Ken McCarthy

Search insights from the AOL data dump

A few weeks ago, AOL released the "anonymous" record of searches made between March and May of this year by 650,000 of its customers.

I put "anonymous" in quotes because it's possible to identify some individuals by analyzing their search patterns.  Big scandal, so the data was pulled from public view, but before it was...

What`s happening with Adwords?

When I lived in San Francisco, they called them "seismic events" - a fancy, less scary word for earthquakes.

Has Google radically changed the rules of the game for Adwords? I`ll be the first to say I don`t know exactly what`s happening, but early reports lead me to think they`re targeting advertisers who are running lead generation web sites...with massive rate increases.

Speculation is not going to answer the question, but maybe collectively we can figure out what`s going on...

E-mails sent on Fridays...

Do you want to get the highest possible open rate for your e-mail?

If you do it makes a difference which day you mail...

Why shoppers drop the ball

Imagine this scenario: A prospect has come to your site, selected what he wants, taken out his credit card and is ready to pay.

Then he changes his mind.

Wouldn't it be good to know why?

Here's why..

Throw out the catalogs?

Media and merchandising giant Disney has just announced they're discontinuing their print catalog business and going 100% e-Commerce to "save money."

Meanwhile, Amazon is going into the print catalog business with offerings in  home improvement, kitchen, and electronics.

Who's right?

eCommerce numbers quiz

How up are you on what's happened in eCommerce in 2005?

1. Which product category generated the biggest dollar amount of online sales during the 2005 holiday season?

2. What search engine is responsible for more than 1 out 10 visits to online retail and classifieds sites?

3. How much did advertisers spend on search in 2005?

Free AdWords management tool

Coincidentally, the System Seminar and Google AdWords launched on the same week back in May of 2002.

At first, few Internet marketers were able to make sense out of what Google was offering.

How times have changed...