Advertisers, Begin Your Account Transitions
You’ll be ready for the expected October move of Yahoo! Search ad serving to adCenter
Last week, we completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada. This week, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account, in anticipation of the Yahoo! ad serving transition which we expect to start mid-October. We encourage you to transition your account before the ad serving transition begins, so that you are ready to reach more than 159 million searchers in the U.S. and 15 million searchers in Canada* on Yahoo! Search, Bing and our partners.
Start your account transition now
Beginning today, you may log in to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account and initiate your transition to Microsoft Advertising adCenter. We’ve created a detailed Transition Checklist that you should review now, to help ensure that you’re prepared to make a smooth transition to adCenter, as well as a Feature Comparison Guide, to help you get familiar with adCenter’s features and capabilities.
There are three stages to completing your transition:
1) Prepare your account for transition to adCenter
When you log into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account, you’ll automatically be taken to a new tab labeled “adCenter.” We recommend that you review your Compatibility Report, and fix incompatibilities between your current Yahoo! campaigns and the adCenter platform before starting the transition to adCenter.
2) Transition your account to adCenter
When you begin your transition, you’ll be able to create a new adCenter account, or indicate that you have an existing adCenter account that you want to continue to use. If you choose, you can use the transition tool to copy your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns over to adCenter. Please note that your campaigns will retain the same status (active or paused) as they have within your Yahoo! account, so you may start incurring click charges for Bing traffic right away.
3) Continue to manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account
The last stage in the transition process will occur when Yahoo! Search ad serving moves to adCenter, which we expect to begin in mid-October and be completed by the end of October. During this period, you should expect traffic from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to decrease, and increase in your adCenter account. But until this process is complete, you’ll still need to actively manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to have your ads displayed on Yahoo! and our partner sites.
Commitment to quality continues
Our primary goal remains providing you with a quality transition experience in 2010, while protecting the holiday season. While we are confident that the preparation work done to date and the transition plan we are moving forward with now will help us reach this goal, please remember that deferring the paid search transition to 2011 is still a possibility if we conclude it would improve the overall experience.
We appreciate your business, and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.
— The Team
* Source: comScore qSearch (custom), June 2010
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Yahoo! Organic Search Transition to Microsoft Now Complete
What this means for you
Big news from the Yahoo! Search blog today—we’ve completed the work of transitioning certain back-end functions for Yahoo! Search over to the Microsoft platform.
So what does this mean for you? As we noted in an earlier post, if ranking well in organic search results is important to your business, here are three tips for you:
- Review your organic search rankings on Yahoo! Search for the keywords that work best for you and note any differences in your rank, now that the results are being powered by Bing.
- Decide if you’d like to modify your paid search campaigns to compensate for any changes in organic referrals that you anticipate.
- Review the Bing webmaster tools and optimize your website for the Microsoft platform crawler, as Bing listings will be displayed for approximately 30% of search queries after this change, according to comScore.
For more on the organic search transition, see the FAQs for self-service advertisers at the Yahoo! Transition Center.
— The Team
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Important Updates on Search Transitions
Organic transition beginning this week; paid search transition testing happening now
As we continue to work toward implementing the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, we’ve reached some very significant milestones and wanted to share this important news with you.
Yahoo! organic search transition to begin
Later this week, we will begin the work of transitioning the back-end technology for Yahoo! Search over to the Bing platform. This is an important step toward our goal of improving the overall relevance of Yahoo! organic search results and attracting a larger audience to Yahoo! Search, to ultimately put your ads in front of more potential customers.
You’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change, so be sure to check out these tips and stay tuned to the Yahoo! Search blog for confirmation of when the organic search transition is complete.
Testing of paid search account transitions has begun
Soon, you’ll be able to access a transition portal from within your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. This portal will walk you through the simple step-by-step process of creating a Microsoft Advertising adCenter account and importing your campaigns, or linking an existing adCenter account that you may already have.
Before we make this transition portal broadly available to all advertisers in the weeks ahead, we are currently testing it with a limited number of accounts. You will be notified via email once the transition portal is available.
Commitment to a quality transition continues
As we’ve stated all along, our primary goal is to provide you with a quality transition experience in 2010, while protecting the holiday season. We continue to make great strides toward this goal, and we evaluate our progress every day. However, please remember that if we conclude that it would improve the overall experience, we may defer the transition to 2011.
We’re looking forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance!
— The Team
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A Virtual Yahoopalooza at SES
Meet top Yahoos at Search Engine Strategies, San Francisco, August 17–19
This is going to be fun.
Search Engine Strategies, the undisputed Lollapalooza of search marketing conferences, comes to San Francisco for the first time next week. Along with thousands of marketers and agency professionals with whom to network and schmooze, the conference offers opportunities to learn search marketing strategies for all levels from entry to over-experienced.
And Yahoo! will be there in force, because search is a part of our core being, woven throughout the Yahoo! Network, helping you reach audiences at a vast scale.
What: Search Engine Strategies
Where: Moscone Center, San Francisco
When: August 17 – 19, 2010
Why: Because search marketing is ever-evolving and you’d better evolve with it if you’re going to keep your results on top—and because you’ll have a swell time meeting and greeting others in this vibrant field
Some Yahoo! highlights:
Tuesday, August 17
Search: Where to Next?
11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President, Search Products
Digital Asset Optimization
1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Josh Cobb, Sr. Director, Americas/Business Development & Partnerships Group
Price-per-Click (PPC) Lab
3:00 p.m.–5:15 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: David Roth, Director of Search Marketing
Developing Great Content
4:15 p.m.–5:15 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Wendi Sturgis, Vice President, North America, Business Development and Partnership Group
Wednesday, August 18
Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap from Search to Display
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Dave Zinman, Vice President and General Manager, Display Advertising
Getting Mobilized Marketing Strategies
1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Paul Cushman, Senior Director, Mobile Sales Strategy
Thursday, August 19
Social and the Marketing Mix
2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Bobby Figueroa, Vice President, Product Development
Advanced Paid Search Tactics
4:45 p.m.–5:45 p.m.
