All PPC Search Engines Not Created Equal

There was an interesting post in the Microsoft adCenter blog recently regarding the varying tactics needed to run successful paid search campaigns in differing search engines. After reading through the article I quickly realized something! I've been approaching adCenter all wrong! Here is what I read when it hit me:

Some advertisers optimize their pay per click campaigns for other engines and then export them with little change to adCenter. This may save time, but it doesn’t always optimize for the distinctly different character of Microsoft’s traffic. In other words, you may be leaving a pile of money on the table.

Lets face it! Google and Yahoo capture 85-90% of all search traffic while MSN gathers up the remaining 10-15%. In like manner, I had been dividing my campaign's ad spend in like manner - 85-90% between Google and Yahoo and throwing 10-15% at adCenter.

Where the problem lies in this is that despite the varying differences in traffic percentages, there is always room for improvement. Not to mention that in a few cases, adCenter carries with it a significantly higher conversion rate. This blog post in particular focused on bidding strategies in relation to the long tail of keywords which is typical for an Adwords or YSM paid search campaign. To counter-act the lower traffic level in MSN's adCenter, concentrate on a select few keywords that are closer to the head.

Here are a few additional reasons to NOT copy and past your Adwords campaign to other paid search vendors:

• Character Limits: This directly applies to Yahoo!, where your headline is allowed 40 characters. AdWords and adCenter only allow 25. You should do your best to maximize the space given to you in Yahoo!. Just think of the extra keywords you can fit in that space!
• Keyword Bids: Beyond merely making bid decisions based on the long tail of keywords, you should make those decisions based on the search engine you’re working in. The bid you have set in AdWords is based on Google’s traffic and competitive landscape. Those factors are altogether different when dealing with Microsoft and Yahoo!. All three of these search engines offer their own unique bid forecasting tools for a reason. In a perfectly optimized world, a single keyword will have a different bid in each account.
• DKI, Keyword Insertion, Dynamic Text: Each of the search engines takes a slightly different approach to DKI. While Google and Yahoo!’s systems are nearly identical, there are vast differences when Microsoft is thrown into the mix. In adCenter, you can dynamically insert the keyword, but also have the ability to set multiple parameters per keyword which can be inserted into your ad texts automatically. Taking the time to learn the ins and outs of these tools is important and can directly benefit your CTR!
• Match Types and Negative Keywords: When you copy and paste your campaigns from one search engine to another, you will likely erase your negative keyword lists. And your match types will be eradicated when copying into Yahoo! (no exact, phrase or broad matching!). Negative keywords and match types are such a vital part of the PPC arsenal and should not be forgotten. Take the time to research the right negative keywords and match types for each search engine and implement them accordingly.

Yahoo Search Marketing Pricing Change Webinar

Last month, I blogged about Yahoo increasing minimum bids. Basically, they are moving their bid model more and more in line with the way Google prices a click. In Yahoo's case, a minimum bid can be either above or below .10 cents depending on the quality and value of the specific term.

If your account has been affected by this new pricing model, you probably recieved an e-mail at some point that looked like this:

Subject line: Alert Notification: Keywords Pending Inactivation

Dear Advertiser

Minimum bid requirements have increased for [account name].
Some of your active Sponsored Search keywords will soon become inactive.
Review bids now.

So, if you are still unclear about how your minimum bids are set for Yahoo's Sponsored Search, a free webinar for advertisers will be held on Thursday, May 29, to help you understand the change.

The webinar will:

• Walk you through the changes associated with the pricing update
• Provide an overview of new account features and functionality
• Share best practices for keyword and ad quality management
• Present sample scenarios of how your account might be affected
• Offer best practices for working with minimum bids

To register:

Click here to go to the webinar registration pages. First-time webinar registrants will need to create a password of between 4 and 32 characters. If you are unable to attend either webinar, an archive of the webinar will be available in Yahoo's Help Center.

Yahoo Search Marketing Interface Updates

With all of the hoopla surrounding a potential buyout of Yahoo, it is nice to finally hear that Yahoo is still 'paying attention' to its search marketing platform. Yahoo recently announced a number of updates and enhancements to their interface that primarly makes things easy to see at a glance - ie. which campaigns, ad groups and keywords are offline—and why. Here is a quick rundown of things you might notice during your next login session:

• All names of objects (campaign, ad group, keyword, etc.) that are offline are displayed with red text for easy recognition.
• The "Top Campaigns" and “Watched Campaigns” tables on the Dashboard page now include a “Status” column to help you identify if and why any campaigns are offline.
• Minor updates to the "Campaigns" page have been made, including a new “Status” column, the ability to filter by “Status” when using the Advanced Search function, and replacing the “Campaign On/Off” button with individual “Pause” and “Unpause” buttons.
• We made minor tweaks to the Ads table on an Ad Group page, including adding a “Status” column, and replacing the “Campaign On/Off” button with individual “Pause” and “Unpause” buttons.
• New status settings have been added on the Search page, under the Campaigns tab.
• The addition of the “Status” column to the Ad Group, Ad and Keyword Search screens under the Campaigns tab.
• The ability to export (using the “Download” button) account information has been added to account-level Ad Group and Keyword pages, under the Campaigns tab

