Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » The Next Wave of Search: "The Next Wave of Search
Yahoo! Search Advertising Enhancements That Deliver
With all of the events that Yahoo! has gone through in the last several months, one of the questions I get is: “Does Yahoo! still care about search?” The answer is: Absolutely. In fact, Yahoo! is delivering a series of enhancements that deliver value to consumers and advertisers alike.
Our new search enhancements fall into four major areas: innovation, transparency and control, value, and consumer relevance.
Innovation
Only Yahoo! can combine the power of search and display to provide great value to our advertisers. Our search retargeting and Rich Ads in Search products are great examples of just that. Our initial testing suggests that Rich Ads in Search can help improve click-through rate by as much as 25%, and some advertisers have even more impressive results.
Later this month, we’ll build on the success of Rich Ads in Search and let some of our large brand advertisers bid for Rich Ads placement and pay by the click. Those advertisers will be able to manage Rich Ads and their budgeting, targeting and reporting directly from the Sponsored Search interface and our APIs.
Transparency and Control
You want to be in control of your ad campaigns. You want to know where your ads are showing, and you want better tools to manage them. That is why we just rolled out the Ad Delivery Report, which lets you see where your ads are showing on our various partner sites and how their traffic is performing for you. You can use our Blocked Domains feature to block sites that aren’t working for you.
You’ll have even more powerful tools to control where your ads show with Network Distribution. Network Distribution will let you run your ads on either Yahoo! or its partner network, and set bids separately for each channel. We expect to launch Network Distribution in the first quarter of next year.
Also next year, you’ll be able to get a look at our Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop tool, an offline tool designed to help sophisticated search advertisers create and manage large campaigns. The tool will help you complete search advertising tasks easier and more quickly. If you’re interested in it now, please contact your account representative or sign up to inquire about our beta program.
Value
We know it’s all about value and results so we want you to get the most out of your investment. That is why we recently adjusted our pricing model to better align what you pay with the value of the clicks you receive. And we keep going. Later this year, you’ll see enhancements to our ad selection technology that are designed to improve the way ads get matched to consumer queries. Better matching means better results, and should lead to better return for you.
Consumer relevance
More personally relevant searches translate into more qualified leads for advertisers. Our new search results page gives users tools to discover new information, explore related concepts, and filter search results by specific sites and types of content such as people, videos and discussion forums.
We are also creating search that learns. Using search science that detects user intent by studying search behavior over time, our search technology is designed to better understand what people are searching for by looking at their previous searches.
If you haven’t noticed, our new marketing campaign puts the consumer at the center of everything Yahoo! does, and we’re backing that up by investing heavily in the consumer experience. Our success is tied to attracting more engaged consumers who, in turn, search more frequently. And that’s good news for you."
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Thursday, October 8, 2009
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » The Next Wave of Search
Friday, September 11, 2009
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » Do You Know Where Your Ads Are?
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » Do You Know Where Your Ads Are?:
"Do You Know Where Your Ads Are?
New feature helps you see how your traffic performs
Would you like to know where your ads are running? Yahoo! is launching some new features that will let you know which Yahoo! partners are providing you traffic, and charge you according to the performance of the traffic you receive.
There you are
You probably know that your ads can appear not only on Yahoo, but on partners throughout our distribution network, and that you can block them if they’re not performing for you. But until now, if you didn’t have a pretty good head for web measurement stuff, you probably didn’t know which traffic sources were working for you. Now our Ad Delivery Report will let you see how your ads are performing on various partners, and use that information to block the partners who don’t give you what you need.
The Ad Delivery Report shows you not only your traffic sources—whether that be Yahoo! or some of our partners—but also how your traffic from those sources converts. Combined with one of our analytics options, you can track measurements such as impressions, click-throughs, conversions and return on ad spend. You can also filter the results by account, domain, distribution channel and tactic.
If you find traffic sources that you don’t want, you can enter the domains in our Blocked Domains tool. Keep in mind that you can block a maximum of 500 domains, so pick the domains that are most important for you to block based on the amount and performance of traffic. Make sure you’re getting enough traffic on those domains to make informed decisions about their performance, and keep in mind that when you block domains you reduce the traffic you’re likely to receive, too.
You can get started with the Ad Delivery Report by clicking on the “Reports” tab in the Sponsored Search interface, or learn more about how to use it in our help center.