The Yahoo! on Tap: Jon Mette, Senior Strategist, Search Optimization and Strategy
Party time, and we’re buying!
All work and no play…well, you know the rest. To help you celebrate your search success, Yahoo! and Bing will host a networking cocktail reception on Tuesday evening, August 17, at 5:15 p.m. in the Expo Reception Hall. Join us for libations, shop-talk, gossip and more. And be sure to visit us at booth 312.
Can’t be there in person?
We’ll be tweeting (#sessf), posting to Facebook, uploading snaps to our Flickr page, blogging and taking video at these and other SES events, so you won’t miss a thing.
Helpful hint: If you do come, dress warmly, San Francisco is experiencing one of the coldest summers on record.
— Michael Mattis
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Back-to-School Ad Tips
Adjust your ads and keywords for maximum results this shopping season
It might seem like summer just started, but, as always, consumer minds soon turn to what comes next. Before you know it, summer fun ends, and kids and adults alike have to prepare to go back to school.
Back-to-school is big
According to the National Retail Foundation’s 2010 Back-to-School survey, conducted by BIGresearch, the average American family is planning to increase its back-to-school spending to $606.40 this year, up from $548.72 in 2009. And, according to the survey, 30.8% of families plan to do their back-to-school shopping online this year.
The Yahoo! Buzz Index shows that searches for “back to school” and related keywords rise dramatically in July and peak in August. This is when people are most on the lookout for school supplies like textbooks, laptop computers, backpacks, uniforms, calculators, dorm accessories, fashionable teen clothing and more.
Give shoppers their own back-to-school assignment
Want to know a surprising fact? Online back-to-school shoppers love deadlines—in a way. Just think: Remember all those nights you spent cramming for the big test or writing that term paper the night before it was due? Consumers can feel the same way about making “un-fun” purchases.
So how can retailers get past consumer reluctance to purchase the unexciting things that they clearly need? Give them a due date, just as teachers give them to their students.
Offer sales and promotions to stir action
Web searchers tend to respond well to ads that offer sales and promotions with specific ending dates, because they know they will have to purchase soon to get the special price. These deadlines serve as a call-to-action for targeted customers who really need to make those purchases, and want to get a bargain at the same time. So if you can offer a great back-to-school-themed deal, you might encourage user action with promotional copy that has a clear end date.
But make sure that your date-specific copy is not still running when the deadline has passed—users definitely won’t click when you are telling them that it is already too late to buy.
Other things to keep in mind for back-to-school campaigns:
- Accessories and Keyword Scope: If your product or service is very specific and niche-interest, your ads may not perform well when paired with broad-concept keywords. For example, if you offer laptop carrying cases, your ad may not perform well when paired with a broad keyword like “laptop,” since most searchers on that word want to purchase the computer itself. If you make sure that your keywords are as specific as your products, and that your copy is specifically tailored to those keywords, you are more likely to get targeted clicks and conversions.
- Readin’ & Writin’: Be sure to double-check all of your ads for proper spelling, case, punctuation and grammar. Back-to-school searchers are clearly educated, so keep their confidence with clear copy that impresses.
Remember, sometimes just a little advance homework can give you a back-to-school shopping season that passes the test for retailers and consumers alike!
— Mark Melville, Yahoo! Best Practices Analyst
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Geo vs. Geo
A mysterious stranger offers direction on geographical targeting
Editor’s Note: This is the last in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted January 9, 2009
The following account is a work of fiction. It is the product of too many minutes staring at a blank page, too many Triple Mochas, or perhaps both. But the points it makes about geographical targeting are real, and should be applied to your Sponsored Search account.
The assignment came in from the blog editor: Write a post that explains the differences between the use of the geo-targeting tools in a Yahoo! Search Marketing account, and using “geo-modified” keywords.
At first consideration, this task seemed simple. I was very familiar with both concepts. The geo-targeting tools, which we introduced with the “Panama” platform in 2006 (and enhanced in October 2008), let you target customers located or interested in specific geographical areas. If you want to reach all Canadians, you select Canada. Or you can narrow your geo-targeting all the way down to reach Brandon and Brenda in zip code 90210.
On the other hand, “geo-modifying” a keyword pre-dates Panama. This is where you add a geographical identifier to a search term to match to users who submit queries like “san diego dentist.”
Questions raced across my mind like signposts on a highway: Being able to use geo-targeting, should we still encourage advertisers to geo-modify? Or does that just create double the work? Is there a secret strategy for geographical targeting? And where can I find someone here in Burbank who will give me the straight answers?
The truth is out there
I first pinged a few of my friends in other departments, only to get vague, non-committal answers. Downcast, I was preparing to give my editor the bad news—there’s nothing new to say about this.
Then, upon returning from lunch one day, I spied a small note tucked under a glass paperweight on my desk. I glanced around—no one was nearby. The note read: There’s more to your geo story. Meet me on parking level 4 at 6:00 tonight and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. D.
At 6:00 sharp, I rode the elevator to its nadir. Parking Level 4 is at the bottom of a series of ramps, and eerily empty except for a stray vehicle or two. The elevator car stopped at the bottom, its bell echoing across an acre of empty concrete. I nervously stepped out. The doors slid shut behind me. I didn’t see a soul.
Slowly, I started to walk the perimeter. As I approached a dark corner near a stairwell, I heard the crisp report of a match lighting. I stopped in my tracks. A dark figure raised the match and lit a cigarette dangling from its mouth.
Talking to Daryl
“Are you ‘D’?,” I asked.
“Yes,” replied a raspy voice in a half-whisper. “You can call me Daryl. But I don’t have much time. What do you need to know about geo-targeting?”
I hadn’t imagined that a simple blog post was going to turn into a Woodward and Bernstein caper, but I was determined to get some answers. “With geo-targeting offered in their accounts, should advertisers still ‘geo-modify’ their keywords?”
“ They need to do both,” Daryl replied, taking another drag on his smoke. “But in a campaign where they’re using geo-targeting, they shouldn’t modify their keywords with geographical locations. If they do…” He paused for a moment, seemingly remembering some unfortunate cases. “…bad things can happen.”
