I’m going to dedicate this posting to the billions of dollars being wasted on SEM marketing, and those who unwittingly contribute to it. Even in ideal market conditions you’d think this would be a concern to any major advertiser, but given recent events now in particular is the time to re-evaluate the effectiveness of your SEM advertising dollar.  Of course I’ll be discussing WebTrends Ad Director specifically, but other similar technologies exist, such as Efficient Frontier.  And while I could dig into some biased opinions on why Ad Director is the technology leader in this space, it’s more important to me (for now) that readers understand the principle of automated SEM optimization, as a stark contrast to bid management. As is a tedious habit of mine, I’ll start with some history…….

Let’s go back to the abacus (just for a sentence!). Although very simple, just a wooden frame with beads that slide along wires, this device gave humanity an addictive first glimpse into a reality of machine-aided calculations. Move forward a few centuries—past the invention of the hand-held calculator and parallel computing, a computer’s victory over a world champion chess player and successful forays into artificial intelligence—to the present, where technology is freeing humans from the drudgery of repetitive tasks. With relative confidence we can now relinquish control of everyday things like balancing our check books and navigating through city streets, for example, and can shift our focus to activities requiring more non-linear intuition and decision-making.

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