Archive for January, 2009

Case Study: Rise of “The Tudors”

Outrider and Showtime experience reign of success with Yahoo! Sponsored Search campaign

Who: Search Marketing agency, Outrider and its client,
Showtime Networks.
Objective: To drive awareness, viewership and network subscriptions, and create engagement around the launch of The Tudors, a series about the young and powerful Henry VIII.
Product Used: Sponsored Search.
Results: The campaign experienced a Yahoo! click-through rate 250% higher than previous series launch campaigns.

Company background
Outrider, a leading global search marketing consultancy, helps clients experience marketing relevance with search campaigns that are integrated with advertisers’ cross-channel media planning. Understanding the dynamic effect search and consumer-driven media can have on a business, Outrider helps clients engage in dialogue with consumers, offering them meaningful content and delivering relevant experiences that build valuable relationships.

Showtime Networks Inc., a subsidiary of CBS Corporation, owns and operates premium television networks such as Showtime, The Movie Channel and Flix.

A search campaign fit for a king
In the increasingly fragmented and competitive media landscape, Showtime Networks faced a challenge in building the audience for The Tudors. Outrider’s strategy was to develop a campaign that created multiple engagement opportunities and reached consumers at the right time and the right place. This included a campaign that built on the hype around The Tudors star, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, as well as the topics relevant to the show’s general subject matter and setting—such as the Tudors, English history, the royal family, and more.

In addition to aligning with Showtime’s other advertising and marketing programs, Outrider decided to coordinate its search marketing with publicity efforts. For example, when Meyers was scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show, Outrider adjusted its keyword list to ensure that The Tudors and Meyers were ranked at the top of Yahoo! Search results immediately after his appearance. With help from Yahoo! Sponsored Search, Outrider built a list of more than 2,000 keywords and executed an innovative search marketing strategy.

Royal results reviewed
In the first two months, the comprehensive search marketing campaign for the new series launch generated almost 25 million impressions—an increase of 126% to 825% over other launch campaigns. The aggressive, integrated search strategy, along with series-related and cast-specific keywords, resulted in improved campaign performance on Yahoo!, delivering a click-through rate increase up to 250%. Lead generation and subscriptions were also up, surpassing those generated for each of the three previous new series launches.

The Truth about Account Optimizations

This program helps small advertisers improve performance issues in their accounts

When we emailed notification about our updated Terms and Conditions to Sponsored Search advertisers on January 5, it caused some of our blogger friends to notice our account optimization program for the first time. In reality, we rolled out this program back in June, and since that time we’ve seen some pretty impressive results. Specifically:

• Since June 2008, we have optimized approximately 2% of all active accounts and created approximately 20,000 new ads.
• The acceptance rate of changes we have made is roughly 80%, which we believe indicates the changes have been helpful.
• The time needed to make optimization changes to accounts has been reduced from approximately ten days to one day.

Unfortunately, we learned that not everyone in the blogosphere understands this new program, which we believe is the result of misinformation more than anything else. Thus, we want to set the record straight, so that advertisers and other interested parties know what this program is—and just as importantly, what it is not.

What the account optimization program IS:

• It’s designed to make our small- to mid-sized advertisers more successful.
• It’s meant to give this group of advertisers a service level and expertise that typically is available only to larger advertisers.
• It is intended to help raise the performance of accounts that are experiencing issues like low-quality quality scores, low lead volume or low click-through rates.
• It is reducing the time required to make optimizations by eliminating back-and-forth voicemails.
• It is limited in scope. We may make changes in these three areas:
    1) Creating new ads for existing ad groups and enabling ad testing
    2) Writing multiple versions of ads for any new ad groups we create, then enabling ad testing
    3) Searching our database for keywords that can drive more targeted traffic to an advertiser’s site
• It is transparent. Advertisers are notified of any changes within 24 hours (usually, fewer than eight hours).
• It is reversible. An advertiser can ask us to reverse the changes, although we ask that you do so within two weeks from the date on which the changes were made.

What the account optimization program IS NOT:

• It is not designed for larger advertisers who actively manage their accounts.
• It is not mandatory. If you ask not to participate, we will permanently opt out your account. Just contact us through the Support Request in your account, which is found in the upper right-hand corner of every page.
• It does not change an account’s daily spending limit.
• It won’t alter existing bids.
• It does not delete any ads or keywords in an account.
• It will not change your tactic settings (For example, switching on Content Match in a Sponsored Search campaign).