A chilly December wind suddenly gusted amongst the columns of Level 4. Then Daryl continued: “Over the years, what has proven to work best is to set up separate campaigns with the same group of keywords—one that uses geo-targeting from the user interface, and a second that adds geo-modifiers to the keywords but does not use geo-targeting. This will ensure that an advertiser receives the maximum amount of traffic.”
I was about to ask another question, but he cut me off: “You want to know why this works?” I nodded my head. “If our systems don’t know where a search user is located, they rely on the geo-modifier to match the search to a relevant ad.”
It was really so simple, I thought. One solution for one situation, a second for a different situation. “One more thing,” said Daryl. “If an advertiser is geo-modifying with a common city name…”
“Springfield,” I muttered.
“Yes,” replied Daryl. “In that situation, they should add the state abbreviation to avoid confusion and poor matches.”
Vanished
“Thank you,” I said, jotting down a few notes. “This is great advice.” But when I looked up again, the shadowy figure was gone. On the ground where he had been standing was a DVD inside a case. A simple label on the front read: “Make sure your readers see this. It reveals more secrets about geo-targeting.”
To see what Daryl left me, click here. And heed his advice, lest your potential customers wind up in a bad place—like Parking Level 4.
— Jeff Hecox
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A Look Ahead at the Transition to Microsoft adCenter
The latest update on the search alliance, and what advertisers will be doing once the transition window opens
As we approach the beginning of the Yahoo! Search Marketing account transitions to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform, we wanted to share more details on what self-service advertisers will be doing to prepare for the changes to come. Here are some things to begin thinking about:
adCenter account creation
Soon, you’ll need to either create a new adCenter account, or link an existing adCenter account to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Later this month, advertisers will see an “adCenter” tab within their Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts. Clicking there will take you to the beginning of the account transition process, where we’ll walk you through the simple steps to create or link accounts.
Budgeting
Once you create your adCenter account, it will be active and your ads will be eligible to serve on Bing right away. As a result, you’ll be managing both your new adCenter account and your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing account in parallel until ad serving for Yahoo! traffic transitions to adCenter, so plan to budget accordingly.
Microsoft Silverlight
Using Microsoft’s Silverlight, a web application framework similar to Adobe Flash, you’ll be able to see and address key differences between your Yahoo! and adCenter accounts as you transition. Download Silverlight now.
The organic search transition
Yahoo! organic (non-paid) search results will be powered by Bing as early as late August. If organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website, you’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change. For more details, check out this earlier blog post.
Yahoo! will email a confirmation to advertisers once the adCenter tab becomes available and the organic search transition is complete. Please note: Advertisers with a Yahoo! account manager will get the direct assistance of their AM for their transition activities.
Additional resources
- Search Alliance Video – For a fun new way to see how the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance can benefit you, watch this animated video.
- Transition Center – The Yahoo! Transition Center includes articles and downloadable materials designed to help Yahoo! advertisers learn more about their transition to adCenter.
We are committed to making this transition as seamless and beneficial for you as possible. We appreciate your business, and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.
— The Team
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Building a Foundation with Strong Keywords
Go wide—with a range of specific and general words and phrases
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted February 3, 2009
[Below is an excerpt from Yahoo!’s Smart Start guide, which is packed with helpful content to assist you in making your campaigns as effective as possible. Whether you’re an expert search marketer or just starting out, the tips from Yahoo!’s “Sharon Goodsense” offer practical search marketing insights. Download Smart Start.]
Want to increase your conversion numbers? You may need to consider bidding on more specific keywords that contain things like the brands you sell and even specific model numbers. This will appeal to searchers who are closer—or ready—to purchase.
Start by looking online—and thinking like a customer
One of the best and easiest places to begin scouting out keywords is right on your web site. Look through all your pages and pick out the words that are most relevant and interesting to your customers.
- Put yourself in searchers’ shoes to come up with all of the possible ways they might be looking for what you offer.
- Consider bidding on keywords for your most profitable products and services first to spend most effectively within your budget.
- Think about what you want your customers to do (like become better informed or make a purchase).
- Review your competitors’ web sites to see what kinds of words they use to talk to customers
- Use the Find Keywords panel, on the left side of the Choose Keywords page in your account, to get possible keywords that relate to the products and services you want to promote.
- For a more advanced way to find keywords, check your web server logs. These logs can tell you what your site visitors are searching for and how they navigate through your web pages.
Customer mindset changes throughout the buying cycle
1) In the research phase…
Customers are usually just gathering information about product categories, product options and different retailers. They use broad or generic search terms during this phase. Keyword examples: television, camera, video game.
2) In the shopping phase…
Customers are comparing and narrowing their purchase options. They use more specific terms when searching during this phase. Keyword examples: plasma television, digital camera, zombie video game.
3) In the purchase phase…
Customers are ready to buy. They often know exactly what they want, and are going to use very specific search terms to find it. Keyword examples: 42” Brand X plasma TV, 8 megapixel digital camera, Zombieslayer II.
Specific keywords are often more effective than general ones
Broad keywords are great for driving traffic to your web site, but can cause you to go through your budget faster. And unfortunately, because they’re used during the research phase, they don’t lead to purchases or sign-ups as often.
To increase your chances of clicks leading to sales, it’s better to bid on more specific or niche keywords. This can slow your spending and potentially improve your results. As you’ll read later, you will need to continually monitor the performance of your keywords to make sure they’re working for your business.
If your keywords all appear to fall into one phase, now’s the time to make some changes. Look through your list of keywords and determine which phase of the buying cycle they apply to, then round out or amend your list so you’re not just focusing all of your effort and spending on one type of customer.
— The Smart Start Team
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Ad News and Views from Around the Web
Online spending up double digits; tweeting at Harvard Biz; hitting the Hispanic market; giggling for Yahoo!, and more
Online ad spending up
Here’s a little silver lining for agencies and publishers: Online ad spending will see double-digit growth, reaching $61.8 billion worldwide this year and $96.8 billion in 2014, according to an eMarketer report cited by AdWeek. Hopefully that rising tide will lift all boats.
