You’ll be ready for the expected October move of Yahoo! Search ad serving to adCenter
Last week, we completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada. This week, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account, in anticipation of the Yahoo! ad serving transition which we expect to start mid-October. We encourage you to transition your account before the ad serving transition begins, so that you are ready to reach more than 159 million searchers in the U.S. and 15 million searchers in Canada* on Yahoo! Search, Bing and our partners.
Start your account transition now Beginning today, you may log in to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account and initiate your transition to Microsoft Advertising adCenter. We’ve created a detailed Transition Checklist that you should review now, to help ensure that you’re prepared to make a smooth transition to adCenter, as well as a Feature Comparison Guide, to help you get familiar with adCenter’s features and capabilities.
In the afternoon, partners split up into separate tracks: Search Partners and Integrated Partners. Here are a few highlights from the afternoon sessions:
So what does this mean for you? As we noted in an earlier post, if ranking well in organic search results is important to your business, here are three tips for you:
Review your organic search rankings on Yahoo! Search for the keywords that work best for you and note any differences in your rank, now that the results are being powered by Bing.
Decide if you’d like to modify your paid search campaigns to compensate for any changes in organic referrals that you anticipate.
Review the Bing webmaster tools and optimize your website for the Microsoft platform crawler, as Bing listings will be displayed for approximately 30% of search queries after this change, according to comScore.
For more on the organic search transition, see the FAQs for managed advertisers at the Yahoo! Transition Center.
Deep mobile, common courtesy, spooky display and refining your campaigns
Yahoo's Paul Cushman checks his Twitter feed at SES
Day two of the Search Engine Strategies confab was, in a way, even more intense than the first, with sessions going deep into the details of mobile, search and display advertising. Here are some lessons learned.
Give their thumbs a rest
It’s one of Paul Cushman’s (he’s Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Mobile Sales Strategy) favorite truisms, invoked at the session “Getting Mobilized: Mobile Marketing Strategies: “Mobile is a channel, not a strategy.” Panelists Cindy Krum (Rank-Mobile), Sandeep Aggarwal (Caris & Co.) and Michael Martin (Mobile Martin) then proved his point, going way deep into the geek weeds of mobile SEO and usability.
One key takeaway for mobile eCommerce marketers is a simple one. “It’s a pain in the butt to enter your financial information on the phone with your thumbs,” said Krum. Instead, consider employing a payment solution like PayPal to make it easier on the user—and always provide a bail-out, one-touch phone number. After all, mobile users are on the phone, right? (Which, not incidentally, is another Cushmanism.)
Courtesy counts, online and off
At the session “Twitternation & Automation,” moderator Matt McGowan, Publisher and Head of U.S., Incisive Media, announced a surprise panelist. In addition to the previously announced speakers (Tracy Falke of Freestyle Interactive and Paul Madden of Crea8 New Media), 140Conference founder, renowned twitterphile and friend of Yahoo! Jeff Pulver would also be presenting.
Pulver gave his stock, “it-all-started-with-HAM-radio” and “Twitter is about love” speech while the other panelists patiently waited their turns. When it was time for Falke to give her talk on how she handles multiple Twitter accounts, Pulver pounced, interrupting repeatedly with quips and snide, though intelligent, remarks. During Madden’s admittedly “gray hat” Twitter automation talk, Pulver ejaculated, “You are EVIL.”
Granted, Madden pays legion of sweat shop copywriters in the Philippines $1.40 an hour to create fake Twitter personas and stories, but the effect was that of a teenager flaming others in an online forum circa 1999. It did, however, make for one of the liveliest sessions at SES. Pulver eventually backed off a little, saying during the Q&A period, “It’s evil, but it’s also brilliant, and I respect that.” Well, after all, the best panelists are entertainers and the best entertainers are insult comics.
Naughty or nice holidays; search is a-changin’; location rules; and mocking “The Social Network”
2010 holiday season: naughty or nice?
There’s no denying it: The 2009 holiday season was naughty. It registered the first sales decline since the early 1950s. But a new study predicts that the 2010 holiday season will be nicer to retailers—thanks in part to mobile. The study shows the percentage of consumers who buy on mobile phones has grown in the last year from 10% to 13%. It also reports 37.7% of U.S. consumers identified the Web as the media that they can’t live without, above television at 21.6%. Wonder what the author of the new Wired article entitled “The Web is Dead” would say about that.
Search is a-changin’ After all the anticipation and preparation, the Yahoo! and Microsoft alliance is here. Organic transition begins this week and paid search transition testing has already started. And the whole world is watching—or, at least, The Wall Street Journal,Search Engine Land and Reuters. One reason for the heightened interest? According to comScore, Yahoo! gained market share last month while Google dropped. Clearly change is in the air for the search world.
Mocking “The Social Network”? Twilarious! The trailer for the upcoming movie “The Social Network” has everything we love: nerds, Ivy League intrigue, million-dollar lawsuits, and Justin Timberlake trying to act. But the recent Twitter movie trailer spoof is even better. It’s got LOL lines (with fewer than 140 characters) like “If Twitter was as useless and boring as they say, then someone would have tweeted it.” But our favorite: “If you put a ’tw’ in front of any word, you make it infinitely cooler.” We certainly love our Twhiskey.
Fun facts and one big preview from Yahoo! at SES San Francisco
The Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco kicked off with a bang and ended with, well, a Y bang (Y!).
