Posts filed under 'Account Upgrade Info'

Welcome (Feed)back

Tell us what you want to hear in the New Year

First off, welcome back from the holidays. We hope you had a grand time in whatever tradition you observe, or at least enjoyed a few extra days off.

We’re going to tell you right out: It’s going to be quite a couple of months here at Yahoo! Search Marketing as we continue to upgrade U.S. advertisers to the new search advertising platform. Most of the feedback’s been positive, though many of you will have questions about your upgrade and the new platform.

Got questions for us? Feel free to leave them here in the comments and we’ll do our darndest to get them answered. Consider this a free forum for discussion.*

—Michael Mattis

* If you have a specific issue regarding your account, please don’t leave your account number in the comments. That could be a big security risk. Instead, use our Customer Support system for specific account issues. Email us at feedback-ysm(at)yahoo-inc.com or call us at (866) 924-6676.

New Manage Bids Now Live

Changes made to smooth your upgrade

Two weeks ago we noted some changes would be coming to your Sponsored Search Manage Bids pages. These changes are now live.

Please note that since we announced this upgrade, there have been a few last-minute enhancements to the planned roll-out. To get a handle on the changes, check out our revised blog post and be sure to visit our FAQs.

—The Team

Head’s Up: New Bidding Information Coming

The Manage Bids page is changing to help you transition to the new Sponsored Search

Addendum: Two weeks ago in this space we reported that “Top 5 Max Bids,” “Position” and “Your Cost” columns, along with the “Bids” tool will be removed from the current Manage Bids interface in favor of two new columns. In fact, three new columns will now be added to this screen, giving you even better visibility into your account. See below for details.

As advertisers begin to upgrade to the new Sponsored Search, all of their account information, including their bids, will be stored and served from an entirely new platform. So what, you say? Well, this means that, if we left things the way they are, the bids of advertisers who have upgraded would not be visible to advertisers who have not yet upgraded.

Since we believe in letting you know where you stand (as far as your ad’s position goes, that is), we’re about to introduce some minor changes to the current Sponsored Search Manage Bids page so that all advertisers—both those who have upgraded and those who have not—will have equal access to the same relevant bidding information.

What is Changing?
December some of the information you’re used to seeing on the Manage Bids page will no longer be available. The “Top 5 Max Bids,” “Position” and “Your Cost” columns will be removed from the current account interface. The “Bids” tool will also no longer be available.

Instead, you’ll see three new columns on the Sponsored Search Manage Bids page:

1. Estimated Average Position
This displays an estimate of the average position your listing may achieve, based on your bid and the bids of other advertisers.

2. Latest Available Bid Range 
This column displays the latest available bid range for the positions at the top of the search results page for each of your keywords. To see the bid range for each keyword, click the “View Bids” link.

3. Average Historical Bid Range
This column uses historical data to show you what the bid range for the positions at the top of the search results page has been for each of your keywords over recent days and/or weeks.

Similar data will be available once your account has been upgraded, and you’ll be able to use them in the same way. We encourage you to become familiar with this new information, as it will be important to your bidding decisions going forward.

So remember, while some of the information you’ve been used to will no longer be available, you’ll still be able to forecast your ad’s estimated position by looking at the Estimated Average Position column.

To learn more about these new changes, please see our FAQs.

Can’t wait to upgrade your account? It’s not too late to submit your upgrade request now.

—The Team

Be Prepared

The new Sponsored Search is here…is your account ready?

“Be prepared.” It has been the Boy Scout motto for nearly a century, and for good reason. Being prepared, the Scouts say, can help you to adjust to changes and help turn challenges into successes.

As you probably know, we’ve begun the process of upgrading U.S. advertisers to the new Sponsored Search. Invitations to upgrade will continue to be sent in stages to U.S. advertisers over the remainder of the year and early next year.

Because we want our advertisers to be successful as we upgrade accounts over to the new Sponsored Search, we’ve created this handy little guide to help you be prepared for your upgrade. Please note that you will be provided with ample notice via email before your account is to be upgraded (so another important task is to make sure that your contact info is up-to-date—go to https://secure.overture.com/edit-profile.do and update it as necessary).

The first thing to note is that some of our account structure terminology that you’re used to will change after you upgrade:

Current: Categories
Categories have served as the organizational structure you assigned to groups of keywords that are similar in a particular way, for purposes of bid management or reporting.

New: Campaigns
“Campaigns” replace categories, and will consist of a combination of one or more ad groups that share the same budget, schedule and geo-targeting criteria, usually created to achieve a particular marketing goal.

There’s more to share on categories vs. campaigns; see below.

Current: Listings
“Listings” have been the combination of keyword, bid, title, description and URL.

New: Ads
You’ll create ads, consisting of a title, description and URL. You’ll be able to apply these ads to groups of keywords, instead of writing titles and descriptions for each individual keyword as you do today.

New: Ad Groups
“Ad Groups” are the combination of multiple ads (your creative) and keywords. You may set one bid for your entire ad group, or use individual keyword bids. There hasn’t been any equivalent for ad groups under the current system, but many advertisers will be familiar with the concept through other paid search providers.

Categories vs. Campaigns
When we upgrade your account, we’ll move your account categories into campaigns with the same names. So, it’s very important that you begin now to group your current listings that are related to each other into categories, to help ensure that your ads are better organized after we move your account to the new platform.

Here is an example: If you sold “SeeClearly” televisions, under the new Sponsored Search you would probably want to have a “SeeClearly” campaign that included ad groups for the models “SeeClearly X100,” “SeeClearly X200,” “SeeClearly HDX1000,” etc.

Using this example, we recommend that you set up a “SeeClearly” category now that would contain all of your SeeClearly listings.

Later this week, we’ll share our top recommendations for getting your account ready for your upgrade—some you should do before you make the switch and some for during the upgrade itself.

—The Team

Reserve Your Place

We’ve begun to invite U.S. advertisers to upgrade their accounts; let us know if you want to come aboard early

As you know from this blog and the emails we’ve sent, Yahoo! has begun inviting U.S. advertisers to upgrade their accounts to the new Sponsored Search. Your turn will come, of course: We’re inviting U.S. advertisers to upgrade in stages over the remainder of the year and early next year, and you’ll be notified of your upgrade date at least two weeks in advance. Once you receive that notification, you’ll be able to preview what your account will look like after the upgrade to get used to the new features and layout.

“But, Christmas is coming, and…” Yeah, we’re way ahead of you. The holiday season is the most crucial time of year for many advertisers. If you’re notified of your pending upgrade before the end of the year, you can choose to wait until after the holiday season, so that you won’t have to give it a moment’s thought until ‘07. We’ll provide instructions on how to do that in your notification.

Upgrade Me Now
OK, but what if you’ve heard about all the cool new features and you’re ready to get started now?

Then listen up; we’ve got an offer just for you. If you’re sold on the new Sponsored Search, we invite you to request an upgrade of your account. We will do our very best to fulfill your request; however, we might not be able to accommodate all requests. And you can still change your mind, even after we approve you for an early upgrade. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the status of your request.

If you are selected to participate in the upgrade (by the way, there’s no charge for any advertiser to upgrade, regardless of timing), we will give you the same two weeks notice prior to the first day that your access to the new system is enabled. If you have already submitted your upgrade request, we’ll be emailing some information on next steps in the next week or two.

In the meantime, we encourage all advertisers, whether upgrading before or after the holidays, to review the Upgrade Center, which contains all the information you’ll need to know to make your switch as smooooooooth as ice.

- The Team

The Road Ahead

What you’ll be reading here, and why it’s so important that you keep coming back

We’ll try to keep this missive short and to the point: We want this blog to be a win/win/win/win proposition.

We want advertisers to win, by receiving quality traffic, both from Yahoo! properties and from third-party publishing partners, large and small. We want our publishing partners to win, as they drive that quality traffic to you, our advertisers. Bottom line: if advertisers win and publishers win, then Yahoo! users win, and we win, too.

But winning doesn’t mean we can stand still — Internet marketing is evolving faster every day. To stay ahead, we’ll be introducing a ton of new features and enhancements in the days, weeks and months ahead, many of which may impact your business. Although these changes are positive — designed to help everyone get more out of this relationship — they’re still changes that you’ll want to act upon. We started this blog to help show you how to get more out of us.

Some of the changes you’ll see in the short term include:

• A new control panel
  Using this completely redesigned, easy-to-navigate control panel will help you see what’s working and what’s not.
• Really fast ad activation
  Your ads should now go live within minutes.
• Easy ad testing
  You’ll be able to test multiple versions of an ad to find the message that works best.
• Accurate geo-targeting
  Target your customers broadly or narrowly on a geographic basis, and customize your ads to control costs.
• Campaign budgeting, forecasting and scheduling
  You’ll be able to create, budget and schedule your individual advertising campaigns for greater control over your advertising strategy and spending.
• See-through visibility
  The new interface will help you understand how well your ads are performing relative to your competitors’.

This blog will aim to keep you informed about these and other changes — and help you optimize your ad performance with them. In addition, we designed this blog to help you keep up on the latest information, opinions and trends in the field. We’ll be bringing you news and insight from inside Yahoo! and outside, from the blogosphere. As an added bonus, we’ll include helpful guest posts from prominent Yahoo! and industry experts.

So enjoy the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog and return often. Or, better yet, add us to your RSS feed to get updates automatically.

Lastly — and we know this goes against most corporate rules — feel free to comment on our posts, sharing your insights with your fellow advertisers. We’ll keep a close eye on your feedback and use it to build a stronger marketing solutions network.

There have been quite a few comments and questions since we launched the blog last week. We’ll answer as many of these questions as we can and in a format that makes sense. Stay with us.

Cheers!

– Michael Mattis and Jeff Hecox

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