A blog about smart marketing and conversion optimization.

A week ago during a Clever Zebo retreat with Igor in the remarkably beautiful hills of Big Sur, I came to a few startling realizations pulled together from across my life — they span philosophy of science, cosmology, technology, social interaction, organization systems, and the nature of consciousness to name a few. If you’re interested in these thoughts, keep reading. And if you’re wondering what any of this has to do with online marketing, read to the end.

1. I am conscious of being conscious, and I hunger for experience.

2. To the best of my knowledge, my consciousness cannot (yet) survive without my physical body. Thus, minimizing potential risk to my physical body is of paramount importance.

3. Just as an electron appears a point when measured but is really a field of potential states, my consciousness appears a point in the fabric of humanity but is too a field.

4. My consciousness animates my body but is not bounded only by my physical body.

5. My consciousness, an infinite field of consciousness, can meld with other consciousnesses. Talking, loving, relating, fearing, helping, thinking about are all ways of describing the joint field generated by my consciousness joining with another.

6. My consciousness is limitless in what it can comprehend. It can contain the entire spectrum of human experience, past and present. Thus, every accomplishment another consciousness makes is my accomplishment when I become conscious of it.

7. In all the observable universe, the only other beings I can find conscious of their own consciousness are human beings.

8. Human beings were born on Earth from an ancient process called nature. Although nature (apart from humans) is not conscious of its consciousness, for the gift of consciousness we owe nature infinite gratitude. Thus, I feel a sacred duty to protect and care for nature.

9. Although the knowledge upon which my consciousness draws is spawned from my physical body and thus its immediate environs, the field of my consciousness is, at a nearly incomprehensible level, joined by the consciousnesses of all other humans. Because I do not know if their consciousness perishes when their body dies, I have an incentive not only to prevent human death and not only to foster the birth of new human beings, but it is deeply in my interest to foster the expansion of the consciousness of other humans.

10. Because my consciousness is precious and because my consciousness comprises and expands with the totality of human being, the assured future flourishing of my consciousness depends on the well-being of humanity.

11. Humanity is too vulnerable. Life-threatening disease, weapons, collisions with extra-terrestrial objects, high energy bursts from dying stars are capable of greatly diminishing or even destroying human being. Thus, it in my interest to expand humanity’s potential for survival.

12. Human survival lies in our ability to live more harmoniously together on this planet and colonize additional planets inside this solar system and without.

13. Everything permissible by the laws of physics (known or unknown) is accomplishable by consciousness.

14. Everything we need to survive and flourish in this universe is abundant. There is enough hydrogen, oxygen, metals, and other materials in this solar system to support hundreds of billions of conscious beings living harmoniously together and expanding our reach outward.

15. Accomplishment is a networked system familiarly represented by a figurehead but existent in reality only in the fabric of consciousness (Einstein’s equations are meaningless without others to interpret, modify, contemplate, and use them. Jobs’ iPhone would be trash without its consumers.) Thus, accomplishment is fundamentally and necessarily a shared phenomenon.
16. Communication methods among consciousnesses is infinitely diverse, and new methods are constantly invented.

17. The rate of consciousness expansion is accelerating. Every consciousness knowingly or unknowingly contributes to this expansion. While the lessons of history frame the paths forward, the future can be anything, even the most lustrous vision of our most brilliant dreams.

Imagine for a second a world with unlimited access to unlimited energy, food, information, and materials.

This is the world we live in.

The seeming scarcity flowing about us (poverty, starvation, etc.) is not a necessary feature of our world. Scarcity is the by-product of poor human systems and ignorance.

Through the explosion of democracy and capitalism, we are witnessing an unprecedented explosion of coordinated creation. The fabric of this explosion is communication, knowledge transfer, dispelling ignorance.

While communication can be a weapon for maintaining the stranglehold of scarcity and perpetuating ignorance, we have the power to use this tool for something more wonderful.

Our businesses are the outpouring of our consciousness, and we can choose how we’ll spread the knowledge we create. Sure, you can see an online marketing program as just a way to make a buck, or you can see it for what it is — a key catalyst for the inter-connection, exploration, and collaboration of consciousness. When we see our businesses as critical constituents in the infinite expansion of consciousness and align ourselves with a dedication to tapping the reality of abundance, how can we not succeed?

(Note: Recent influences for this post include David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity, Brian Green’s The Hidden Reality, and a keynote speech by Robert Verzola.)

We’ve taken a look at some effective AdWords strategies in the past — how to write effective ad copy, what types of lead forms convert well, and the like.

Now I want to show you 4 AdWords “strategies” that I continue to see in clients’ and prospects’ SEM accounts, and debunk them. These are 4 things that AdWords veterans simply don’t do, and now you won’t either.

1) Advertising on peripheral terms. Your best shot at AdWords ROI is to identify keywords that signify searcher intent to find your site or product, and to tailor your ads to those search terms as closely as you can. It’s tempting to think, “Maybe if I bid on terms related to tax season, like ‘1099’ or ‘find a tax accountant,’ I’ll hook potential customers for my tax software — but don’t go down that road. You’ll find you spent time to set up a campaign only to suffer low quality scores, low clickthrough rates and poor-converting traffic.

2) Let AdWords set your bids. If you’re racking up enough conversion data to use Conversion Optimizer bidding, you’re golden. Manual bidding is cool too. But there’s another option: “AdWords will set my bids to help maximize clicks within my target budget.” This auto-CPC strategy is self-admittedly ineffective unless all you’re trying to do is get unqualified traffic and money (and ROI) is no object.

3) Brand name in your ad copy. With all these impressions, you might get the harebrained idea that search marketing is an opportunity to build some brand awareness. Let me set you straight: in display, that might be true, but in the search network, nobody cares about your company name unless your brand carries some major weight. If you’re using your brand name in AdWords ad headlines, 9 times out of 10 you’re wasting real estate.

4) Copy & paste from AdWords keyword tool. The AdWords keyword tool is a great resource, but if you don’t parse carefully, your adgroups will earn terrible quality scores and even worse ROI. Be sure to use the option to “show search terms closely related to the ones I entered,” and filter down from there. Your objective is to create tightly themed adgroups focused on a specific search intention — not to pull in every possible keyword under the sun.

Now go make sweet AdWords love, you crazy marketers.

It’s really easy to get frustrated, discouraged, stressed out, and/or upset building a business online. In any given week, I experience all of the above …

… but I don’t give up.

If you want success and think communicating online will somehow achieve it, then I have two words of advice: “Keep Trying!”

When we started Clever Zebo, we made a commitment to grow our business the way we help our clients (through online marketing!). So just as we advise clients, we’re going after it.

Partnerships, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, retargeting, webinars, a marketing automation program, SEO, social, etc. At first, it was slow-going:

At many points along the way, it’s been tempting to throw our hands in the air and give up on marketing ourselves. But A) we’re committed to growing this business and B) we want to do it the way we preach.

So we keep trying, keep testing, keep giving it our best. As a business person and as a human being, there just isn’t more you can ask of yourself.

If you feel like you’re about to give up but know there’s more you can do if only you could get that second or tenth wind, call me — I’d love to get you pumped up.