Looks like the Yahoo Marketing to MSN AdCenter cut-over is now complete (I had several email notices to this effect this morning). With this change, customers will no longer be able to differentiate bids or ads between these platforms. To make this more clear in the reporting for my customers, I have updated the campaigns that previously read MSN (cpc) and Yahoo (cpc) to display as “Bing (cpc)” in their Google analytics traffic reports.

Several in the industry are reporting wild gyrations in bid prices during the cut-over, so I am not chasing display positions at the moment. I will start to review bids again in a week or so after things level out.

For those of you who don’t know, Yahoo billed in advance, Bing and Google bill in arrears, so some of customers still have a balance at Yahoo. I exchanged email with a Yahoo rep about balances, who says they will not move Yahoo balances to Bing, as previously stated, but will apply any remaining balance to the credit card attached to your account after the cut-over (I expect this 30-60 days from now).

SEM Huntsville adcenter, msn, yahoo marketing

It looks like the transition of Yahoo to Bing for it’s advertising platform (Micro-hoo) is finally happening. In case you were not aware, Yahoo has been testing the use of Bing for its search results for several weeks. Yahoo made the full-time switch to Bing results last week (if you search on Yahoo, you now get Bing results). The date for Yahoo to start using Bing’s AdCenter platform has been less clear, but it appears now that the transition will start later this week.
see: http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2010/08/17/important-updates-on-search-transitions/

SEM Huntsville adcenter, bing, microhoo, Search Marketing

I attended a seminar today that discussed the Microsoft (AdCenter) /Yahoo (Panama) transition. I have hit several preliminary discussions on this topic at conferences, but this was the first one that had any real information about the Microhoo transition.

The seminar was lead by representatives from Microsoft and Yahoo and they set forth a time-line that showed the transition starting in August for completion by mid-October. They were careful to point out that this transition only effects search results and paid search campaigns (not other services such as Yahoo/Hotmail mail, Yahoo/Live log-ins etc).

After the transition, all organic and paid search results on Yahoo and Bing displayed will come from Microsoft. Presentation of the results may differ, but rank and ad order will appear the same in search results for both.

Once complete, the plan is to use the AdCenter interface to manage and view the performance of ads running on Yahoo and Bing with a single bid strategy across both engines. There was a good deal of discussion about  improvements being made to that AdCenter desktop to provide better support and performance for very large campaigns. The interface will have improved import/export capabilities.

Yahoo users will see new features including.

• Exact, Phrase, and Broad (formerly advanced) match options
• Match types will not apply to negatives (AdCenter is adding ability to have more Negatives)
• Separate bidding for misspellings, plural, and singular terms
• Create custom reports, improved keyword tools
• Content Network support
• 30 character headline drops to 25 (!)
• Microsoft’s Dynamic Keyword Insertion method
• A search query report will be available.
• No decision yet on how Yahoo conversion tracking will be migrated/supported, but it sounded like Microsoft conversion codes will be the norm going forward.
• Bidding/Trademark policies will be merged into a single policy.

The transition sounded somewhat like the transition from Overture to Yahoo Marketing. If you already have campaigns running in Yahoo (Panama), you won’t be forced to migrate (at least not immediately). Once Panama users migrate their accounts to the AdCenter, any accumulated conversion history from old campaigns will be lost.

More information at:

• http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2010/02/18/search-alliance/
• http://advertising.yahoo.com/transition/en_US

SEM Huntsville adcenter, AdCenter Desktop Beta, bing, microhoo, microsoft, yahoo marketing

I have assisted with a number of product beta’s over the years, but was flattered when Microsoft contacted me to do an interview about my involvement in the AdCenter beta program.

see: Thank You for Helping Improve Microsoft adCenter

SEM Huntsville adcenter, AdCenter Desktop Beta

The big news in the press today is the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. I have already received questions about this from a couple of clients, so I thought it best to expand here.

In the deal the search brand at Yahoo will remain to be “Yahoo Search” but it will be  “Powered by Bing.”  There will be no immediate changes however until they get regulatory approval, following approval the integration effort will move forward (expected early 2010).

What about allocating advertising dollars?
In the deal it appears that some mix of Yahoo Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter advertising will continue.  It was reported that Yahoo ads will continue to run in the Yahoo properties with Microsoft getting 12% of the revenue and some Yahoo ads will be syndicated over the Microsoft network. Bing will run ads on Microsoft properties (and may run some ads on the Yahoo network as well), but the details are unclear at this point. It will take some time for all this to shake out, with conversions rates ultimately determining where ad dollars will need to be spent.

What about optimizing for Bing?
This is really a non-starter, Google’s market share is so large that doing anything that could compromise your traffic from that engine would be a mistake. Unless Bing’s market share increases more than just picking up Yahoo traffic, there is really no point – as long as the feature sets remain similar. If  features emerge that are unique to Bing, and could be supported without impacting your Google traffic, then optimizing for those features would be in order.

Press Release: http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/pressroom/Default.aspx

SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville adcenter, bing, yahoo marketing

I had a meeting at Yahoo this week. The meeting was targeted at companies heavy into affiliate programs. We heard from a number of program managers, but because I am under NDA, can’t disclose all the great stuff they are working on. However, I will say these guys are not sitting around worrying about Microsoft. They are firmly focused on the future and presented an impressive list of products and upgrades. Most  interesting was some of the stuff going on with PPC management and while I can’t be specific, I think I can say that managing PPC on Yahoo is about to get a lot easier.

