Throughout the years, I’ve developed primarily in PHP (and used MySQL as a database for database driven scripts/programs). I’ve developed everything from full fledged platforms to one-off scripts to handle tasks.
Examples of what I’ve created in PHP by employer can be found below:
Freelancing
I’ve recently created a file delivery tool that uploads multiple files across a wide selection of different locations. Statistics are gathered & recorded in a MySQL database for later use. Upload errors are logged & recorded, and a number of different queries are run to flag significant fluctuations at the file level with the data recorded.
Commission Junction
At Commission Junction, I created a number of different programs to achieve a wide scope of tasks that I managed within my division (with no peers or direct reports within the division).
Search Marketing Specialist at Commission Junction
VP e-Marketing at WebMetro
Director of Search Engine Optimization at WebMetro
Founder & CEO at Unreal Marketing
MOJO Shopping
When hired at Commission Junction, my primary objective was to internalize the comparison shopping engine management program. Prior to my start date, the comparison shopping engines (CSE’s) were being outsourced to a 3rd party.
From Day 1 at Commission Junction, I developed the specifications for what will be needed in order to run a CSE program from top to bottom.
The tracking portion of the MOJO Shopping platform was developed by (and powered by) the Mediaplex platform.
The CSE management portion of MOJO Shopping was programmed in PHP and powered by MySQL on the database side, and was developed with both scalability and flexibility in mind.
This platform essentially helped streamline the management CSE campaigns for my clients across each of the CSE’s. Simplified, this platform ran through a loop at the client-level and performed the following tasks:
- Download the updated specified source data (complete with inventory information, pricing, etc) at the client level
- Parse, optimize, and assign tracking parameters to product information for each comparison shopping engine (for more information on what is done during this process, please refer to the comparison shopping engine management document.
- Output this data into the specifications for each engine
- Deliver the final/optimized datafeed to each engine
MOJO Shopping Reporting
To compliment the MOJO Shopping system, I created a reporting back-end to automate reports that were not easily/readily available through the Mediaplex platform. By creating a reporting front-end (with data populated & supplied by the Mediaplex system) for MOJO Shopping, this allowed me to specify the views & reports that I needed to optimize my campaigns both quickly and effectively. For more information on what is optimized, please refer to the CSE management document.
Data Crawling / Data Extraction
Often times, clients need their product information crawled & formatted for the comparison shopping engines; however, clients do not always have the internal resources to put this information together.
The solution for this is my data extraction tool, which can crawl a large scale (or small scale) template-driven e-commerce site. Before the extraction begins, the tool discovers the existence of product pages. Once all pages on the site have been discovered, the product pages are then crawled individually and have product information extracted, formatted, and output into specific formats. From this point, data is able to be manipulated & used as needed.
Product Catalog Compliance
Internally, my CSE/feed technology was leveraged as a stop gap for client’s product catalogs that were not up to the Commission Junction product catalog specifications. Because this data is used by affiliates/publishers, it was especially important that all information is valid & streamlined for maximum profitability.
Because my platform transformed client data into the specifications for other engines, the technology was leveraged & treated the Commission Junction specification as it would a specification for any other site.
Client data is then processed, validated, formatted, and output into the format that the Commission Junction system requires.
Yahoo Search Submit Generator
This time around, during my third certification, I created a Yahoo Search Submit Pro (SSP) listing generator, which created listings in the format dictated by Yahoo.
The generator was initially written to output into the non-standard XML, IDIF1 format. As part of the certification process, not only was the format of the XML file itself critiqued, but the quality of the feed was under review as well. Part of the certification process entailed taking a sample data dump, cleaning up & formatting the data within the feed, and making the most of character & phrase limitations.
Yahoo Search Submit Pro supported three types of listings:
- TLP’s (Top Level Pages)
- CLP’s (Category Level Pages)
- PLP’s (Product Level Pages
Each of these types of pages had their own file naming conventions, entire body character limitations, and maximum number of keyword repetitions within the document. The listing generator took into account the maximum number of keyword/phrase repetitions by suppressing all instances of the keyword past the maximum repetition, and continuing to add keywords/phrases until the maximum character count has been reached.
By employing this method, this allowed us to target the maximum number of relevant keywords & keyword permutations per listing/landing page, while adhering to the strict editorial guidelines.
The IDIF3 format became available after the initial system (which was integrated with the MOJO system) was built, and the system was then upgraded to support both the IDIF1 & IDIF3 formats. IDIF3 was used for new clients moving forward as a standard, and the existing IDIF1 clients were transitioned over to the IDIF3 format before the IDIF1 sunset date.
Webmetro
At Webmetro, I truly hit the ground running and began both managing clients & developing a system on my start date.
DSMM Shopping
Webmetro had a proprietary tracking solution (DSMM), which was used to track campaigns on the comparison shopping engines. The platform that I built served the same purpose as the platform that was developed later at Commission Junction (see above), however, this worked with the DSMM system.
Unlike some of the other systems that I’ve come across, the DSMM system was very robust and extremely flexible, thus allowing for deeper layers of data. With more data at my disposal, I was able to optimize using advanced techniques I would not be able to deploy otherwise.
Yahoo Search Submit Listing Generator
This system was relatively similar to the one that I created later down the line at Commission Junction, however it was strictly in the IDIF1 format. For more information on the Yaoo Search Submit listing generator that I’ve developed, refer to the Commission Junction portion of this document.
UNreal Marketing
At UNreal, I created a suite of tools developed not only to facilitate the needs of my own team (CSE’s and paid inclusion), but to the paid search team as well.
MOSES
The MOSES (Mission Oriented Search Engine System) system was a suite of programs that was initially built to facilitate my own team’s needs & requirements, but was rolled out to the paid search team as well. This system helped facilitate our needs, without using internal resources to do so.
A sample of the tools available in the MOSES system are as follows:
- A tool that tied in to the Overture/Yahoo keyword suggestion tool (now deprecated) for keyword suggestions to be used for paid inclusion campaigns.
- A bulk WHOIS tool to search for available domains for PPC purposes
- A keyword generator tool that generated long, tail terms based on a set of base keywords, as well as a list of derivatives/keyword permutations as well.
- An automated file delivery system.
A number of other tools were available in the MOSES system as well; and new tools/projects were taken on as dictated by demand & internal workload.
