9:00am-9:45am

Keynote Presentation: David S. Isenberg
Five Reasons Why Search Engine Marketers Need a Neutral Net
When AT&T;'s Ed Whitacre declared in 2005, "They're not going to use my pipes for free," he was talking very specifically about search engine marketers. Telcos and cablecos want to use their control of the Internet connection to provide so-called fast-lane service to business partners. The strong implication is that non-partners will suffer degraded service. Worse, even those who do partner with one or more Internet access providers will incur (5) extra charges, (4) reduced reach, (3) degraded knowledge of their customers' behaviors, (2) reduced ability to discover new applications and markets, and (1) reduced trust. A series of very recent FCC and court decisions mean that the neutral Internet we know and love, which gave birth to the entire field of search engine marketing and nurtured it to profitability, can no longer be taken for granted.

10:15am-11:15am

Attendees may choose to attend one of the five sessions offered during this time.

Hybrid Track
Personalization, User Data & Search
This year, Google made its personalized search service much more the default for many users. Other search engines have user data that could be used to reshape search results. This session looks at existing and possible moves in the space.

Multimedia Track
Podcast & Audio Search
With the inclusion of audio results in the main search pages, search marketers must now include audio (podcast) optimization in their tactical toolkits. This session will cover the why and how of audio search optimization, including how to use RSS to increase reach.

Advanced PPC Track
Managing Automated PPC Bid Management
PPC bid management tools like those from Atlas and Omniture allow automated control over the bidding process that promises better ROI and increasing competitive advantage. But managing the automation tools requires an understanding of how these tools work their underlying algorithms and how best to set them and monitor them to achieve desired results. The session will include panelists who are real users of the tools and not representatives of the tool vendors.

Industry Track
Case Study: Moving from Paper to Online
In this session, ThomasNet experts will share their experience, challenges and lessons learned after successfully turning a print brand into an online success story.

Example: 15 years ago, Thomas Register, a 100-year-old print brand, and its sister directories, Thomas Regional, responded to market indicators fast in order to engage Internet users. The switch from print to online created massive changes in their business model, internal systems and sales forces. It also opened doors to new online product offerings; shorter sales cycles and new analytical tools which demonstrate ROI for clients.

Today, ThomasNet.com enjoys 3.5 million user sessions per month from industrial buyers, engineers and purchasing agents from around the world. Hear about their aggressive marketing efforts including SEM, SEO, email, newsletters, blogs, forums, etc. to attract and to sustain a loyal user base for the ThomasNet legacy into the 21st Century.

ClickZ Track
Digital Shelf: The Search Marketing Opportunity for Packaged Goods
CPG marketers have traditionally viewed search narrowly as a direct marketing vehicle with very limited scale. "The Digital Shelf", research just completed by Yahoo!, comScore, P&G and SEMPO, challenges that notion and explores the role of search in the brand-rich environment of Consumer Packaged Goods. It addresses question such as, Does search marketing scale for CPG? What is the profile and online behavior of CPG searchers? Why are they searching? Are they worth more to the brands they search for? This is one of the first studies of this issue in CPG and offers compelling insight into the high-growth opportunity of search marketing for consumer brands.

11:30am-12:30pm

Attendees may choose to attend one of the five sessions offered during this time.

Hybrid Track
Your Marketing Program in Context
Web marketers are presented with many options for search engine marketing & the blue chip keyword buys from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, the strategic organic SEO strategies and the long tail strategy of expanding keyword buys beyond common favorites. While you can certainly attribute traffic from search, what about conversion? This session will address which search engines convert better, which ones produce more engaged users and which ones drive the most users to niche sites.

Multimedia Track
Breaking Down Silos: Specialization With Integration
What happens when search-think is ingrained throughout the planning process from creative to media strategy to execution? What happens is a brand benefits from the true effects of a cohesive and holistic marketing initiative. This panel will discuss how to develop programs that reach consumers through targeted insights into their intentionality and make significant contact at all phases in the sales cycle and within all opportunities of interaction. Through best practices that focus on strategic integration and taking a comprehensive approach to search-informed campaigns, a marketer can take full advantage of the invaluable insights this media avails.

Advanced PPC Track
Managing PPC for Multiple Clients
This session will define and discuss industry best practices in Pay Per Click Account Management as well as discuss geographical ad targeting, best use of ad spend per keyword, targeting competitive vs. niche keywords, and managing multiple clients while using multiple ad tracks (AdWords, YSM, AdCenter, etc.)

Industry Track
Case Study: Maximizing Conversions at Smartsheet.com
Smartsheet.com, the leading online solution for managing tasks, projects and processes, uses SEM extensively, employing numerous keyword and text ad campaigns through the major search engines. Though successful, Smartsheet.com felt performance could improve further. Smartsheet partnered with Widemile to strengthen the linkage between SEM and landing pages in order to increase conversions and the performance of the entire campaign, using multivariate testing and other optimization techniques.

