New Analytics, Calendar Features

The further adventures of the Starship “Panama”

When I said before that it’s a busy time for Yahoo Search Marketing I wasn’t kidding. The updates and enhancements are coming fast and furious. And we’re just gettin’ started.

Assist Assistance
First up, we’re offering a new feature, Conversion Analytics to help you track your conversion assists. Conversions, you’ll recall, are noted in a column on your dashboard and in your various reports. A “conversion” occurs when an action you value, such as a purchase, registration, or sign-up, is completed by a user. A conversion assist occurs when a keyword has contributed to a conversion that was credited to a different keyword.

Let’s say that a user came to your Sci-Fi collectibles site and bought a “tribble” plush toy. He or she might actually have been searching on “United Federation of Planets” or “quadro-triticalé”—the genetically engineered grain that everyone knows tribbles love to munch. The user might have viewed the ad with the keyword, “United Federation of Planets” first, then later viewed the ad with the keyword, “quadro-triticalé” and then finally converted on the ad displaying the keyword, “tribble.” The system records this trail of clicks, or “lead events,” crediting both “United Federation of Planets” and “quadro-triticalé” with an assist and “tribble” with the conversion. This way you’ll know that your keywords are leading to conversions, even if the relationship is not a direct one.

The system will show up to 30 lead events per conversion over 45 days. Please note lead events will only be recorded when the user has cookies enabled.

Conversion assists are shown on your Campaigns pages, in a new column next to “Conversions,” as well as in your various reports—basically everywhere you see “Conversions” and other advanced analytics data.

Note that you must have conversion tags installed on your site in order to take advantage of this new feature. You can get these tags, and instructions on how to install them, here.

For more info, visit our Help Section.

Save the Date
We’ve also updated the calendar function to provide performance data for both custom and pre-selected date ranges in an easier-to-read format.

Short Descriptions Rolling Out today
Lastly, as we announced last week, we begin rolling out the short description requirement across the network today. That means that, starting today, all new or modified ads must include a short description (70 characters or fewer). Note that if a short description is not provided by late-June 2007—exact date to be determined—we’ll automatically cut off your ad description at the nearest complete word before 70 characters followed by an ellipsis, when it is displayed on Yahoo!

We believe that tighter, more concise ads perform better and can help improve your ads quality score in the long run. So we think it is well worth the effort.

Expect more updates and enhancements at warp speed.

—Michael Mattis