You’ve carried that piece of information around since childhood for what reason? When was the last time you charged for information in a spreadsheet; some information in a spreadsheet, something that might be valuable for a work colleague?

No, I haven’t lost my mind. Let me tell you about a young chap working in bank as a financial adviser back in the 90s. Every few days, customers would call in and ask “what’s the best savings rate?” or “what’s the cheapest home insurance?” He’d ring around and duly tell his customers, but keep a note just in case someone else asked. Customers would ask about mortgage rates and he’d research and note the results for the week.

Now here’s the interesting bit: his fellow financial advisers began asking him what the best deal he’d found was, and he’d tell them. But why was he doing all the leg work for no return? He asked himself the same question and soon “If you want to know, it’s £5 for the spreadsheet” became the reply.

Could you turn around and tell your work colleague that a report you worked on is £5? Simon did.

So what’s that spreadsheet worth, £5 or £536 million? Yes, Simon turned out to be Simon Nixon, the man who turned a few sales for a £5 spreadsheet into a financial service company, first selling data to financial advisers across the UK as a weekly CD in the post and eventually transforming this approach into today’s MoneySupermarket.com. The Sunday Times Rich List 2012 quotes Simon’s wealth at £536 million.

It’s difficult not to give away information for free. It doesn’t matter if you’re an accountant, consultant, furniture retailer or work within any professional field. You’ve invested time and money in your knowledge, you deserve to get paid. It’s simple; sell today and educate tomorrow.

Oh, as a side note, some time ago I was a victim of data theft. I believe this happened to Simon as well and lead to the advancement of a key competitor. If it can happen to me and large businesses like Money Supermarket, it can happen to you too.

Just keep your knowledge and data close. I’ll create an article on how to spot and avoid the charlatans of the internet in the near future, but for the time being let’s just sell now and educate later.

John Langley is a PPC and SEO consultant for PPC Rescue / Hot Button Marketing.

From October 1^st 2012, the United States will change over to Google Shopping and the UK equivalent is expected to land in early 2013. In short, Google Shopping will charge merchants for listings that have previously been free i.e. you’ll need to link a Google AdWords account to your Merchant Centre account in order to keep showing up for the Shopping results.

For those advertisers who already have Product Listing Ads / Extensions in place, you too can expect to see some differences in the way that these appear and function within the new confines of Google Shopping. These are as yet unclear but we estimate that there will be a greater degree of control from Google’s perspective and they will be far more stringent in terms of the accuracy of product listings.

Will this affect you as an advertiser or user of the current Merchant Centre? Do you find that Product Listing ads and Product Extensions work for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

The problem is that we don’t make logical buying decisions. Do you recall the Pepsi challenge? Most people who took the challenge said they preferred Pepsi but then continued to buy Coca-Cola.  Outside of Pepsi Challenge, the emotional imagery of all those years of Coke advertising came into play; our brains voted emotional and made a decision to buy before our logical brain even knew.

A large part of this is due to dopamine. This is our brain’s pleasure chemical and it’s often associated with imitation. Have you ever seen some shoes which you thought were awful – Crocs, for example? However, you started seeing them everywhere. In an instant your view went from awful to ‘I want those’. Seeing a product over and over again makes it desirable. Why do you think teenagers all want to be celebrities? They want the life – it’s imitation at work.

Let’s say that it’s a slow evening and you’re surfing the net. Yes, you’re clicking ads and wasting someone’s budget, or maybe you’re an SEO type only looking for genuine businesses who are most relevant to you. You stumble on a site, and holy moley, those shoes are to die for. The brain’s pleasure chemicals jump into action flushing you with dopamine and pure pleasure. Then before you know it, those shoes are in the basket and card number has been punched in. Researchers agree that it will have taken 2.5 seconds to make that buying decision. Interestingly, your emotional brain makes the decision 7 seconds before the logical side knows.

A few minutes later, the euphoric feeling caused by the dopamine flush disappears and suddenly you wonder if you’ve done the right thing. Sound a little familiar?

It’s retail therapy. When dopamine flushes the brain, it fuels our need to keep shopping even when our rational side of the brain says we don’t have the money – my wife seems to particularly prone to dopamine flushes judging by our card receipts!

Professor David Laibson at Harvard University says “Our emotional brain wants to max out the card, even though our logical brain knows we should save for retirement”.

How does this train of thought apply to AdWords and SEO?  From the moment a consumer makes a search, it’s vital that ads and search listing push the emotional hot buttons to excite the brain to ensure that consumers click your listing. But most websites fail to build on the excitement; they fail to create the dopamine rush. The pages are nothing more than product listings – where’s the excitement?

The clever SEO agencies create the dopamine rush, side-stepping any reservations about saving for retirement. It can be as simple as providing easy access to finance the product and make a dream come true, kick-starting that dopamine rush.

Marketing techniques such as surveys and eyeball tracking are finally been consigned to history. SEO, AdWords and Social Media agencies are slowly beginning to wake up to the new era of emotional marketing. Connecting with consumers’ ‘hot buttons’ is the future of online marketing and those embracing the change will leave behind price transparency and customer-claiming battles for the sake of ever-decreasing margins.

John Langley is an emotional marketing strategist for SEO and AdWords consulting at Chester-based PPC Rescue and Hot Button.