually squinted when I referred to Facebook “organic” as “SEO.” Go figure… Read the rest of this entry »