The account optimization program in action

As an example of what we hope the account optimization program can do for advertisers, we spoke with Mark Bayzath of the All Media Design Group, an ad agency based in Westlake, Ohio. Bayzath described how his client’s cost-per-conversion from Yahoo! Search Marketing ads was over $100 last August. After the changes initiated by the optimization were put into place, the client’s cost-per-conversion was reduced by more than 50%.

“Yahoo! came in and suggested deleting some poor- performing keywords, freshened up their existing ads, created new ads for existing keywords, and offered other suggestions on ways to increase the quality scores,” Bayzath recalls. “This significantly reduced our cost-per-conversion, and Yahoo! did it while working within our pre-existing bids and budgets. We’re actually spending less money on click charges but getting better results.”

These kudos came from one of several thankful emails that we have received. We are very excited to be able to help more Yahoo! advertisers be successful, and look forward to sharing more such stories.

—The Team

The New and Improved Help Center

“Change” that can help your account performance

There’s been a lot of talk about hope and change as a new president has come to office. Whether you voted for President Obama or not, there’s no question that we’ve witnessed history this week.

Well, we made some changes here, too—to our Yahoo! Search Marketing Help Center. While they may not be etched in history, they do offer the hope that they can improve your advertiser experience. The Help Center is the place to turn first for any questions you have on using your account or its features. Our updates should make this task simpler and faster than ever.

Here’s what’s new:

Better organization and easier navigation
You should now be able to find the information you need in fewer clicks, as we’ve pared down the number of indexes that we previously had. From the front page of the Help Center, you will find four main sections:

• Advertise Online with Yahoo! – This section outlines the account sign-up process for prospective advertisers.
• Managing Your Account – This helps walk existing advertisers through the campaign creation process.
• Fine-Tune Your Account – Advertisers ready to manage their account to a higher level of performance can mine this section for info on optimization features and general strategies for managing to specific business objectives or by industry.
• Learn Online – Our repository for all training materials, tutorials, webinars and webinar summaries, and general education material to help raise your advertiser IQ.

Stronger search functionality
The search results you’ll get when you enter a query in the Help Center are now more relevant and targeted than ever. That’s because we added the ability for the managers of the Help Center to tag content with keywords that we know advertisers will use to search for related content.

Links, links and more links
We’ve made a huge effort to provide links to related information available within the Help Center, but also articles from this blog and content from the in-application help. So, if you want to take a deeper dive into a topic, we’ll be able to provide a diving board.

No need for FAQ-finding…
The Help Center FAQs are now hosted on a single page, which makes it easy for you to read and/or print the ones you need, or print them all out to make your own YSM reference guide.

Take the “inaugural tour” of the new Yahoo! Search Marketing Help Center, and feel free to add any suggestions or requests in the comments section below.

— Jeff Hecox

I’m with Cupid

Valentine’s Day best practices you’re sure to love

For some guys, Valentine’s Day means two weeks of careful planning. For other guys it means a stop at the drug store after work on February 14th, possibly followed by a stop at the emergency room later that night. (And if you don’t know why, you’ve never rushed a Valentine’s gift.) But if you’re selling items to either kind of Valentine’s Day shoppers, you’ll need to start planning now for your campaigns. These tips will help.

First priority: sell your stuff
Advertisers who sell chocolates and candy should be sure to put the emphasis where it belongs in their listings. Calling out recipes and other fun things is never a bad idea, but you wouldn’t want users to accidentally think you’re just an informational site. So if you offer actual sales – be sure and put those front and center in your creatives.

If you both sell and buy jewelry, your Valentine’s Day listings should put the emphasis on sales. Unless the keyword specially mentions “sell” or “trade,” most people who search for jewelry online are looking to buy, not sell. Likewise, if you sell more than just jewelry, be sure to front-load your jewelry keywords in your creatives so that users can spot them quickly when they come across your listing after searching on jewelry keywords.

The smell of delivery
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a rose that may not be delivered in time is gonna smell not quite as sweet. So if you’re a florist and you offer same-day delivery, make sure to absolutely call that out in your creatives. Not only will that appeal to last minute Valentine shoppers, it’s a good idea in general to let people know that you’ll get the flowers there on the day they’re ordered, no matter what.

