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Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

bradmccarty.me

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Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#21

Post by d2vid »

jlarkin wrote: post #18
carlsednaoui wrote: post #12

Here is my point of view as a Search Engine Marketer: - Go to meeting is probably using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) in their ads. This dynamically inserts a user's search query into the ad copy. From looking at the blog post, this seems to be true for the second screenshot. For the 1st screenshot, it seems that they are indeed building copy with "Meeting Burner" on it. Whether this was suggested by they in-house…

As someone who does SEM, I played around with some queries, and... -GTM is using the dynamic keyword insertion for the title of some their ads. This is not uncommon. And for the right queries, it does work. -GTM is buying keywords for some competitors, for example, search fuzebox. On the other hand, they haven't found join.me just yet. As an advertiser, unless there is a trademark block, you can bid on competitor key…

> That second screenshot is most troubling, as the title does not match the query (i.e. that copy was built.)

Did you mean to say that the first screenshot was more troubling? That is the one where the user searched "meetingburner" and the ad copy says "Meeting Burner Software | GoToMeeting.com"

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#22

Post by xxiao »

aresant wrote: post #17
xxiao wrote: post #10

free for 15 people meeting, that's like 95% of the market, and I wonder if they can sustain the business model? when we use this kind of online conference tools, any concern on internal IP(say, it's recorded without your knowledge)? I would like to buy similar software to host my own conferences instead, though I don't think anyone is doing that.

A fair question. Without giving too much away, the uptake rate to Pro & Premium has turned MB into a solid, profitable business less than a year after launch. If tweaks occur to the "Free" account down the road, the MB team has historically "grandfathered" all account levels retroactively if changes are made moving forward.

still in favor of a self-hosted solution and don't mind to pay for that, with that you can compete against the legacy video conference guys, e.g. cisco, polycom(where you set up your private system with their offering, though you now use PC to replace the hardware part).

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#23

Post by webwanderings »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #7

I've been using MeetingBurner for about 3 months now, and it's not just the price (free) that won me over, it's the ease of use for participants compared to the other services. When you're dealing with clients, a bad web meeting experience can damage your reputation, even though you had nothing to do with why it was bad. I use Screenleap.com when I need to show things quickly, and MeetingBurner when I'm doing a more…

You should check AnyMeeting. The feature set for a free account doesn't come close in comparison with what you have suggested above.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think these meeting services are one of those businesses which are apparently raking dough off of Ads via general public adoption. These are no longer just a business services.

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#24

Post by mintplant »

This came up just a few days ago on HN [1]. The conclusion there, based on a response from GoToMeeting's marketing department, was that they were using Google's dynamic keyword insertion to replace words in the ad copy with the user's search terms [2], and at the same time, bidding on their competitor's name. So, if you'd entered "online meeting", it would've come up with "Online Meeting Software" in the GoToMeeting ad; the technique seems to have backfired in this case.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086757

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086860

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#25

Post by freshhawk »

motoford wrote: post #14

When I see an ad like this I always click through to make sure the offending company has to pay.

And by clicking back immediately you lower their quality score so they have to bid more for the same terms.

I do the same thing, even though I know that in reality it's not making any significant difference.

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#26

Post by jel »

freshhawk wrote: post #25
motoford wrote: post #14

When I see an ad like this I always click through to make sure the offending company has to pay.

And by clicking back immediately you lower their quality score so they have to bid more for the same terms. I do the same thing, even though I know that in reality it's not making any significant difference.

While this (click-through) tactics may have some cost implication, I doubt that (even as a community) we could make a dent in the marketing budget.

In general, we severely underestimate how companies waste budget without blinking an eye.

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#27

Post by jaredmck »

tomkarlo wrote: post #20
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a pretty good explanation of how this process works: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086887 It seems they would have had to purposely put "MeetingBurner" as one of the keywords to be stuffed into the ad. If they truly are just that stupid then it speaks as much about them than if they were being malicious. o_0 It sure does look shady to me.

Not necessarily. You can do wildcards in text ads where the matching term gets inserted. Not saying that's what they did, but it definitely doesn't have to be done by hand.

When you put the wildcards (DKI), it matches the keyword from your list of keywords, not the search query. So you'd have to put MeetingBurner on a list of keywords to have it show up here (which as others said, could be due to the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool)

Re: Why is GoToMeeting being a scumbag?

#28

Post by bradmccarty »

Bill_Dimm wrote: post #19
bradmccarty wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I took the top screenshot.

Your blog really gives no direct info about who you are (I now see that things would have been clarified if I had clicked through to your twitter account), making it hard to tell whether you are truly independent or a marketing person for MeetingBurner. Credibility really wasn't helped by your blog post being submitted by a MeetingBurner founder (according to his/her HN profile). Anyway, I've verified the screen shot…

Fair enough, but yeah, there are a few clues as to who I am and the Svbtle network is becoming pretty well known at a quick pace.

I suppose that I could update my blurb in the sidebar to better explain, but generally speaking anyone who's reading that site is someone who knows me anyway. Getting linked on HN is fringe case for me.

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