This is the first post of several where I’ll be writing summaries of the sessions I attended last week at SES San Jose 2006. I should note up front that what I’m writing here on SBS will be substantially different from the full recaps posted by Search Engine Roundtable. My recaps here on SBS will only include the notes I took during the sessions I attended, as well as any additional thoughts I jotted down at the time — or thoughts I have now on reflection about a session. Some of my recaps will be incredibly brief … others, not so much. All depends how many notes I took during the presentations.

Monday, 9:00 am – Compare & Contrast: Ad Program Strategies

The very first session of the conference, and not surprisingly, people are late to arrive. In fact, it must be tough for the speakers because there’s a steady stream of latecomers walking in during the presentations. I should know: I’m one of the late arrivers. Hey – first time at SES, you can’t expect a guy to know exactly where he’s going and how to get there….

Content-wise, the speakers are explaining the differences between Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter.

Mona Elesseily of Page Zero Media discusses how the ad programs handle reviews of submitted ads, saying that Yahoo’s approach is to manually review ads that are bidding on sensitive and/or high-volume terms.

Brad Geddes of LocalLaunch.com says:

• with Yahoo, you must have a separate ad account for each country you’re advertising in
• this will change with Yahoo’s new “Panama” PPC system — multiple countries will be covered under one account

Brad Byrd of NewGate — I have no notes from his presentation, other than a reminder to download his presentation and study the slide(s) devoted to Google “FastTrack” system, which was new to me when he explained it.

I missed the presentation from Patricia Hursh of SmartSearch Marketing, but her PPT download gives a good overview of the way Google, YSM, and MSN handle keyword matching.

Overall, a good session, especially since my SEO/SEM experience tilts more heavily toward the organic side than to the PPC side.

tags: sessj06, sessanjose06, google, adwords, yahoo, msn, msn adcenter, ppc