Archive for October, 2007

Learn the Value of Blogging at BlogWorld 2007

Las Vegas Conference Offers Tracks for Entrepreneurs and Execs

Sometimes doing business online can feel like a bit of a crap shoot. You can’t always tell which plays are going to come up a “natural” and which are going to “crap out.” So it’s appropriate that the BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2007 conference is being held in the crap shoot capital of the universe, Las Vegas.

BlogWorld is just about the biggest tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated solely to blogging and new media, with more than 50 seminars. For you, the online advertiser and e-commerce entrepreneur or executive, there are special tracks that can help show you the value of blogging and new media to your brand and your bottom line. There’s also a beginners track for those new to blogging. And the networking opportunities abound.

For more information, take a look at the complete schedule.

The special executive and entrepreneur conference opens on Wednesday, Nov. 7, while the general conference begins Thursday, Nov. 8 and runs through Friday, Nov. 9. So come on down to the Las Vegas Convention Center and BlogWorld 2007. Be sure to swing by booth 325.

—Michael Mattis 

Beware “Phishing” Scams

Fraudsters are Out There, Angling for Your Private Information

We don’t want to cause a panic, but the fact is that bad guys who want your passwords are roaming the Net—and, they’ll grab your credit card and social security numbers, your home address, your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name, too, if they have the opportunity.

These days, “phishing” scams are commonly received in just about everybody’s email. Usually, the phonies look just like the emails from large companies that many of us already do business with, like Amazon, eBay and Yahoo!. They even have official-looking logos and language that sounds like a typical, legitimate email.

Fortunately, there are usually clues in these emails that should raise red flags as you read them.

How to Recognize a Scam Email
Phishing emails usually try to hook you with some official-sounding message about your account. A common subject line is “Please Verify Your…” Once you open the email, you’ll often see familiar corporate colors, branding, logos and language. Sometimes they will tell you that your account has been disabled for a bogus reason. At other times, they’ll offer a “free upgrade” to a new (and often non-existent) service.

Recent Phishing Attempt Aimed at Our Advertisers
Like all large Internet companies, Yahoo! is not immune to having its customers targeted by phishing expeditions. First, take a look at this email, which we sent this past Spring to our Local Sponsored Search advertisers, advising them of the upgrade of their accounts to the new “Panama” system:

With a few changes, a scam artist then turned the above into the email below and randomly sent it out to thousands of recipients:

Don’t Give Out Account or Personal Info to Anyone
The biggest clue in the fake email is that it asks for your username and password. Yahoo! will never send you an email asking for your password 

Another way to help tell the faux from the friendly is by looking at the sender’s email address. Most of the official communications we send you will come from an address that looks like this: solutions(at)ysm.yahoo-email.com. If you get an email from a yahoo.com address asking you for info, it’s a good bet that it’s a fake.

If you think you’ve been “phished” for info, please let us know by emailing phishing(at)cc.yahoo-inc.com, or forward the email in question to that address.

To learn more about how you can keep from getting reeled in by “phishermen,” and how to guard against other Internet-based scams, visit these resources:

• Common Abuse Issues
• Yahoo! Security Center

—The Team

Customize It!

An Intro to Adding Custom Keyword Settings

Customizing your keyword settings has always been easy, but did you know you can set your customization values at the moment you add your keywords on the Choose Keywords page?

First, you’ll need to know which custom settings you can set for each keyword. By simply adding a specific text string in the Selected Keywords panel, you can customize any or all of the following:

• Custom bid—For Sponsored Search, you can specify a custom bid for the keyword. This custom bid will override any default bid set at the ad group level.
• Custom URL—You can enter the domain to be used as the destination URL for this keyword.
• Alternate text—If you’re using the Insert Keyword feature but your title or description have exceeded the limit, the alternate text you specify is inserted in the ad instead of the keyword.
• Advanced match type—You can enable or disable the Advanced match type for the keyword, a feature that can increase your traffic by displaying your ad in a broader range of Sponsored Search results.
  Enter your custom settings using the following format:

keyword**custom bid**custom URL**alternate text**advanced match-Y/N

An example might be:

widgets**1.80**http://widgets.com**blue widgets**Y

So, you would use the above example if your keyword is widgets, your custom bid is $1.80, your custom URL is http://widgets.com, your alternate text is blue widgets and you want to turn on the Advanced match type feature.

If you do not want to use all of the custom settings available in this format, you can simply include the asterisk separators without entering the values for the settings you wish to omit. For example, to omit the custom bid setting:

widgets****http://widgets.com**blue widgets**Y

You can get all the details by clicking on the question mark in the top-right corner of your account. Type “custom keywords” in the search box and click on “Adding Custom Keywords.”

—Stephanie Bilberry, Yahoo! Search Marketing Writer

Questions and Answers on Blocked Domains

The announcement that our new Blocked Domains feature went live Monday, October 15 elicited quite a few comments and questions.

To reiterate: Your Sponsored Search and Content Match ads can be displayed outside of Yahoo.com and other areas of Yahoo! They can appear throughout our partner distribution network. The Blocked Domains feature lets you specify websites or sections of a website in our partner distribution network where you don’t want your ads to appear. At its core, Blocked Domains is a tool to help give you more control over your traffic from your paid search and content match ads.

To clarify: You can block up to 250 domains. This doesn’t mean that there are exactly 250 domains that you should block, or that there are just 250 domains in our partner distribution network. It means that you have the option to block up to 250 domains of your choice. At this time, however, you may not block IP addresses, Yahoo! domains, or opt out of the Yahoo! partner distribution network as a whole. Also, we do not make available a list of all Yahoo! distribution partners—there are simply too many, plus the list is ever-changing.

Blocked Domains goes hand-in-glove with the pricing discounts we announced in June. Before adding these pricing discounts, you were charged the same amount per click regardless of whether the traffic came from a Yahoo! page or a site in our distribution network. Pricing discounts enable you to be receive a discount for certain clicks, depending on our assessment of the quality of traffic from our partners’ sites. Typically, these discounts range from 5 to 15 percent.

Tips and Tools
Getting back to Blocked Domains, there are some sites, such as those of your competition, that you may want to block for obvious reasons. You may also want to keep your ads from appearing on sites that you know won’t appeal to your prospective customers, or on those with which you do not want your brand associated.

To determine which sites or pages may not be performing the way you want based on your business goals, you should review the data from your web server logs, account reports and other account data.

For more info on how to read your web server logs and on tracking URLs, visit this page in the Help Center.

In addition, you may also want to consider using a third-party analytics package to help you determine which URLs to block. There are many tools available. Larger firms may wish to consider hiring a third-party consultant to run analytics, determine any URLs to block, and so forth. Yahoo! Search Marketing offers an Ambassador Directory of firms that have proven proficiency in Yahoo! products and services.

—The Team

Block Your Ads from Appearing on Certain Sites

“Blocked Domains” is now available for advertisers

As you already know, your ads appear on a network of sites, not just on Yahoo.com. But you may not want your ads to appear on some sites—maybe they’re competitors of yours, or maybe they sell products or offer content with which you don’t want your brand to be associated.

A new feature allows you to specify up to 250 websites or sections of websites in our partner distribution network on which you don’t want your ads to appear. These can be:

• An entire domain (i.e., example.net)
• One subdomain (i.e., blog.example.net)
• Up to two directories in a particular domain (e.g., example.net/directory)

It applies to sites that are using either our Sponsored Search or Content Match products. Please note that the Yahoo.com domain remains unblockable.

To block a domain, just follow these steps:

• Log into your account
• Click the Administration tab
• Select the “Accounts” section
• Next to “Blocked Domains,” either click “Submit Domains” or “Edit”
• Complete the provided steps to block (or unblock) the domains

Click here for more info. 

—Michael Mattis

Can’t See Your Ad?

Quick Fix Tips

We get a number of calls each week from advertisers having trouble finding their newly created ads on Yahoo.com. More often than not, this can be chalked up to one minor issue or another. Here’s a list of some of the most common issues and how to fix them:

1. Your billing info may be incorrect
If you’ve just signed up with us, it’s possible that your ads are not showing because you haven’t given us all your billing information, or your billing information is incorrect. We won’t activate your account until we’ve got all the correct deets. It’s a good idea to go back and double check.

2. There may be editorial issues
Your ad may be in the queue awaiting review, or it may have editorial issues. Your ads, like everyone’s, need to comply with our editorial guidelines. To check your ad’s editorial status, log in to your account, go to the Campaigns tab and click “Editorial Status.” There, you’ll be able to see any pending issues.

3. Your ad may not be on the first page
Your ad’s ranking may not high enough for it to be displayed on the first page of search results. But it may appear on a subsequent search results page. Click the “Next” link at the bottom of the search results page and check to see if your ad appears on subsequent pages.