Business schools heart social media
You knew it would come to this. One minute you’re tweeting just for fun about how yummy that bagel was this morning, and the next you’re running a comprehensive social media campaign that “leverages the power of peer-to-peer networks to optimize brand evangelism and foment expanded sales opportunities” for your company. Now it’s official, because B-schools like Harvard and Columbia are offering bit-ticket courses in social media marketing, a ccording to BusinessWeek.
What’s more important? Your keywords or landing pages?
Not surprisingly, the answer is that they’re both vital to your efforts. So says Dan Darnell, director of product marketing at Adchemy. Writing on Adotas, Darnell says that too many advertisers focus on either their paid search ads or their websites, when they should be looking at “the contributions of the entire advertising experience—from keyword selection to bids to ad copy to landing pages.” It’s only obvious after someone takes the time to point it out.
Got an ad for that, señor?
As a marketer, would you willingly overlook a potential audience of 50 million Americans? Well, according to AdAge, some one in six U.S. residents are expected to classify themselves as Hispanic in the 2010 Census. It’s a market with a huge potential—the second largest market in the U.S. Don’t speak Spanish? Don’t worry. Nearly half of that 50 million are perfectly comfortable with English. Muy bueno!
Old Spice sales up 107%
It’s an endless debate in the agency world: What kinds of ads are most effective? Groovy, polished, brand-based ads, or simple “buy now and save” ads? Recently, skeptics had bashed Old Spice’s cool “smell like a man” viral online video campaign as ineffective. But, reports AdAge’s David Griner, your father’s deodorant’s sales are up 107 percent over the last 52 weeks. Coincidence? We think not. (Of course, advertising a sale now and then can’t hurt, either.)
Yahoo! giggles
While sitting in your office today, turn the volume on your computer all the way up, go to the Yahoo! homepage, mouse over the exclamation point in the Yahoo! logo and click. If it doesn’t get a giggle from your coworkers you’re working in the wrong place.
Ad man by day, mohel by night?
On an even lighter note, BNET’s Jim Edwards reports that one lucky Twitter bug has landed a $70K-a-year job at the venerable firm of Saatchi & Saatchi for tweeting, well, a circumcision joke. Ouch.
— Michael Mattis
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Free Ship = Good Tip
It’s the wonder offer that works wonders for your sales
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted February 13, 2009
When I was a kid, my grandfather always used to say, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” He’s still right, but today the word “free” doesn’t raise as much of red flag as it did in Gramps’ day. In fact, more and more consumers are recognizing the value of free, especially when it comes to their online purchases and how they’re shipped. Because when it comes to shipping, “free” can be the key that unlocks the door between advertisers and customers.
Determining factor
According to a new study of 9,000 shoppers conducted by ForeSee Results, free shipping had a huge effect on holiday sales in 2008. The study showed that free shipping offers play a major role in whether consumers buy in a store or online, and, when purchasing online, where they shop. Avoiding shipping costs was the third most common response for why shoppers choose to buy in a store rather than on a retail website, behind the ability to receive the product immediately and being able to see or feel an item before purchase.
Additionally, consumers gave retailers offering free shipping higher scores than those not offering it—in every satisfaction category. These categories included likelihood to purchase online, brand commitment, likelihood to return, likelihood to recommend, and overall retailer satisfaction.
How to promote free shipping
All of this adds up to one inescapable conclusion: Free shipping can work wonders. So if you offer this option, be sure to scream it out in all of your ads, because your customers will want to know about and take advantage of it.
This is also true for all of the other special deals you offer, from coupons to discounts to free gift wrapping. If you offer it, let your customers know about it! Free shipping and other special deals are the best first impression you could possibly make on potential customers, as well as a great way of ensuring loyalty in the ones you already have.
One note though: If you offer free shipping but with restrictions—such as minimum order amounts or only on certain items—be sure to make that clear, too. The ForeSee study showed that consumers don’t like surprises when it comes to free shipping, but they’re far more lenient if the rules are explained up front.
In this time of tightening belts and careful finance monitoring, consumers are more careful than ever about where their dollars are going. Free shipping is a great way to ease consumer concerns and grow customer loyalty at the same time.
— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst
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Ad News and Views from Around the Web
Right Media Open; social gets “searchy;” online video’s the new deal; not so Old Spice and more
Right Media, right now
If you haven’t been following the Right Media Open conference in Chicago happening now on Twitter, you should be. It’s been pretty knock-down and drag-out, with the feathers flying, to use a couple hackneyed yet appropriate turns of phrase. Among the choice tweets from our intrepid reporter:
- DJakubowski asks why Google didn’t attend Search/Display panel. Do they want last click attribution model to continue?
- G Fulgoni says the interactive industry has not sold itself as a branding medium.
- McGrory—RM/Yahoo! extending supply side RTB beyond Yahoo! to publishers. Demand Media is in!
- Mike Brunick admits that agencies have not evolved as fast as they should. “A system managing efficiency is tablestakes.”
Social gets “searchy:” the urge to converge
Edelman Digital VP, Steve Rubel, quoted by Christopher Hosford in B2B, says that social is about to get “searchy.” We just love that term. The full quote: “Search is an intent-driven medium, where users seek out what they want. Social networking is where the content finds you through the lens of friends. Those two are separate, but I think we’ll see a real convergence here where search will get a lot more social and social will get a lot more ‘searchy.’” Searchy. We just like saying it.
Online video ads to explode
And by “explode” we don’t mean literally blow up, but grow really, really fast. According to an eMarketer report cited in AdWeek, the video ad market is expected to grow more than 48% this year alone. Four years from now, eMarketer expects the online video ad market to by worth $5.5 billion, up from $1.5 billion this year.
Old Spice, new life
The new buzz phrase is “heritage brands.” These are brands with a lot of history behind them, like Butterfinger and Quaker Oats, that have gone online for a little re-invigoration and re-invention. Old Spice, your father’s navy-themed under-arm fragrance, is among our favorites. They’ve done a brilliant TV, online and social media campaign in the last few years, lead by friend of Yahoo!, Iain Tait of Wieden + Kennedy. According to ClickZ, the campaign “ending” lead to 35.7 million views on YouTube alone. Not bad. Take that as a lesson creativity, agencies.
