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You say you want to work in politics? It is 9:30 PM on the 
Jewish New Year and I'm still working. I'm loading up new ads and optimizing our search campaigns. My kids are falling asleep around me while I'm also watching a TiVo of Bizarre Foods, but instead of relaxing I have a much longer night ahead of me. Enjoy your corporate jobs LOL
At least I get to make some new Biden and Obama text ads tonight. Always have fun doing that ;-)
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
Hey, I love it when a well known and sometimes described as all-knowing political reporter comments on our paid search marketing for John McCain, the RNC, and other Republican clients. It is quite a little feather in the Connell Donatelli cap. Marc Ambinder from The Atlantic made a small post that got a lot of us fired up today. Titled Scoring the Tech Innovation, Marc wrote this
"Seems that the Republicans can lay claim to first mastering a total of two: using Google ads to drive traffic to John McCain's website. "
While that little sentance doesn't seem that big of a deal to you non-outside the beltway folks it is a huge deal. Marc is widely read by political types, especially
within both campaigns. Even though there has been a ton of articles written about McCain's paid search going way back to before the primary season, I can't help but believe this article in the Wall Street
Journal is what got people paying attention. The McCain campaign has ALWAYS been a big believer in paid search activity and even though the media liked to pay attention to competitor's display ads and social marketing we quietly began kicking people's butts in paid search a long time ago. Now because of this we are working on a ton of search campaigns and Connell Donatelli dominates political paid search. It just seemed to take a little while for the media to catch up with us.
Oh the stories I will be able to tell after we win the election.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
(P.S. - that's a picture of my two good friends Cyrus Krohn eCampaign director/internet guru and Peter Greenberger ace political director for Google outside McCain HQ at the Xcel Center.
Ever since the Wall Street Journal published an article that demonstrated for the nation our marketing prowess when it comes to search engine marketing, there have been a number of articles and blog comments. Jonathan Mendez' recent article called McCain Wins Landslide Over Obama in Search Engine Marketing Election was particularly interesting as well as a post from Danny Sullivan. Nielsen has been reporting our increased banner ad buy and of course proving that we are kicking serious butt in the search engine world.
I'm glad people are finally taking notice of the truly remarkable work we are doing and have been doing for the Senator's Campaign from Day 1. We really have been working together - the entire agency, the senior staff, and the eCampaign team. Sure I make the ads, the keywords, and handle the organization and optimization, but there are tons of people involved and the highest levels of the campaign get what we've been doing and what paid search can do for a political campaign.
Paid search marketing is the great equalizer between budgets. As long as you are smart, have experience, understand how to optimize your campaign, track back to goals, and have a great understanding on how the search engines work you can out market your opponent even when the opponent has more marketing dollars. Then when you add marketing dollars to an already proven model, the your opponents won't even know what hit them. 
I always wondered what took people so long to actually track this. We've been running paid search ads since Day 0 for the Senator's campaign but I guess people finally decided to take a look at reality instead of just believing the hype. The campaign has been a big believer in search engine marketing from the very beginning and not just recently. Finally, when you think we should be doing something but don't see it there is probably a political reason for it or a budget reason for it; believe me we know how to run a modern search engine program.
It should be fun over the next 54 days.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
***This is a repost from 2 years ago. ***
I thought my post from the other day would be enough for me, but with my kids asking questions while we are watching the football game I feel like making a post. Instead of the normal paragraph form, I'm just going to list out random thoughts that I'm having...
ront of the PathPardonMyFrench,
Eric
As I wrote the other day, how good of a time you had at the convention is directly tied to 
where your seats are, where your hotel is, and who you know. And knowing special people on the 3rd day of the convention definitely made that Wednesday one of those unforgettable days.
Wednesday started like a lot of the days with handing out that night's credentials to the NJ delegation, but by 11:30 that morning we were off to the Metrodome for a 
special event. You see the Wilf family invited the NJ Delegation over for a tailgate and a tour of the Metrodome. Plus, they had former
Vikings Head Coach Bud Grant there to greet us and tell some stories. It was really a great day and the good news was the McCain campaign really didn't have any pressing needs so I was able to steal away some time.
After a few hours it was back to the hotel and then a quick change into my suit and then I was off early to the convention. Once the NJ delegation arrived I did my favorite 
job which was to pull people down from the 200 sections to the 100 section. I literally emptied out the entire section and then I met my friend and fellow Connell Donatelli teammate Jackie Huelbig who had one of the more coveted assets - the all important escort badge.
