Archive for December, 2007

New Year’s Hours Reminder

Customer Solutions will enjoy reduced hours December 31 (open 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST) and will be closed New Year’s Day.

Happy New Year!

 —The Team

The Year in Review

One Wild Ride

One of my favorite scenes in all of filmdom is Bette Davis’s famous quip from “All About Eve,” “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” Well, it’s been one heck of a bumpy year—but mostly in a good way. There have been a lot of changes, both within Yahoo! Search Marketing and in the online advertising industry as a whole.

In the last year, we’ve published tons of material designed to help you get the most out of all the “Panama” changes, new product releases and updates. Along the way we have introduced you to a cast of characters from inside Yahoo! and beyond—and had a lot of fun along the way.

Here’s a quick recap of some of 2007’s top posts from this blog.

Tips, How-To’s and How-Not-To’s
For starters, in the past year we’ve helped you understand how bids and budgets work, what your quality index can tell you, and how to enjoy the joys of geo-targeting (Part I and Part II). We’ve also offered tips on how to avoid taking the bait when lured by a “phishing” scam, how to use the handy Insert Keyword feature to help you improve your ad quality, showed that proper punctuation really does count, and finally answered the burning question, “Advanced or Standard match?” Meanwhile, the redoubtable Stephanie Bilberry has helped you track your conversions, use Yahoo! Search Submit to enhance your ad campaigns (with the help of Spider Man), and laid down the law on how to set your limits.

And we also caught that sneaky little Acro-Gnome trying to confuse you with his acronyms.

Quality Counts
You know that quality counts. You know that improving the quality of your ads can lead to a better quality index, and that can lead to better ad placements at lower cost. You know that your quality index is based on an ad’s click-through rate compared to its average position in search results, as well as to that of other ads displayed at the same time, other keywords in your ad group, and other relevance factors. (And that it has nothing to do with the quality of the goods and services you sell or your conversion rate, right?)

Anyway, we employed a lot of pixels explaining your quality index and how you can improve it. In fact, Michael Egan, our senior director of content solutions, wrote a whole series about it (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV). Heck, we even elected a VP of Network Quality and opened a Network Quality Center.

New and Improved
It’s also been a bumper-crop year for updates and enhancements. Over the past 12 months, we’ve allowed you to tune up your campaigns, made your tools more flexible, offered a great many new options, opened new locks in “Panama,” and offered new features to help you write better quality ads, to name just a few. 

Be Our Guest
We’re the first to admit we’re not the only search marketing and online business gurus around. Hardly, in fact. So in 2007 we recruited some of the top minds in the business to help make you a success. Single Throw’s Larry Bailin showed us how to get social, Didit’s Abe Mezrich helped us understand the symbiosis between search and display advertising, iProspect’s Robert Murray demonstrated the importance of integrating your offline and online campaigns and Gerry Bavarro, also from Didit, confirmed that while curiosity may indeed have killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought him back.

Nose for News
We’ve also kept up on the latest news from inside Yahoo! We’ve brought you a wacky contest with a wild prize, showed off our new but experienced management and walked a crooked mile to make you smile. We tried to get our message out every way we could. We even sent you a telegram.

Random Sampling
Finally, we had some fun, offering up post-modern words for your cutting edge vocabulary, introducing you to our new mystery man on the boards, YahooPete (who is he really?) and even divulged some ancient Chinese secrets.

Happy New Year… and you may want to fasten your seatbelts even tighter in ’08.

—The Team

Holiday Hours for Customer Solutions

Our U.S. Customer Solutions team will have Christmas Day and New Years Day off.

They will also enjoy reduced hours December 24 (open 5:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PST) and December 31 (open 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST).

Happy Holidays.

—The Team

New Yahoo! Shortcuts for WordPress

Supporting Material for Your Blog

A nifty new WordPress plug-in lets WordPress bloggers use Yahoo! content to support their bloggery. When you’re composing a blog post in the WordPress admin interface, the Yahoo! Shortcuts beta plug-in automagically begins matching terms in your post to Yahoo! aggregated content, such as company names, stock tickers, map locations, news, product names and Flickr photos.

You decide whether to keep or reject any (or all) recommended shortcuts before your post goes live. When you publish, your selected shortcuts appear in your post according to the format you choose. It’s very cool.