Pay for what you get
As you’ll see when you start looking at your Ad Delivery Report, not every partner will perform the same for you. We’ve discounted our click charges accordingly for some time now. We’re now expanding the adjustments we make to our click charges based on our assessment of the performance of traffic coming from sources within our distribution network.
This will include deeper discounts on click charges for lower-performing traffic, and potential premiums on click charges for higher-performing traffic—in other words, your click charges will be more closely aligned to the performance of the traffic you receive.
How does it affect you? Based on our analysis, we expect that most advertisers will see click charges drop or remain unchanged, while a small fraction of advertisers may experience an increase in click charges. These adjustments are based on the performance of the traffic source, and won’t be affected by the quality of your ads. And, as always, you will never pay more for a click than the amount you set as your bid.
Now in a town near you
Sponsored Search has several new features that let you manage your billing and account information more easily. You can now edit your payment methods more simply, such as when you want to swap a credit card out for another, and more easily set an appropriate automatic charge amount to fund your account when your balance gets low. If you’ve just signed up with us using a promotional code, the system will let you see which credits are being applied to your account, along with their status. For more details about these changes, see what’s new in Sponsored Search.
We’ve also updated our geographic targeting feature. It already let you get specific in your campaigns by allowing targeting down to the city or ZIP code levels, and it’s now even more specific with the addition of 746 new cities. So, if you were dying to target the good folks of Beverly Hills, Calif. or San Benito, Texas, today is your lucky day."
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Free & CPC Shopping Site Comparison
Free & CPC Shopping Site Comparison:
Compare both free and CPC based price comparison websites
Free Product Comparison Sites:
Google Shopping
Live Products
MSN Shopping
Price.com
TheFind.com
CPC Shopping Engines:
About.com Shopping
Amazon
AOL Shopping
Ask Shopping
Bizrate
DealTime
Excite Shopping
Lycos Shopping
MySimon
NexTag.com
PriceGrabber.com
PriceRunner
PriceScan
Pronto.com
Shopping.com
Shopzilla
Yahoo Shopping
Product search engines (also known as product comparison engines, price comparison engines & shopping engines) offer a new way for web users to find the products they are looking for. When a person visits a product search engine they are able search products by price, store & store ratings allowing visitors to easily compare products. Each product in a search result usually includes an image, description, price and a link to buy from the advertiser’s website.
Shopping Search Engines can be free of cost to retailers or charge stores on a cost per click basis. As with PPC ads, CPC Shopping sites can get quite pricey and lower profit margins drastically. Businesses should take advantage of all the Product Search Engines which are free of cost. Why list in one price comparison engine when you could list in all of them for no cost allowing retailers reaching out to more people. All these shopping"sites are great for consumers but which ones are better for retailers? With numerous shopping engines available on the web, how do you choose the right one for your products? Below is a list of popular product comparison engines, their fees and services offered to retailers/advertisers.
Product Search Engines Offering Free Retailer Listings
Google Shopping – Google offers a free product listing to e-retailers. Retailers can upload a feed of their products or input product information individually including image URL, product URL, price and various other product specifics. Google Shopping visitors can sort products by relevance of their search terms, price, brand names, product ratings and store ratings. Products listed in this free price comparison engine expire after 31 days.
Live Products – Live, a Microsoft Corporation website also offers e-stores free product listings. Advertisers can upload their product information manually or in bulk via their FTP. Visitors of Live Products can search by product brand, category & price range. When visitors find the product they are looking for they then click to compare prices, which brings up a list of retailers and the product price for each. Visitors can click on the retailer they are interested in buying from and are brought to their website to purchase. This Product Comparison site offers visitors the ability to quickly and easily compare prices from different retailers. Items listed in Live Products expire after 30 days.
MSN Shopping –An affiliate website of Live Products offers retailers free product listings. MSN Shopping products are submitted and updated through Live Products. Visitors of this Shopping Comparison Engine can filter results by category, brand, seller and price range. They can also sort their results by price, ratings and alphabetically.
Price.com – Price.com offers e-stores the ability to list their products free of cost. When a visitor searches this price comparison engine for a product they are given a list of items along with images. When a visitor clicks on the product they are interested in they are given a list of stores, the store rating and their corresponding prices. When a visitor finds the store they want to buy from and click on the name they are brought to that advertiser’s website to purchase.
