A note about why you might not want to only use Google Analytics to report revenue: Google Analytics attributes a conversion to “last touch” while Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search attribute it to “first touch.” What that means is if someone came to your website on a Monday through a paid ad, and didn’t buy anything, then returned a week later (either through a bookmark and manually typing in your URL) and bought something, Google Analytics would count that conversion as a Direct referral (the last way they came to your site), while AdWords and Sponsored Search would attribute it to PPC (the first way they came to your site).

It’s not a big deal when the vast majority of your visitors order on their first visit, but becomes a big deal when a large percentage of them don’t. I have several clients where over 50% of their visitors don’t buy on that first visit, which makes PPC look like it doesn’t perform that well. Once you factor in those “first touch” conversions, PPC certainly is a much more important piece of the marketing puzzle.

So back to how you track revenue in Yahoo Sponsored Search… I have to give Yahoo credit – they beat Google on this by including revenue right in the normal screens you use to manage your Yahoo Sponsored Search campaigns. Google only reports revenue on their actual reports, which makes it more of a pain to manage; Not impossible, just not as easy to analyze and then make quick changes.

To track Yahoo Sponsored Search revenue, you’ll just need to add one more tiny bit of code to your conversion tracking. Replace where I have ORDER.SUBTOTAL with your dynamically generated Order Subtotal field into this line of your Yahoo Sponsored Search Analytics code (You can also do Order Total, but I recommend doing the Subtotal which excludes tax and shipping, for a more accurate picture of your revenue.):

window.ysm_customData.conversion = “transId=,currency=,amount=ORDER.SUBTOTAL“;

That’s it. Pretty simple and pretty powerful. Now you can actually see what kind of revenue your Yahoo Sponsored Search campaigns are actually generating, and then make better informed decisions about where your PPC advertising dollars should be spent.

A note on this: I attempted to do it for a client that uses a Volusion cart and processes credit cards offline (meaning they don’t actually process the credit card at the time of order, but do it manually at a later time), but this won’t work for them. I’m guessing that this will hold true for any shopping cart; if you don’t process credit cards in real-time, it won’t work. In fact, for this client, it also prevented the number of conversions from tracking.

One last note: Unfortunately, MSN AdCenter does not have the same functionality. Here’s hoping they get that solved before they take over supplying Yahoo’s paid ads.

If you need help getting Yahoo Sponsored Search Revenue Tracking implemented and/or analyzed, contact a reputable PPC management company for assistance.

Difference 1: Their Names: Yahoo calls their keyword exclusion tool ”excluded words” and Google calls it “negative keywords.”

Difference 2: Where They Are Put in the Account: Yahoo lets you put excluded words on the account level and/or the AdGroup level, while Google allows you to put negative keywords on the Campaign and/or AdGroup (note to Yahoo – Campaign level excluded terms are a must!).

Difference 3: How they actually work: The way the excluded/negative terms work is vastly different at Google and Yahoo, and can be a bit confusing.

First Google: you can enter negative keywords as broad, phrase and/or exact match. Adding a negative keyword as broad match prevents your ad from showing when that term is used anywhere in a search phrase, and exact match negative keywords will prevent that specific term from displaying your ad. Example: the broad negative keyword is bouquet – your ad will not show for any search with the word bouquet in it. For a phrase match example, if the negative keyword is the phrase “balloon bouquet” then your ad will not show for a search for balloon bouquet delivery, or cheap balloon bouquet; and if the negative keyword is [balloon], your ad will not show on any search for just the word balloon, but will show for the search balloons.

Now Yahoo, on the other hand, works very differently. If I was to exclude the word balloon, my ads would not show if someone were to search on just the term balloon or even balloons, UNLESS I was also advertising on the term balloon. If I exclude the term balloon, but advertise on the term helium balloon, my ad WILL show. Another example, if I exclude the term bouquet and am not advertising on any term that has bouquet in it, and someone were to search on balloon bouquet, the PPC ads would not show.

Powerful tools with fundamental differences can trip you up if you don’t know how they work. Using these tools incorrectly can cost you clicks, visitors & sales. Having a PPC management company like JumpFly who understands when to use these tools and how they can impact your account for good or bad is important.

View more JumpFly articles about Negative Match.

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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.

More about Nikki

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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I haven’t read them in quite a while, so I took some time to scan through the T&C. Pretty much dry, boring legal-ese except for one paragraph that I found very, very interesting:
“OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request. If you would like any of such changes reversed, please reply to such email within 14 days of the change(s), and we will make commercially reasonable efforts to reverse the change(s) you specifically identify. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made. It is your responsibility to monitor your account(s) and to ensure that your account settings are consistent with your business objectives.”

