It's sad that we don't cover the paid side of search marketing here at SEOmoz with more frequency, but with a little luck and some elbow grease (or, at least, borrowed expertise), I'm trying to dip our toe a bit deeper. Thus, it's with great pleasure that I welcome Mona Elesseily. Mona's a paid search guru, a fellow Northwesterner (albeit a Canadian one) and one of my favorite people to spend time with. She's graciously agreed to an interview with SEOmoz about her background, her work and her new book, Mastering Panama (no, it's not about canals).

Mona at the launch party for her book in San Jose

For those who may not be familiar with your background, could you give us a brief bio? What got you into search? How did you end up working with Andrew?

I was in finance for 5 years before I started in search (in my past life I was a certified financial planner). Through this work, I recognized I loved marketing and saw a unique opportunity with the growth of the Internet. To round out my skills, I did post-grad in marketing (online specialization) at the University of British Columbia and landed a job at Radiant Communications (sold to Devlin eBusiness Architects in 2006). After my stint at Radiant, I contacted Andrew Goodman. There was an opportunity with Page Zero Media and I’ve been with the company for almost four years.

Your new book - Mastering Panama - is all about strategies for Yahoo!'s new paid search management interface. What made you choose that subject for your book?

As I was working on PPC accounts, I got to really understand the differences between the various platforms. They were confusing! With a book in mind, I started keeping notes on things I learned about Y!SM. My “notes” turned into a 40 page document and eventually my first 100 page book on Y!SM. When Y!SM upgraded to Panama, I wrote my second Y!SM book. The second book launched on August 7 2007 to fairly glowing reviews - even from Yahoo! :-)

http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2007/08/23/a-plan-a-primer-panama

What are some of the substantive differences between Panama and Yahoo!'s old interface? Is it a particularly complex product? Are there subtleties that require a lot of experience and expertise to master?

That’s a great question. With the new system, there’s a learning curve but once you get used to it, it’s pretty easy to work with. There are some significant differences especially if you’re used to using other engines. In the book, I include both “action items” and “helpful hints”. The “action items” are tips I suggest advertisers try in their accounts. The “helpful hints” are more advanced nuggets that can even trip up experienced advertisers. More advanced advertisers can also benefit from information on power features like the new ranking algorithm, geotargeting and campaign forecasting.

In general, with Panama, there are advances in ad testing, forecasting, campaign organization, and many other mission-critical fronts that require you to work harder at first but can help advertisers achieve better long-term performance.

Writing a book has loomed as a huge obstacle for me personally - what inspired you to get it done? How did you manage your time and energy to put it together? Is the workload as bad as everyone says?

Yep, writing books is certainly hard work. To get my latest version done (written in 10 months), I set small writing goals and tried to achieve them consistently (for example daily). Much of the time, I felt like I was writing shorter pieces/articles instead of an entire book. Think shorter pieces Rand!

Also, selecting a compelling topic is important. I was genuinely interested in Y!SM so my writing was interesting for me. While I was writing, industry folk (and marketers) were clamoring for new Y!SM platform information and that kept me motivated as well.

Comparing Panama and AdWords - what do you think are the biggest pros and cons of each?

One of the biggest advantages to using Y!SM is of course its broad reach – it’s behind Google, but it’s not like you can ignore #2. In certain areas, there are what appear to be some major advantages to Yahoo (but in reality these are differences you need to exploit, they’re not necessarily advantages or disadvantages for either platform). A simple example is there are extra characters in the Y!SM headline (15 of them actually!). This can provide an edge over an advertiser (like including additional product /service features or offers) who has simply cut and paste ad copy from another PPC campaign. There’s tremendous potential if advertisers take the time to understand Y!SM and tweak campaigns accordingly. There are obviously many more examples. Don’t even get me started on the different matching technologies! Understanding platform differences paired with the fact that many advertisers are making significant errors can help advertisers exploit the Y!SM system.

Moving into more general arenas of paid search - what are some verticals or new advertising products that you predict will become popular from the major engines? Will Google's radio and print ads have a big impact? Is anyone going to get more behavioral and blend search history with display advertising? 

Online marketing is still in its infancy. As the Internet matures, I believe online marketing will become more integrated and perhaps nearly synonymous with what’s considered “traditional” or offline marketing. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seems to agree. Recently, he said: "Over time, all ad money will go through a digital ad platform... as all media goes digital; all advertising goes digital”. The fact that Google is offering radio, print and now TV ads also shows the online world is thinking more in integrated terms as well. 

With integration, the online world brings accountability and measurability to TV and other marketing mediums. Advertisers using television, radio, or other offline mediums can use the web (and associated traffic) to measure the effectiveness of offline advertising (in the past, traditional mediums like TV were not measurable).

Do you have any unique, specific strategies that you've found particularly effective in Panama? Something juicy from the book that you can tease us with, maybe?

Click arbitrage in Hungary. Kidding! (Actually, it works better in Belgium.)

My focus tends to be on areas like going very deep into ad testing. Here’s a huge secret for you: campaigns succeed when you plan them, beginning with a frank assessment of product benefits, and a deep understanding of customers. I’m not saying you have to go full into personas and lengthy planning processes – at Page Zero we have an accelerated way of doing such research – but the foundations of market research that you bring to bear on the campaign tend to play out in terms of the kind of genuineness and targeting that connect with consumers.

Sure, we can feed you tips on multivariate ad testing, which is great for high volume campaigns. What’s neat is that folks looking for the next little tip or trick only will fail unless they marry those tips and tricks with great strategy. In that respect it’s just like SEO.

In terms of testing then, many advertisers have failed to explore the possibility of finding the nearly paradoxical situations where you can improve both CTR and ROI with ad copy and landing page work. Instead of being a pure tradeoff, sometimes it’s almost like parallel lines meet and you get a bump in conversion rates even while bringing in even more clicks on a keyword. It’s that kind of stuff we look for. I think anyone who reads my report will see how working in the system to implement your plans will help you beat those competitors who get daunted. And by “plans” I very much include in my definition the details of ad copy, display URL’s, distribution options, bidding, and so on.

What's your next big project? Another book? Any hints on subject matter?

There’s definitely related subject matter I could write on. I’m actually thinking of the world’s greatest book on Google AdWords. To date, I don’t think there’s been enough written on the topic (especially by Andrew Goodman).

In the near term, I have a very important “big project” – a trip to India. There, I’ll be sure to “contemplate” my next writing adventure. I’ll certainly keep SEOmoz posted.

Thanks a ton, Mona - we greatly appreciate your insight and contributions. For those wanting to learn more about Mona and Yahoo!'s Panama, check out the book here and Mona's video with WebProNews.