Drayton Bird Probably the best marketer still living

Ok maybe I over egged that.

But Drayton is world renowned and his techniques get results. His books are best sellers and he'd quoted all over the marketing press. He launched his blog last year (here's my claim to fame) after I suggested he should.

His blog is far better than mine and his language is far more colourful. Take a look you'll get some great insights. By his books you'll learn more than you could ever use.

Here's Drayton's Blog, enjoy!

Testing Google AdWord Campaigns

I've just discovered how to test where Google Adwords is showing your ads. This is useful because if you are using personal search on Google it's skew the positioning based on your previous searches and click through. Meaning that it'll show the position it thinks suits you best not what the vast majority of users will see. Which is a great idea on a personal level but terrible when you're paying for the ads yourself.

Anyway to check the positions using Google UK do your normal keyword search and then add

=&adtest=on to the end of the URL.

You'll then get a page with a warning saying this is a test site as well as a background telling you the searches are just previews.

For the US add &gl=us.

To some people this must be old news. It's new to me at least.

The Brute Chorus

With luck I've dropped on the next Arctic Monkeys. The Brute Chorus are amazing and this track The Cuckoo and the Stolen Heart is awesome.

They're going to be massive

TV's future

This week I missed the beginning of Louis Theroux: Behind Bars this week. I love Louis' shows so I was a bit gutted. I assumed it would be shown again soon on the digital channels. Then at the end of the programme they announced that you could see the whole show again for 1 week on the BBC iPlayer.

I've just watched it again online. This is surely the way the web should work. The time when everything is free will soon be on us. The way the status quo will be maintained will be via rarity.

We're already seeing free Albums from Radiohead and the Charlatans. That's because they know that by increasing their exposure they can sell more tickets to their gigs and sell more t-shirts which is where they make their real cash.

TV will go the same way. You'll still pay for live events or first showings but after that they'll be free.

Lateral thinking on Google Adwords

I just found this great clip of a fantastic use of ASCII characters in Google Adwords. From the comments I can't be sure if this was cleared by Google or not. In my mind Google should allow this as it's breaks the mold and makes people try harder.

The idea will only work for companies who can visualise their products, but that means it wouldn't saturate the market. Spoof or spam I still love this idea. What do you think?

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/12/sixt_ascii_text_ads.php