Wow. You mean to tell me Yahoo can go ahead and make changes to an account whenever they want and without contacting you to find out what your goals are for your account? I’m sitting here, trying to think of a word that adequately conveys exactly what I think of this policy, and all the words I’m coming up with are not fit for posting. It seems extremely irresponsible to me that Yahoo thinks they can add or delete search terms, and write new ads for someone they’ve never even spoke to. And then have the audacity to notify that company by email and only send them the changes if they are requested AND THEN only give them 14 days to request that it be put back.

And if you do request the change, they will only put forth “commercially reasonable” effort. Commercially reasonable? What does that mean? What if they commercially screwed things up for that client? Whose definition of commercially reasonable applies?

All I can say is thankfully our JumpFly clients have been opted out of such a crazy possibility. I can tell you that if I was on the receiving end of some Yahoo change, I’d be pretty upset if it didn’t work and I couldn’t go back to how my account was.

More about Nikki

Failed Microsoft Buyout

Things became particularly interesting for Yang about six months back, when Microsoft attempted an unsolicited buyout for roughly $33 per share, which was a generous premium to Yahoo’s $19 stock price at that time.  Unfortunately for Yahoo shareholders, at least in the short term, Yang vocally resisted this opportunity and took measures to ensure that it would not come to be. Today, Yahoo’s stock price sits under $9 per share just six months later, the lowest level since 2003.

Microsoft might come back to the table, but just yesterday Steve Ballmer said, “We’ve moved on,” during a shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington. He reiterated that a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo in the Internet-search market is “an interesting possibility.” However, Ballmer added that there are no talks about such a partnership at this time.

Google Backs Out of Partnership

Some are speculating that the final blow to Yang recently came from Google, who backed out of a proposed ad partnership to avoid a potential anti-trust battle with the Justice Department.

YouTube Surpasses Yahoo

Earlier this week, Comscore data revealed that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second most popular search service, receiving 2.6 billion search queries in August, 2008 compared to Yahoo’s 2.4 billion queries. The rapidly growing online video marketplace represents yet another area that Google dominates.

In a memo emailed to Yahoo employees Monday announcing his resignation, Yang wrote, “All of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. I will always do what I think is right for this great company. While this step will be an adjustment for all of us, I know it’s the right one.”

Yahoo needs to do something in order to prevent their one time search engine dominance from deteriorating into obscurity. Yahoo still boasts 500 million users worldwide, but increasingly every month, more and more are turning to Google for their search needs.

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Or you can run a PPC campaign with Google AdWords, or Yahoo Search Marketing, or MSN AdCenter, and show your ads to precisely those people who are already looking for your product or service! Obviously, there are other reasons why you wan to run newspaper ads or television campaigns, but PPC advertising really should be a part of your marketing efforts. Yes, there is an expense involved, but that’s true of any type of advertising, and I’m hard-pressed to find any other type of advertising that is more directly focused on the exact type of customer you want for a business. By putting a keyord term or search phrase into a search box, these folks are looking for you so you should be doing whatever you can to help them find you — and that means running an online pay per click campaign.

Of course, at JumpFly we have a vested interest in pay-per-click advertising because our business is to help others manage their ppc campaigns, but we also run our own PPC campaigns because we believe in the value of it and we have seen excellent new partnerships and clients result directly from our own use of pay-per-click marketing. We’re always looking for new customers, too. If you’ve been hesitant or unsure about using pay per click marketing for your business, I encourage you go give it a try. Even if you don’t want or need JumpFly’s services, we have seen such incredible results with other business owners that I encourage you to at least give it a try. Your holiday sales figures might turn out much better than you hoped for if you do.

Learn more about Jack

The blog states, “… after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.”

In response, Yahoo! said it was disappointed by Google’s decision and maintained that the abandoned partnership would have been beneficial for everyone. Yahoo! just lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual revenue that would have resulted from the deal. Yahoo!’s statement also said that they are, “disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court.”

Several analysts speculate that losing the Google deal will make Yahoo! more likely to revisit a possible deal with, or outright buyout from Microsoft. Details of the Google-Yahoo! partnership put up significant barriers to a Microsoft buyout – barriers that no longer remain. Yahoo!’s stock price finished up today despite the DOW plunging 486 points, likely due to investor speculation and hopes for renewed buyout potential. We’ll see how this plays out, but I’m confident that Microsoft execs are talking about this situation as I type. Tic toc. Tic toc. Time will tell if Microsoft will come back to the table. In the meantime, Google continues to expand their search dominance.