TheFind.com – E-stores can add their products with ease and free of cost to TheFind.com. When searching for a product visitors are offered the choice of filtering results by brands and stores. After finding the product they are looking for they are given all the product results with prices and store names and are listed in no particular order. Once a searcher finds the product and price they click on that store and are brought to their website. Retailers submit their products and this price comparison engine will crawl their website to constantly update product listings.
Shopping Search Engines with Cost Per Click Retailer Listings
About.com Shopping – Products are listed on this price comparison engine for a cpc basis which is powered by PriceGrabber.com. Retailers interested in being listed on About.com need to submit their information to PriceGrabber.com. Visitors of this shopping site find the product they are looking for and click on compare prices to view prices of all listed e-stores.
Amazon.com – Amazon.com allows retailers to list their products for a fee of $39.99 per month. In addition to this shopping search engines listing fee, retailers also have to pay Amazon a percentage of sales. Percentages paid by retailers are dependent on the type of products they sell. The obvious advantage of Amazon is the mass amount of traffic it receives, but in many cases the costs of listing outweigh profits. When visitors search for products they are offered an assortment of filter options to find the product that best suits them. E-stores can upload their products either one at a time or in bulk.
AOL Shopping – The popular website AOL, has a shopping comparison site which is also powered by PriceGrabber.com. AOL Shopping allows visitors the ability to filter searches by brand and price range. These filter options allow users to locate the product they want quicker and compare retailers easier than most other product comparison websites. Retailers wishing to be listed on this price comparison site should submit their data through PriceGrabber.com.
Ask Shopping – This product comparison site is powered by Pronto.com. Retailers can submit their product listings in bulk to Pronto.com and pay on a cpc basis. When visitors find the product they want they are given a list of retailers and their corresponding price. Clicking on a price will bring you to that retailer’s website and they will then be charged a cpc fee.
Bizrate – This product comparison site is an affiliate of Shopzilla. All listed products were uploaded in bulk through Shopzilla. Bizrate has the same filters and listing practices as its shopping comparison affiliate, Shopzilla.
DealTime – Part of the Shopping.com network, DealTime allows retailers to list their products on a cpc basis. Retailers wishing to be listed on this shopping comparison engine can upload their data through Shopping.com. This price comparison website offers the same search filters as most other shopping engines.
Excite Shopping – Products on this comparison site are listed on a cpc basis and are submitted via Pronto.com. This shopping engine offers the similar search filters as other comparison sites, including: price, brand and merchant. Stores which carry the searched product are listed along with their prices and when clicked on visitors are brought to that merchant’s website.
Lycos Shopping – Lycos Shopping is another affiliate of the price comparison site, Pronto.com. Retailers wishing to list their products on this shopping site must submit their data through Pronto.com. Search filters on this price comparison site include: price range, brand, product features and merchants. When a visitor locates a product and a price they like, they click on a price and are brought to that retailers site and that e-store is charged their cpc fee.
MySimon – MySimon is yet another PriceGrabber.com affiliate. Merchants interested in submitting their products should do so through PriceGrabber.com. When a searcher locates the product they are interested in on this shopping site they can compare prices of all e-stores carrying that item, allowing them to locate the best price. After clicking on the best price a visitor is brought to that advertiser’s website.
NexTag.com – Retailers can list their products on this price comparison engine on a cost per click basis. When a searcher clicks on a product the retailer is than charged a fee based on the product being sold. As with PPC, a person can click on an ad go to the retailer’s website and they not buy, costing the e-store money and lowering profit margins. This shopping comparison site accepts bulk product uploads but in order to set up an account be ready to deposit $150.00.
PriceGrabber.com – This product comparison website allows e-stores to list their products for a cost per click fee. When visitors find a product they are given a list of online retailers and their corresponding prices. After the searcher finds the price they want they click the product and are brought to that retailers store and the retailer is charged a small fee. Although the cpc fees are minimal, if they are clicked on numerous times it can become quite expensive. For retailers to list their products in this comparison engine they must deposit $50.00 and upload their data via a bulk feed.