B2B built for social
Social media is often thought of as a B2C channel. That actually may be wrong, according to BNET Advertising’s British correspondent, Yann Gourvennec. Using social media, says Gourvennec, companies can build tight communities with their customer bases. She offers several tips on just how.
— Michael Mattis
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New Search Alliance Transition Updates and Tips
Important information about the organic and paid search transition, new Yahoo! and Microsoft editorial guidelines, mobile updates and more
As Yahoo! continues to work closely with Microsoft to implement the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, we want to call out some important updates and tips to help ensure the best transition experience for you.
Organic search update and tips
A key aspect of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is the transition of Yahoo! organic search listings (those found on the main body of the page). Assuming our testing continues to yield high quality results, we anticipate that our organic search results will be powered by Bing beginning in the August/September timeframe.
If organic search is important to your business, here are three valuable tips to help make sure you’re prepared:
- Compare your organic search rankings on Yahoo! Search and Bing for the keywords that work best for you.
- Decide if you’d like to modify your paid search campaigns to compensate for any changes in organic referrals that you anticipate.
- Review the Bing webmaster tools and optimize your website for the Microsoft platform crawler, as Bing listings will be displayed for approximately 30% of search queries after this change, according to comScore.
For more on the organic search transition, see the FAQ’s for self-service advertisers at the Yahoo! Transition Center.
Organic and paid search testing
Transitioning complex systems with quality requires a lot of testing, and we’re in the process of doing just that. Fortunately, there’s nothing you need to do, though there are a few things you should keep in mind: In mid-July, we began testing the delivery of organic results from Bing to Yahoo! Search, which may gradually increase to up to 25% of Yahoo! Search traffic. We also began testing the delivery of paid search results from Microsoft Advertising adCenter to Yahoo! Search, which began with a small percentage of traffic and may increase to include up to 2.5% to 3.5% of live Yahoo! Search traffic in the U.S. Please note that testing volumes will fluctuate during this period. Since the traffic percentages are small, advertisers should not draw any conclusions from what they observe during these tests, as the results may not be indicative of the future marketplace with full Yahoo! volume.
New editorial guidelines to take effect in August
There have been numerous questions from advertisers, wondering whether certain types of editorial content—such as gambling and contests—will be permitted once the transition takes place. To that end, Yahoo! and Microsoft have created new joint editorial guidelines that will begin taking effect for both Yahoo! and Microsoft paid search advertisers in early August. It’s best to review them now.
Mobile update
As part of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, Yahoo’s mobile organic and paid search results will soon be powered by Microsoft in the U.S. The transition is expected to coincide with the online organic and paid search timing. And, as with all Yahoo! Search experiences, Yahoo! will continue to innovate and enhance the overall consumer experience around those core listings. Once this transition is complete, you’ll be able to manage both your Yahoo! Search and Microsoft mobile campaigns from a single platform, adCenter. For more, take a look at the mobile FAQs on the Yahoo! Transition Center.
Transitioning with quality
We know that the holiday season is important to you. It’s important to us. While we’ve made good progress toward our goal of a quality transition for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada this year, as we’ve mentioned before, we may defer this transition until after the 2010 holiday season, if we believe that it will improve the overall experience.
More Alliance info from the Yahoo! Advertising blog
- Preparing for the Transition to adCenter
- More Questions and Answers about the Search Alliance
- Search Alliance Update #2
- Questions and Answers about the adCenter Integration
- New Alliance Heralds New Opportunities
— The Team
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The Powerful New Choice in Search
Video: How the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance can benefit advertisers
Combining scale with the convenience of a single platform, the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance can help advertisers reach more consumers more easily. This new video illustrates how.
For more, visit SearchAlliance.com.
— The Team
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Viva World Cup! Viva Yahoo!
Yahoo! topped the FIFA World Cup online league
Goal! The comScore numbers prove what Paul the Octopus could have predicted— Yahoo! Sports World Cup was the US leader in FIFA World Cup coverage for three consecutive weeks.
The combination of great coverage, exclusive contributions from David Beckham, bloggers, Yahoo! Fantasy World Cup, special Yahoo! World Cup Toolbar, and the Yahoo! Penalty Shootout game ensured that fans could got their entire soccer fix all in one place. And did we mention David Beckham?
Several other Yahoo! properties also took the trophy in their respective categories, according to June 2010 US comScore data. To choose just three, Yahoo! Movies took over its group’s top spot for the first time and grew its audience by 11.3 percent month over month. Entertainment news is still ruled by omg! with over 25 million users. Yahoo! Finance is still the undisputed leader in Finance News/Research, reaching over 46 percent of that category’s users.
On top of all that, Yahoo! Network retained the No. 1 rank in comScore’s Ad Network report, putting the Yahoo! Network ahead of both its main competitors. Overall search volume grew by 7.1 percent, boosting US market share to 18.9 percent in June (up from 18.3 in May).
June was a great month for Yahoo! in other ways, too. Over 96 million people use Yahoo! Mail, for instance, making it the most popular such service by far. That holds true even when people are on the go, since more consumers use Yahoo! Mail on their mobile devices than any of its competitors.
— Chris Marlowe
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5 Burning Questions About Your Ads
In which we answer the most frequent queries from our webinars
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted February 26, 2009
If you want to know whether to accept a wedding invitation if it doesn’t say whether there’ll be an open bar, we recommend Yahoo! Answers. If you want to know more about how your Sponsored Search account works, though, our free online webinars are the way to go. We hold these regularly and post the archives online, but for a quick taste of the give-and-take, you can peruse the following Q&As about ads that advertisers often toss our way:
How do I change the display URL on my ads?
The display URL is the web address that is displayed with your ad instead of your destination URL, which is typically lengthy. A display URL can provide your ad with a more concise, visually appealing URL. The display URL appears below the ad’s description and must correspond to a page on your site.
You can actually change the display URL on two levels: the account level, which will become the default URL for your whole account; and the ad level, which will individually override the account-level display URL. You can change the account display URL on the Administration tab in your account by clicking the “edit” button in Account General Information section.