For more info, check out this post on the Y! Search Blog and definitely have a look at the tutorial. 

—Michael Mattis

Going Social

Four Rules for Winning in Social Media

Editor’s Note: I heard Larry Bailin, author of Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From? speak on “Using social media to drive traffic to your blog” at BlogWorld Expo in Vegas a few weeks ago. I was impressed and asked him to pen a piece about how online advertisers can help build relationships with their customers and supplement their Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns using social media—not just blogs, but sites and tools like MyBlogLog, Flickr, del.icio.us, MySpace, Facebook and so forth. He outdid himself, and came up with four immutable rules of relationship-building that apply even beyond media.

Being from New Jersey, it’s hard for me to associate the term “traffic” with anything positive. In fact, the word “traffic” sends the wrong message and is counterproductive to the thought process needed to succeed in social media.

If you are to truly succeed in the competitive social media landscape, you need to remove “driving traffic” from the top of your goals list and replace it with “driving customers.” In short, you need to stop measuring visits, and start measuring victories.

Offline business rules have always applied in the online space. It would be a safe bet that the social rules we all grew up with—the ones our loving parents (hopefully) drilled into our heads—would also apply when used in online social situations.

Social Rule No. 1: Choose Your Friends Wisely
It seems that building a large number of friends is the goal for most online socialites. The more friends you have the more popular you are. In an offline situation, a good example of this is high school. The less popular, nerdy types only had a few friends who happened to be other less-popular nerdy types with similar goals and interests.

By grouping together, sharing ideas and staying hyper-focused, this social solidarity seemed to always achieve levels of success later in life that most of us could only dream of (Bill Gates, for example).

The Take-Away: No, the first rule of social media is not “Don’t talk about social media.” Quite the opposite, in fact. But you will want to be picky about who you talk to and what to talk about. A smaller group of like-minded individuals allows you to spread your message through a more targeted audience. Large groups of broad targets and views will muddy the waters and stop you from achieving the results needed to succeed.

Social Rule No. 2: Remember the Golden Rule
“You get what you give” is a rule that has stood the test of time. You cannot expect people to do for you unless you do for them. If you are to make a mark on the social scene, you first have to do for others. You need to participate, comment, visit and support others if you expect them to do the same in return.

The Take-Away: By participating, you become part of the community. People start to recognize you and appreciate your efforts. These efforts will not go unrewarded. I started my blog [ConnectedCustomers.net] eight months ago. I spent the first six months visiting other blogs in the marketing category and commenting on them. I added some to my blog-roll and even sent personal messages to a few that I really liked. The result was that others responded in kind. Within eight months I developed a following of more than 15,000 readers.

Social Rule No. 3: If You Have Nothing Nice to Say, Don’t Say Anything at All.
This one is simple. Bashing and negativity runs rampant through the social scene. I’m not talking about negative comments—if you don’t agree with something, you should post your opinion.

Bashing someone is something totally different. If you are nasty or tend to post inappropriate negative comments all the time, it won’t be long before a community labels you a jackass and no one will take you seriously. Obviously, this is counter productive to your goals.

The Take-Away: Take the time to think through your comments and actions. Try to give constructive criticism as opposed to a negative view. Choose your words wisely, and it will showcase your expertise as opposed to your dark side.

Social Rule No. 4: If You Keep Doing that, You’ll Go Blind.
Whether it is a website, blog or MySpace page, put your users’ interests first. Lots of renegade code, widgets and advertisements will not only slow down your site, but may even crash a browser or two. Take the time to think about how every element will be seen and reacted to by your potential customer (which is what a visitor is). Will it have a positive or negative impact, and does it enhance or detract from your message?

The Take-Away: Take the visitor experience very seriously, because this is where the rubber meets the road. Make things that you want viewed easy to access. When a site is cumbersome to use, people will stop using it and they will become blind to your existence.

Wrap-Up
Following these rules can help you achieve higher levels of success and create your own personal set of rules to socialize by. But remember: Social media is a two-way street, and the oncoming traffic can either help you or kill you. The choice is yours.

—Larry Bailin, CEO, Single Throw and author of Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From?

Post-PubCon Ponderings

Highlights from last week’s PubCon Conference

As we mentioned previously, folks from Yahoo! participated in last week’s PubCon 2007 conference in Las Vegas. Here are some practical tips and lessons learned from the event to help you in your search marketing goals.

