I spoke with a member of the customer service team at YPN today and talked at length with one of the customer service team members with regard to a shortcoming currently in existence with the YPN beta model. Currently--provided you are within the the TOS and not using an account "illegally" (non-US based publisher, pigging backing on another's account using a purchased account, etc.)--the only real chance of account termination, per YPN, is low quality traffic. However, in speaking with the customer service team member, he indicated that there is no warning system in place for low quality traffic, only termination. Therefore, I urged him to bring up at the next meeting, and I encourage all those publishers who share the sentiment I expressed in my follow-up email to him, to contact YPN and request the same enhancement. After all, what is beta for if not for givign Yahoo this type of feedback? The follow-up email: "There are many very honest publishers that want to make sure that the advertisers who advertise on the publisher's site (via Yahoo) are making money off the traffic they are being sent by the publisher. Publishers do understand the nature of business and if consumers aren't paying advertisers, then advertisers can't pay yahoo, and yahoo can't pay us. Simple economics. (Of course, the advertiser has a responsiblity to sell products that consumer want and market them effectively, so the responsibility for the whole system working is upon each individual in the system and not just the publisher). But what I am requesting of the beta team as far as the publisher's responsibility is concerned is to put measures in place for all publishers (starting with the biggest accounts), to be given feedback with regard to traffic quality. Truthfully it is a frightful situation for a publisher to be in, to be incurring operating expenses running a website, when at any moment his account could be terminated for a situation that he has no information over. It is better business to share adverse traffic-quality information with publishers so they can do whatever they can do within their power to change the situation. I suggest that minimally there should be a warning system in place and even better than that, an ongoing feedback system put in place for publishers to monitor account performance. There are many responsible (NOT criminal) publishers out here that would like to take as much responsiblity for consumers paying advertisers and thereby keep Yahoo's best interest in mind simultaneously. If you look up the Latin root of affiliate, it is "adopted son". There are many publisher's, as affiliates, who would like to sahre Yahoo's concerns (revenue from advertisers) and really make this a mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship. A feedback system (rather than "Sorry! Your acccount has been terminated due to low quality traffic.") should absolutely be implemented ASAP. Please pass on my concerns to the relevant executives at your next meeting. And thanks gain for your time. I can also post the same on the Y!PN forums to encourage other publishers to voice their concerns with regard to this. " So if you share my views, please write them under "send us a note" "Enhancement request". And trust me, those of you who are worried about this arousing a sleeping dog, may wind up with that very same dog rousing anyway and biting your @ss!
Read the YPN program policies & TOS. They can terminate you for any reason they see fit. When you signed up for the beta you agreed to it. Life's tough.
while a noble cause, ypn has much bigger issues to deal with then figuring out and implementing a way to inform publishers that their traffic is not converting well for their advertisers or that a publisher may be in danger of termination. their biggest concerns right now are to get the bugs worked out and get out of beta. they know that as long as they are limited to the beta model that they cannot hope to compete with G. they also know that coming out before fixing their major issues would ruin any chance they have of creating a quality product with a good reputation. They have been working and will continue to work on system wide aspects to their program such as targetting, reporting and other more essentials. working on a feedback system like the one you describe (and to be truthful, i also suggested something very similar to them a while ago and posted here the same as you) would be a complete waste of their time. it would require a huge amount of resources to develop such a system to hold a publishers hand as they walk across the street. they are not in short supply of willing publishers nor are they begging people to please stay and use their system. i doubt they just terminate on the fly and more likely terminate after carefully examining all aspects of a publishers account. while they may use such blanket reasons as low quality traffic, there likely is much more to it than that. i mean think of it this way. would you rather they spend the next 6 months coming up with a warning system or would you rather they fix their major issues, get out of beta, and compete in the real world. ok, that was a loaded question. i would rather they stay in beta where competition is low. but, from their point, i think my point is made. jmo
While your overall point is taken, and quite a good one, I beg to differ on one issue. My guess is that they have some sort of rudimentary flagging system already in place that whomever manages quality control already uses. Passing that information on to publishers would not take even one programmer 6 weeks to do, let alone 6 months. My point therefore is simply, if it's easy, and it likely is, why not do it? It would give them an edge for their publisher network over the 800 lb Googilla in the market and Yahoo needs to differentiate themselves somehow if they hope to actually compete (*even with all other issues resolved*). Tighter relationships with publishers would be one way to acheieve a potential market advantage. Your point of prioritizing the issues is well taken, however I still think this is one area honest publisher's should be interested in voicing, since it essentially is the only way (given no TOS monkey-business) that a publisher can be booted.
i agree with you for the most part. i just dont think they do. i think their priorities are in the pockets of their advertisers and not in the satisfaction of their publishers. publishers are a dime a dozen, with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, waiting for the "privilage" of joining. advertisers are opting out left and right and directly affecting yahoo where it hurts the most... their bottom line. jmo
YPN has a long way to go to be as flexible as Adsense. I'd much prefer them to work on narrowing the gap.
Read the post before you respond .. or don't respond at all. PS: Life is even tougher when you don't even read the post.
I think till they don't improve targeting to even higher level, They can't come out from beta....major problem? If you put adsense, they show related ads quickly but for YPN, you think it shows after week? on some pages, yes. not on all. Thx