PPC: Yahoo Search Marketing Review

February 16, 2008

Yahoo! Search Marketing evolved from GoTo.com and Overture. Yahoo! is in the middle of modifying its PPC offering via the Panama update. The previous strictly bid-for-position model will be supplanted by a system ranking ads based on how much an advertiser wants to spend. Advertisers enter a bid and daily ad spend they are willing to pay, and Yahoo! will tell you what position in the sponsored listings is available for that amound of money. Estimates of the number of impressions, the number of clicks likely to occur and the total cost over 30 days are provided to help you plan.

Advertisers can specify goals they wish to reach with a campaing and Yahoo! Sponsored Search will provide information on how best to accomplish that given the keywords and creative available. Geotargeting can be applied to campaings, instead of merely inclusing the location in the ad creative for a search match. Campaings can be scheduled by date.

Yahoo! can automatically select the versions of your ad that are most profitable and rotate those more often. Contextual advertising will, in the future, be based upon your ad and landing page content rather than keywords, which should provide more relevant listings. Ad listings will no longer take days to appear; most will be active within a few hours.

The partnership network includes AltaVista, InfoSpace, CNN, and others. With Content Match, it expands to incude major content sites such as iVillage, The Weather Channel, and National Geographic.

Pros:

ROI calculator tool available both for CPC and CPM and setups.
Insert keyword feature dynamically inserts the keyword the bid is based upon into the ad’s title or description.
Depends on the niche Yahoo! has more users that converts better than MSN

CONS:

Gradual transfer of accounts to new Panama setup could mean uncertain results for campaings through first half of 2007.
Interface can be fairly confusing, control panel is not laid out very intuitively.
Have to prepay for your ads in set amounts and set a recurring pre-payment.
Ads have to be reviewed before they are shown. This can take several days. (Not like adwords which is almost instant)

Sign up with Yahoo Search Marketing with Vouchers

US and International Members (Non-UK)

UK Members

Attention spans are short.
Make sure customers find your website before they lose interest.
To see your site listed on Yahoo!, Lycos & Orange sign up now and attract customers to your site for as little as £20 a month. You only pay when a customer clicks – giving you great ROI.
Start with £50 credit in your new Yahoo! Search Marketing account for a limited period only.

Some opinions in General

Traffic Volume
1) Google AdWords (#1 by leaps and bounds)
2) Yahoo Search Marketing
3) MSN adCenter

Quality of Click (Based on conversion data)
1) MSN adCenter
2) Google AdWords
3) yahoo search marketing

Ease of Use
1) MSN adCenter
2) yahoo search marketing
3) Google AdWords (They change all the time, and require constant care to manage accounts. Learning curve is very high for new users.)

Lowest Cost per Conversion (Lowest is better)
1) MSN
2) Google
3) yahoo

Technical Support
1) MSN (The support staff getting better every day. At first they were had to look stuff up all the time)
2) Google
3) yahoo

Has the Options for Your Needs
1) Google AdWords
2) yahoo
3) MSN

versatile
1) AdWords
2) yahoo
3) MSN

Overall
1) AdWords
2) MSN
3) yahoo

Best Thing About Each Service
AdWords - Level of sophistication. Smartest and most relevant advertiser can win — not just the person with the biggest pocket book.
MSN - Very easy. Recommended for beginners.
yahoo – If you don’t have a lot of time to manage accounts, you can pretty much place your bid and leave it alone if you got deep pockets. You’ll be able to get number one with bid price alone. Don’t have to worry too much about CTR so you can qualify your visitors more with adText.

Worst Thing About Each Service
AdWords – Unexpected changes to a ‘computer algorithm’ can change the game fast.
MSN – Interface not for those with large accounts.
yahoo – Human reviews are often inconsistent. Their policy seems to be interpreted differently by each reviewer.

and other opinions:

Traffic Volume
1) Google AdWords (#1 by leaps and bounds)
2) yahoo search marketing
3) MSN adCenter

Quality of Click (Based on conversion data)
1) MSN adCenter
2) Google AdWords
3) yahoo search marketing

Ease of Use
1) yahoo
2) Google
3) MSN

Lowest Cost per Conversion (Lowest is better)
1) MSN
2) yahoo/Google a tie

Technical Support
1) yahoo
2) MSN/Google tie

Has the Options for Your Needs
1) yahoo/Google tie
2) MSN

versatile
1) yahoo
2) Google
3) MSN

Overall
1) MSN
2) yahoo/Google tie

and the last one:

Traffic Volume
1) Google AdWords
2) yahoo search marketing
3) MSN adCenter

Quality of Click (Based on conversion data)
1) MSN adCenter
2) Google AdWords
3) yahoo search marketing

Ease of Use
1) Google AdWords
2) yahoo search marketing
3) MSN adCenter

Lowest Cost per Conversion (Lowest is better)
1) MSN
2) Google
3) yahoo

Technical Support
1) Google
2) yahoo
3) MSN

Has the Options for Your Needs
1) Google AdWords
2) yahoo
3) MSN

versatile
1) AdWords
2) yahoo
3) MSN

Overall
1) MSN
2) AdWords
3) yahoo

Best Thing About Each Service
AdWords - Versatile. Many options. Good reports. Easy to use.
MSN - No affiliates! Therefore, lowest cost per action.
yahoo – Gets you valuable yahoo.com traffic.

Worst Thing About Each Service
AdWords – Some bad affiliates, although they look good compared to yahoo.
MSN – Bad interface. Hard to manage and control.
yahoo – Huge number of low quality affiliates and getting worse all the time. yahoo.com makes up only 20% of clicks. Many too many parked domains make up about half of clicks. Also, can’t run more than one creative per word.

As you noticed there are many different opinions on each Pay per click search engine. But overall it is worth testing Yahoo! Search Marketing. All depends on what type of services/products/niche you are promoting.