YPN "Targeting" - Why I Am Ignoring It

Today I counted the YPN targeting categories-
19 main categories, consisting of -
exactly 131 "subcategories".

I checked dmoz - 590,000 CATEGORIES!
What are the chances that a sharply targeted ad is going to result from "YPN Targeting"? As has been reported here and elsewhere, the targeting is WAY TOO general. That's not too hard to understand, when you are drawing ads from only 131 "fishbowls".

YPN needs to abandon the concept of pulling ads from a very limited number of categories. YPN seems to treat targeting as trivial at this point - it isn't.

"Keyword combo" targeting is what is needed. In this business, "related" is just not good enough, when your competition is providing ads that actually contain the "keyword combo" - razor sharp targeting.

Also reported here and elsewhere is the fact that keyword targeting is MUCH BETTER if one does not use YPN targeting. So, YPN is capable of keyword targeting, but they seem very reluctant to do it. This must change.

 

I've tested YPN on over 40 domains, and it was not my experience. I didn't use targeting at first. On some sites it may serve targeted ads without using targeting, but I found one to two weeks later that had changed and could only be corrected by using targeting. I experienced a huge improvement by using targeting.

Target does NOT mean it is going to serve those ads. It is a "suggestion" and yahoo will ignore targeting if it does not think it is appropriate for your site. You can't run "health" ads on a gaming site. Is is also prone to mistakes. Yahoo also has a very limited inventory of ads compared to google, so it just doesn't have any ads for certain types of sites.

The categories can be very broad and you sometimes have to experiment to get the best results. If it is serving relevant ads without targeting, and you have been doing it for a couple of weeks, then there is probably no reason to use it. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Targeting was needed on all 40 plus sites, and it still didn't work great on some so I reverted back to adsense on those sites.

Rather than say do or don't, see what works best on your site.

 

I recently added YPN and the contextual targeting sucks (for my niche). Then I started using the manual targeting option and the relevance is still very poor BUT I seem to be raking in the dough since then.

Although YMMV and my sampling period is too short to be useful as of yet.

 

Ya know ad targeting started getting better on my pages, the ads were more relevant, but the cash went down. I even got more clicks on the more relevant ads but less cash come the end of the day. Still doing great though. Wondering if I should abandon the ad targeting and be greedy for the $$$$.

 

I don't bother with targetting, 95% of my pages serve relevant ads without it.

 

Yes, most of my pages target automatically, as well. It's just a few high volume pages that concern me.
But, my original post of this thread may be full of poup!

Today, I am seeing the YPN Ad Targeting feature working in REAL TIME!!!
I change category, I get the new category ads.
I change category again, I get the new category ads, RIGHT NOW!
Sometimes the ads are way off, but I GET TO SEE THEM!
Fantastic! Give it a shot. You can only gain.

I know what I am going to be doing today - test, test, test.
Who knows if this will last. I'm gonna get while the gettin' is good.
If this continues, I'm going 80% YPN! (Currently at 45%)

You might want to disregard what I said in the first post.

I believe that dumping the RON ads is essential.
Currently, my ad block list is -
ww*.borrellassociates.com
ww*.comcastoffers.com
ww*.ebay.com
ww*.florist.com
ww*.ftd.com
ww*.lendingtree.com
ww*.lowermybills.com
ww*.nextag.com
ww*.shopping.com
ww*.vonage.com
Some folks have reported that they can't block these ads. They block instantly and permanently for me. I don't know why others cannot block them.

 

Thanks for the block list. I am new to this whole web advertising thingy and I thank you for your good feedback in various threads!

 

Surf_Dude,

The Ad Targetting categories are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the targetting algorithms used by YPN. There are many more than 150 categories that a page can be classified into. However, it would probably be unwieldy to construct a UI to browse a substantially larger heirarchy.

 

Surf_Dude Did you see an increase of loss of revenue from blocking all them RON ads ?
I found out that on some sites it seems numerous lower paying ads appeard, and. Maybe like AdSense, the RON ads they show are the high paying generics, and blocking them hurts. Your feedback please on what you've experienced after blocking them. Thanks

 

kscaldef -
There are currently exactly 132 ad categories in YPN, which I have listed here -
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/adsense-vs-ypn.htm
And I agree that it could get pretty unwieldy, up at about 500, which still is not enough. A "category" cannot serve everyone, but "keyword phrase" targeting can. I think that YPN uses keyword targeting NOW, but within each "category".


bluegill_catcher -
It's hard to say due to daily variation.
However, my YPN daily revenue is steadily rising.
Plus all my targeting experiments, and migrating more pages from AdSense.
I could probably tell you more on Friday.

Right now I would have to say, "It didn't hurt".
But maybe it did, and I don't realize it, because what may have been lost was masked by increases due to all my other actions.

Talk about "mealymouthed"!

My theory is that I would rather have targeted ads which give long-term higher CTR, than high-paying untargeted ads that get VERY OLD, VERY QUICKLY, and produce ad blindness, and only mistake clicks, and perhaps a few drunken clicks. I think that sustainable is the key word here. We will see.

 

I have noticed the targeting changes react immediately, as well. Still, no matter what catagories I play with I am not getting the kind of ads I feel my visitors will actually "see". Or, sometimes I will see some great ads for a day, only to have them forced out by the RON ads the next day.

My CTR is dismal. Honestly frightening. Yes, my earnings are up 10x over Adsense, but I still dream about having the volume of clicks I used to have.

I'd love more feedback from those of you blocking RON ads as you gather more of an opinion about the practice.

 

Sorry if I wasn't entirely clear. There are indeed only 132 categories exposed in the Ad Targetting system. However, there are many, many more categories that the semantic targetting algorithms can classify a page into.

 

I have about 6 RON ads filtered out, and so far, 12 hours later there are two, that refuse to filter, and appear almost on all of my sites, the vonage ads.

I have them filtered as: vonage.com and now as www.vonage.com and they still show

So maybe as some folks reported it's difficult or impossible to get some to stop, if they don't have enough ads or something to show.....

 

Hey Bluegill,

It should be possible to block RON like any other ad, by putting the site host (exactly) into your blocklist.

People have reported problems blocking one RON advertiser because their site host contains a funny character.

Also people have reported problems with their block lists for some reason not getting into the production system.

I would call customer service if you cannot block the RON ads, and see if they can help.

 

The Yahoo site says it can take up to 48 hours to block an ad. Usually it doesn't take so long, but it can even take longer. I contacted Yahoo after 48 hours and they they knew it was taking longer. They did block it on the 3rd day.

 

"Sorry if I wasn't entirely clear. There are indeed only 132 categories exposed in the Ad Targetting system. However, there are many, many more categories that the semantic targetting algorithms CAN classify a page into." . . . kscaldef

Perhaps. But they don't, do they?

"Can" means "could", right?
As an old, highly respected co-worker, Bob Bosnyak of Sun Micro, once chided me -
"Would, could, should, might,
Weasel words are always right!"

Sorry. Just couldn't resist.