Yahoo has added several enhanced targeting features to its search marketing advertising solution. The features include enhanced geo-targeting, ad scheduling, demographic targeting, and added bid adjustments based on those targeting features. In addition, Yahoo has improved the content match technology to make the ads more relevant to the publisher's content. The new features are available for both sponsored search and content match on day one. They can be targeted at the campaign level or on the more granular ad group level. In addition, they will be available in both the advertiser con [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

A couple weeks ago, Yahoo announced they will be going forward with rich ads in Yahoo search. Back then, we only saw a few examples in the raw Yahoo Search results, and they were for mostly video ads. I received a heads up from Gary Price that Yahoo is now showing image ads on Yahoo News. For example, try a search on ipod at Yahoo News and you should see these ads: These image ads come up for many searches at Yahoo News now. Gary tells me he uses Yahoo News daily and he has not seen this before. This looks very similar to how Yahoo displayed image ads on the Yahoo Directory [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: News | Yahoo: Search Ads

Yahoo to Offer Tools To Match Users, Ads from the Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo is set to launch new ad features and tools today. What is expected to launch today is the ability for advertisers to show graphic ads to users based on their previous search history. Plus, Yahoo will allow those graphic ads to also be targeted based on what other web sites that user visited and their actions on those web sites. In addition, Yahoo plans to launch day parting and demographic targeting for their search ads in the next month. Many search engines already offer dayparting and demographic target [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

After testing this for close to a year, Yahoo is set to formally announce Rich Ads In Search -- a service that places images and videos into paid ads in Yahoo's search results. The New York Times says the service will be announced formally on Thursday. A search for Pedigree dog food brings up a video in the primary paid listing: Other additions include images and search boxes inside paid ads. The NYT article says Yahoo is charging a monthly fee for Rich Ads In Search, and only "large, brand-focused advertisers" can use the service at this point. If you're thinking you've heard abo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Video | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

Eric Goldman covers a recent lawsuit where Heartbrand Beef, Inc. sued several companies, including Yahoo, for selling the keyword "Akaushi" to Lobel's of New York. Akaushi is a very expensive Japanese type of beef, known for being marbled with fat and coming out extremely tender. Lobel's does not sell Akaushi, but Heartbrand is the largest Akaushi cattle company outside of Japan and they felt that Lobel's was being deceitful with their ads at Yahoo. Heartbrand also felt Yahoo allowing the ad "constituted Lanham Act false designation of origin and common law unfair competition," said Gold [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Trademarks | Yahoo: Legal | Yahoo: Search Ads

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that if you conduct a search at Yahoo on valentine's day or other related search terms, you will see a horizontal search bar with hearts for the special day. This is something Google has done for the past few years, when it comes to the holiday season, just see our 2006, 2007 and 2008 coverage on that news, plus Google did it back in 2005, but not for Valentine's Day. Here is a picture of what it looks like in Yahoo: This is great for advertisers to get more exposure of their ads during the season, but why don't I see the hearts for searches like flower [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

Auto-matching is a feature provided by both Google and Yahoo which allows the search provider to autonomously select new keywords for you and to create new ad copy for you, without the advertiser’s advance permission. The new keywords are selected from various places including your ad copy text, your display URLs, your landing page and/or common typos and related terms. Your ads will appear as sponsored listings when these new keyword terms are searched by a consumer. In other words, Google and Yahoo, by way of the auto-matching feature, can show your ads on keywords that you did not i [...]

Related Topics: Brand Aid | Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Yahoo: Search Ads

Come and get us, Microsoft. That might as well be what Yahoo's search ad division -- Yahoo Search Marketing -- is doing with its action of changing advertiser accounts without asking first. Part of Yahoo's long-standing problem has been that it generates less advertising revenue per ad than Google. The Panama upgrade that came out two years ago was supposed to fix that -- and didn't. Then the partnership with Google was supposed to fix things -- and never happened. Moreover, that deal just highlighted problems with Yahoo's broad matching system. Rather than fixing those problem an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Search Ads

Three weeks after the latest uproar over its decision to auto-optimize sponsored search accounts, Yahoo has published an explanation under the brassy headline, "The Truth about Account Optimizations." As a refresher, earlier this month Yahoo emailed advertisers about its new Terms and Conditions, which says that Yahoo may create ads, edit keywords, and/or optimize the accounts of U.S. advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order. Search marketers were exasperated. In tonight's post, Yahoo says the purpose is to help small- and mid-sized advertisers suffering from "performance issues." The [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

Clearly "the market" loves the MicroHoo dance and would like to see a transaction. And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he would talk anew to the new Yahoo CEO. Now that it's Bartz, apparently there has already been a call in which search was not discussed, according to the the Wall Street Journal: She added that she had spoken casually with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer since accepting her new job, these people said. They added that she didn't go into details of the conversation, which she said was informal. Bartz also reportedly told employees that her instinct or "gut" was not necessari [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

