On Target

Three new ways to help you reach the people you want

We try not to oversell the changes we make to Sponsored Search — sometimes a button is just a button, after all. So, we hope you’ll pay attention when we tell you this: the new targeting features we’re adding right now are kind of a big deal.

Starting now, you’ll be able to target the audiences you want, when and where you want them, with a lot more control. We are rolling out demographic targeting, ad scheduling (which you might know as dayparting), and enhanced ZIP-level geo-targeting at the ad group and campaign level.

Why target? Well, that may already be clear to you as a marketer, but we’ll take a stab at explaining it anyway: if you can get an ad more frequently in front of the people you want to see it, who are disposed to respond favorably to it, it’s likely to give you a better return on investment.

Demographic targeting
You can now select your desired audiences on Yahoo! sites — in both Sponsored Search and Content Match — by age and gender, and set a premium bid for those groups. With demographic targeting, you can take advantage of Yahoo!’s wide user base and its deep understanding of its audience. Our demographic targeting uses a concept called bid adjustments, which let you set a premium bid for the categories that are worth more to you without losing other traffic volume.

Ad scheduling
If the people you most want to reach are most likely to respond to your ad at certain times of the day, or your business is only open certain hours, you can select what time of day and day of the week you’d like your campaigns to run. You can schedule ads to be shown according to users’ time zones or according to your time zone. Ad scheduling works in both Sponsored Search and Content Match, and at the ad group and campaign levels.

Enhanced ZIP-level geo-targeting
An update to our beta ZIP-level targeting feature, advertisers will have even more control about how geo-targeting is used. Available for both Sponsored Search and Content Match, you can mix and match geo-targeting settings at different levels within the same campaign or ad group. New dynamic mapping features help you select individual ZIP codes and ZIP codes surrounding them.

This is a lot to swallow in one sitting, so we’ll be following this post with closer looks at each of these new features. You can also sign up for a webinar to learn more. But don’t wait for us — get targeting.

— Jeff Sweat, blog editor

Photo courtesy of Flickr user gertys.

Posted by Administrator

[ Categories: Updates & Enhancements, Yahoo! News ]

30 Comments Add your own

1. Chris | March 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pm

Problem… It appears the new ad scheduling (day parting) feature only allows bids to be adjusted UPWARDS, so the usefulness of this feature is severely crippled!

So if I find that overnight traffic doesn’t convert very well for a campaign and want to decrease the bid during that time, I need to decrease all the bids manually and then bid back up daytime hours to the normal bid using day parting. What a backwards way to do this.
2. shere | March 17th, 2009 at 4:55 am

How do I use the demographic and ad scheduling. Can’t find the edit button for these options. Don’t have time for webinar would prefer a set of instructions by email.
Thank you
Shere
3. essy | March 17th, 2009 at 8:17 am

I agree with Chris (#1), the first thing we would want to do, is DECREASE bids for certain time frames and/or demographics.

For instance, I would like to block all females if possible. They would never buy what I am offering, so I don’t want their curiosity clicks if I can avoid them.

I do like the option to block everyone age 17 or younger, thanks for that.
4. DRG | March 17th, 2009 at 10:50 am

Hi Chris,
If you do not click on the “adjust bid” after you do the “ad scheduling” (i.e., 7:00AM-7:00PM), do you think it will still INCREASE the bidding? Or do you HAVE TO click on the “adjust bid” box?

I am really curious because all my settings are automatic so I wonder if I SHOULD leave everything “as is” and let YSM automatically bid based on my daily budget.

Ah what the hey, I don’t even know if I’m making any sense here
5. DRG | March 17th, 2009 at 10:51 am

See? I can’t even get my question right! grrr! :{
6. Administrator | March 17th, 2009 at 10:59 am

Hi Chris, there are two other ways to adjust your bidding for a time slot that doesn’t convert as well for you.

1. You can opt out of that time period altogether, using our Ad Scheduling filter option.
2. Or, you can opt out, then duplicate the ad group and run it only for the time(s) you want to have a decreased bid. Use a lower bid for the new ad group, and keep your bid where it is for the original ad group.

Hope this helps.
7. Administrator | March 17th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

Hi Shere,

you can visit our help center for information about ad scheduling and demographic targeting.
8. Chris | March 18th, 2009 at 5:21 am

We ended up exporting all campaigns to Excel, running a formula to decrease all ad group bids to the lowest level we would want them at (i.e. 60% less than the current bid).

Then we imported them all back into Yahoo.

Next we used the new ad scheduling feature to increase the bids of each campaign by X percentage during different parts of the day where we’ve determined we want to pay more.

With 20 or so campaigns, boy did this take long! We want the same day parting scheme Monday through Friday, but unlike Google’s bulk edit feature, we had to manually edit the bids for each time period of each day of the week. No “copy to all weekdays” feature here!

All in all, the process took about 6 man hours versus the 30 minutes it would have taken in Google. But the good news is that this is a one-time action and it will make all our campaigns more profitable going forward. For this we are thankful!

I can imagine that some executive at Yahoo must have said a few month back “Alright, you can implement the ad scheduling feature you’ve been bugging me about, but we’re going to lose money here if you let people lower their bids automatically. So make it so they can only increase their bids.”

Then the frustrated programmers did as asked, but snickered as they added the feature to ENTIRELY TURN OFF campaigns at certain times of the day. “He said not to implement lowered bids, but he didn’t say we couldn’t let people turn off campaigns at certain times of the day… hahaha.”