You can change the ad display URL by navigating to the ad group containing the ad, clicking “Edit” next to the ad, and clicking on the black arrow next to the Display URL field.
What happens if my ad title plus an inserted keyword creates a title of more than 40 characters?
When you use the insert keyword feature, you are required to enter “default text.” If using the inserted keyword in your ad would cause the title to exceed 40 characters, then the default text will be used instead.
How often is the quality index re-calculated for my ads?
Quality index scores are constantly re-calculated (every time your ad is displayed or considered for display) based on relevancy factors, along with the ad’s click-through rate relative to its position and to other ads displayed at the same time.
When receiving traffic via the Advanced match type option, is there a way to find out the exact search term that searchers used?
If you enable tracking URLs (located in the “Administrative” tab under Tracking URLs), you will be able to see what terms were searched on and the ads they matched to in your account. Read more about tracking URLs.
What are long descriptions used for?
While your long description may be shown on some Yahoo! distribution partner sites, only your short description will be shown in search results on Yahoo.com. Thus, creating a long description is optional for each ad you create. A long description can be added to provide more detailed information about your products, services and offers, but it may be seen by fewer users.
— The Team
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Ad News and Views from Around the Web
Social meets search; the death of corporate blogging (maybe); social media will reach middle age; Yahoo! Tower of Babel and more
Social and search, together at last
The world is indeed getting smaller and smaller. The worlds of social media advertising and search advertising are merging, and fast. Luckily, there are tools you can use to measure your performance in both worlds at once, says Laurie Sullivan on MediaPost’s SearchBlog.
Is social media corporate blogging’s death knell?
True, we’ve had a few positive things to say about corporate blogging now and then. We’re doing it right now, after all. But we may be dinosaurs before we know it. Simon Mainwaring, who, not incidentally, has been featured on our blog recently, says on his blog that they are going out of style and offers eight teasers on how “the online presence of a brand will increasingly become the sum of its social exchanges across the Web.” Dude, this is all so self-reflexive.
Millenials grow up on social media
Millenials. Gen-Y. Generation Next. “The kids these days.” Call ‘em what you will. Fact is, the young folk born in the 1980s and ‘90s are leading the charge in social media and, moreover, are unlikely to get sick of Facebook and Twitter—and whatever it is that will come two years down the pike to replace ’em—well into middle age, according to a recent Pew study. Agencies take note.
Yahoo! Tower of Babel
Ever wonder how Yahoo!—with many sites in many languages around the globe—gets to know its users? Yahoo! Web Analytics, which recently celebrated its second birthday, has the answers— answers that smart advertisers can benefit from.
Wise guy
Speaking of analytics, in his new role as CEO of MediaBank, former Yahoo! GM, Bill Wise, opines on AdExchanger.com on how technology and analytics can help manage your media efforts. We love our analytics here at Yahoo!, as Bill well knows. Kudos to our old friend, Bill, and best of luck with the new venture. We’re sure to be working together in the future.
Is your agency in a media tizzy?
Writing in Adotas, film director, Ernie Mosteller talks about the frenzy in the market today, what with all the different kinds of media customers have to choose from. “Media and creative are now a maze of micro-strategies and mini-tactics that each work differently for different types of people, depending, of course, on time of day and whether the sun is shining,” he writes. “The fact is, there are just too many different types of media out there to focus a crystal ball on what will work for a given brand, and how.” The key to success? Good content—which is still king.
— Michael Mattis
(Marble image by seeks2dream via Flickr, CC 2.0)
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Six Social Marketing Events Not to Miss in July
Meet and greets marketers shouldn’t miss
We’d like to share some of the spectacular upcoming events around the globe in July, and also show you how you can find more local events and communities for Search and Social near you. We’ve included the Twitter pages for the events, so you can follow chatter from the event organizers even if you can’t go. Hint: be sure to follow the hashtags for the events too.
Social Media Marketing Conference, San Francisco
Website: http://socialmediamarketing.co.uk/sanfrancisco/
Where: San Francisco, CA
When: July 8
Cost: $395
Twitter: (hashtag: #smmsf)
Event Description: During this one-day event, a team of renowned marketing experts will provide guidance on how to effectively engage with customers via social media, give tips on how to maximize the impact of your campaigns and offer insights into new services to try and trends to watch out for. This is the ultimate event for anyone involved in social media or digital marketing.
Blueglass, L.A.
Website: http://www.blueglass.com/conferences/la/
Where: Marina Del Rey, CA
When: July 19-20
Cost: $525
Twitter: @blueglassinc
Event Description: BlueGlass LA is an online marketing conference featuring the top social media, search marketing & business experts in the industry today. It has been designed to give you the best in topics, trends, strategies, and networking possibilities.
Word of Mouth Super Genius!
Website: http://www.blueglass.com/conferences/la/
Where: Chelsea Piers, New York, NY
When: July 20
Cost: $750
Twitter: @gaspedal
Event Description: Word of mouth how-to classes, case studies, and small group discussions with word-of-mouth authors.
2010 Fortune Brainstorm
Website: http://www.fortuneconferences.com/brainstormtech/
Where: Aspen, CO
When: July 22-24
Cost: $3,500
Twitter: @brainstormtech
Event Description: Fortune Brainstorm: TECH is a marketplace of ideas that assembles the smartest people we know — the world’s top technology and media thinkers, operators, entrepreneurs, innovators, and influencers. These leaders inspire a conversation that informs Fortune’s editorial coverage throughout the year.
Supernova Forum 2010: Perestroika
Website: http://supernovahub.com/
Where: Philadelphia, PA
When: July 29-30
Cost: $150 – $200
Twitter: @supernovahub
Event Description: Supernova explores the transformation of computing, communications, business, and society in the Network Age. Held since 2002, Supernova events bring together several hundred leading executives, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, government officials, and business practitioners to make connections, discuss emerging trends, and discover innovative new ideas and companies.