The PPC Hero blog said they received an email from Yahoo that they are shutting down Yahoo's contextual network ads in the United Kingdom. This product is named Content Match, which allows Yahoo Publisher Network publishers to display Yahoo ads on their sites. Yahoo matches the advertiser's ads by the contextual relevancy of the page's content to the keywords the advertisers purchased. In the email sent to PPC Hero, they said they will close it down officially by March 31st, the same date they are officially closing the Adobe PDF ads. Currently, the UK version of the Content Match produc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Publisher Network | Yahoo: Search Ads

Silicon Alley Insider reports Yahoo's search ad share dropped 36% in the fourth quarter of 2008. The numbers come from AdGooroo, that claims Yahoo's search ad share was 30.4% in September, then dropped in 23.7% in October, then to 20.4% in November and then to 19.4% in December. Meanwhile, Microsoft grew from 12% in October to 16.4% in December. They then add that, based on watching Yahoo's top advertisers, it appears that Yahoo ads are paying a lot less than Google ads. In short, search ad arbitrageurs are buying traffic from Yahoo and cashing that traffic in on the Google ad side. T [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Search Ads

Last night, Yahoo emailed their search advertisers about new terms and conditions including a controversial provision that they are allowed to create ads, remove or add keywords to campaigns and "optimize" accounts -- which could allow for bid changes. All of this can be done without seeking the advertiser's permission beforehand. Though the provision is at least six months old, it finally got noticed due to the recent email -- and is attracting some outcry. Here is the snippet in the terms and conditions that states this: Sponsored Search 3. OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those adver [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Top News | Yahoo: Search Ads

Yahoo has announced they will be anonymizing their user log data to 90 days, compared to Google's policy of 9 months. The data policy is not just inclusive of their search data but also their page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. Yahoo does reserve the right to retain data longer than 90 days based on the exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Those exceptions will typically be held for 6-months, but possibly longer based on legal requirements. Clearly, this may put pressure on Google to reduce their 9 months data retention policy to a 3 month policy. Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: Search Ads

TechCrunch reported spotting a image ad that is more interactive for a search at Yahoo on eBay. Here is a picture of the ad: As you can see, it is clearly labelled as "promotion results." Yahoo explains what those are, and has gotten into trouble in the past for not labeling these ads. In fact, Yahoo has been very aggressive in experimenting with image ads and video ads in the search results. This eBay ad is more interactive, it allows you to search within eBay, directly in the ad. We know Google has also experimented with video ads in the search results. Google has also used t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Yahoo: Search Ads

Not long ago, Google rolled out its "Geolocation API" (via Google Gears). Initially it was intended to enable third party publishers and developers to get location for their apps on mobile devices using a combination of the phone's inherent location-awareness technologies (i.e., GPS) and Google's cell-tower database (which has been expanded now to include WiFi locations). However it also works for destkop browsers, provided that Gears is installed on the computer. Here's the Google Code Blog discussing the impact: When we originally proposed the Gears Geolocation API our goal was to make i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: General | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Search Ads

Yahoo Sponsored Search advertisers can now target ads down to individual ZIP codes, according to an announcement today on the Yahoo Search Marketing blog. Yahoo joins Ask.com as the only major search engine to offer specific ZIP code-based targeting to advertisers. While Google AdWords doesn't offer exact ZIP code targeting, it does allow advertisers to use ZIP codes as the basis for ad targeting (i.e., "ads will show 20 miles around 99352") and lets advertisers draw custom target areas to show their ads (which could be drawn to match ZIP codes). The new geo-targeting option is availabl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Yahoo: Search Ads

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced they have improved the targeting and relevancy of their content match product. The improvements will lead to a higher click through rate on ads and higher satisfaction. The specific improvement is that they now not only target the ads based on the content of the page, but also based on the user viewing the page. Yahoo will tailor the ad based on the "users' geographic and behavioral profiles." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Yahoo: Publisher Network | Yahoo: Search Ads

The Google-Yahoo ad deal gained support in the form of a letter (PDF) from several of California's congressional representatives asking that the Department Of Justice not to block the proposed arrangement. Led by Google and Yahoo's "hometown" representative, Democrat Anna Eshoo from Palo Alto, the short letter signed by 11 US House Of Representative legislators so far reads much like it was written by Google and Yahoo to be posted on their new fact site about the deal. The letter keeps repeating the Google-Yahoo mantra of how this is a non-exclusive deal (and thus, no [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google & Yahoo Ad Deal | Google: AdWords | Google: Business Issues | Google: Partnerships | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search Ads

Previously, I wrote of how Yahoo's recent press day proved disappointing to me. Time for part two of that: how the Google-Yahoo ad deal is supposed to help Yahoo. Oh, it might, but not for the reasons Yahoo put out -- the idea it would somehow get advertisers it was missing. More about that below, as well as thoughts on Google's auction that's not an auction and whether the Google-Yahoo deal should be blocked. As part of the press day presentation, Yahoo executive vice president Hilary Schneider showed how few ads Yahoo returned for a search on [red roses in birmingham alabama]. In contrast, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: General | Google: AdWords | Google: Business Issues | Top News | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Search Ads