Your reward for waking up early! Our panel of experts will assess your website and show you how to improve your site's search ranking and bring in more traffic.

Search Engine Marketing: What's Up and What's Next
Craig Snyder, Executive VP of Business Development, Marchex
In this presentation, Craig will provide an historical overview of the rapidly evolving search engine marketing sector, its key components and participants, and whether or not search engine marketing really is for everyone. He will also look ahead to what’s next in the sector and how it fits into broader marketing frameworks, with an eye toward what all of it means to companies and agencies, alike. Marchex is a provider of technology for merchants engaged in online transactions. Two of Marchex’s operating companies provide distinct types of search engine marketing services. Enhance Interactive (formerly ah-ha.com) provides pay-per-click advertising programs, including Paid Listings, Contextual Advertising, and Guaranteed Inclusion, while TrafficLeader specializes in paid inclusion, conversion-to-revenue tracking, and other search-based customer acquisition tools and services.

How To Significantly Increase Online Sales
Philippe Suchet, CEO of Kefta, Inc.
This session will help marketers understand methodology and implementation efforts required to develop best-in-class online marketing strategies. Drawing from his experiences working with major corporations, Philippe will present an overview of winning customer acquisition and retention tactics, including concrete examples from case studies. He will show how, by combining the power of the Internet and the proven efficiency of direct marketing, marketers can easily and cost-effectively create a highly successful online sales channel. Philippe is the CEO of Kefta Inc., which provides tools and services to help marketers surpass sales objectives for the online channel. In addition, Philippe is the author of the bi-weekly ClickZ “Actionable Analysis” column.

Talk Title TBA
John Cokos, President & CEO, iWeb Inc
John Cokos is the President and Chief Executive Officer of iWeb, Inc., a leader in the area of Internet Software, and online community and Portal Development. Cokos, one of the earliest web pioneers, is also manager of one of the largest Internet Marketing communities in existence. Through iWeb, Cokos introduced Hyperseek in 1996 starting a new trend towards smaller, more focused web directories and portals, changing the way web searching was done. In addition to his duties as CEO of iWeb and senior manager of Jim's World, Cokos is also the host of a weekly eBusiness Radio program in his home city of Seattle Washington.

Search Engine Friendly Website Design
Nancy Nelson - COO, Xpan Interactive Ltd
How can you build a web site from the ground up that pleases both crawler-based search engines and your visitors? Discover how "search engine friendly" design can tap into free traffic from search engines. This session is especially suited for beginners who need an overview of important design issues to keep in mind. More technical design issues are covered in the Successful Site Architecture session on Day 3.

Local Advertising on the Internet
John Ferber, Chief Product Officer / Co-Founder, Advertising.com
$22 billion was spent on local advertising in 2003. In 2008, 24% of those dollars will be allocated to digital media. Among those applications poised to capture the local advertising market are search, email, web and affiliate-based marketing programs. John Ferber, chief product officer and co-founder of Advertising.com, will share his expertise with a brief history of local advertising on the Internet, the technologies and approaches that make local advertising possible, and a detailed look at how advertisers can maximize their efforts in today's competitive and ever-growing local market.

The eVOLUTION of a Transactional Website
Tara O'Doherty, National Director - Usability, Cossette Interactive
Some usability methods/techniques are more effective and cost efficient then others. Since there are a variety of usability methods and techniques that are available, the toughest decision you will face is which method/technique to utilize and when. Join us as we explore the direct ROI of three different usability techniques utilized to evolve one transactional website from good, to better, to great. You will walk away with some tricks of the trade and ROI insight that will make a direct impact on your bottom-line over night.

What's in a Name: Selecting and Valuing Domain Names
Keith Pieper, President, Brandologist.com
For corporations, a good domain name (or names) can be crucial to your success online. For entrepreneurs and name prospectors, domain names can become a business in and of themselves. Utilizing a scientific and market-based approach, attendees will learn a practical method for valuing domain names and the criteria that drives value in selecting a good name.

POWER LUNCH 2: (120 seats on a first come, first served basis)
Laurie Dillon -Interactive, IBM Services
Burning rubber and making faces - branded experience design

'The strength of a brand greatly exceeds its name or logo, it is a total experience influenced by every touchpoint between the customer and the brand'. I share this quote with most of my customers - both large and small. Because the brand really is all about experience.