Learn about Brad

Yahoo Minimum Bids Increasing

Yahoo has been periodically raising minimum pay-per-click (PPC) bids on various keywords, and to me, there is no rhyme or reason. Some minimums are only being raised a small amount, like ten cents. But some of the increases are ridiculous including increases of thirty, fifty, even seventy-five cents. Supposedly the minimums are determined by competition – the more competitors, the higher your minimum bid must be (which sounds like a nice way for Yahoo to make more money). It’s also supposed to be determined by how relevant searchers find your ads. The better your CTR versus your competitors, the lower your minimum bid should be.

This doesn’t happen very often, where we have two clients with the same search terms, but I have one situation where this has happened. I have two clients with the same term, and in the last round of changes back in September, both of them were required to increase their minimum bids. Both had a CTR of well over 3%. When I emailed my Yahoo rep to find out about why, I was told that it was probably because of too much competition. Now when I checked, there was a total of four advertisers on the term. And the minimum bid wasn’t a minor increase, but a really major increase. For one of my clients it went from $.29 to $1.12. The other one was required to go from $.29 to $.86. And now, there’s one lonely (and probably happy) advertiser on this term.

Here’s another instance that really burns me up. I have a client who is advertising on their own URL, which is something we recommend doing. Yahoo wants them to increase their minimum bid from .93 to 1.56. On their own URL.

Another annoyance – we get Minimum Bid Increase notices on keywords in old campaigns that haven’t run for a long time and are paused. It would be nice if Yahoo would take into consideration that paused campaigns don’t need to have notices sent. The only thing to do to stop the notices is to delete the keywords or campaigns, because Yahoo doesn’t care if the search terms themselves are paused.

I don’t know if Yahoo has noticed an actual decrease in revenue, but a lot of the bid increases that Yahoo is making are souring my clients on Yahoo even more than they have been in the past. Most of them are spending LESS on Yahoo than before, because some of the bid minimums are so ludicrious that it doesn’t make advertising on them worth it. They should take a look at what Google is doing – they’re doing AWAY with inactive bids, and Google keeps gaining share, not losing it.

Something else to keep in mind: just because you’ve gone through a round of bid minimum changes in the past doesn’t mean you won’t get them this time. Make sure to keep an eye out for the email, and continue to check your Yahoo account for them, because there’s no rhyme or reason on when and what keywords might get flagged. And once they’re flagged, you need to determine the ROI on the increase so you can decide if you’re willing to pay the price or respectfully decline by deleting the keyword.

Learn more about Nikki

Yesterday, Yahoo, Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported that revenues were $1.7 billion for the third quarter of 2008, a 1% increase compared to the same period of 2007 (view press release). As the stock price hovers near $12 today, investors can only fantasize about revisiting the recently missed opportunity Yahoo rejected to sell to Microsoft for $47.5 billion, or just about $33 per share. One might think that Microsoft could yet be interested. If they liked Yahoo at $47.5 billion, then the current market capitalization of $17.5 billion must look like a steal! There are plenty of articles out there examining the overall earnings numbers, but I want to focus specifically on what these numbers mean to the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising industry.

Deeper Investigation Reveals Strength in PPC Search Engine Advertising

Search generated revenues from Yahoo’s owned and operated websites (O & O) were $438 million for the third quarter of 2008, a 16% increase compared to $375 million for the same period of 2007 (view report provided by Yahoo). This number is significant because it verifies ongoing strength in the PPC advertising industry. Yahoo was able to pull off this revenue increase despite a decreased year-over-year search query volume. This seems to indicate an increase in what PPC advertisers are spending per click, an increase in the number of advertisers, or both. Though Yahoo showed little or even negative growth in many areas, the demand for PPC advertising at strong brand names like Yahoo and Google clearly remains quite strong and increasing.

Just last week, Google announced a 26% year-over-year increase in earnings. In regards to their paid click revenue, Google said that the number of paid clicks rose 18% compared with the same period a year earlier.

Other Interesting Yahoo Earnings Notes

Yahoo announced a cost-reduction strategy that includes eliminating at least 10% of its roughly 15,000-member workforce. Refer to the Alley Insider for a copy of the actual memo sent to Yahoo staff members. 

Display advertising revenues increased 3% compared to same time period a year earlier but decreased compared to the prior quarter.

Revenue generated from Yahoo’s distribution network decreased from the previous quarter and compared to the same quarter at this time last year.

Learn more about Brad

This is not too surprising based on the increasing opposition this deal continues to face on various fronts. I knew the anti-trust investigation was serious back in July when the Department of Justice contacted us here at JumpFly. Some big organizations in opposition include the World Association of Newspapers, which represents over 18,000 newspapers, and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which represents over 400 companies and 9,000 brands (view previous article and video about this).