PriceRunner – Retailers are able to list their products at a cpc rate on PriceRunner.com. E-stores can upload their products to this product search engine in bulk. PriceRunner does not offer all the search filters for visitors that other price comparison engines offer. Searchers can only filter results by brands and types. When results are listed they show an image, store name and product price. When a visitor finds the product they are searching for they click the store link and are brought to that e-store.
PriceScan.com –PriceScan.com offers e-stores the ability to list their products on a cost per click basis. Visitors search for a product and are brought to a page with various search matches. Clicking on a product bring visitors of this price comparison site to a listing of retailers along with their prices. When a searcher clicks on the retailer they wish to purchase from they are brought to their website to buy and the retailer is charged a fee. To setup a retailer account with PriceScan, be ready to deposit $50.00.
Pronto.com – E-Stores can list their products on this comparison site on a cost per click basis. The cpc fees paid vary depending on the type of products being listed, but are pretty consistent with other cpc comparison sites. Searchers of this shopping site can filter their search results by price, brand and merchant. After locating the product they want, visitors can compare prices from all retailers listing that item and when choosing a merchant are brought to their website and the merchant is then charged their cost per click fee. Retailers can upload their products in bulk to this product search engine.
Shopping.com – Retailers can list products on this price comparison engine on a cpc basis. Visitors of this popular shopping site can filter product results by price, brand and store. Product searchers can also view reviews of site retailers. When visitors are interested in a product they click on a price and are brought to that merchant’s website and the retailer is charged a fee.
Shopzilla – E-stores wishing to be listed on this price comparison engine pay based on a cost per click fee schedule. Products listed on Shopzilla can be uploaded in bulk and are listed on numerous other affiliate shopping sites. Searches can filter products by brand, price, store and numerous other filters depending on the product. All products which match a category are listed in no particular order and include the store name and their corresponding price.
Yahoo Shopping – CPC pricing is used for retailers wishing to list their products on this very popular shopping engine with fees varying depending on product categories. Retailers can also pay to be a featured merchant and have their products listed on top of searches. Along with the normal search filters, this comparison site offers visitors the ability to compare product listings side by side, allowing them to easily find the best deal.
Even after reviewing the list of shopping search engines you may still be asking yourself “which ones are the best to list in”? Although all of the above comparison sites are popular and get a lot of traffic it is expensive to list in all of them. Aside from listing in all of the free product comparison sites there is no real answer to which of the cpc comparison sites are best to list in. The best way to find the right solutions for your business is to just try them one at a time. By reviewing the cpc comparison site statistics for your account you can tell how many clicks you received and through further reviewing analytics you can track which products were purchased. The comparison site which drives the most traffic to your website and gives you the most purchases is the best solution for a successful e-store.
Ad Extensions - Introduction - AdWords Help
Ad Extensions - Introduction - AdWords Help: "Ad Extensions - Introduction
Print
Ad extensions expand a standard text ad with additional business information such as an address, helping web users easily find out more about your business. Ads will appear as normal across Google and the Google Network, but the additional information may also appear on Google.com and its properties, such as Google Maps, in an enhanced format. For example, if you own a bicycle repair shop in downtown Tokyo, a customer near your store searching for bicycle repair shops or tools to repair their bicycle is a local user you could more effectively reach with ad extensions. The user will see your text ad, along with your business information.
Pricing and traffic
You're charged in the same way for ad extensions as you are for a standard text ad. However when your ads are shown on Google Maps, you won't be charged for clicks on your ad that expand the info windows on the map interface, but you will be charged for clickthroughs from the info window to your website.
To learn more about ad pricing in your location and currency, please see the account fees finder.
Where ad extensions appear
Your expanded ads are eligible to appear on Google and its properties (including Google Maps) and the Google Search Network. You can use ad extensions to target multiple locations wi"
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Microsoft, Yahoo agree on long-sought search deal by AP: Yahoo! Tech
Microsoft, Yahoo agree on long-sought search deal by AP: Yahoo! Tech: "SUNNYVALE, Calif. -
Microsoft has reached a deal with Yahoo for an Internet search partnership, ending years of back and forth negotiations.
The agreement announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet's second-largest search engine audience.
It adds a potentially potent weapon to Microsoft's Internet arsenal as the software maker girds for an online assault against Google.
Yahoo is teaming with Microsoft following years of financial decay. In the process, Yahoo hopes to recover some of the money that was squandered in 2008 when it turned down a chance to sell the entire company to Microsoft for $47.5 billion.
