{"id":5735,"date":"2018-10-03T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smarter-ecommerce.com\/blog\/en\/?p=5735"},"modified":"2022-05-19T14:03:29","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T14:03:29","slug":"ecommerce-expo-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smarter-ecommerce.com\/blog\/en\/news\/events\/ecommerce-expo-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecommerce Expo London recap: AI, machine learning and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after\u00a0dmexco<\/a>, another huge event was around the corner, this time in the UK: Ecommerce<\/a> Expo<\/a>, Technology for Marketing and Adtech (yes, that\u2019s three events) all took place at Olympia London last week from September 26-27. <\/span><\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t want to miss this unique chance to connect with British ecommerce players and service providers alike, so a team of four flew to London to attend ECE. The first day especially was buzzing \u2013 \u00a0our booth, which was situated next to a theatre received quite a bit of foot traffic. Overall, the mood in our corner was pretty great, with some friendly stand neighbors and lots of great opportunities to chat about PPC and all things Google Ads.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Our
Our stand at ECE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inside
Inside Ecommerce Expo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AI and machine learning \u2013 what else?<\/h2>\n

Because we had applied for visitors badges beforehand, all of us could also get into theatres for talks. I found the talks on the AdTech stages to be the most interesting. In line with what we have seen at various events around the globe this year so far, especially at Google events, machine learning and AI were buzzwords we heard repeatedly during those two days. <\/span><\/p>\n

How AI can make search marketing 4x more effective<\/h3>\n

Chris Pitt<\/a> from Vertical Leap<\/span>\u00a0opened his talk by stating two common misconceptions about AI: One, it will take people\u2019s jobs and two, it will automatically make marketing amazing. Of course, neither is true, but AI can and will make your (search) marketing measures more effective if you use it right. One thing Chris went into detail about was bid management \u2013 how, when you run hundreds of thousands of campaigns, a small amount in a bid can make a huge difference and that manual bidding is often too inexact. This is a point we can readily agree with, seeing as our Google Shopping tool Whoop!<\/a> Is based on a machine learning algorithm. So we, too, believe in the power of AI & machine learning applied to search marketing. <\/span><\/p>\n

The secrets of Local Search<\/h3>\n

This talk was an interview with Thom Poole<\/a> from Google in which he presented some interesting numbers & facts about Local Search. Local Search is already pretty huge: Thom suggests that currently, 20% of all searches have a local focus. Itconverts better too \u2013 with a conversion rate of 18% vs. 8-9% in \u201cnormal\u201d search. Another interesting fact he pointed out was that local search needs local jargon. This seems obvious but in English as well as in German (and I\u2019m sure in most other languages) there are vast regional differences in jargon\/dialect \u2013 travel 100km, you might call something by a completely different name and miss your target group\u2019s search intent entirely if you don\u2019t keep up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

#Search<\/a> queries are getting more complex – from #longtail<\/a> to long long long tail ? says Mark Taylor in conversation with @Thompoole<\/a> from #Google<\/a> #TFM18<\/a> #ECE18<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 smec (@smec) September 26, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n