Found this article on a Canadian website. Obviously if you're Canuck something you should look into. Yahoo Canada gets into paid search game Yahoo Canada will launch its first English Canadian paid search marketing platform in January, giving advertisers another option besides Google to use in their search efforts. The platform, known as “Panama,†has been in the works for two years and was initially launched in the U.S. several weeks ago. Canada is the second country to get the system, says Martin Byrne, national director, Yahoo search marketing in Toronto. Yahoo has a paid search system for French Canada, but its current English-language platform, called Overture, is targeted primarily at the American market so companies that want to do paid search in English Canada have tended to use Google. “Up until now (paid search has) been a one-company operation,†Byrne told an audience of media buyers, agency reps and marketers at an event in Toronto on Tuesday where Panama was demonstrated. Canada’s paid search industry, which is currently worth $268 million, is expected to grow into a $1-billion business by 2010, according to Yahoo. Byrne said that “by Q1 of 2007 there will be three companies that will control the entire space.†In addition to Yahoo and Google, MSN is stepping up its search marketing efforts, he said. Features of the Yahoo system include geo-targeting, which lets advertisers target consumers by province or territory and in 25 key urban centres across the country, and the ability for marketers to buy ads based on predetermined metrics, such as cost per acquisition or return on advertising spend. Byrne added that Yahoo has added staff to help companies put their ads online “within minutes...so there’s no 24-hour or 48-hour turnaround times on your advertising. You can go straight to market.†Panama is part of Yahoo Canada’s goal to become “the best advertising partner for marketers, agencies and clients,†Kerry Munro, the company’s general manager said. “It’s about creating innovative solutions that are simple to use that combine themselves in such a way that they make a complete solution.†While Yahoo is touting the benefits of Panama, Andrew Goodman, a search expert and founder of Page Zero Media in Toronto, said the system isn’t technologically groundbreaking compared to Google. But it does give Yahoo a chance to catch up to Google in paid search in Canada, he said.
The only issue they are fighting now is to get relevancy in content based ads. As of now they are not as good as Google. Once they could correct that they will get out of beat and will give the chance to all the requested users. Hope they could figure out the issue soon. Thanks
I don't think so from the article, but does anyone know if they have a publisher program for French Canada, i.e. Quebec?