Recap on SMX Analytics Toronto 2009

April 2nd, 2009

by Laura Thieme

I just returned from SMX Analytics Toronto 2009. I drove 12 hours up on Monday to arrive the evening before the conference began. I took my 4-month old with me. One of my clients, www.beezix.com - Beatrice - she made some amazing arrangements for Melina so I could make this happen. Imagine speaking at a conference, and having your 4-month old with you - challenging to say the least on so many unspeakable levels, but we did it. We travelled, I presented, we did it. Honestly, neither of the two presentations were my best presentation, out of 30 plus major conference presentations, but it was good to get back into the water and swim again. So, what did we talk about?

Top Ten Custom Search Analytics Reports - we talked about Bizwatch(TM), our new search analytics reporting platform for paid search, organic, and web analytics. Omniture, iCrossing and Red Bricks Media also presented. Search analytics tools offer so many reports, in fact we offer over 60 different custom analytics reports you can run for your SEM, organic or website marketing analytics campaign. With all the various dashboards, and programs you can run, what matters most to you?

What do you want to track? What do you wish you could do faster, easier than now? Do you still have to export everything into MS Excel? Do you want reports on your desktop, your iPhone, in your email, the Web?

We’ll be putting up a YouTube video, re-recorded, derived from the session and what we learned. We’ll post it here. This weekend, I’ll update the blog with the leading thoughts that came out of the conference. While the conference was very, very small, less than 50 people in the one-track session on Tuesday, it was at the end of the day, it was in Toronto, and it was on Analytics only.

I think if the Analytics only conference were in Chicago, or another midwestern city, such as Columbus, OH (why not?), or another place, it would have attracted more analytics folks. No one from Columbus, OH attended, and many of my colleagues in this space did not attend.

So why not? Is it the economy, was it the location, was it the topic?

What I will say is this - the small group reminded me of the early days in 2001 where search marketing conferences were small, but very educational where you learned something very good, new and applicable to your SEM, SEO or analytics business. So I hope that they will repeat the SMX Analytics conference again, but perhaps in Toronto or another location?

Let me know if you attended. If you go search.twitter.com and search “SMX” or “SMX Analytics”, you’ll see the number of people talking about SMX. You have to give Danny and Chris a lot of credit. There’s a LOT of people who talk about SMX - by the minute. SMX Sydney is taking place now.

Posted in SMX - Search Engine Land Conferences. No Comments »

 

Looking for Bizwatch 2.0 Product Beta Testers - Paid Search Application & Organic

October 10th, 2008

by Laura Thieme
October 10, 2008

I am looking for some smart beta testers on a paid search and organic search marketing application that we’ve just launched. Clients are already on the application, but I’d like some fresh perspective.

Here’s what we need, if you want to do this:

An NDA in place, which I will send to you electronically
Your Google Adwords Client ID Number, so our account can send you an invite
Accept the Google Adwords Client Center invitation, so we can pull your data in API format

You will in turn, have access to our paid search reporting platform. If you also provide up to 20 keyword phrases, we can review the data for organic as well. But that is not necessary, it’s just up to you if want to see ranking reports, competitor reports, and who has the most organic marketshare for these keyword phrases in Google, Yahoo and MSN.

I’d be interested in your feedback - and we will send you a nice gift in the mail as another way of saying thanks, provided we have your snail mail address.

Posted in Paid Search Tools. No Comments »