Archive for January 19th, 2010

You’re in Control

Network distribution and import campaigns features give greater control over your campaigns

We resolved to deliver to our Sponsored Search advertisers two great new features in the new year: network distribution control and an import campaigns tool. These items may have been on your wish list for a long time, and as of today, the wait is over. Here are the details:

Network Distribution
This new feature enables you to set up campaigns or ad groups targeting Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Partners, or both.

If you select Yahoo! Search, your ads will appear only on Yahoo! search results pages. If you select Yahoo! Partners, your ads will appear across our partners’ pages, including WebMD, Buy.com, CNBC and CitySearch.

With the network distribution feature, you can choose for your ads to appear only on Yahoo! search results pages, only on Yahoo! partner implementations, or across the entire network. Even if you choose to target a campaign or an ad group to the Entire Network (i.e., both Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Partners), you have the ability to fine-tune your bids with different bids for Yahoo! Partners.

If you’re familiar with our system of pricing discounts, you know that your clicks are automatically priced according to our assessment of the performance of traffic coming from various sources within our distribution network.

While your campaign objectives will determine the best use of network distribution, we recommend that advertisers target the Entire Network to maximize traffic volume, while retaining the ability to bid up or down on Yahoo! Partners. For more control and optimization capability, you may wish to duplicate key campaigns, with one targeting Yahoo! Search and the other targeting Yahoo! Partners.

The following tools can help you get the most out of this new feature:

• Network Distribution Performance Report – Enables you to view reporting by traffic source at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.
• Ad Delivery Report – Provides insight into where your ads are showing on our various partners’ sites, and domain-level performance.
• Blocked Domains – Block up to 500 domains that aren’t working for you.
• Conversion-only Analytics – Allows you to track conversion events by domain, and record revenue that might be associated with a transaction.

Import Campaigns
This new tool is designed to help you easily and efficiently convert your campaign data from Google AdWords into Yahoo! Search Marketing formats. Simply download your third-party file, then import it from your computer into the Sponsored Search interface. You can import your file by selecting the “Import Campaigns” button, which is located on the Dashboard and the Campaigns tabs, or by selecting the Import tab.

Once the import is complete, you’ll be able to view any errors and pause the campaigns for review. Learn more about converting and importing your third-party campaign data.

Free Webinar
To get more details on the network distribution and import campaigns features, sign up for our webinar, scheduled for Thursday, February 4 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

— Jeff Hecox