Microsoft wants to process more search requests because the inquiries have become a critical lever for selling Internet ads."
Say Goodbye to the Dell Mini 9" Netbook
Say Goodbye to the Dell Mini 9" Netbook: "Dell announced that the Mini 9 Netbook was officially discontinued after about 9 months on the market. (Hmm.. did they plan that?)
Netbooks are quickly becoming very popular! And why shouldn’t they? They’re great for travel, perfect for bloggers, and an excellent computer option for kids. So, why is Dell discontinuing?
The good news is that Dell did expand their Mini line and they have a few 10 inch options available for you to choose from if Dell is your preferred computer manufacturer. The Dell Mini 10v (pictured here in green) has a starting price of $299.
If you’re still on the fence or undecided you can always refer back to the video comparison of some of the most popular netbooks around."
Setting Bids - Yahoo! Search Marketing Help
Setting Bids - Yahoo! Search Marketing Help: "Managing Bids
A bid represents the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad. You cost per click, or CPC, is the actual amount you pay for a click. Bidding is a key part of managing your Sponsored Search account. An effective bidding strategy can help you:
* Better manage your bids.
* Allocate your advertising spend to help you receive the maximum amount of targeted traffic.
* Gain a higher return on your advertising spend.
Bidding at two levels
You can bid at two levels:
* keyword
* ad group
* At the ad group level, you set separate bids for Sponsored Search and Content Match campaigns.
* At the keyword level, you can only set a custom bid for that specific Sponsored Search keyword, or use the default bid from the ad group.
For example, if you set a custom bid of $0.50 for a keyword, it will set the bid for that keyword at that price. But if you set the keyword to use the default bid, it will use the bid you set for the ad group.
Bidding Adjustments
Bid adjustments are available for use with your account’s targeting capabilities. This feature allows you to add a premium to your current bid in the form of a dollar amount or a per"
Yahoo! Announced Panama Launch : See My Notes About Panama Directly From Yahoo! Search Marketing's Headquarters
Yahoo! Announced Panama Launch : See My Notes About Panama Directly From Yahoo! Search Marketing's Headquarters: "Pricing Model, once cent above the guy below you is what you pay, that is if quality index is equal. If someone is paying $1 and an other is paying $0.75 and then an other is paying $0.60, so if the one bidding $1 is highest quality and the rest are equal, then one bidding $1 will pay $0.61, and one paying $0.75 will pay $0.51 and the one paying $0.60 will pay $0.26."
Monday, October 13, 2008
Yahoo! Improve Content Match Performance
Behind the Scenes These subtle changes are designed to lead to better Content Match performance Sometimes a product launch is big, like our recent launch of APT from Yahoo!. And sometimes it's understated, like the improved version of our contextual advertising product, Content Match, which we're announcing this week. It's not a new brand, and it looks virtually the same in the user interface. It just works better—at matching your ads with interested customers and helping you achieve better return on your ad dollars. Better Matching for Higher Click-Through Rates This combination can lead to more relevant clicks. Since we started rolling out the new technology, we've generally seen increases in Content Match click-through rates—and some advertisers have seen those rates climb appreciably. What it does for you can depend on a lot of things, including the keywords you select, the ads you write, and the settings you choose. Improved? Ask these Advertisers Lulu.com, a marketplace for digital content from authors, artists and musicians, has used Yahoo! Search Marketing for more than four years to point users to its services, which include free web storefronts and social networking offerings. Lulu's Director of Search Engine Marketing, Dan London, has used Content Match on and off for the past two years. Recently, he noticed significant improvements to the service, including appreciably lower costs of conversion. "In the last couple of months, I noticed that targeting our users through contextual ads was improving and that we were seeing more clicks at lower costs," he says. "Although we had spent time improving the keywords in our campaigns, we knew that there had to be something more to it. After learning that Yahoo! had made improvements to its matching technology, it's clear that it's been part of what has driven this overall effectiveness." Why Content Match? Content Match has been a great service for Lulu, according to London. "Yahoo!'s Content Match has allowed us the opportunity to reach potential customers who do not turn to search engines to find what they need," he says. What Do I Need to Do? If you've been using Content Match, you may already be noticing a bump. If you're not using it yet and it fits your business, it may be worth a try. — Jeff Sweat Online access: http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2008/10/10/behind-the-scenes/#comment-609273
We've been gradually moving Content Match to a new matching technology over the past few months. The new technology not only attempts to understand what the content is on a page, but also, who is viewing it, which helps you get your ad in front of the right customer. Content Match now combines a better understanding of web page and ad content with insights from users' geographic and behavioral profiles.
