Experts Gather at Marin Masters NY to Share Industry Knowledge

By Samantha Lee April 25th, 2013

Last week, we hosted our bi-annual client educational event, Marin Masters, in NYC. Over 100 search experts in the tri-state area, from top agencies and global brands, gathered in the Screening Room at the Crosby Street Hotel to share their experiences and best practices with the Marin platform.

We had some great content presented at Marin Masters thanks to our customers. Themes included bidding, optimization and call-tracking. Marin’s VP of Products, Wes MacLaggan, also showcased the future of Marin and where we see the landscape unfolding.

A special thanks to Yahoo! for sponsoring and presenting their study released earlier this month on ad copy insights and optimization within the travel vertical. Some of the highlights from their presentation included:

We would like to thank all of our attendees for making Marin Masters NY 2013 such a huge success! Please enjoy some photos from the event.

March “Trade Show” Madness

By Ashley Andrada March 1st, 2013

It’s March Madness, and for Marin Software that means trade shows and lots of them.

On March 11th and 12th, Marin will be exhibiting at SMX West at the McEnery Convention Center is San Jose. Visit us at Booth #201 to say hello and learn more about our platform. Don’t miss our VP of Marketing, Matt Lawson, on the Mobile Ads panel on Monday, March 11th at 1:30 p.m in Room 210G. Matt will have a wide array of mobile data and insights to impart. Study up beforehand by reading our 2013 Mobile Trends Whitepaper.
On Tuesday, March 12th at 9am, the madness continues at SMX West. Before the day’s keynote speech, Marin will be presenting the winner of this year’s Biggest Search Geek contest. A big thanks to all who competed in the contest. Even if you missed out on the chance to win a prize, you can still test your search marketing knowledge here.

On March 12th and 13th, Marin can be found exhibiting in Australia at ad:tech Sydney. We’ll be at Booth #20 at the Hilton Sydney handing out all of the quality schwag you can find at our trade shows in North America. Whether you call Sydney home or ad:tech Sydney your legitimate excuse for a vacation, make sure you stop by our booth to learn about the latest innovations taking place at Marin.

On March 26th and 27th, the New York Marriott Marquis will play host to SES NY and yours truly. If you’re attending, drop by Booth #505 to say hello. We highly recommend setting aside twenty minutes to sit in on a Theater Presentation on ‘How Smartphones and Tablets Are Changing Paid Search’, presented by our Product Marketing Manager, Kye Mou.  He’ll be speaking at the theater located in the Exhibit Hall on Wednesday, March 27th at 10 a.m. and has a great deal of knowledge to share.

It’s going to be an exciting month of trade shows and events. Bring your game face!

Search Marketing Insights from SES London

By Rebecca Momberg February 26th, 2013

Last week was the 14th annual SES conference in London. I was delighted to host two round-table sessions focusing on paid search tactics and want to share some of the topics that were discussed. A variety of search marketers from around Europe attended the round table sessions, representing almost every vertical from retail to travel; education to automotive; finance to entertainment, and everything in-between.

Enhanced Campaigns: Google’s recent announcement has created a lot of buzz in the industry; Marin’s recent blog post on the topic highlights the benefits and concerns that advertisers should consider. Many advertisers are planning to augment their geo-targeting strategy with the new location based bid multipliers removing the need to create separate campaigns with bespoke targeting and bids. Budget control across devices is causing concern; however, the general outlook is positive. Marin is advising users to leverage as much data as possible to inform their bid multiplier strategy and embark on a test and learn cycle of optimisation.

Attribution: In-channel, cross-channel, on- and off-line attribution all came up. Opinions varied as to how much time to dedicate to analysing and testing attribution models. StylistPick reaped rewards following the integration of Marin’s easy-to-deploy multi-click, multi-channel attribution model. For more information, take a moment to read the case study.

Tracking attribution and optimizing for mobile were growing concerns for many advertisers; who are worried about under-valuing the importance of mobile due to the inability to quantify users’ mobile research—e.g. linking a mobile search to an offline conversion, or a conversion made on a different device. We anticipate that over the course of 2013 many advertisers will look to address this challenge through the use of voucher codes. AMF bowling is one advertiser who has already put this in place, read more here.

Ad Text Best Practice: Copy writing seems to have taken a bit of a backseat in the world of big data with many advertisers neglecting to regularly refresh their copy in favour of number crunching, bid optimization, and attribution. However, advertisers who regularly refresh copy see ongoing benefits through reduced CPCs and increased CTRs.

Here are some tips that were shared during the round-table sessions:

• Spend time with creative teams responsible for TV, radio and press advertising, these people are specialists in coming up with messaging and many of the ideas generated in brain storming exercises can make great text ads.
• Run competitions to get the creative juices flowing in your search team. Have each person create two text ad variants, set them live and use an automated AB testing tool to judge the winner!

The turnout and feedback provided during these round-table sessions were phenomenal. Marin would like to send a big thank you to everyone who attended and imparted their knowledge and opinions. If you have any thoughts regarding the topics above, please feel free to leave your comment below.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Search Marketers!

By Ashley Andrada October 19th, 2012

Apple picking and liquor treating aside, October can be a strange and spooky month. At our San Francisco office, while it seems the rest of the world is settling into autumn, we always experience a brief but cruel heat wave in October.

Luckily, October also means we get to bring Marin to the rest of the world and cool our heels a bit before the holidays. Where are we going? Where have we been? Maybe your college philosophy professor wasn’t able to give a proper answer to those questions, but I absolutely can.

Earlier this week we exhibited at Pubcon Vegas. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth and said hello. It was a fantastic show and it was so wonderful to meet you all. We hope you made good use of our Marin schwag: pins, pens, stress balls, and chapstick sturdy enough not to melt in the heat of Tao’s VIP section.