Online Marketing Summit
Website: http://www.onlinemarketingconnect.com/events/
Where/When: Philadelphia July 8, New York July 9, Washington DC July 12, Atlanta July 14, Charlotte July 16, Dallas July 19, Austin July 21, Houston July 23
Cost: ~ $99 -$369
Twitter: @OMsummit
Event Description: Each event includes hands-on training workshops, one-on-one personalized labs with experts, thought-leadership presentations, and peer-to-peer collaboration. From the online novice to the eMarketing expert, there are sessions that will benefit all corporate, brand, and online marketers.
Find Local Events and Communities in Your Area
What would be more apropos than social networks online where you can find SEO and social networking events? Below we’ll list several sites where you can find local events, meetups, and even people with similar interests in your area.
SEMPO
SEMPO lists 27 local committees and working groups in cities like San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, and several more in the US and abroad.
Upcoming
Find events by date, location, topic, or what you’re friends are doing. Sign in and keep track of your past, current, and future events. You can also create, manage, and promote your own events.
Meetup
Create meetups and share with your friends and peers. Find events by keyword, location, popular topics, fastest growing topics or largest meetup cities.
Eventbrite
Find events by location, category or date, and sort by distance, date, or best match. You can also publish events, sell tickets, and promote them in social networks.
LinkedIn Events
Search for events listed on LinkedIn by event type, keyword, time period and/or location.
Twitter Search
Use Twitter’s advanced search to see what people are saying about the industry (or anything) near you. It’s a good way to find friends with similar interests nearby.
— Laura Lippay
Visit Laura at Lip Service, and see some of her previous posts, “ Examining Your Backlinks with Yahoo! Site Explorer” and “ Defining Your Target Audience for SEO.”
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Ad News and Views from Around the Web
Smart ad folk advertise to young women; 5 social media trends to watch; to blog or not to blog; press release rap and more
What women want (online)
According to a recent study by Unicast, 95% of women plan to go online and, moreover, 62% of them will interact in some way with online advertising. Fact is, says the study, women aged 18 to 24 tend to be more receptive to advertising than any other audience surveyed. So you might want to do yourself a favor and limit “doodads,” that is, “dude ads,” in favor of those that appeal best to the ones most likely to click—the young ladies. Hat tip to MediaPost for this valuable information.
Trend alert: Social media is not just for kids anymore
Everyone wants a bargain and they want it wherever they are. Those are two of the key messages in Mashable columnist, Barb Baywood’s recent article, “ 5 Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now,” which appears in American Express’s Open Forum. The other three? Mobile ads, mobile payments and establishing a sound social media policy. Do them all now.
The blogging flow chart
Blogging for your company is not all that hard, right? After all, we do it here every single day and sometimes twice a day, or even more. Well, before you take up the title, “blogmaster,” you might want to take a peek at ad blogger Chris Brogan’s “Ambition” flow chart.
You’re not the only “creative”
Listen up, agencies: Your client has a creative will, and you have to listen to it. That doesn’t mean rolling over and playing dead. It means being able to establish creative boundaries with your clients that allow some leeway for their voices to be heard, especially after your contract is up and you’re out of the picture, as Myles Younger of Canned Banners explains on Adotas.
Don’t get no respect
Remember the late, great Rodney Dangerfield? Man got no respect, right? Well, as Jim Nicholas explains on iMedia Connection, agencies aren’t giving clients the respect they deserve— and vice-versa. What ever happened to professional manners?
Creative spotlight: The video press release
You know how press releases are written: “Company X (NASDAQ: X) today announced blah blah boring blah…” Well, why not put your press release on video to rap lyrics? Woot!, the online store/community did when it was bought by Amazon, and the results are far more eye—and ear—catching.
— The Team
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4 Tools You Should Be Using
Essential tools to make your account better, stronger, faster
Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of posts we’re calling “The Best of the YSM Blog.” These are posts containing timeless advice and best practices that never go out of style. Even if you read it the first time, it’s not a bad idea to review this information periodically to help get maximum performance from your advertising.
Originally posted March 3, 2009
Just as you should have your basic wrenches and screwdrivers in your toolbelt when fixing up a house, there are a few tools that are indispensible when working on your Sponsored Search account. We put the feelers out to our Customer Solutions representatives to find out which tools they most frequently recommend, and here are the top four:
1. Analytics – to put your money where your money is
We offer two types of analytics tools, both of which help you learn more about your clicks and conversions:
Conversion-only analytics, which will show you how many conversions occur from clicks coming in from your campaign ads. You can also see the total revenue brought in by these conversions. Learn how to activate conversion-only analytics.
Full analytics, which tracks conversions and website activity, follows your visitors after they click on your ad, go to your landing page, what they browse from there, if they put something in the shopping cart with the intent to purchase, and when they checkout. Full analytics is like a secret agent on a mission to let you know how visitors are viewing and using your site, so you know which pages and products catch the most attention and lead to revenue. Learn how to activate full analytics.
2. Reports – to see if your account gets an “A”
Using reports, you can compare ad performance, landing page performance and keyword performance, then identify trends that you would like to repeat (or not). You can save report views and even have them emailed to you automatically. How’s that for service? Learn more about the various reports we offer.
3. Forecasting tool for keywords – to see into the future
This handy graph with a scroll bar provides a little clairvoyance on your keyword performance by predicting the outcome of your bids. So you can use it as a guide to determine how much you should raise or lower your bid to achieve your desired position in search results. Plus, it’s just plain fun to scroll back and forth and visualize a profitable future.
The data in our forecasting tool is based on historical traffic for the keyword, which is calculated using a combination of your bid on this keyword and the keyword’s track record, including previous bids of other advertisers and monthly click volume. Many factors, including the bidding behavior of other advertisers, your campaign settings and the quality of your ad and its relevance to searches, could significantly influence your actual results. Learn more about forecasting tools.
4. Campaign tune-up – because a good mechanic is hard to find
You may be able to craft a strong account on your own, but sometimes it helps to get an expert evaluation to find the spots in need of repair.
The campaign tune-up analyzes your campaigns to generate a proposal of suggested keyword bids, match types and spending limits that may help you improve campaign performance. To use this tool, your account must be at least 90 days old (in order to have enough information in its history to provide data for analysis).