Results matter for Bankrate.com, which provides financial services to consumers. A long-time customer of Yahoo! Search Marketing, Bankrate takes a very performance-driven approach to search engine marketing. The company tested Yahoo!'s improved Content Match services this past August and September, and experienced significantly increased conversions during that period. "Yahoo!'s Content Match Network refocus on quality and relevancy has improved the delivery of the right message to the right person at the right time," says Rafael Zorrilla, Bankrate.com's Director of Interactive Marketing.
Content Match can help you reach a wider range of traffic than you could previously reach with search alone, and can help raise your brand awareness. You can:
The new matching technology is already running, so all you need to do is start a Content Match campaign. Because Content Match isn't necessarily meant to target users when they are actively searching for your business, it may convert at a different rate than Sponsored Search. Keep in mind these basic guidelines when you set up your campaign:
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Yahoo! Search Marketing Match Types:
Overview: Match Types For your Sponsored Search When using Advanced match type, Yahoo also provide you with Excluded Words option to help refine your matches by filtering out searches that are not relevant to your business. Standard Match Type The Standard match type displays your ads for exact matches to your keywords, as well as for singular/plural variations and common misspellings. Example If you advertise on the keyword "plasma television," your ad may be shown for the following search queries: The Advanced match type extends your reach by displaying your ads for a broader range of search related to your keywords, titles, descriptions, and/or web content. The Advanced match type also includes keywords from Standard match type queries. Example If you advertise on the keyword "plasma television," your ad may be shown for the following search queries: When using advanced match type, it's important to use the Excluded Words feature to help block unwanted searches that you believe may not be relevant to what you are offering. Please note that the Excluded Word feature is not available to the Standard match type. This feature helps refine your matches as illustrated in the examples below: Using Advanced match type for following keywords: You may want to use following Excluded Words: Reason to block: color television used You only sell new televisions ski lessons children You only offer lessons to adults beachfront condo for sale You only rent condos designer shoes repair You only sell designer shoes Things to Note: Note: If you add a large number of excluded words at the ad group level, you may experience issues with bulk management. In bulk submission spreadsheet, all ad group-level excluded words are listed one per row, so adding a lot of excluded words could increase the number of rows past Excel 2003's 65,000-row limit.. If you experience any difficulty with account bulk downloads, please contact Yahoo Customer Solutions department or your account manager for possible solutions. Match type options allow you to: With Advanced match type, you can: You can manage your match types at different levels in your account, which gives you more control on how you manage your match types. Setting match type to "Standard" at this level: Has this impact: Maximum number of excluded words when using Advanced match type Account Sets match type to Standard for all campaigns, ad groups and keywords in the entire account. Up to 250 words and/or phrases Campaign Sets match type to Standard for all ad groups and keywords in a single campaign. Excluded words are not available at this level Ad Group Sets the match type to Standard for all keywords within a specific ad group. Up to 250 words and/or phrases Keyword Sets match type to Standard for a specific keyword. Key points: Example:
distribution tactic, Yahoo offers two match types by which your ads may be displayed:
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Ask Sponsored Listings Editorial Guidelines
The Ask Jeeves-Google partnership isn't ending. Google's ads will continue to show up on Ask Jeeves. But now, any advertiser that wishes will easily be able to purchase placement directly through Ask Jeeves itself. Based on years of experience with both businesses and searchers, these guidelines will help you create high-performance listings that drive more qualified traffic to your pages. It is your responsibility to make sure your listings adhere to the guidelines. Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) may reject listings that do not adhere to the guidelines or that it deems otherwise inappropriate.