The same goes for advertisers who sell gift baskets, balloons, chocolate or anything that might be locally delivered. If same day delivery is something you offer, be sure to make that fact know. It could be mean all the difference in the world, especially to those 11th hour shoppers.

Target your campaigns
Advertisers who sell locally should also consider creating geo-targeted campaigns, which will serve their listings specifically to users within their geographic area. This way non geo-specific listings, such as flower delivery, will only serve to users in your area. Which makes sense, since they’re the most likely people to be searching for you.

Make Valentine’s Day special
While it’s a good idea for all advertisers to create distinct Valentine’s Day campaigns, this is especially smart for dating sites, who can play up the connection between Valentine’s Day and their services in their creatives. On the flipside, Valentine’s Day keywords that lead to non-Valentine listings for dating sites may just confuse and deter users — so make sure your landing pages have the right language.

As always, the usual rules apply to creatives no matter what you sell. If you keep all those hints in mind, you may be able to turn some heads this Valentine’s Day. And you may help a few guys prepare for February 14th, which means they’ll still be alive come the 15th.

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Editor

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Joshua Rappeneker.

Super Bowl Sales Tips

5 plays to help you come out a winner

No American sporting event gets more attention—even from casual fans—than the Super Bowl. Super Bowl-related sales are huge, and despite our current economic downturn, it’s highly likely that 2009 will still be a touchdown for retailers.

So, what can advertisers who appeal to football fans do to keep from dropping the ball when it comes to Super Bowl season? Here are a few things to remember:

For a change, they’ll actually watch the commercials
According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association’s 2008 Super Bowl Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, 70% of consumers planned to watch the Super Bowl in 2008. Of those, 67.4% planned to buy food and beverages, and 6% said they would buy team apparel and accessories.

Super spenders
On average, consumers in 2008 said they expected to spend $59.90 on Super Bowl-related merchandise. The message here is pretty clear: If your product is related to the big game, it’s time to get ready. Make sure that your jerseys, hats or foam fingers are prominently mentioned in your ad copy. And be that sure those ads call out whatever deals or special offers you’re running—because this year, especially, consumers will be on the lookout for them.

Perfect excuse for the new HD set
The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association’s survey showed that in 2008, consumers planned to purchase 3.9 million televisions specifically in time for Super Bowl Sunday, up more than 50 percent from 2.5 million in 2007. And while belts may be tightening these days, the falling price of high-definition TVs, combined with special deals being offered to struggling consumers, means there will be a lot of TVs flying off the shelves come Super Bowl weekend.

As such, advertisers who sell televisions should be sure to create specific Super Bowl-related ads that appeal to consumers considering a trade-up in televisions. Call out the appeal of a new TV for The Big Game, especially for those target customers who will be watching with friends and family, or throwing a Super Bowl party. Of course, be sure to advertise any special deals or discounts you’re offering, as consumers are on the lookout for those, especially when it comes to big-ticket items such as televisions. If you offer free shipping, shout it out loud and clear, especially if you can guarantee delivery before Super Sunday.

Restaurants and bars
Local attractions that offer Super Bowl gatherings (bars, restaurants, etc.) should be sure to “get on the ball” in time for the big day. If you’re showing the game on a big-screen TV or offering a special meal, half-price drinks or any other deal, be sure to brag about it in your ads. Oh, and as always, if your business is local, be sure to use your account’s geo-targeting tools, so that your ads are displayed specifically to users within your geographic area, rather than the entire country.

Word of warning
While it’s true that Super Bowl Sunday has become a de facto national holiday, the term “Super Bowl” and many other related phrases are protected trademarks of the NFL—and its lawyers don’t fool around. Unless you’re officially licensed to use the term “Super Bowl” in your commercial advertising, you should probably stick with “The Big Game” or some other such euphemism. For more details, consult your attorney!

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst

Photo courtesy of Flickr user David Hudson Floyd.

Last Year’s Advice

The top 6 how-to posts of 2008

When I was a kid I held on to anything interesting—keys that didn’t fit my house, a stack of Boy’s Life, the tag for my Galaxy Wash Levi’s jeans—long after they’d stopped being useful. So even though you’re supposed to throw out the old when you start a new year, I can’t quite bring myself to let go of some of our best advice blog posts from 2008. That may be my compulsion, but fortunately I think you’ll find these posts interesting, too.