So in effect, Yahoo would rather get $0 overnight then get 90% of the normal bid price. What a very odd implementation — but it sure is a whole lot better than nothing, so thanks yahoo!
9. william | March 19th, 2009 at 2:13 am

why i can’t see my ad?
10. henry | March 19th, 2009 at 7:35 am

If you want to improve your service have a look at google advertiseing sometime , its far superior and much simpler to use , your service is not user friendly without spending a good deal of time to figure out how it works … try uncomplicating things , simple always works
11. AJ | March 19th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Its about time. I stopped advertising on Yahoo 18 months ago because of this reason.. I am glad to hear someone finally took a few hours to add the feature.. It is still not enough to get my business back..
12. jbell5 | March 19th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

its; great!
13. Marcus | March 20th, 2009 at 7:35 am

I have been using Google scheduling feature for quite awhile now and it is so easy and smart to use. I was able to program all the time changes I wanted in just a few minutes. On the other hand in Yahoo’s new scheduling feature it took days before I realzed that I had to lower all my bids and then raise to the percentage that I wanted. Does this make sense? This I had to do one day at a time although I wanted all days scheduled the same. This took quite some time to do. I am glade that Yahoo added this feature but they need to work on it because it is truly backwards and incredable NOT user friendly.
14. Johnston | March 20th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

Can’t seem to be able to find the option to target europe in the geo area? Why is there only USA and Canada available?
15. b.maria | March 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 pm

How Do I do this?

Demographic Targeting? Can someone post or send instructions via email

Thank you

B.M
16. jbell5 | March 22nd, 2009 at 8:12 pm

i would like to try.
17. Resveratrol | March 24th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Demo targeting and ad scheduling are both extremely important when trying to create a successful ad campaign.
18. Natthawut | April 13th, 2009 at 10:09 am

I need low bid for ads. like google and consider quality score per position of ads.
19. Arpit Kothari | April 22nd, 2009 at 2:10 am

hi There,

there is no options for Free, and if it’s paid then how much it will take charges.. and how to log in..

Regards
20. продажа дверей,качественные двери,железные входные двери,стальные входные двери,москва мытищи | May 18th, 2009 at 11:00 am

Мытищи где. Информация о входной двери.
21. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | June 15th, 2009 at 9:47 am

[...] we shared five common questions we received at our March webinar on the slick new targeting features available to advertisers in their Sponsored Search [...]
22. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | August 27th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

[...] Back in March, we launched several new targeting features that can help you reach more of the audience you want at the right time, right place…and at the right price. These enhancements can be used with both the Sponsored Search and Content Match distribution tactics, but one could argue that they’re of greater value to your content campaigns. After all, when someone searches for your product, your odds are pretty decent that they’ll be interested in a well-written, relevant ad. [...]
23. A Step in the Right Direc&hellip | August 28th, 2009 at 10:29 am

[...] Back in March, we launched several new targeting features that can help you reach more of the audience you want at the right time, right place…and at the right price. These enhancements can be used with both the Sponsored Search and Content Match distribution tactics, but one could argue that they’re of greater value to your content campaigns. After all, when someone searches for your product, your odds are pretty decent that they’ll be interested in a well-written, relevant ad. [...]
24. Yahoo!…We’re Innovati&hellip | September 5th, 2009 at 4:05 pm

[...] New Demo Targeting and Dayparting If you do any type of pay-per-click advertising, this is going to be welcome news: Yahoo! Search Marketing just introduced several major enhancements to our Sponsored Search product, including ad scheduling, a dayparting tool for setting the display of ads at different times and days across an entire week; and bid adjustments, which lets you specify a premium bid amount for desired demographic groups and audiences. Take a short hop over to the YSM blog for more details. [...]
25. WeEntertaining » Ya&hellip | September 12th, 2009 at 11:14 pm

[...] New Demo Targeting and Dayparting If you do any type of pay-per-click advertising, this is going to be welcome news: Yahoo! Search Marketing just introduced several major enhancements to our Sponsored Search product, including ad scheduling, a dayparting tool for setting the display of ads at different times and days across an entire week; and bid adjustments, which lets you specify a premium bid amount for desired demographic groups and audiences. Take a short hop over to the YSM blog for more details. [...]
26. unlimited | October 7th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

Those features were great additions in Panama. We can’t wait to see it on other non-US YSM markets. Keep up the good work!
27. Эдуард Карасев | October 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am

Мне вот интересно, если текст c вашего сайта копировать, ссылку куда лучше ставить прямо на эту страницу блога или же на главную страницу.
28. нeзaбyдкa | October 17th, 2009 at 6:21 am

Да уж… Тут как в пословице: Аз, буки и веди страшат, что медведи
29. Yahoo Gives Ads More Targ&hellip | October 28th, 2009 at 8:15 pm

[...] changes we make to Sponsored Search — sometimes a button is just a button, after all," says Yahoo Search Marketing Blog editor Jeff Sweat. "So, we hope you’ll pay attention when we [...]
30. Leon | November 11th, 2009 at 11:26 am

It has been said that Americans don’t know there is a whole world outside America. I got that feeling when I tried to geo target the UK and Australia with US/Canada – considered the 4 big ones for marketing.
So geo targeting proudly shows US/Canada but not the rest but there is no indication that they don’t do the rest…
Why would you then like to exclude Africa as per the example??
Can Yahoo target the UK and Australia?

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