Breaking Down the Break-Outs
On the first day of PubCon, Yahoo! participated on a session called “Major PPC Engines: Vendor Panel.” Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Patrizio Spagnoletto answered questions from the audience and shared great tips for creating ads from keyword research to writing ad copy, including:

• Always use the Keyword Suggestion tool
• Review your site for keywords and build from there
• 80 percent of your volume is probably coming from 20 percent of your keywords. Adjust accordingly.

Elaborating on the topic of writing effective ad copy, the session “PPC Marketing 101” featured search luminaries Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance, who also moderated the panel, and Mona Elessiely, Director of Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media. You may remember Mona as the author of “Mastering Panama.”

The panel tackled a common challenge that many search engine advertisers face: How to make your ads compelling and different from your competitors.

Here are some of the tips offered in this session:

• Urgency—By implying a sense of urgency in your ad, such as “Buy Now,” you may trigger some response among customers who feel they have to click on your ad because time is running out.
• Keywords in title—Try using keywords in your title to stand out from your competitors.
• Benefits—Mention why what you sell or offer benefits your customer.
• Humor—Sometimes a funny ad sets you apart from the herd and attracts attention, which in turn may attract more customers.
• Testing—Find out which ads work best for your business.

For more detailed coverage on this session, check out Search Engine Roundtable.

One of the many great moments at PubCon was the special evening event, “The Open Search Forum with the Engines,” a.k.a., “The Search Engine Smack-Down.” The panel was hosted by the legendary Guy Kawasaki and featured executives from the major search engines. Yahoo!’s Tim Mayer, VP of Product Management, and Dan Boberg, Managing Director of Sales Technology, were there representing Yahoo!.

Kawasaki posed questions on topics ranging from social media, quality control issues and more. He asked the panelists, “What is the philosophy of your search engine?”

“Our goal is to do and have it done in one search,” said Tim Mayer. “That’s why, with our many different products and services, we’re looking into user intent and queries to provide a bundle of information to the user.”

Kawasaki also asked the panelists to put themselves into the shoes of an entrepreneur today and explain what kind of model they would use in today’s new media landscape.

“It’s important to think as a marketer,” said Yahoo!’s Dan Boberg. “All webmasters out there can learn from brand marketers and how key influencers are very important. You have to ask yourself how you are going to create this spark. You want to continue to draw in customers and keep them there.”

Overall, the conference provided plenty of insight and illuminations. You might lose some money when gambling in Vegas, but PubCon was a win.

For further detailed coverage, please visit Search Engine Roundtable event reporting.

—Roger Park, Manager, Marketing Communications

Photo courtesy Marc Levin via Flickr

The Whys and Hows of “Insert Keyword”

Using This Feature for Better Relevance

The Insert Keyword feature, available when you create a new ad or edit an existing one, is useful for speeding the ad creation and editing process. But did you know it can also help increase your ads’ quality?

Here’s how. You’ll notice that when you create or edit an ad, you are shown the prompt “+ Insert Keyword Automatically” when you click into either the Title or Description(s) dialogue boxes:

Click “+ Insert Keyword Automatically” and you get a prompt like this:

In the dialogue box, enter your “default text.” Your default text should be something that can serve as an overall description for all of your keywords in case the actual search term exceeds character limits. For example, if you’re in the wine business, your default text might be, simply, “Wine.”

“{KEYWORD:Wine}” would then appear in the dialogue box.

You then wrap the rest of your title copy around “{KEYWORD:Wine}.” For instance, you might write, “Buy Premium{KEYWORD:Wine}.”

But here’s the snazzy part: Your ad’s title won’t necessarily appear as “Buy Premium Wine.” Rather, once a searcher has entered one of your keywords—”Chardonnay,” for example—the turbines of our mighty engines kick-in and, in an instant, your ad title appears as “Buy Premium Chardonnay.”

That’s probably a lot more clickable to someone shopping for Chardonnay than the generic “Wine,” right? Again, the default text will appear only if our engines determine that using the search term would exceed our character limits.

The same goes for your short and long descriptions, though we’ve noticed that placing the keyword in the title is even better than placing it in the description.

Take advantage of the Insert Keyword feature, as well as other features like ad testing and geo-targeting, to help make your ads as relevant as they can be.

To learn more about the Insert Keyword Feature, click here. To learn more about how using multiple features can help improve your results, click here. 