While I seek professional help, here are the top tips of 2008 (with links to them), as measured by your positive comments.

1. Convert Your Clicks 

Ten landing page tips help you turn your clicks into customers. That’s a lot of tips, you say. Well, you’ll need them if you’re trying to tell customers why they should buy from you, get them to stay, and then get them to take action.

2. What’s a Good Click-Through Rate? 

The right click-through rate is one of the questions we get all the time, which is why you may be a little bit sad that the honest answer is, “It depends.” The article, by our own Noah Belson, points out that click-through rates can vary by campaign and keyword. Noah gives you five ways to increase your click-through rate, but also tells you to watch out for numbers that matter just as much—like your conversion rate.

3. The Good, the Bad, the Creative 

I would have read this post for the title alone. If that wasn’t your favorite Western, though, Noah came through with a Magnificent Seven—tips, that is—to help you clean up your ads. Among them: Include your keywords in your title and descriptions, make sure your ads are relevant to all of the keywords in your ad group, and test your ads.

4. Three Questions about Your Clicks 

What do you do when your clicks suddenly spike? Panic? Well, that, or look for the reasons. There are lots of things that can make click totals go up, and Yahoo! customer solutions manager Kastle Waserman wants you to ask yourself three questions to help you figure out what’s happened. And no, I’m not writing those questions here. That’s what links are for.

5. Have Some Email with Your Search 

We know you don’t just do search marketing—or at least, that you should probably be doing more than just search marketing. Guest blogger Abe Mezrich tells you how to reach people in the most popular Web activities: email and search. The key, he says, is to use them together. Search can make your e-mail smarter, and e-mail can make your search campaigns more effective.

6. Measuring Search and Display for Success 

Our analytics guy, Matt Lillig, takes you past the debate about which is more effective—search or display—to the conclusion that search and display make each other work better. And how does he know that? More importantly, how can you know that? Analytics. (The clue was there the whole time!)

If you’re not quite ready to say goodbye to our old advice either, you don’t have to. Just click on “How-to’s” or “Tips” on our navigation bar, and it’ll all be there for you. Just like my old comic books, which now reside under my son’s bed.

  —Jeff Sweat, Blog Editor

Photo courtesy of Flickr user freeparking.

Geo vs. Geo

A mysterious stranger offers direction on geographical targeting

The following account is a work of fiction. It is the product of too many minutes staring at a blank page, too many Triple Mochas, or perhaps both. But the points it makes about geographical targeting are real, and should be applied to your Sponsored Search account.

The assignment came in from the blog editor: Write a post that explains the differences between the use of the geo-targeting tools in a Yahoo! Search Marketing account, and using “geo-modified” keywords.

At first consideration, this task seemed simple. I was very familiar with both concepts. The geo-targeting tools, which we introduced with the “Panama” platform in 2006 (and enhanced in October 2008), let you target customers located or interested in specific geographical areas. If you want to reach all Canadians, you select Canada. Or you can narrow your geo-targeting all the way down to reach Brandon and Brenda in zip code 90210.

On the other hand, “geo-modifying” a keyword pre-dates Panama. This is where you add a geographical identifier to a search term to match to users who submit queries like “san diego dentist.”

Questions raced across my mind like signposts on a highway: Being able to use geo-targeting, should we still encourage advertisers to geo-modify? Or does that just create double the work? Is there a secret strategy for geographical targeting? And where can I find someone here in Burbank who will give me the straight answers?

The truth is out there
I first pinged a few of my friends in other departments, only to get vague, non-committal answers. Downcast, I was preparing to give my editor the bad news—there’s nothing new to say about this.

Then, upon returning from lunch one day, I spied a small note tucked under a glass paperweight on my desk. I glanced around—no one was nearby. The note read: There’s more to your geo story. Meet me on parking level 4 at 6:00 tonight and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. D.

At 6:00 sharp, I rode the elevator to its nadir. Parking Level 4 is at the bottom of a series of ramps, and eerily empty except for a stray vehicle or two. The elevator car stopped at the bottom, its bell echoing across an acre of empty concrete. I nervously stepped out. The doors slid shut behind me. I didn’t see a soul.

