Proving ROI, using new technologies and leveraging partner marketing were key topics at Red Herring's CMO 2008 conference in San Diego last week.

The conference drew more than 300 senior marketing executives, mostly from b-to-b companies, who shared strategies for competing in today's challenging business environment.

One of the hot topics was partner marketing, with presentations by several executives whose companies use channel marketing models.

Stephen DiFranco, corporate VP-corporate and channels marketing at chip maker AMD, discussed how the company has leveraged its partner channel to confront rival Intel Corp. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The subject of search engine marketing click fraud made headlines last year. Advertisers and publishers alike criticized the search engines for not doing enough to combat the problem. But the topic has not been in the spotlight recently. Does that mean click fraud is no longer an issue?
BtoB recently spoke with Dan Robbins, director of marketing at Lyris, a marketing software company, about click fraud and what marketers can do to avoid playing the victim.

BtoB: Is click fraud still a problem?

Robbins: It depends on your vertical. In mortgage and finance categories, you’re paying a lot more for a click. For the lower end, general market is less of an issue. But marketers need to pay attention to it. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

In 2006, a decision was made to consolidate under the “Sunstone” brand and align all search marketing under that name. After the brand consolidation took place, the company also wanted to boost its conversions, and Bob Schnyder, Internet products manager at Sunstone, knew that would mean refining the landing page strategy.

All of that would require a search agency partner, as Sunstone’s search marketing program had grown to such a degree that it was no longer manageable in-house.

“I’m a [certified] Google AdWords Pro myself, so I know what I’m talking about when it comes to paid search,” said Schnyder, who set the bar high when he started looking for an agency. “I needed to find someone who could do it better than I could and a company that not only understood search but b-to-b search.” Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.

The attached document contains the questions, and their answers, that were posed to John Jainschigg from CMP and Kathy Mandelstein from IBM during the September 26 Webcast "How BtoB Marketers Can Achieve ROI in the Virtual World of Second Life." Download the complete Question and Answer document. Contact John Jainschigg, Executive Director, CMP Metaverse for more information about creating a virtual presence for your company.

Here is a summary of the questions contained in the document:

* Does SecondLife provide aggregated audience/user data or demo cuts
somewhere on the site? If so where?

* Would recommendations/best practices be applied to Playstation
'Home' coming up in April?

* How many attendees can attend an event on Second Life at one time?

Event marketers are increasingly turning to the virtual world for staging large- and small-scale events. A recent white paper released by FactPoint Group, a market research firm, studied events created by Unisfair, a virtual event provider, and found that moving events to the virtual world can reduce spending and boost attendance, lead generation and attendee interest.

The study examined more than 200 Unisfair virtual events that totaled nearly 3,000 sponsors and 500,000 attendees. The results found that the average virtual event has a registration of 3,102 people with an attendance of 1,587. Leads generated for each sponsor totaled 348 per event, and attendees spent an average of two-and-a-half hours at each event while visiting an average 16 locations and completing at least five downloads.

Aside from convenience, event marketers have found that the reason virtual events have proven so successful is because they can mimic nearly every aspect of live events. "We do events on a real-world scale," said John Jainschigg, executive director of CMP Metaverse at CMP Media, a media and marketing solutions company that holds its virtual events inside Second Life. "[Our events are] six days long, [with] 50 presenters, a weekend of tutorials, a full convention center show floor, social events, networking events—it's a comprehensive thing." Read the complete article on BtoBOnline. Contact John Jainschigg, Executive Director, CMP Metaverse for more information about creating a virtual event for your company.

it with the slowing economy and pressure to cut costs, technology companies are decreasing their rate of marketing spending this year, according to IDC's annual tech marketing benchmark study.

According to the report, which was based on an online survey and telephone interviews with 99 senior IT marketing executives, tech marketing spending will be up 6.1% this year over last, a drop from the growth rate projected by IDC in March of 8.0%.

Last year, tech marketing spending grew by 7.5% over 2005.

Also, for the first time since 2004, tech marketing spending will lag global IT spending, which is projected to increase 6.7% this year. Read the complete article on BtoBOnline.