Some quick stats from the SXSW Interactive Festival, to give you some idea what it was like:

• Verbal NDA’s given, between Lance and myself: 6
• Movie stars seen: at least 5 that we know of
• Tradeshow schwag items gathered, each: about 500,000
• Tradeshow schwag items that were actually cool: 3
• Best - but least effective - tradeshow schwag item: magnetic buzzing balls handed out by a company whose name I can’t remember
• Internet-related company founders, coders, financers, and top executives seen: hundreds
• Best sessions: Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, talking openly about how the company reached the success it has; Jared Spool, illustrating with magic tricks the importance of illusion and magic in meeting users’ needs; Guy Kawasaki, moderating a panel discussion on social media.
• Lance’s top memories: meeting Guy Kawasaki; dinner at Vespaio; screening “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”.
• My top memories: Seeing Helen Hunt speak; watching the Zappos.com team appear out of nowhere to hand out hundreds of rain ponchos when the weather turned bad
• Minutes of boredom: 0

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Now that we’ve had a chance to catch our collective breath at CLM, here’s a quick look back at SMX West, the hot new search marketing conference and expo co-chaired by Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman.

SMX West was held Feb. 26-28, and despite the early calendar date was heavily and enthusiastically attended. News had evidently spread about the success of the inaugural SMX conference, SMX Advanced, which was held in Seattle last summer (and is scheduled for June 3-4, 2008).

Day 1: Danny kicked off the event with a rousing and inspiring keynote address on the future of search titled “Web 3.0, 4.0 and Beyond”, followed by breakout sessions. The sessions are generally a combination of short presentations (5 - 15 minutes each presenter) followed by a question & answer / panel discussion period. In the afternoon, our very own Amy Konefal presented on the topic of Avoiding PPC Pitfalls on a panel with Addie Connor from Course Advisor, Inc. and David Szetela from Clix Marketing, moderated by Matt Van Wagner.

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February is a busy month for our team of speakers at Closed Loop Marketing. The 2008 Digital solutions Cooperative or Dscoop conference, where Lance Loveday will be speaking, takes place February 21st through February 23rd in San Diego, California. The 2008 Search Marketing Expo or SMX West is February 26th through the 28th in Santa Clara, California and will feature Lance Loveday, Sandra Niehaus and Amy Konefal, speaking on different topics within the search marketing field.

2008 Dscoop Conference

Lance Loveday will be on a panel discussing Internet Trends: What You Need to Know to Drive Your Business. At Dscoop, Lance Loveday , joined by other industry specialists, will discuss in a 90-minute session what one needs to know about internet trends. To be successful, knowledge of current and emerging Internet trends including search, blogs, forums and printing communities is essential. This session will include a how-to workshop with insights from leading interactive agencies to expand one’s business.

2008 SMX West

Amy Konefal will speak about Avoiding PPC Pitfalls. She will be joined by Addie Connor of Course Advisor Inc. When done right, pay-per-click (PPC) search ads can be a company’s most valuable marketing channel. But there are common pitfalls that can mean the difference between a campaign that bombs and one that makes a person the rock star of his or her marketing program. Fortunately, many of these are easy to fix, once people know what to look out for. This session will cover danger areas such as match types, content network ads, ego bidding, failure to track properly and more. Work shop attendees will learn how to increase their ROI on paid search.

Sandra Niehaus will co-present a session on Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing. Joining Sandra for this panel are Tom Leung of Google Website Optimize, Jonathan Mendez of OTTO Digital and Seth Rosenblatt of Optimost solutions at Interwoven. Known as the Wonder Twins Track, Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing is a session about what happens when one combines landing pages with multivariate testing tools; tools that change various elements of the page dynamically to see which tests better with people.

Lance Loveday will be joined by Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive to present SEO & Usability: They can (And Should) Coexist. In this session, within the Analytics and Usability Track, they will discuss how search engine friendly design does NOT mean human unfriendly design. In fact, done right, improving the usability of a site for visitors can also improve the SEO. This session looks at how both help each other.

Both conferences promise to be packed with vital information spanning the Search Marketing and Digital Solutions arenas.

The Santa Clara Convention Center will be hopping with search marketing specialists February 26th through the 28th for Search Marketing Expo 2008. Among the search marketing experts will be Closed Loop Marketing’s Lance Loveday, Sandra Niehaus, and Amy Konefal. Each speaking on different topics, they will address common search challenges and how to overcome them.

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Friday night, the 19th of October, marked the debut party for our new authors’ book, Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects into Leads. Surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, Lance and Sandra presented all of us with a copy of the book. We celebrated with a decadent meal, delicious wine and titillating conversation. At last! I finally have my very own copy of the highly anticipated new book.

The evening started with champagne and savory appetizers (bacon-wrapped dates, anyone? Really, they’re awesome). We then made our way to Carpe Vino’s “Cave” where we were treated to a fabulous meal including a double magnum of 1982 Chateau Pontet-Canet Bordeaux (which Sandra loved).

The authors then presented each of the guests with a copy of the book amidst other gift exchanges (including the shirt we hope Lance will wear at the Voices That Matter conference this week.)

Once we were able to stop thumbing through our books, we continued with our conversations and dessert.

A good time was had by all. What a wonderful way to introduce the exciting release of their new book.

Thank you, Lance and Sandra – and congratulations!

From the Team at CLM

View related topics: lance loveday, sandra niehaus, voices that matter, web design for ROI