Slowly, I started to walk the perimeter. As I approached a dark corner near a stairwell, I heard the crisp report of a match lighting. I stopped in my tracks. A dark figure raised the match and lit a cigarette dangling from its mouth.

Talking to Daryl
“Are you ‘D’?,” I asked.

“Yes,” replied a raspy voice in a half-whisper. “You can call me Daryl. But I don’t have much time. What do you need to know about geo-targeting?”

I hadn’t imagined that a simple blog post was going to turn into a Woodward and Bernstein caper, but I was determined to get some answers. “With geo-targeting offered in their accounts, should advertisers still ‘geo-modify’ their keywords?”

“They need to do both,” Daryl replied, taking another drag on his smoke. “But in a campaign where they’re using geo-targeting, they shouldn’t modify their keywords with geographical locations. If they do…” He paused for a moment, seemingly remembering some unfortunate cases. “…bad things can happen.”

A chilly December wind suddenly gusted amongst the columns of Level 4. Then Daryl continued: “Over the years, what has proven to work best is to set up separate campaigns with the same group of keywords—one that uses geo-targeting from the user interface, and a second that adds geo-modifiers to the keywords but does not use geo-targeting. This will ensure that an advertiser receives the maximum amount of traffic.”

I was about to ask another question, but he cut me off: “You want to know why this works?” I nodded my head. “If our systems don’t know where a search user is located, they rely on the geo-modifier to match the search to a relevant ad.”

It was really so simple, I thought. One solution for one situation, a second for a different situation. “One more thing,” said Daryl. “If an advertiser is geo-modifying with a common city name…”

“Springfield,” I muttered.

“Yes,” replied Daryl. “In that situation, they should add the state abbreviation to avoid confusion and poor matches.”

Vanished
“Thank you,” I said, jotting down a few notes. “This is great advice.” But when I looked up again, the shadowy figure was gone. On the ground where he had been standing was a DVD inside a case. A simple label on the front read: “Make sure your readers see this. It reveals more secrets about geo-targeting.”

To see what Daryl left me, click here. And heed his advice, lest your potential customers wind up in a bad place—like Parking Level 4.

— Jeff Hecox

Out With the Old, in With the New (Creatives)

Helping your customers with their 2009 resolutions

When the calendar clicks over to a new year, people generally start thinking about improvement, both for their finances and their bodies. We’ll probably start to see more searches for things like debt consolidation, weight loss and quitting smoking. So here are a few best practices for “new year” keywords, for advertisers who specialize in all those things that users may seek to improve now that 2009 is upon us.

The first thing we recommend is creating a distinct “new year” campaign (or campaigns) which will allow you to have unique new year ads with copy that appeals to people seeking a fresh start in 2009.

Lifestyle changes
Advertisers whose businesses are health-related, such as gyms, diet plans and exercise equipment sales, should consider the following rules of thumb:

• If you offer diet and fitness products on your site, be sure not to focus on just one or the other, especially with more general keywords (such as “health”). 
• If you sell and rent exercise equipment, be sure to put the focus on sales, since at the start of the year people are probably anxious to build up their home gyms and purchase equipment to own.
• Likewise, if you offer new and used equipment, put the emphasis on new in your “new year” creatives.
• If you offer multiple health services, such as weight training, tanning, tooth whitening (I know I know — when did tanning and tooth whitening become health services?) be sure to front-load the actual keyword in your ads. Someone searching for tanning information may not stick around long enough to find it if it comes at the end of a creative that focuses on several offerings.
• If you have multiple keywords mapped to one creative, keyword insertion can help to make sure that each keyword gets the necessary prominent placement in the creative.

Financial help
Businesses offering debt consolidation should avoid creatives that focus more on the person or firm offering the service than the service itself. Even though the provider may be a leader in the field, it’s still better to focus on what the customer needs first. Also, creatives for debt consolidation sites should avoid limiting their appeal by making it sound as though they only serve one geographic location when in fact they serve many, or that they only handle one specific area of debt when in fact they handle several. Additionally, avoiding “sales-speak” jargon is always recommended, especially when dealing with financial matters.

With these tips, you may be able to help you help your customers make their New Year’s resolutions. Of course keeping them is another story entirely, but hey – one step at a time. In the meantime, happy 2009 and we hope your new year is off to a great start!

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst