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