Derek Scruggs

Seth has a legitimate gripe about an AdWords ad that falsely promised to help him get replacement keys for his car. But in fairness to the company behind the ad, Google actually makes it awfully hard for you to know exactly which search phrases are triggering your keyword matches.

Google’s reporting interface groups clicks by the keywords you bought, not the actual search phrases that triggered them. The latter information is available, but not from Google. You have to scan your log files to find them. And since log files generally order search phrases by popularity, unless something using the word “keys” is in your top 50 or so searches, you’ll probably never see it because it’s way down in the search tail.

Of course, I can’t resist the chance to promote Click Thru Stats, one of my companies which, among other things, does captures all search phrases and allow you to analyze them and, in this case, come to the decision to put “-keys” in your keyword matching parameters in AdWords.

Maybe this will work, though I suspect it would work better with upside incentives. Think how much people would pay for accurate predictions of big powder days at the ski resorts?

When I was 10 years old I won my school spelling bee. I was supposed to go to the county championship bee, but on the morning of the big event I woke up with chicken pox. An alternate went in my place and lost on the word “incredulous.” I remember being PO’d because I knew how to spell that word. I wonder how I would’ve done? And I wonder how I would’ve done in a search bee?

I love this. Frequently I hear about a good movie and write it down on a “movies to see” list. However, first I usually check it out on IMDB. But IMDB is really geared more toward “inside baseball” stuff like listing the cast and director. It doesn’t really give you much in the way of reviews, especially by professional critics.

So I was excited to learn about Google’s movie review syntax. Just type movie: followed by the name of the movie you want to learn about. Here’s an example of a movie I’ve been wanting to see for a while: What the Bleep Do We Know?. Interestingly, despite the strong word of mouth I’ve heard from people who say they love it, the reviews for this are not very good at all. Hmmm….

A friend of mine is exploring a business opportunity in China. He does not speak Mandarin and plans to stay in the US, so he’s looking for someone in China (preferably Shanghai) who: 

1.  Is experienced in marketing to Chinese consumers 
2.  Speaks English well 
3.  Is comfortable with the Internet and ideally Internet marketing

If this is you or somebody you know, please contact me.

Here’s an interesting little test. Chris Richardson posted the results of some Google searches he did on various big-name brands.

Just for fun, I started typing in “I hate (brand)” in Google to see what comes up. I then got curious about the findings for “I love (brand).” Here’s the love/hate score for a random selection of brands. While I was at it, I did a “passion index” against the average number of comments for these brands (positive or negative). Microsoft, Walmart, Comcast and McDonalds are the big losers on the Love/Hate score. No surprise. (And yes, this is the random stuff I do when I’m procrastinating.)

How long before this becomes a normal part of consumer behavior when they are researching potential purchases? Fortunately, Google search of “I hate Derek Scruggs” still comes up empty, though it won’t after Google indexes this post.

Brad Feld may be on to something. What do you think of Blarketing?

From Hugh at Gaping Void:

Career and business advice columnists often tell us to “find your passion in life and success will follow.” The lucky ones find it when they are young. Newt Gingrich has said that he knew when he was a young boy that he wanted to grow up to be speaker of the House. Ditto Bill Clinton and the presidency. Whatever your political beliefs, it’s admirable that both men found their callings at such a young age.

Both of these are immensely powerul, prestigious position in our society, but fame or fortune really have nothing to do with what or why someone should aspire to something. Often aspiring to something “small” can lead to greatness. As an example, last weekend I read a little blurb in Parade about Cesar Millan, host of National Geographic’s The Dog Whisperer. I never heard of Millan before, and I don’t watch his show, but I was struck by this sentence:

As a farmboy in Mexico, Cesar vowed to become the world’s best dog trainer.

Dog training is an honorable profession, but it never occurred to me that someone could be the “world’s best” at it. Cesar did, and now he’s got a TV show and is in Parade magazine. He must be doing something right. What would I like to be the world’s best at? I’m still thinking that one over. How about you?

In reference to Seth’s snarky reponse to my snarky response: Thhhhhhbbbt