Once requested, the campaign tune-up goes to work reviewing performance history, estimated future performance, monthly budget and other factors. After finishing the analysis, you’ll receive notification in the alerts panel of your account Dashboard that your tune-up proposal is ready. Learn more about campaign tune-up.
Keep in mind that your account is always a little bit of fixer-upper. By being willing to constantly track and fine-tune, your investment is more likely to pay off.
—Kastle Waserman, Communications Manager
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Preparing for the Transition to adCenter
3 important tasks to complete in your account
Over recent weeks, Yahoo! and Microsoft teams have been meeting with advertisers to solicit feedback and understand their key questions and concerns. One piece of feedback we’ve frequently heard: “Give us more details!” So, in the spirit of providing more information, we’ll address some of the common questions we’ve been getting, along with general advice to help you get ready for your transition.
Time to make a few changes
While Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft Advertising adCenter are similar in a lot of ways, adCenter treats ad copy length and keyword mapping in ways that require some changes as part of the your transition. Making these changes will help smooth your transition and get your ads live in adCenter as quickly as possible.
1) Shorten ad titles and descriptions
This is something that can impact a large portion of advertisers, so we highly suggest you take note of any action you may need to take. You may know that Yahoo! Sponsored Search has a 40-character limit for titles of your ads. However, ad titles in adCenter have a maximum of 25 characters. There’s a small difference with ad description length: Yahoo! ad descriptions can be 71 characters, whereas the maximum is 70 characters with adCenter.
If your Yahoo! ads have longer titles or descriptions than the adCenter limits, they will be cut off at the adCenter limit after the transition, which could cause them to read improperly or be ineligible for display. While it may seem like a time-consuming task, it’s very important to shorten your ad copy now, if necessary, so you’ll have more time to test ad copy variations within the new character limits.
Here are some tips to help you cut things down to size:
- Create one clear objective: Focus on the one action you want consumers to take.
- Focus on the benefits: Skip the features of your product or service, and go straight to how consumers’ lives will be improved by it.
- Highlight your unique selling proposition: Include anything you offer that might give your ad an edge. Mentioning your time in business, free shipping or low-price guarantee can improve an ad’s performance.
- Test your ads: Take time now to tighten up your existing ads. By making these changes now, you are giving yourself time to evaluate results. Find out what works best for your campaigns for when you’ll be accessing both Yahoo! Search and Bing searchers with one account.
- Keep ads relevant: One way to improve relevance is to use customers’ most popular search terms in your ad copy. If you only sell certain brands, categories or product conditions (such as new, used or refurbished) make sure that you specify this in your ad copy. Your selected keywords should also specify these details.
- Use customers’ language: Match the tone of your ad to your product’s price point and positioning, and include the top benefits that your customers are looking for. You should describe what sets the product apart, using words that describe your product’s unique features and why customers buy your product.
By writing compelling ads that target the right potential customers, you can help increase the click-through rates on your ads. Learn more about writing strong ad copy.
2) Expand your keyword lists
Yahoo! maps keyword variations to the primary form of the word, but adCenter treats singular/plural variations and common misspellings as individual keywords. For example: If you currently bid on the keyword “car” with Yahoo!, you can also receive traffic from queries for “cars” and “casr.” To receive the same traffic with adCenter, though, you need to bid on the keyword “car,” as well as the keywords “cars” and “casr.”
While this does increase your number of keywords, it also provides you with a more precise level of control that can help you improve performance. Get prepared now by having a list of keyword variations ready to add to your adCenter account immediately upon your transition. Although you won’t be adding these keywords to your existing Yahoo! account now, you’ll be set and ready to go when it is time to transition.
3) Check your bids
With Yahoo! Search Marketing, the lowest bid you can enter is $0.01, but the minimum bid allowed in adCenter is $0.05. When your account is transitioned, any bids below the five-cent minimum will be automatically increased to $0.05. The good news is that affected ads will be paused to give you an opportunity to confirm the bid change or make adjustments.
Go ahead, ask away…
And now for a little Q&A—these are a couple of the questions we’ve been frequently hearing:
Q. What will happen to a Yahoo! account’s history after the transition?
A: Account history (reporting and scoring) will not be carried over from the Yahoo! Search Marketing platform during the transition. The reason for this is that the two companies have completely different reporting sets, and it wouldn’t be helpful anyway to combine data that came from two different marketplaces. Of course, if you’re already advertising on the adCenter platform, and you continue to use that adCenter account, you’ll retain your reporting and performance history. Naturally, the marketplace will shift when Yahoo!’s traffic is added to the combined marketplace, so advertisers should monitor and optimize their accounts throughout the transition to ensure that they’re achieving the best results.
Note: Yahoo! advertisers will continue to have access to the last 13 months of their Yahoo! Search Marketing account reporting and history after the transition for an extended time period. This will continue to be accessed through the Yahoo! interface (not adCenter).
Q: Will my ad’s position/rank be the same in Yahoo! and Bing search results? How does adCenter determine ad position?
A: After the transition is completed, your ad rank the Yahoo! search results pages will be the same as on Bing search results pages. Like Yahoo!, adCenter determines ad rank based on several factors, including the amount of your bid, your ad’s relevance, and your ad’s click-through rate. Keep in mind that because each company will control its own consumer search experience, the number of ads that are displayed on each site may be different. For example, for the same search term, Bing could display three ads at the top of the page and two on the right-hand side, whereas Yahoo! might display two ads at the top of the page and three on the right-hand side.
We’ll continue to update you on the search alliance here on the blog, via email and in the Yahoo! Transition Center, so please check back often.
— The Team
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31 Aug 2010 24 Aug 2010 17 Aug 2010 12 Aug 2010 10 Aug 2010 09 Aug 2010 05 Aug 2010
Eager to frustrate Microsoft’s attempt to takeover Yahoo in any ways possible, Google has agreed to help Yahoo by participating in an unusual test that will gauge how much advertising Google can sell for Yahoo, its struggling rival. Talk about strange bedfellows! But the numbers will be interesting to watch.