I know Yahoo isn’t the shinning star of the industry they once were, but these guys get a lot of stuff right. Google has the search traffic and therefore the money and therefore the clout, but judging by Microsoft’s track record, they don’t have the stuff to make Yahoo better.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Microsoft ‘hater.’ In fact I was a liaison to Microsoft when I was at Intergraph and spent a fair amount of time on the Redmond campus, they get a lot right. Tons of R&D and top people, but their leadership in office applications doesn’t currently translate to search or internet services.

So did Yahoo make the right decision? If I were a shareholder, I would probably wouldn’t think so. As a Internet marketing guy, I am glad to they didn’t merge this into Microsoft’s AdCenter mess. Yahoo had a business before the MS deal and it still does.

Yahoo has great people, product, and heart.

SEM Huntsville adcenter, ppc, Yahoo

I am always surprised when I find businesses measuring Ad effectiveness based on click-thru rate. CTR is a simple measurement of clicks given as a percentage of impressions. That is, for a given volume of ad impressions, some number of readers have clicked-thru to your site. Unfortunately CTR can be very misleading. If you create a gee-wiz ad (such as click here to WIN), you can make your CTR soar, but if 100% of those clicks bounce, or otherwise don’t go past your landing page, you have wasted your money. What is needed is some kind of conversion or success metric to indicate that a positive step has been taken beyond just clicking the ad.

Conversion tracking is offered within Google’s, Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s the Ad interface. To track conversions, a code snip-it is placed on a confirmation page and information, like total purchase amount, can be captured. For a eCommerce site this provides straightforward business case as it is easy to understand that paying $1.00 for a click that result in a sale that nets $2.00 is a good investment.

If you don’t sell on-line, you can measure demo requests, requests for information, or file downloads as conversions. For service businesses, if the prospect selects your Contact page, where your street address, phone number, or email link are displayed you have established a clear ‘buying signal’.

I highly recommend turning on conversion tracking and installing the conversion code for every search engine you work with. Once this is enabled, you will have an additional column in your ad account showing ‘conversions’. Use conversions to help you tune the wording in your ads and to see which keyword phrases are producing the best results. One note, if you rely on a Contact page as a success metric, be sure to remove address, phone number, email contact, etc. from other pages on your site or your conversion rates will be skewed low.

There is also a conversion measure is also available in Google Analytics called Goals. Google Analytics Goals lets you identify a single page visit as a goal or visits to a series of pages can trigger a Goal. Setting ‘Goals’ helps you identify your most fertile source of leads and tune your advertising budget accordingly.

Web Analytics adcenter, adwords, conversions, CPC, leads, yahoo marketing

Previously I has said that you shouldn’t use broad match in AdSense campaigns. While I still lean in that direction, it would be more correct to encourage you to test both phrase and broad match and then base your decision on hard conversions data.

An excellent article on this topic: Google AdWords Marketing: Exact Match Bidding

How these differ:

Broad Match:

Broad Match actually matches the words from the phrase any order. What is a little harder to follow is broad also matches synonyms for your phrase. If you have the phrase “tennis shoes” in your campaign, you ad may be triggered by a search for “tennis sneakers”. So the complete phrase has to be there, but Google may accept a synonym for part or all of your phrase. So if your phrase is “tennis shoes” won’t get matched for “tennis elbows” or “running shoes”.

Here is the link to Google’s help on this topic: What are keyword matching options and What is broad match?

Phrase Match:

Exact Match:

Exact matches only when all the words are used in the exact order, but with no other words in the query.

Yahoo Marketing

Yahoo adds some confusion in that it uses the terms “standard and “advanced”. “Standard” is similar to Google’s “exact”, but introduces some minor variations to your phrase, including plurals and misspellings. “Advanced” is analogous to Google’s “broad”.

See: Overview: Match Types

So what should you use, broad or phrase??

I think the best answer is “it depends” and some testing will be needed to ferret out the differences. I have tried both with a number of clients and usually find that “phrase” performs better than “broad”. I say usually because there are other factors that affect the results.

You might come to the conclusion that “broad” was better because your ad will be triggered on a wider range of phrases. After all, your ad should accurately identify what you are selling and keep your clicks relevant. However, Google and Yahoo both use click-thru rate as part of there formula to determine what to charge. So, if “broad match” causes your ad to be presented for searches that are irrelevant to your ads, your click-thru rate will be lower and you CPC rate will go up. More relevant matches will drive more clicks, improve your click-thru rate and drive down the CPC.

See: Quality Score

So again I come back to the importance of using “cost per conversion” (also known at cost per acquisition, CPA), as your metric instead of “cost per click” (CPC). As long as you have a way to measure cost per conversion you have a reasonable handle on the value of the phrase and can make an educated choice about what match perform best at the least cost.

Added 3/10/2008 >> Another good article on this topic: Focus On Exact Match

SEM Huntsville adcenter, adwords, broad match, phrase match, yahoo marketing