—Michael Mattis

Take the Reader Survey

Your Opinion Counts

We’re hosting a survey to find out more about your needs in order to help us build a better blog. All information we gather is secure and strictly confidential.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW; it’s easy and free.

—The Team

Understanding Bids and Budgets

Going Once, Going Twice… Sold!

A downside of the online auction trend is that the charming auctioneer’s chant has become an endangered species. We may lament the loss of the auctioneer’s sing-song, but one thing remains constant to most auctions—the use of bids to reflect value.

When you set bids for ad groups and keywords in your search marketing account, you are essentially expressing your valuation of the amount you are willing to pay for clicks on your associated ads. But how can you know if the bids you’re placing on keywords—and the spending limits you’re setting for your account and campaigns—are enough to get the results you’re seeking?

Here are a few considerations to assist you as you decide whether or not to increase your bids or spending limits:

Setting Bids and Spending Limits
Before you can increase your bid, you have to set a bid. These bids should be aligned with your account daily spending limit and/or your campaign daily spending limit. And your spending limits should match your business goals.

Similarly, your bids should be based on your business economics and objectives. Bidding too high may find you paying more than the value of the click to your business. Bidding too low may not allow your ad to be displayed in your preferred position in search results.

Adjust Your Bid
You can use historical forecasting to help determine whether or not increasing your bid may help you attain a higher average position, more impressions or additional clicks. Reporting metrics and analytics data can also help you decide whether to increase or decrease ad group and keyword bids based on how they drive conversions.

Increasing bids for specific keywords in your ad group may also help you to get the best value from your highest-volume keywords. For example, you might set an ad group bid that would be applied to the lower-volume keywords, then set custom bids for the higher-volume keywords only. This would be faster than trying to set individual bids for each keyword. Remember, your cost-per-click and position in search results is based on a combination of your ad quality and bid, not just your bid alone.

Adjust Your Daily Spending Limit
Generally, ads are displayed until your account or campaign daily spending limit is reached. To ensure that your ads do not go offline after you’ve adjusted or increased your bid, you may need to adjust or increase your daily spending limits.

Alternatively, there are several ways in which you can improve your overall account and campaign performance, which should help you use your budget most efficiently. These include:

• Structure your campaigns and ad groups so that like items are grouped together.
• Fine-tune your keywords by using the available keyword matching options, such as advanced match and alternative text, as well as the insert keyword feature.
• If your account offers campaign optimization, use this feature to automatically optimize your bids and budget based on your business objectives.

And the next time you are at a live auction, try not to be confused by the auctioneer’s speedy cadence. You only have to be concerned with the two numbers amid all of the “filler” words—the current bid and the asking bid.

—Stephanie Bilberry, Yahoo! Search Marketing

Get Trendy

Studying This Year’s Trends can Help Prepare You for Next Year’s

When I was young and rebellious—as opposed to middle-aged and rebellious (just ask my boss)—to be called “trendy” was considered kind of an insult. It was the last thing that any self-respecting post-punk dada nihilist with big hair and a bad attitude wanted to be.

Later, I discovered that it’s good to watch and benefit from trends. If you’re selling hats online, for example, it might behoove you to know that Britney Spears-style fedoras are selling like hotcakes these days. As a seller of baby-T’s or greeting cards, you might want to know that “Jacob” is one of the top names chosen for newborn boys, and so forth.

We try to keep you abreast of search trends through our Buzz Index. The top trends on Yahoo! Search in 2007 have been recapped on a special site. Highlights include:

Sports:

1. NASCAR
2. Maria Sharapova
3. Boston Red Sox

Yahoo! Kids:

1. Games
2. Animals
3. Dinosaurs

Tech:

1. YouTube
2. Wikipedia
3. Facebook

Celeb downfalls:

1. Britney Spears
2. Paris Hilton
3. Anna Nicole Smith

del.icio.us (popular tags on the popular bookmarking site)

1. Design
2. HDTV
3. Games

For the complete list, click here.

Maybe it’s time to think about selling toy dinosaurs, or retailing Boston Red Sox caps or high-def TVs. Or maybe you should just sit tight and keep an eye on the trends for 2008. Either way, stay trendy by visiting the Yahoo! Buzz Index Buzz Log frequently.

—Michael Mattis

Photo courtesy Bazpics via Flickr.

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