Yahoo Minimum bid change, what were they thinking?

9 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on April 20, 2008 in PPC, Yahoo Search Marketing  

So Yahoo has started rolling out there new minimum bid setup, which most people were hoping this would enable people to bid less than .10 on keywords… I have yet to see them, now i do have some keywords i bid .10 and pay less per click, but i have seen many keywords inflate to crazy amounts for a minimum bid. Expecting me to pay over .50 minimum bid on a term that is only worth .10 to me. While i understand its a new system and there will be things changing but I personnally only see one thing happening due to it, people advertising less thru YSM and people putting more money into MSN and Google. While Google’s quality score is annoying at times you aren’t going to be asked for a crazy amount if your site is an authority on a subject.  What is your take on the new YSM change?

5.00 or 10.00 Google Adwords bids due to Quality Score

3 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on December 10, 2007 in Google Adwords, PPC  

Are you getting 5.00 or 10.00 Google Adwords bids due to Quality Score.  Don’t worry if you have setup your campaign and landing page properly. I have noticed A LOT lately within the fiirst day of starting a new campaign my bids will jump up to 1.00,5.00, and even 10.00 and a lot of my keywords will go to poor. The crazy thing is i know my landing page or site is good, my ad is good and my keywords are relevant too. What is the deal?  Honestly i think it is Google just trying to get more money out of us. The first time this happened to me i was like oh great here we go again let me figure out what i forgot to put on the landing page or site and fix it etc..  but i found out nothing was wrong. So i waited a day or two and BAM all my words were back to ok and great. What is it… honestly i don’t have a specific answer but i think google is doing it to try to weed out some people or maybe run double or tripple checks on your sites before sending you traffic. It is wierd and a pain, but i have seen it happening more and more. So just let your campaign ride it out. Now if after a day or two you don’t see a change then you most likely have issue with Relevancy, Ad copy, or your site. If you are being hit with these issues you really should read through google terms and suggestions for Adwords they really are helpfull for people getting start or better yet become adwords qualified. One thing you can do is limit your campaigns and don’t put in hundreds of Keywords as i have seen some of my campaigns with more than 50 keywords seem to get hit more often, but as i stated before they go back to good standing. 

Yahoo Search Marketing Courtesy Call and My Thoughts

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on September 24, 2007 in PPC, Yahoo Search Marketing  

I received an interesting call from Yahoo Search Marketing to talk about their “Quality Pricing”. What is interesting is they have no idea what kind of leads or revenue i am producing from an ad but yet they are some how Quality pricing the ads i am paying for based on where they come from. To my surprise without the quality pricing over the past week I would have spent more than 698 and some change on top of what my account showed. While I found this interesting, what was more concerning to me is I brought up that I am US target based but yet I still at times get more than 25% from foreign countries. From there the call went south as she doesn’t deal with that and gave me the generic we are working on it. I would think it is MUCH harder to try to guage a quality of source traffic than it is to just block foriegn traffic.

My overall thoughts to Yahoo Search Marketing:

1. Thanks for the courtesy call to let me know I would have spent more had they not introduce this “quality” system.
2. Thanks for the money back over this past month (X,XXX.XX) due to the foreign traffic you are sending me. (I had to file a click fraud report to receive the credit but well worth the time)
3. Common YSM country targeting isn’t that hard other Search Engines do it much better, even some third tier.
4. Get rid of minimum .10 bid some of the traffic isn’t even worth a few pennies let alone 10 cents.
5. Don’t just follow what Google does be proactive and make a HUGE difference in the Search engine world and you will capitalize more searchers.

That’s all i can think of now. What are yall thoughts… what can Yahoo change?

Microsoft Adcenter takes a stance on Trademark Terms and Bidding

3 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on August 30, 2007 in Affiliate Information, PPC, MSN Search  

To my surprise and delight I got an email from MSN adcenter today concerning bidding and using trademark terms. (cough Google… I hope your listening) The stance from my point of view is in favor of publishers and puts the responsibility where it is back on the trademark owners and not using the Search engines to police their trademark for them. The Official email:

Microsoft adCenter is changing the way we manage our trademark policy starting September 10, 2007. While no change will be made to the trademark policy itself, this update aligns better with marketplace practices, speeds up editorial review to get your ads live faster, and ensures consumers see relevant ads.

Microsoft adCenter’s Trademark Policy

As stated above, we are not changing the trademark policy itself. You may still use trademarked terms
in your ads  when you, as the advertiser, are the owner of the trademark, an affiliate or reseller of trademarked products or services, or a site that uses the trademarked term in an informational,
descriptive, or non-competitive manner. Infringing use of trademark terms by direct competitors remains a violation of Microsoft adCenter policies. 

What’s changing?

It will now be the advertiser’s responsibility to obtain permission from the trademark owner to use a trademarked term in their ads. It will also be the trademark owner’s responsibility to address ongoing
incorrect usage of their trademark term(s) directly with third-party advertisers.  Microsoft adCenter will no longer intercede to obtain permission for the advertiser wanting to use a trademarked term. 

What does this mean for my search advertising?

Your ads may display next to other ads that contain your trademarked terms.
Affiliates, resellers, and third parties may show up against queries for your trademarked terms.
Competitor’s ads may show up in search results against queries for trademarks in certain scenarios, due to match types other than exact.

For example, if a generic term is included in the overall search query, advertisers who bid on the generic term may show up in the search results.

If you are a trademark owner and you believe your trademark is being misused in Microsoft adCenter, you can submit a report by following the instructions on our Trademark Concern Form.

Sounds like good news for publishers/affiliates when it comes to bidding on trademark terms. While I agree using trademark terms without persmission is bad but there is no reason that for instance a Target ad shouldn’t show up when someone is searching for Wal-mart.

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