This session will focus on the step-by-step strategies and tactics employed by Smartsheet.com and Widemile, which improved SEM spending efficiency by over 100% in less than 6 weeks.

ClickZ Track
Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything
According to The Wall Street Journal, "The next big Internet race might turn the buying and selling of advertising space on Web sites into the online equivalent of the pork-bellies pit." Early ad exchanges where advertisers and Web sites can buy and sell online advertising space have evolved into a broader battle over Internet advertising. The biggest Internet media companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, are focusing attention and money on the emerging business. Marketers stand to win if the market finds ultimate efficiencies in branded media via auctions and exchanges. This session brings together executives from some of the leading ad exchanges to discuss this emerging category.

2:00pm-3:00pm

Attendees may choose to attend one of the five sessions offered during this time.

Hybrid Track
Analytics: Data Into Action
How can you translate analytics data into meaningful, actionable, recommendations for improvement of an SEO strategy? The focus is on ACTION. Simply getting a statistics report isn't enough to consistently manage an optimization or a keyword campaign. How do you do the deep dives into the data, and what should you be looking for? For some, they find gold, but it has to be communicated up the ladder. Finding, interpreting, and communicating the data are all very different things and all must be used to build a successful analytics program. Find the holes in your SEO strategy by evaluating different keyword and link based traffic, so that you can make a business case for change and increased investment.

Multimedia Track
Calling All Clicks: PayPerCall and You
Whatever happened to Pay Per Call? It wasn't too long ago the other “PPC” was being heralded as the next greatest thing in search. Then Pay Per Call seemed to fall off the face of the earth. Calling to action is alive and well. In this session, you'll hear from leaders in the space executing successful campaigns using pay per call technologies. This session is not to be missed for anyone interested in connecting with customers beyond the click.

Advanced PPC Track
CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines
As the web moves into its second generation, sites are making more use of CSS, AJAX and other advanced and interactive design techniques. But how are the largely Web 1.0 search engines reacting to these, from an SEO perspective. This session explores issues and solutions.

Industry Track
Retail Case Studies
Ever wonder how success happens? Launch a business with money that magically appeared. Get listed in search engines. Make lots of money. Retire and go island shopping. Anyone that has ever launched a business knows, there is a bit more to it than that. In this exclusive, no holds barred session, Kevin Ryan will present two case studies that will reveal the trials and tribulations in building an online business from scratch. This discussion will include pitfalls in launching a site, creating, executing and managing successful search initiatives and understanding analytics.

ClickZ Track
Selling Your Integrated Plan to the C-Suite
By popular demand, SES and Click Z bring you the C-Suite duo. You know your stuff. You get it. You have an integrated plan that is based on logic, reason and known best practices. In today's day and age it is hard to imagine the existence of old grey flannel suits with secretaries that still print out emails. Yet, there are few senior mangers who just don't get it and it's your job to convince them. What do you do? Well, you can give up or you can take it to the C-Suite. Hear from everyday practitioners who didn't give up and counted a win for everyone out there fighting the good fight.

3:30pm-4:30pm

Attendees may choose to attend one of the five sessions offered during this time.

Hybrid Track
Last Minute Holiday Search Tactics
It's the beginning of December and the holiday season is in full swing. All the campaigns have launched and you have thought of everything. Or have you? While other campaigns are flying on holiday spending autopilot, you can swoop in and re-invigorate sales during the peak season and even when everyone else has called it quits for the year after the Holidays. It's never too late to breathe new life into a holiday search campaign and you can take these tactics back to the office.

Multimedia Track
Images and Search Engines
Now that paid search has become an integral component of the marketing mix, marketing managers need to plan for the impact it will have on other media such as television, direct mail, websites and email. In the session the audience will hear real world examples of hoe SEM can successfully intersect with traditional media as well as its impact on website design and market intelligence gathering.

Advanced PPC Track
PPC Advertising on Influential Blogs and Social Media
While most marketers are familiar with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter, there are a number of new PPC advertising alternatives on influential blogs and social networking sites. This session will introduce you to some of the more innovative ways to run conversation-level ad targeting on influential and behaviorally and contextually targeted sites.

Industry Track
SEM Pricing Models
How should you charge for SEM work? Monthly fee? Percentage of ad spend? Percentage of sales? We explore a variety of options in this session.

ClickZ Track
Selling Search to the C-Suite
The second in our c-suite addressing duo, this session will help you navigate explaining search to your senior managers to get the respect (and spending power) you deserve. Your CEO still calls and wants to know why his company isn't number one for the most popular, random, non revenue orientated terms you have ever seen or heard about. Your entire day is spent answering apparently (to you anyway) silly questions about search. Search knowledge is power and this session is where you start to accumulate the power.