There are four high level principles upon which the guidelines are based:
- Unnecessary capitalization that is solely used for emphasis is unacceptable (ex: "FREE upgrade", "Buy NOW")
- Acronyms (ex: "ASAP", "OK")
- Company name if the brand name is capitalized (ex: "DELL")
- Incorrect spacing between words, letters and punctuation is unacceptable (ex: "Mortgage.Rate", "Mortgage ! Rate", "M o r t g a g e", "Mortgagerate")
- Correct spacing between #'s and symbols (ex: #353-6121, $49.99)
- Display URL in ad copy (ex: www.AskJeeves.com – AskJeeves is OK in ad copy)
- Obvious Misspellings are unacceptable (ex: Recieve, Guarantie)
- Symbols, Numbers and Letters in place of words (ex: Make $$$, Find a # of products, Look 4 it here, We care about U)
- Ads that include more than one exclamation point will not be accepted
- Punctuation used for extra and unnecessary emphasis is unacceptable (ex: *Free Upgrade*, <>)
- Common punctuation (ex: Set up your account today!)
- Buy here...
- Buy buy buy here, free free free upgrade
(ex: Click for your free horoscope today, Apply for 0% Intro APR on Purchases for 12 Months!)
Friday, July 25, 2008
Microsoft AdCenter Editorial Guidelines
Successful online advertising—the process of matching qualified customers who use the Internet with appropriate buying opportunities—results in both satisfied users and advertisers. The key to success in online advertising is creating an ad that is relevant, clear, and accurate. Adhering to the following guidelines will help your ad content get accepted more quickly. Word and character counts Make sure that your ad title and text meet Editorial Guidelines. Content Make sure that the type of content you are advertising is allowed. For example, adult or sexual content, profanity, weapons, or deceptive or illegal products and services, such as essay writing, are not allowed. For a complete list of disallowed content, see Content guidelines. Grammar and punctuation Make sure that your ads follow these simple rules: For examples of the proper use of grammar and punctuation in your ads, see Style and grammar examples. Ad relevance A relevant ad is defined as an ad that closely reflects the most probable user intent during a keyword search. Both the ad copy and the content on the landing page must be sufficiently relevant to the keyword. Help make your ads more relevant by following these guidelines: Duplicate ads To provide the best possible user experience, Microsoft AdCenter does not permit redundant listings. Advertising affiliates are allowed, but Microsoft AdCenter reserves the right to disallow specific ads or affiliates if the search results are too homogeneous. Trademarks Special or free offers Calls to action Technical requirements Be sure that your display URL (The Internet address that customers see in an ad following the ad text.) , destination URL (The Internet address of the webpage a customer is taken to after clicking an ad link, or display URL.) , and landing page Language Make sure that ads and keywords are written in the language set for the ad group. For more information about the language and region setting, see Select a language and market for an ad group. Below is the example under the above guidelines and you need to consider when drafting your ads. Disapproved Ad Order Your Dell Battery Low Prices, Fast Shipping, Buy Now! Site not related to Ad text - Style guidelines Each ad is associated with a specific keyword. If the ad is disapproved, then all of the keyword associations for the ad will be disapproved. If the ad is active but associated with a disapproved keyword, the association will be disapproved Approved Ad Shop for {YOURKEYWORD} 100% Guaranteed Same Day Shipping! Related topics Reasons for disapproved ads and keywords ,IS_adCenter_4_0_4 , , 120yek , 65yek , lairotide , yekdi124 limits, character, content, grammar, ad relevance, relevance, duplicate ads, duplicate, trademarks, rejected, pending, submitted, editorial, guidelines, editorial guidelines, style guidelines
(The Internet address that customers see in an ad following the ad text.) is the last line of your ad.)
(The Internet address of the webpage a customer is taken to after clicking an ad link, or display URL.) is not displayed in your ad, but it is used as the landing page for the ad.)
