Cirrous Marketing

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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:

1. 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.
2. Decide if you’d like to modify your paid search campaigns to compensate for any changes in organic referrals that you anticipate.
3. 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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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, according 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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo

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

Cirrous.com : Yahoo