If you want your ad to be displayed higher in Sponsored Search results, work to improve your ad’s quality, increase your bid, or do a little of both. You can monitor your ads’ performance on the Ad Group Details page. To find out more about ad quality and how to improve it, see our previous posts, here and here, and consult the Help Center.

4. You may have reached your campaign Daily Spending Limit
When you set up a campaign, you set a Daily Spending Limit for it. If your Daily Spending Limit is too low, it may slow or stop your ads from being displayed for that day. In this case, consider changing your daily spending limit to meet the recommended amount.

To view your campaign Daily Spending Limit, go to the specific campaign under the Campaigns tab. Your Daily Spending Limit appears in the “Campaign Performance” box. To view the recommended Daily Spending Limit, click the “Change” button and hit “Display Estimates.” The page will refresh and the recommended Daily Spending Limit estimate will appear in the “Set Campaign and Schedule” box. You can change your limit from there.

Note that you can change your Daily Spending Limit at any time: You can increase it during times that you think may garner the most traffic, and decrease it at times when you think you might have less traffic.

For more on these and other ad display issues, take a look at our FAQs. And don’t hesitate to call our Customer Solutions team at: (866) YAHOO-SM (866-924-6676) if you encounter any persistent issues.

—Michael Mattis

Stumble Upon Us in New York Next Week

It’s Who You Know at “SMX Social Media”

If you happen to be feeling sociable in Manhattan next week, drop by Danny Sullivan’s SMX Social Media conference Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct, 16 and 17, at the Metropolitan Pavilion.

This intimate little conference will offer convivial sessions on many aspects of the emerging social media space, including social media marketing essentials, bookmarking and tagging, linkbaiting, micro-communities and more. Be sure and look in on the keynote, Tuesday afternoon at 4:40 p.m., as Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us and Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon spill the social media beans.

Also of note, Marchex SEO manager, Matt McGee, will be offering a case study on Yahoo! Answers in the session, “Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers & Answer Sharing” at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“I’m going to introduce Yahoo! Answers and show how it can be a beneficial marketing tool to build credibility and positive brand image, get into some best practices and tips on how to make the most of it,” says Matt, who also notes that Yahoo! Answers is consistently among the highest sources of traffic for his blog.
 
Hey, it’s New York—if social media can make it there, it can make it anywhere!

—Michael Mattis

Image courtesy danhellers.com via Flickr

Updates Great and Small

More Customizable, Easier to Navigate

Fast on the heels of our last release, today we announce several new features and enhancements, many based on your requests.

Custom Reports and Scheduling
One popular request from our advertisers is the ability to customize and schedule reports. Well, voila! Starting today, you’ll be able to customize your reports based on date range, filter criteria and data columns. You can also choose to have your reports emailed to you at intervals that you specify: daily, weekly or monthly. In addition, you can choose the format in which you’d like to receive them, including XML, TSV or CSV for Excel.

Going Lateral
Another request from our advertisers is the ability to move laterally from one detail page to another without having to backtrack to a summary page. Now, you’ll notice, we’ve added “Previous” and “Next” buttons to your campaign, ad group and keyword pages to help make it easier to navigate around your account. You will also see the relative location of the particular campaign, ad group or keyword page you’re on in at any given time in relation to the others: for example: “3 of 23 Ad Groups.” You can also navigate this way through search results.

This navigation aid also lets you move more easily among campaigns, ad groups and keywords that are in the top performers or watched lists in your account.

The Today Show
In the calendar widget that appears in the upper right of the page under your Campaigns and Reports tabs, you can now select “Today,” from the “Custom Date Range” drop-down menu. Your default setting will still be the previous two weeks unless you select a custom date range. Whatever range you choose will then become your new default.

A Little Help from Your Friends
We’re always bugging you to make sure your ads meet our editorial guidelines. Now we’re providing easier access to our guidelines from those places in the interface where it is most relevant: the Create Your Ad, Choose Keywords and Editorial Status pages.

Keep the feedback coming, folks. It really helps us improve the system.

—Michael Mattis

More Lessons in Yahoo! Search Marketing

New Webinar Dates Added

Due to popular demand, we’ve added several new dates to our free instructional webinar series for new and experienced advertisers, which goes through November 6. 

For more detail and to register, click here.

—The Team

Brief System Downtime Saturday

Your Yahoo! Search Marketing account will be unavailable for approximately 12 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, October 6.

This upgrade should not affect the display of your ads on Yahoo! and our distribution network.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

—The Team

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