(The webpage on which a user "lands" after clicking an ad title. The title links to the page specified by the ad's destination URL.) meet these requirements:
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Search Landscape Reflected In Paid Results
Any of you who have read some of my past articles or who have visited Beanstalk's services pages will know - I'm not a PPC guy. Quite honestly, it's not in my primary skill set and it's something I would definitely prefer to leave to the experts. Now that said, following Google and its health (which is tied directly to AdWords and AdSense) is something I'm keenly interested in. To this end, recent changes in Google's paid search display and ranking systems will have huge impacts on advertisers and, more important for the purpose of this article, on Google itself. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine, Richard Stokes from AdGooroo sent me a PDF entitled, "Search Engine Advertiser Update - Q208" . With this document they outline the changing trends in the paid search marketplace and many of the stats are surprising. If you're a PPC manager they're obviously directly important. For those of us in the organic optimization world they are still both interesting and important. They're interesting for reasons which will become clear below and they're important because anything that affects the economic health of the search engines affects the search landscape both inside and outside of the paid search realm. As Richard Stokes points out and I completely concur, this places Google in an environment where one of two things will happen: One might guess that this also means that Yahoo! is gaining ground (which is true) but it's definitely a case of too little too late. Also earlier today (it was a busy day in search) Yahoo! released a letter to its shareholders that on one hand referred to the alliance between Microsoft and Carl Icahn as a destroyer of shareholder value for Yahoo! and then went on to say that they would be willing to sell the company to Microsoft at $33/share (which is what Microsoft has offered previously and which is more than $10 above their current market value).
Paid Search Market Share
what could be more important to the engines than their percentage of the paid search arena? Does Google really care about being the dominant search engine as far as organic search goes? Let me put this a different way, if Google was standing in front of their shareholders - would they prefer to announce that they held 80% of all worldwide searches and reported revenues of $7.8 billion dollars for the quarter OR would they rather stand up and say they hold 20% of all worldwide searches and reported revenues of $8.7 billion dollars? Organic results drive traffic which in turn results in clicks on paid ads. From a business standpoint that's the only reason that organic search even matters.
So which engine has the healthiest paid search environment? According to AdGooroo, Q2 results show a different world than one might guess (which is why I noted that it is interesting).
Over the past twelve months advertiser growth (or lack thereof) breaks down as follows:
Google: -8.5%
Yahoo!: +9.8%
MSN: -6.7%
Advertiser counts have also changed (i.e. the number of advertisers on the engine). Yahoo! leads in this area as well with a growth of 0.03%. Google dropped by 6.4% and MSN dropped by almost 20% (good thing they have their OS revenue to fall back on).
And A Drop In Ads
To go even further, Google has increased the importance of quality which has resulted in a reduction of nearly 40% in the number of ads that appear on a results page. 6 months ago ~6.5 ads appeared per page whereas now that number is closer to 4. This has the potential to significantly help or significantly hinder Google's revenue.
1. Advertisers will realize that their clicks are converting much higher, search marketers will spend more time and resources creating more and more relevant ads and landing pages and advertisers will be willing to bid more as the conversions improve, or
2. The competition for the top spots will be reduced and so too will the average bid prices.
Google's Q2 Report
And what inspired the writing of this article was actually the release of Google's Q2 report earlier today. After reading it I immediately had to contact Richard and let him know that the results confirmed some of the predictions noted in his work. He writes:
"... the auction-based bidding system makes this a double-edged sword. As the number of advertisers declines, so does the competitive pressure for higher bid prices. If advertisers don't step up to the plate and bid more aggressively for placement, then it's possible that search revenues could stagnate."
Google revenues were up only 3% over Q1 of this year and revenue from paid clicks was down by 1%. This is the first time in Google's history post-IPO that I can remember them showing reductions in revenue in one quarter over the previous. It appears that this new paid search model in not quite as effective at pulling in money as the old.
Now, to be fair, the new system of requiring higher quality scores and better ads and landing pages is new - only a few months old at this point and so there are likely still bugs to be worked out, but Wall Street did not react favorably to the announcements today and I suspect that the situation isn't going to look better for Google at the close of day tomorrow (though what do I know about stocks).
What Does This Mean?
So what does this mean? This means that Google has a lot of work to do and those in the paid search space need to pay close attention (even closer than normal) as shareholders don't like to see losses and Google is going to need to make moves to recover and show significant gains by the time their Q3 reports come out.
It seems that one can't look at the stronger relative results in the paid search area that Yahoo! has achieved as a win when they seem to be backsliding on their initial position regarding the sale to Microsoft.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
For one thing, watch closely. Monitor resources such as AdGooroo's research library, and the Clix Marketing blog. Pay close attention as we're going to see a lot of changes to what's going on and these changes are likely going to have effects on both the paid and the organic results as Google strives to provide the better results they're targeting through paid search now but at the same time improve their revenue.
This may involve adjustments to the quality scoring (I can pretty much guarantee that one) and may involve adjusting how paid ads appear on the page with the organic results. All we can really do is watch, wait and adapt.