The opening bang
Jeffrey Hayzlett, former “Celebrity CMO” for Eastman Kodak gave the kickoff keynote, recounting his sometimes hysterically funny journey through the corporate rocks and shoals while trying to re-invigorate one of world’s great heritage brands with new life—a company at one time so out of touch it actually let its trademark “Kodak moment” expire. The key? Getting people involved, by talking and evangelizing the brand through social media. (They actually renamed a poorly named product using suggestions via Twitter in a few days.)
“Build hearts and minds not eyeballs and ears… the rest will follow,” he said.
Companies, said Hayzlett, should build “emotional technologies,” strong enough that people would run back into a burning building to save them (like family photos). And build them fast. “It’s OK to make mistakes, but if you’re going to make ‘em, make ‘em big… no one’s gonna die!”
Dueling Y-bangs
You’ve heard the old Gap Band song that goes, “you dropped bomb on me, baby.” Well, that’s just what Yahoo’s Wendi Sturgis did in one of the afternoon sessions. Its “stage name,” as Wendi put it, is the Yahoo! Content Syndication Exchange, and it’s poised to revolutionize the way publishers aggregate and present content. The new, open platform will allow publishers to draw together not only Yahoo! premium content but also search content (such as the Yahoo! Trending Now module), and user-generated content from sources like Twitter, among others. Bang, there it is! Stay tuned for further announcements.
Organic transition beginning this week; paid search transition testing happening now
As we continue to work toward implementing the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, we’ve reached some very significant milestones and wanted to share this important news with you.
Yahoo! organic search transition to begin
Later this week, we will begin the work of transitioning the back-end technology for Yahoo! Search over to the Bing platform. This is an important step toward our goal of improving the overall relevance of Yahoo! organic search results and attracting a larger audience to Yahoo! Search, to ultimately put your ads in front of more potential customers.
Adjust your ads and keywords for maximum results this shopping season
It might seem like summer just started, but, as always, consumer minds soon turn to what comes next. Before you know it, summer fun ends, and kids and adults alike have to prepare to go back to school.
Back-to-school is big
According to the National Retail Foundation’s 2010 Back-to-School survey, conducted by BIGresearch, the average American family is planning to increase its back-to-school spending to $606.40 this year, up from $548.72 in 2009. And, according to the survey, 30.8% of families plan to do their back-to-school shopping online this year.
The Yahoo! Buzz Index shows that searches for “back to school” and related keywords rise dramatically in July and peak in August. This is when people are most on the lookout for school supplies like textbooks, laptop computers, backpacks, uniforms, calculators, dorm accessories, fashionable teen clothing and more.
Give shoppers their own back-to-school assignment Want to know a surprising fact? Online back-to-school shoppers love deadlines—in a way. Just think: Remember all those nights you spent cramming for the big test or writing that term paper the night before it was due? Consumers can feel the same way about making “un-fun” purchases.
A mysterious stranger offers direction on geographical targeting
Editor’s Note: This is the last in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted January 9, 2009
The following account is a work of fiction. It is the product of too many minutes staring at a blank page, too many Triple Mochas, or perhaps both. But the points it makes about geographical targeting are real, and should be applied to your Sponsored Search account.
The assignment came in from the blog editor: Write a post that explains the differences between the use of the geo-targeting tools in a Yahoo! Search Marketing account, and using “geo-modified” keywords.
At first consideration, this task seemed simple. I was very familiar with both concepts. The geo-targeting tools, which we introduced with the “Panama” platform in 2006 (and enhanced in October 2008), let you target customers located or interested in specific geographical areas. If you want to reach all Canadians, you select Canada. Or you can narrow your geo-targeting all the way down to reach Brandon and Brenda in zip code 90210.
Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search secures victory for “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) creates cinematic, immersive experiences for its video game users—qualities that don’t come across in a traditional text-based search ad. So when it released Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it used a kind of search marketing campaign with images and video that grab a gamer’s attention: Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search.
The Challenge
EA, which owns high-profile video game brands like Battlefield, The Sims and Madden NFL series, wanted to get maximum exposure for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the latest title in its video game series. The game embeds players deep into an expansive yet totally destructible combat landscape filled with detailed vehicles and weaponry. It already had a built-in audience of gamers, millions of whom had bought its predecessor, so EA knew it could reach them through its usual mix of display and targeted television ads.
In order to build on the success of the previous titles in the series, EA needed to broaden its target market beyond what it could reach with its usual methods. It considered search marketing, but the company’s proven strategy of using visuals meant it wasn’t convinced that search would be effective.
“Gamers were eagerly anticipating the release, but we knew it had the potential to be an even bigger success than the first one,” says Leslie Shinn, senior marketing manager at EA. “We needed a way for a new audience to see for themselves how amazing the game is.”
The Solution Search agency iProspect recommended Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search, which allowed EA to use the power of strong imagery while gaining the benefits of search marketing. Since EA already had created the visual assets, there was no additional cost to repurpose them for Rich Ads in Search.
Last week, we completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada. This week, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account, in anticipation of the Yahoo! ad serving transition which we expect to start mid-October. We encourage you to transition your account before the ad serving transition begins, so that you are ready to reach more than 159 million searchers in the U.S. and 15 million searchers in Canada* on Yahoo! Search, Bing and our partners.
Editor’s Note: This is the last in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