Looks to me like this deal is likely not going to ever happen. Google and Yahoo’s combined search market share would be a staggering 83%, a number that more and more parties are not comfortable with. The immediate loser that comes to mind here is Yahoo! as they stood to gain an additional $800 million per year in revenue from this deal. Ouch. However, this was a strange agreement anyway, where two arch- rivals were looking to work together. One winner here is Microsoft, who is hanging on to 8% share of the search market and trying to avoid elimination from the search engine marketing arena. They would love to see this deal permanently tabled. Time will tell, but for now, no deal.

More about Brad

Recent Google News:
Google News Recap – New G1 Phone, Chrome Browser, Stock Madness and More

One way I like to use the watch list in particular is to keep quick tabs on every keyword that has ever tracked a conversion within an account.  That way, even if a keyword doesn’t necessarily trigger a conversion in a certain week, or month, at least I have that quick visual indicator that shows it has triggered a positive action in the past.

If you’ve never used it before, I suggest you give it a spin.  It’s another nice little organizational tool you can use to your advantage.

Perhaps it’s time for both sides to calm down, digest the situation and reconsider working together. After all, it sure looks like Yahoo! needs Microsoft’s help just as badly as Microsoft needs Yahoo!.

Let’s take a look at some recent search query data provided by Compete.com and see who really needs who here. When comparing June, 2008 search traffic numbers to those from June, 2007, there was a 12% decline in actual search queries performed at Yahoo! while Google realized a 44% surge in traffic; That is pretty staggering. Microsoft’s search queries increased, but very little. Based on the 9.1 billion searches performed in June, Google currently dominates search market share receiving 69% of all search queries, followed by Yahoo! with 19% and Microsoft with 8%.

Yahoo!’s one time search query empire has been gradually deteriorating as Google takes over the market. Yahoo! is dominant in other areas, but could certainly use strategic and financial support from Microsoft. Microsoft could be a great ally in trying to prevent Google from further expanding their reach into all areas of technology. I do not necessarily think a buyout is the best solution, though it might be, but I sure think a partnership like the one that had been previously discussed might be wise.

Microsoft needs to increase its Internet presence in order to survive in the future and Yahoo! offers a unique opportunity. Google is already encroaching on Microsoft’s core software business via their free online applications. Microsoft is well aware of Google’s threat in various areas and must do something soon. With Yahoo!’s stock price back to pre-discussion levels and the influence of Carl Icahn who now sits on Yahoo!’s Board of Directors, renewed talks would certainly not surprise me.

Google has already prepared an argument regarding the possibility of Yahoo! and Microsoft partnering, which is a bit ironic since Google has gone on to partner with Yahoo! themselves. We’ll still have to see if the Department of Justice decides to let that deal go through. Until then, I suggest that the powers that be at Microsoft and Yahoo! regroup and reconsider. Hey guys, you both need to do something. The Google Empire has arrived. Clearly, resisting independently has not been working. Perhaps it’s time to try something new.

What many PPC advertisers don’t realize is that they are not even charged for 12%-15% of the clicks coming in from their Yahoo! PPC campaigns.  If Yahoo! cannot determine the validity of a click, or if they discover a blatant pattern of misuse from a user, they will then discard those clicks as invalid, even if that click brings you a conversion!  Yahoo! would rather error on the side of caution for the benefit of the advertising community than charge advertisers for a click that has the possibility of being an invalid click.  They have a highly dedicated team in place who are constantly monitoring this.

There are some interesting changes coming from Yahoo!, which I am not at liberty to disclose right now, but I am confident that they are moving in the right direction.  More news to come.

Below is Yahoo!’s description of their Traffic Quality Council.

Advertiser Traffic Quality Council
An Advertiser Traffic Quality Council has been assembled to represent the interests of all advertisers regarding traffic quality. These selected advertisers will travel to Yahoo! Search Marketing’s headquarters to meet with the Network Quality teams and provide feedback on how we can continue to enhance our approach to network quality.

I personally have mixed feelings about the potential Yahoo!-Google partnership. It may actually prove to benefit advertisers in the end, as both Yahoo! and Google suggest. “This commercial agreement provides Yahoo! with the opportunity to deliver more relevant ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with better advertising technology to help them succeed in their own businesses,” said Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google. “This agreement will preserve the competitive and dynamic online advertising space.”

Gaining access to Yahoo!’s search traffic certainly puts Google in an amazingly dominant position, but guess what, they are already in an amazingly dominant position! It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out.