I'm Laurie Dillon and I have grown into IBM North America's subject matter expert in marketing strategy as part of IBM's business consulting services. Join me for a tell all luncheon on how we built branded online experiences. First, I'll share a small business solution about motorsport team that needed a brand, an online operation and launch at Molson Indy in less than six weeks. Second, I'll highlight a large US based health care company that needed to fix a nasty online experience. Using segmentation research, personas and scenario design, we identified page by page what content will make the difference to the target audiences. Finally, I'll end with lessons learned in navigating the common pitfalls online experience design.

Best of Both Worlds: Developing Strategic Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Gay Gaddis, President and Founder, T3
Interactive online and traditional marketing campaigns are the holy grail of integrated advertising. With clients like Dell, Marriott International, Nortel Networks, Microsoft MSN 9 and JCPenney, Texas-based T3 combines powerful advertising with solid customer understanding. Gay Gaddis, president and founder of the largest solely woman-owned interactive agency in the United States, will discuss marketing campaign case studies designed to achieve the client's goals. Her presentation will illustrate the importance of developing business strategies, an overview of strategic terms, elements needed to achieve success, the effective use of Internet communication tools, and how integrated campaign results can be used to refine - and improve - future marketing campaigns.

The Next Generation of Search Engine Advertising
Julie Campistron, Overture
In recent years, search advertising has emerged as the leading online marketing solution, offering marketers an attractive mix of message control, consumer targeting and conversion-tracking capabilities. In this session, paid search pioneer Overture, will discuss why Internet search is a vital marketing component for advertisers seeking to increase conversion rates and boost profits. You'll also hear about how you can benefit from using new services like paid inclusion, local search and contextual listings to complement your paid search campaigns. Don't miss your chance to learn all you can about the next generation of medium that is transforming marketing as we know it.

Adding Affiliate Marketing to Your Online Marketing Mix
Wade Tonkin, Kowabunga Technologies
Affiliate programs have been shown to be one of the most important and efficient ways to bring in targeted online traffic. This case study will demonstrate how a coordinated promotional plan that combines affiliate marketing, non-affiliate links, and PPC search engine promotion brings in powerful sales results as well as detailed market information that can be used to refine the campaign.

What Paris Hilton knows about the oldest marketing profession (word-of-mouth)
Mark Hughes, CEO, Buzzmarketing
We all know that new technology of the Internet has changed our lives. But the most ancient form of marketing (word-of-mouth) built brands like Google and eBay. The best part of word-of-mouth is it's FREE. Get people talking and the media writing…find out how at this informative and entertaining session. Hughes was the VP of Marketing for eBay's Half.com. In less than three years, Hughes grew that brand from zero to 8 million registered users, and in less than 6 months, Half.com sold to eBay for $300 million. He literally put Half.com on the map by convincing Halfway, Oregon to rename itself to Half.com, Oregon...dubbed by Time magazine as "one of the greatest publicity coups in history."

Monetizing Your Member Base (Panel)
You've heard that membership is gold, and it's true - if you know what to do with it! If your site has a membership base or a high level of traffic, there are many alternative revenue sources that you may not be aware of - permission marketing, co-registration, publishing, partnerships, member acquisition, and many more. What kind of information can you collect that will add value. How do you gather this information in a way that your members will accept and appreciate? And who are the partners are out there eager to reach your audience (and ready to pay for it).

Tribal Linking for Market Segmentation
Dixon Jones, Receptional.com
A common theme for successful websites on the internet is the number of links coming in to the site. Whether by luck or by judgment, inferences can be made about how to build inbound links grouped by market segment be it geographical or otherwise to improve traffic, user retention and search engine prominence. This is theory is labeled by Dixon Jones as Tribal Linking.

What to Expect from Search Engine Marketing Services
Andrea Hadley, President, NetSetGo Marketing
Attend this event and learn the primary tactics delivered by search engine marketing service providers; how much it costs; how to work with an SEM; what to expect; how to find a competent service provider.

Panel: Search Advertising Success Strategies
Panelists TBA
The search engine landscape changes - sometimes dramatically - from year to year. It is crucial to keep up with these changes, as well as the key players as the market shifts. Where is the best value now? Which brings a better return - paid, or 'open' search. How will the recent changes in the marketplace - the acquisition of Overture by Yahoo, Google's stumblings - affect the end user? What crucial strategies should you employ to promote your site online? Always a popular event, our expert panel will provide answers to these questions - and also take questions from the audience.

Gala Dinner: Please join Us for this year's Gala dinner. By reservation. Details TBA.