In the run-up to Halloween, you can catch Marin at two more major events.

Find us at Seattle Interactive on October 29^th and 30^th. We’ll be at Booth #307 both days and our VP of Marketing, Matt Lawson, will be speaking about the latest search marketing and social media trends, many of which can be found in our latest whitepaper.

Marin will also be exhibiting, for the first time, at ad:tech Tokyo! Find us there October 30^th and 31^st at Booth #223.

In the run-up to ad:tech Tokyo and the official launch of our quickly growing Japan office, this gaijin has been dutifully re-reading her Battle Royale and Death Note manga. She has also been practicing her forlorn stare, in her best attempt to float through Tokyo a la Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation.

If this fact isn’t enough reason for you to get to Tokyo at warp speed, you should know that Marin will also be celebrating the recent launch of our Tokyo office with a party on the evening of October 30^th at La Mere Poulard/Miraculeuse in the Tokyo International Forum. Any and all ad:tech attendees are cordially invited and Ed Stevenson, Marin Software’s Managing Director, EMEA & APAC, will have a welcome speech that you’re sure to enjoy.

Marin Software Hits the Concrete Jungle at SMX East 2012

By Ashley Andrada October 9th, 2012

It was a bit muggy with a generous dose of rain, but the search marketers who attended SMX East were undaunted.

Marin Software has wrapped up an exciting week in New York City, having exhibited at both the SMX East and OMMA Global trade shows. Maybe you missed our larger-than-life booth at SMX East, or maybe you played a bit of hooky to watch Jay-Z christen the brand new Barclays Center.

If you did choose Hova over search marketing, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered in the here and now.

Jason Young, Marin’s Director of Product Marketing, gave a theater presentation full of great tips on Creative Testing and Optimization. If you missed it, or if you attended and would like a  more thorough exploration of this topic, check out our Creative Testing Whitepaper and our Search Marketer’s Guide to Creative Testing and Optimization Webcast.

We at Marin would  like to thank our customers and everyone  who stopped by our booth to chat, say hello, or grab some schwag in the form of chapstick, stress balls, and our always reliable ballpoint pens. We’d also like to say congrats to Polly Kane from Discover, who won our Guess the Keywords iPad giveaway.

If you missed us at SMX East, you can catch Marin Software at more events before the year is out. We’ll be exhibiting at Pubcon in Las Vegas next week, so if you’ll be there let us know or take the time to stop by Booth 17. We’d love to hear from you!

A Look into Marin Masters San Francisco

By Samantha Lee October 1st, 2012

Last Thursday, we wrapped up our 3rd annual Marin Masters here in San Francisco. Over 100 search experts in the Bay Area, from top agencies and global brands, gathered at the W Hotel in San Francisco to share best practices and network over drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

We had some great content presented at Marin Masters thanks to our customers. Themes included mobile, bidding, and campaign management. Marin’s VP of Product, We MacLaggan, finished the event off with a deep dive into the Marin platform.

We would like to thank all of our attendees for making Marin Masters 2012 such a huge success. And a special thanks to Yahoo! for presenting their study on consumer tablet usage and for sponsoring the event!

Please enjoy some photos from the event.

Industry Leaders Talk Mobile Search at Marin Masters NYC

By Samantha Lee April 18th, 2012

This past Thursday marked our 3rd annual Marin Masters event at The Standard Hotel in New York City. A hundred customers in the tri-state area were invited to hear their peers, as well as Marin’s Global Services team, share success stories, best practices and industry insights.

In keeping to current trends and hot-button topics, the themes this year were mobile and attribution. Content included a presentation on our recent mobile whitepaper and a case study presented by MediaWhiz, in which they describe how they leverage Marin to track offline conversions for their client, AMF Bowling.

Agencies Beeby Clark+Meyler, MediaCom and Optimedia lead a discussion panel on mobile trends and their 2012 mobile search strategies. Each agreed that mobile and desktop metrics should be analyzed separately when optimizing performance, citing the need to customize the mobile experience. Using click-to-call and testing creative language to match mobile behavior were among the key recommendations. All three agencies expect their mobile search budgets to grow by at least 15% in 2012.

Marin Client Services wrapped things up with a presentation on Marin Enterprise best practices and strategies. Topics for the discussion, chosen via customer survey, were geared towards the specific business goals and objectives of our customers.

We would like to extend a big thank you to all of our speakers; and to Yahoo! for sponsoring this event!

Speaking at SMX Advanced London: Leveraging Ads On Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter

By Samantha Lee May 16th, 2011

If you’re attending SMX Advanced in London this week, don’t forget to sit in on the track, “Beyond Search: Leveraging Ads On Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn,” where Matt Lawson, VP of Marketing at Marin Software, speaks on the importance of advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Track: Beyond Search: Leveraging Ads On Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Time: 9:00am-10:15am

Marin Masters NYC @ The Bryant Park Hotel

By Samantha Lee April 15th, 2011

A few weeks ago, Marin hosted its 3rd regional Marin Masters event at the Bryant Park Hotel where clients joined forces and shared their success with leveraging the Marin platform. Big thanks to KAYAK.com and Neo@Ogilvy for presenting their case studies on building a global workflow for campaign management and measuring performance through advanced analytics. Our user panel consisting of Reprise Media, Path Interactive and Clearsearch Media focused primarily on the hot topics of digital marketing such as Facebook, rich and mobile ads, and their recent findings from the Yahoo!-Bing Search Alliance. Thanks to everyone who presented and attended!

In true Marin style, we ended the night at the Bryant Park Hotel’s Cellar bar with tasty treats and fancy cocktails. Can’t wait for the next one!