Yahoo Search Engine Marketing changes.
Friday, October 27th, 2006Yahoo search engine marketing is back on the map. It has been lacking a lot of services and loosing heavily to Google on a lot of fronts in terms of performance, flexibility, usability and content. Most of the professional SEM firms have dumped Yahoo for all of the above reasons and now is the time to look at it again. Below is the comparison table from Yahoo Search Engine Marketing release outlining the new functionality in the Ad centre:
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| Current Sponsored Search | New Sponsored Search | Benefit to You | |
| Account Dashboard | A high-level overview of your account’s key metrics | A performance overview, complete with graphs and a customized “watch†list of your “top†campaigns | Easier management, and better visibility and control over your campaigns |
| Ad Activation | 3 to 5 business days | Online within minutes1 | No waiting for your ads to go live in search results |
| Ad Testing | Not available | Test your advertising messages and improve the quality of your ads | You can easily determine which messages perform best with your audience |
| Geo-Targeting (target by location) | Keywords and listings require specific location name. Local Sponsored Search available as separate account | Narrow your distribution to cities and surrounding areas;2 test new markets | Allows you to target your ads to the right geographic audience, which can help improve your return-on-investment (ROI) |
| Campaign Scheduling | Not available | Manage your campaigns with the ability to schedule them by date | Control the start and end dates of your campaigns for more efficient spending |
| Ad Groups (new account structure) | One-to-one relationship between keyword and creative (title and description) | Keywords in ad groups can be served with multiple ads | Saves you time setting up and monitoring your campaign |
| Content Match | Ads are matched to content pages based on keywords | Contextual relevancy is determined by your ad text and landing page text | Improved relevancy for contextual ads that can result in more targeted traffic for you |
| Insert Keyword Feature | Keywords must be manually written into titles and descriptions | Keywords can be automatically inserted into titles and descriptions. | Save time and focus on creating highly relevant ads |
| Reporting | Pre-defined reports | Customizable reports that fit your needs | Get more of the information that really matters to you |
1 Assumes no sensitive content is contained in the submitted ad campaign.
2 Please note that geo-targeting accuracy is not guaranteed and may vary depending on the level of targeting selected, as well as other factors.
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We are back on track with all of the items that Google has in their package and more. Depending on the industry it is a lot more effective to advertise in specific search engines more than in others. This depends on a lot of factors and mostly the experience helps to identify the best way forward. It is great the Yahoo has introduced these new features now as it has become increasingly difficult to convince clients to allocate a part of their advertising budget to Yahoo Search Marketing.