All posts in yahoo search marketing

The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog have posted more information about an important change to the way ads are ranked. This confirms that the quality score update will only be active in the US from Feb 5th.

“In search advertising, user satisfaction and advertiser value are two sides of the same coin. To help create a better experience for our users and help encourage you to create better, more focused ads that are more appealing to your potential customers, we are changing the way that ads are ranked in the U.S. market. Ads in search results will be ranked by both bid amount and ad quality. This change, which will impact all advertisers, is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding and more on the quality of your ads. By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and reduced cost for your ads.”

Yahoo! Search Marketing have confirmed that they will be introducing a quality score algorithm into calculating how they rank ads on February 5th.

In my opinion this is a necessary change for Yahoo! to help them compete with Google AdWords by improving the relevancy of paid search results. This will also help advertisers with quality websites to benefit from the system by paying a fair CPC while irrelevant or low quality websites will be penalised with increased bids.

Here’s a summary of the ad quality changes from Search Engine Roundtable’s New Yahoo Sponsored Listings Ranking Model post:

“* Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad’s rank in search results beginning February 5, 2007.
* This will replace the current method, in which ads in search results are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position).
* This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the quality of your ads.
* By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and/or a lower cost for your ads.

* We recommend that you review your current max bids. Keep in mind you may be charged up to this amount.
* Standard match type ads will no longer receive priority placement over Advanced match type ads.
* Fewer Sponsored Search results may now appear at the very top of the page for certain search terms.”

Here is a video from WebProNews in which Mona Elesseily from PageZero talks about the new Yahoo! Search Marketing platform Panama.

As confirmed last week, from today Yahoo Search Marketing’s minimum bid has been reduced to £0.05 in the UK, so don’t forget to reduce your bids for all that cheap traffic!

Yahoo! Search Marketing have confirmed that minimum bids will be reduced to 5p in the UK from January 19th.

Here is a copy of the email I received today:
“Dear Advertiser,

* The Minimum Bid for each click vary by search term and starts from £0.05. Please note that as the minimum bid depends on the specific search term, certain keywords will have a variable minimum bid of £0.05 and others a variable minimum bid of £0.10.”

SERoundtable today pointed to a WebmasterWorld thread which shows how to use dynamic keyword insertion for Yahoo Search Marketing, this is for the new version codenamed Panama.

“1. Click the Campaigns tab > Summary subtab. The Campaigns page opens.
2. Identify a campaign and click its link. The Campaign Details page opens.
3. Identify an ad group and click its link. The Ad Group Details page opens.
4.Click the Create New Ad link. The Create Your Ad page opens.
5. Decide whether to insert the keyword into the title or the description of the ad.
6. Enter the title and description of your ad. At the point in your title or description where you would like to insert the keyword, click the Insert Keyword link below the text field. {KEYWORD: DEFAULT_TEXT} will be inserted into your title or description, and you may then replace DEFAULT_TEXT with the keyword of your choice.
7. Enter the URL and ad name for the ad.
8. Click Save Changes.
9. In the Ad Group Details page, find the related keywords in the keywords tab.
10. Click the keyword link. The Keyword Details page opens.
11. Click the edit link in the Alternate Text field at the top of the page. The Enter Alternate Text dialog box opens.
12. Enter the alternate text to display.
13. Click Submit.”

These previous posts show how to use the Microsoft adCenter and Google AdWords dynamic keyword insertion.

The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has posted some useful tips about creating ad copy that clicks.

This focuses on the main points of knowing your company’s USPs (unique selling propositions), taking a look at competitors’ ads, creating compelling ad copy around USPs and split testing ads.

“Take a look at competitors’ ads
In many cases, search ads are unappealing. Try something catchier or use a different tone. A little creativity will never hurt any Sponsored Search account! In one account, I changed ad copy from this:

Flasks & Bar Accessories
Get unique bar sets, wine openers and more. Great for gifts. Order now.

To this:

Wonderful Wine Openers and Accessories
Entertain with sleek steel or soft wood for a Zen effect. Order today.

The second ad helped dramatically increase sales for two reasons. First, it was specific to wine openers. It didn’t try to sell a bunch of products (like the first version). The second reason was because the ad’s tone was appropriate to the audience it was targeting. When writing ad copy, keep in mind the type of product you’re selling and who you’re selling it to. If it’s a fun product like children’s toys, use an upbeat, cheery tone. If it’s a serious product like an enterprise software solution, use an appropriate business tone.

Appealing ad copy will make even more sense as Yahoo! Search Marketing introduces its new ranking algorithm (sometime called “marketplace design”). After the first quarter of 2006, the company will factor in bids, click through ratio or CTR (how often your ad is clicked on compared to other ads), and other factors to determine ad positioning. This could mean higher positioning and cheaper bid prices if your ad is more popular (clicked on more often) than your competitors’.”

Lee Odden yesterday posted a Yahoo Panama interview with John Slade of Yahoo. In the interview John talks about the recent rollout of account upgrades to Yahoo Panama in the US, answering questions about the new features of Yahoo Search Marketing and listing the competitive advantages over Google AdWords, as quoted below.

“What are the fundamental differences between the new Yahoo! Search Advertising platform and Google AdWords? What are the competitive advantages?

• See what kind of volume of leads is available for any given campaign or ad
• Understand how search marketing campaigns impact immediate and deferred transactions
• Define a standard business goal like “Cost Per Action” (CPA), then let the system automatically find the most cost-effective way to deliver against that goal
• Take action on campaigns at the very point of insight
• Manage campaigns with the level of control and at the level you want with the tools that best fit their needs/experience”