For those who had had their accounts upgraded, what do you think about the changes to Yahoo Search Marketing?? Does it make a difference??? Is it any better???
The traffic is fine, but the system is full of bugs. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=245180
I agree. IMO I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact that they still are trying to maintain the same editorial control they had before the update to they new system, but never thought about how it would translate over. Example, in the old system you could create an ad per keyword, so you never had a big issue with an ad not being relevant to the keyword because you could always go back and customize the ad for the keyword. In the new system your forced to do a generic ad that can cover a large number of keywords but yet are still forced to fit the old editorial guide of the ad showing relevance to the keyword. When I asked Yahoo about this the only solution was to use the wild card feature in the ad so the keyword was dynamically inserted into the ad.
I love yahoo overture since the start. The new system is fine, except that part when you can't see your keywords position. And the loading time is much much slower than the old overture.
Panama Ad Site marks a shift from Yahoo’s traditional stand on ad relevance. Google has always given importance to the relevance of content when ranking pages for their Search Engine Results Page (SERP), while Yahoo has always adopted the bidding model. On a yahoo search page, the highest bidder gets the top spot on the results page. This new shift means that a bidder who has a slightly lower bid than the top bidder, but a better quality site would get the coveted top spot. Much like with Google, Yahoo too is not ready to reveal what according to them constitutes good quality, nor even on what basis high quality would be judged. Yet Yahoo has made it clear that even in the new system the bids will need to be competitive. Quality is an add-on factor, although for Yahoo profitability still remains a priority. With an import feature, you can convert existing Google AdWord accounts to a Panama Account. The ad site also promises better local targeting, which means that if you pick any region in the US, your ads will be delivered to searchers who belong to that region or those who are terms related to that specific region. This also includes searches that are explicitly location-centric. Geographical targeting is undoubtedly one of the best features offered by Panama Ad Site. Such a feature would mean that advertisers who target by markets would be assured that they ads are reaching the specific desired audience. The existing feature of wildcard targeting, in the new Ad Site, will have enhanced usability.
Much better interface, especially for running reports. I used to have to sit for over an hour to run a report for a large advertiser (talking about around 1,000,000 clicks per month), and now the report loads up in about 2 seconds after I choose the dates. The only downside is that now when I go to download an excel version of the data, Yahoo automatically zips up the data. Also, the ability to import a campaign straight from a Google dump is amazingly convenient.
I like the fact that I do not have to create (or, paste in) a new ad for each keyword or phrase. Makes things faster and more like adwords in the management. Lou
Interface is much better....easier to setup campaigns....more control over ADS. HOWEVER....my campaigns convert much poorer. Same keywords...positions...ads.....much worse results...
We haven't got it yet in the UK, but a Yahoo rep came to show me some screen shots the other day. Is it true that you can look at the "journey" of keywords that it takes to make a sale, rather than just the final referrer? Like you can see in some bid management tools. That would be pretty useful, does it help?
What confuses you @neeraj? Yahoo Panama is fine for me, worked even better than the "other leading PPC"
I'm encountering bugs on a daily basis, Everyday I'm informing my reps at Overture about new bugs that I didn't noticed the day before, less then 10% of what I'm informing them are "really" being fixed...I gotta say they do have good intentions but much work is needed for this "Panama" system to work properly. The most importent issue for me regarding the new platform is the Geo-targeting, after almost 4 month that I've been upgraded to the new system I can say with no doubt that Yahoo has failed with this feature, I'm opted to US traffic only and almost 30% of my traffic comes from countries you wouldn't want to know... At least 60% of the new estimation information Yahoo is providing is unreliable but I'm sure that they have good intentions... Q: Regarding the estimation info, did any of you noticed it as well?
I've had problems as well... several, but 2 major problems. 1st - I checked on several terms, viewed the bid range, modifed my bids, then rechecked the bid range. In the space of just a minute or two, the bid ranges changed greatly. 2nd - although my current position may be lower, when I estimate, without upping my bid, the position is in the top 3. I had one term that was reported to be in 10th but when I estimated, it was shown to be 2.1 going forward. On top of that, for about 70% of my terms, there is no estimated data available, so it's just a guessing game. And don't get me going on ads. I preferred being able to create a unique ad for each term. But the *worst* problem I have is that Yahoo, with no consult on my part, placed my terms into ridiculous ad groups. I have one account with 168 terms - they placed each term in its own ad group, even though many of them are related (the same terms on Google I have placed into 18 ad groups). It's a nightmare to manage and, although they are trying to straighten it out for me, it's been several weeks and nothing has been done. I'm taking the majority of my clients' budgets and giving it to MSN.
I really dislike the attitude of the UK staff, plus many haven't heard of a DC let a lone longtail kw, just my 2 penneth just terminated business with them today, thanks to running a campign on Friday with a 20 pound budget however they felt the need to run it till it reached 97 pound, sheesh