I met Jackie at Becki and Frank Donatelli's suite for some yummy snacks and this photo opportunity with Becki and Jackie. We watched Michael Steele give a great speech (I don't think it was televised on the networks) and then we
went down to the floor. However before we arrived at the floor Jackie remembered that we had to make sure a certain search campaign was running so we stopped by Google's booth and logged into our AdWords account. Yes - in Google's booth and when somebody tried to take a picture of us I had to chase them away (not too hard when Westerners think everyone from NJ is related to Tony Soprano).
After turning an ad campaign live we pushed ourselves up to the rope line by the stage right below the New Mexico sign with a warning from one of the campaign staff who told me that I had to let media in front of me because we didn't have media credentials. Needless to say I was very nice to the photographers and reporters in my section.
Thanks to Jackie and her pass we had front row seats for Huckabee, Giuliani (the hardest name to type) and of course the Sarah Palin acceptance speech and later John McCain. I had a blast teaching those New Mexico delegates
how to scream Ruuuudddyyy and the only part of the evening that was a little rough was taking pictures around the security guard on the other side of the rope (that's his arm in the Rudy photo). Really being there that close for Palin's entrance was truly a memorable moment and without my friend Jackie I wouldn't have enjoyed the evening half as much as I did. Plus how was I supposed to take great videos like this....
Wednesday was the best day of the Convention trip for me. The NJ Delegation invited to the Metrodome, the Donatelli Suite, and floor passes right on the rope line by the stage for awesome speeches - it didn't get any better than that. Well the kobe beef sliders at the Google party the next day was pretty close....
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
This was my first trip to a Republican Convention so I thought it would be cool to give my own perspective. Most people ask me right off the bat how it was and my answer is always 3 hours of boredom followed by 2 hours of excitement. Most convention nights I helped move people
down from the 200 sections that NJ had down to the 100 section. A fellow aide to the NJ Delegation would move people from the 100 section down to the floor in the NJ delegation section so this allowed me to move people down from the nose bleeds. It usually took me about an hour to do this and thanks to the lack of elevators in the Xcel Center it meant walking down several flights of stairs multiple times. However, while this was going on there of course were the speakers who had the early slots and unfortunately for them very few people actually paid attention, even when it was someone good like Tim Pawlenty or Meg Whitman. Most people just talked and had their own conversation which for me was very rude.
I was lucky enough to go with NJ not as an alternate delegate but as an aide to the
delegation. I didn't have too much in the way of responsibility other than handing out credentials and moving people around; I especially liked moving people around because they were very grateful. However, one of the things that irked me a little was that the convention was like attending High School. Everyone compared credentials, where your seats were, where was your 
hotel, who did you see, who do you know, and what parties did you attend. Needless to say being reminded of high school was not a pleasant
experience for me.
NJ and quite a number of other delegations were housed out by the airport and while the accommodations were fine, we were away from the action. If you were located in Minneapolis you had a night life and if you were in St. Paul you were near the Xcel Center. The hotel locations of course played into the who had the better credentials scenario. On Monday I had an urgent request from the McCain team and had to take a $45 cab ride to their hotel in Minneapolis. However, NJ did a great job making sure the delegation had a fun time including a boat cruise, parties, and a trip to the Metrodome. ...
The first night in the convention was just a taste of what we were to expect. Jackie and I
went to The Heartland which was an awesome restaurant that only served food grown locally in a gourmet setting. The second night was good with Fred Thompson giving a great speech and of course Joe Lieberman's speech was historic. I had a floor pass that night and stayed in the NJ Delegation section for most of the night except when I moved up to Nevada to get better pictures of 
Senator Lieberman. I was able to snap some great photos while I was on the floor.
All and all the first two nights were good. I know that not everyone can be in close hotels or close to the stage, but it definitely contributes to your overall experience as you'll see in my second post tomorrow.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
It is 3AM EST so I'm tired but what a night/day I had. First the NJ delegation was invited by the Wilf family to the Metrodome and then it was off to the convention. I helped move a lot of guests down to the alternate delegate section and then I went to the Donatelli Suite to see Becki, Frank, and Jackie. After some tasty snacks and beer, Jackie and I had to comadere a laptop in Google's booth to do some work quickly. Then Jackie escorted me down to the floor where I pushed up to the rope line at the right hand corner of the stage. Mike Huckabee and of course Rudy wowed us but the star of the night was Sarah Palin. However, since I'm tired I can't type any more I figured you could just cast your eyes at this crisp photo I took about 25 feet from her. Enjoy and good night.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
