Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

On March 12th, Yahoo Search Marketing rolled out new targeting options to provide more control to you as a pay-per-click (PPC) advertiser. Here’s a quick recap of the new targeting capabilities:

1. Enhanced Geo-targeting: you now have the ability to pick more than one geo-targeting option. You can pick different geo-targets by AdGroup or campaign, as well as mix-and-match options. You can also chose to do premium bidding for one target area. For example, you advertise to the entire state of California, but you know you do really well in the LA area. You can choose to bid higher (by percentage or dollar amount) in the LA area.
2. Day-Parting (Ad Scheduling): something we’ve been requesting here at JumpFly for awhile is the ability for Yahoo to automatically turn on and off your campaigns based on time of day. This works particularly well for those who receive many phone calls and want to make sure that they have someone available to answer those calls, or to make sure you don’t run out of budget when your target audience is online and searching. Yahoo took it a step further and allows you to schedule your ads based on your account’s time zone OR the searcher’s time zone (which works well for scenario two above). Another nice feature is that you can schedule this on the campaign or AdGroup level. Unfortunately, they chose to do it by the hour level only, so no half or quarter hours, but it’s a start!
3. Demographic Targeting: you can now target your desired audience, whether by age or gender, and premium bid to them. Something to know is that it does not allow you to exclude any demographic audience, except for those 17 and under. But if you know your best target is a female you can premium bid to females, or if you know that the age target is 25 to 29, you can premium bid to them. Keep in mind if your best target is a female age 25 to 29, it will combine the premium bids; if you set your premium bid at $.50 for a female, and $.50 for ages 25 to 29, it will actually bid $1.00 more for a female age 25 to 29.
4. Better Reporting: Yahoo also is rolling out better reporting options so you can run reports on demographics, dayparting and geo-targeting.

It will be great to see how these improvements pan out over the next few weeks, but I’m encouraged by the changes Yahoo has made and hope they continue to improve.

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According to a recent blog from Yahoo, they have been testing a new service called Rich Ads that lets advertisers add video, images and custom search boxes to Yahoo search ads (view example). The results appear as “Promotional Results” that can combine the relevance of search with the impact of rich media.  A small group of advertisers tested it in the fourth quarter of 2008 and saw click-through rates (CTRs) rise by as much as 25%. Yahoo further states that these advertisers have also seen improved brand exposure and conversion rates.

The Rich Ads in Search program is currently only being shared with a small number of brand advertisers at this time and enables them to:

• Post images and video, which can increase the branding impact of search advertising.
• Create deep links to relevant pages, which can help drive conversions directly from the Yahoo! search results page.
• Include boxes within the listing that lets users search for their desired product or a store location directly without additional navigation.
• Show their logo, which enhances user trust.

This service should eventually be available to all advertisers. The Rich Ads appear as “Promotional Results” next to the search listing.

I suspect that we are in the midst of the Great Online Video Revolution. YouTube has already taken the world by storm and has been testing video advertising with YouTube Sponsored Videos. However, Google has not yet made the jump to include video ads within search results. However, I suspect it is just a matter of time. Yahoo is first to market with this concept, but if and when Google chooses to move, they will likely takeover the online video advertising market. It will be fun to watch this evolve over the next several years. If you are looking for custom web video production, Webivore has done a nice job with videos for several of our clients.

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Yahoo chose its new CEO, Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz (view Carol’s resume at Autodesk.com). Yahoo lured Bartz, 60, from Autodesk Inc., which specializes in making design software for architects and engineers. Bartz was CEO from 1992 through 2006, when she became executive chairman. Autodesk is just about half the size of Yahoo, with approximately 7,000 employees worldwide.

Bartz is also on the board of directors for Cisco Systems Inc. with Jerry Yang and is also a member of the Intel Corp. board with Yahoo President Susan Decker, who also interviewed for the CEO position. In fact, Yahoo announced that Decker will resign after a transitional period. Wow, guess she’s angry.

Chairman Roy Bostock said Bartz “is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the board was looking for, and we are thrilled to have attracted such a world-class talent to Yahoo. She is admired in the Valley as well as on Wall Street for her deep management expertise, strong customer orientation, excellent people skills, and firm understanding of the challenges facing our industry.”

Bostock added that the board “thanks Sue (Decker) for her service as President, the important contributions she has made to Yahoo’s development in a variety of roles over the past 8 1/2 years, and her willingness to work with Carol Bartz to ensure a smooth transition. We respect her decision to move on to other challenges and wish her only the best.”

Bartz’s appointment already sparked renewed speculation of negotiations with Microsoft, who continues to proclaim they are very interested in Yahoo’s search division. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who tried and failed to buy Yahoo last year, publicly said in the past few weeks that a search deal with Yahoo should be made when there is a management transition at both companies. Microsoft late last year hired a former Yahoo search executive to lead its Internet business.

Microsoft is feverishly working to prevent Google from getting 100% of all online search queries. If Google continues to gain market share as they have in the past, it won’t be much longer until they are there! Recent data from HitWise indicates that Google has once again increased their market share in the month of December.

At this point, one must wonder if Microsoft or Yahoo has a shot at competing with Google, together or on their own. Of course, at one point, AOL basically controlled the entire online population, so things certainly do change, and fast.

Investors did not react much to this news yesterday, but many discouraged Yahoo investors have likely already thrown in the towel at this point. Yahoo announces earnings on January 27th, so we’ll see if they have anything to say about Microsoft by then. It will also be interesting to see how PPC advertising is weathering the economic storm.

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