Roy Huiskes

Well the search news is kinda slow. I’ve been in this cycle a couple of times now and nothing really new and exciting is happening at the moment. Things are a bit slow, so to say. Only thing that I do notice these days is that a lot of traditional search companies broaden up their services (onetomarket included). Taking over ‘old’ media or marketing tricks, without actually knowing the specifics and basics of the old way of handling things, isn’t really the smartest thing to do in my humble opinion.

For example, a lot of people are talking about A/B testing and conversion optimization. It would help them a lot if they actually took a course in old school DM and sales letters writing. A lot of ‘new’ techniques have been used and proven since 1930 by creative people like David Ogilvy.

Same goes with al this online PR stuff we continually read about. We all know that online PR is kinda different then regular PR. But if you don’t know the proven methods of offline PR, you really have to ask yourself if you want to reinvent the wheel to get the same result in Internet Marketing. It’s better to adapt the current services and improve it like we know how you get free PR in the “new” media age.

If you want to crank up your ROI, please also look at the past, because we all know that optimizing is more easy then starting from scratch.

But with a fresh start after the summer holidays a lot of stuff happened. My buddy Joost left, my job description changed a bit, got some more and other responsibilities now and my colleagues wrote a book which I read and did some quality checks on. I also made some of the images in the book. Meanwhile the deadlines for the A4Uexpo came nearby pretty fast. Gladly I’ve finished the whole thing today. Now it is time to work a bit on my blog and prepare for the presentation.

I’m really looking out for it. Joost and Marcus are really enthusiast about it and I’ve only heard good stuff. I’m very proud to speak there! All in all I hope to met you guys over there.

BTW. DaveN does a small dinner with Joost, Marcus and some more. Therefore he invited the readers of his blog and the listeners of Strike Point to give him a good reason to invite one more person. Well here’s my reason: since Joost left Onetomarket I can’t keep in the shadow anymore. I’m fun to hang out with and if that isn’t enough then I’ll get drunk on a boat on the thames I guess

What’s on my mind now? Well Tuesday I went with five colleague’s to the Affiliate day, which was organized by Paul Schoenmakers (Shoemaker, coincidence?). The keynote that day was done by Kris Jones, from pepperjam network, an affiliate network started only because he was tired by the networks that didn’t listen to the super affiliates. Now here lies the resemblance between Paul and Chris, they both strive for the same goal: More transparency by the affiliate networks.

Kris did a great keynote about all the opportunities laying ahead for us. His message for every attendee was clear: The future for affiliate marketing is great and the time to react is now! One of the speakers got ill and Eduard (Dutch blog, working for outrider) replaced his spot with a nice introduction about search engine marketing. Well done Eduard!

After that there was a great lunch for all 600 people and room for networking, which we did a lot. A lot of familiar people and a very nice ambiance. The Fabrique is really a cool place for conferences, being an authentic old factory.

Joost did his thing in the last session. His presentation (in Dutch) woke up the affiliate world in the Netherlands a bit. Talking about affiliate management, transparency and opening up and especial cooperating wasn’t what they were used too. Great stuff and really impressive.

Time for beer, uh networking and dinner. Kris went home already, because Robyn was feeling kind a tired by the whole Amsterdam Experience and we talked a lot with our friend from M4N and Afili.net, a couple of customers and people just wanting to know a bit more about SEO. Drank a couple of beers with some guys from GroupM/Outrider and just having a good time.

After that, I’ve got my hands on a good bottle of Champaign (thank Zylom girls!)which Joost and I drank in the car on the way to Kris and Robyn to have a small after drink/dinner in Amsterdam. The car was driven by our Managing Director for Germany, Evert who brought us home a bit closer to home as well! Thank you Evert

Overall a great day, a great event and props to Paul and his team of setting up such a great experience and step forward in affiliate marketing!

We all know Goatse (I actually have t-shirt about that, call me a nerd) and today sugarrea (twitter) pointed the people on twitter to this site. It’s not filthy like goatse is, but it sure is funny as hell. Check it out: http://thingsididlastnight.com/ This definitely deserves a link from me. Great link bait, too bad of the anchor text.

Welcome Folks, *insert big hollow echo sound in here*

Since I could keep blogging in Dutch, I thought that I’d try blogging in English. Especially since I meet a lot of people who never heard of me, my thoughts, my stupid ideas and the stuff I try in another language then Dutch.

The blog is of course still work in progress, but you’ve got to start somewhere and following the GTD stuff, this one shouldn’t be in my ‘Someday, Maybe’ archive any longer.