Yahoo Closing Search Marketing Ambassador Program

So, I'm a little late on this news, but thought it was worth mentioning considering the tumultuous ride Yahoo has endured the past few weeks and months. From acquisition rumors to a 'partnership' with Google to releasing their own analytics tool Yahoo seemed to be making a hard fought effort to make an immediate improvement on their products and offerings. But, now The Search Engine Roundtable reports that it seems to be no longer possible to sign up for the Ambassador Program.


I am, myself, a Yahoo Ambassador and enjoy the opportunity to make a little bit of income every time I set up a client so this is somewhat troubling. Why close down the program unless there is a big curtain drawing in the near future?

Here is an anonymous tip we got from a Search Engine Land reader:

Yahoo! is eliminating the Ambassador cert. for all the small businesses and limiting it too bigger agencies and resellers. So they are just pushing out the little players, pretty much trying to make it more prestigious like the Google Reseller Program. You will have to go through Biz Dev people to get an Ambassador Cert.

Yahoo To Display Ads in PDF Documents Online

I received an e-mail from my friends at Yahoo Search Marketing ... they will be launching a beta program and wanted my input via an online survey. So what's the beta program? Well, read for yourself:


Once you get into the meat of the survey, there is some additional information, however:

Ads for Adobe PDF provides a powerful new channel to communicate their messages to a highly engaged and targeted audience. In addition, Ads for Adobe PDF provides advertisers a means to track the performance of ads placed in PDF content, just as they can today with ads placed in Web sites.

These ads come from advertisers participating in Yahoo! Content Match. Content Match is a pay-per-click campaign tactic that displays your ads alongside relevant websites, and now PDFs as well.

Now, for those of you who know me or even follow this blog, most of you can probably guess the thoughts that came to mind. I'm about as far from a fan of the content network as one could be -primarily because they bring a lot of window-shopping clicks and un-targeted, non-coverting clicks. I found myself wondering...many PDFs are composed of images or are created completely un-optimized! How can Yahoo (or Google or MSN for that matter) determine which ads to show based on that type of page? Are we heading down a 'content network road' that is progressively about making money over quality?

What are your thoughts? Even better...have any of you had success using the content network?

Yahoo! Increases Minimum Bids

Pricing Update:
Yahoo! Minimum Bids are no Longer Fixed at $.10

Starting April 18th, the minimum bids for some Yahoo! Sponsored Search keywords are no longer fixed at $.10. Minimum bids can now be lower or higher than $.10. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10.

Throughout the next 1-2 weeks, you may start noticing new minimum bids on some of the keywords in your Yahoo! Sponsored Search account. It is important to note that you will be notified by email and within your account when the status of any of your keywords are affected.

Per Yahoo:

The amount set as your minimum bid on a keyword in Sponsored Search can vary depending on multiple factors, such as:

•The number of bidders and bid amounts in the particular keyword market

•The quality of your keywords, or their relevance to advertisers, as measured by the quality of the ads associated with them

So, what does this all mean?

• Yahoo Sponsored Search minimum bids are no longer fixed at $.10.

• Yahoo Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10.

• Higher ad quality score may help you receive lower minimum bids.

• This change currently applies to U.S. accounts only.

• Yahoo recommends logging into your account regularly to check keyword status.

10 Landing Page Conversion Tips

Ten landing page tips to turn visitors into customers

Lets face it! You work hard to get clicks. What could be more important than turning those clicks into customers? Consider these a set of suggestions about how to help optimize your landing pages. That way, when people get to your site, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.

Not only is the above-mentioned extremely important in converting those clicks to customers but these tips will also lead to an improved quality score for Google and Yahoo's quality score algorithm - ie. you can capture those clicks at a decreased cost.

1. Tell them why they should buy from you
Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not. Ask yourself the question: “Why should I buy from this site?”And, be sure to SHOW them what it is they are purchasing or signing up for.

2. Keep ‘em with you
Protect your landing pages from the #1 threat to conversions: site flow disruption. After identifying a unique and compelling Value Proposition, you must ensure that you express it throughout your sales process in a clear, consistent and compelling way. Eliminate site flow disruption to help maximize conversions.

3. Don’t try to say too much
Don’t clutter your landing page with unnecessary details. Instead:
• Clearly state your key message using as few words as possible
• Use summary descriptions, sub-headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs
• Adopt a standard one-column format for easy reading.

4. Make it simple
Improve the user experience with a site that is easy to navigate. A simple page layout that employs a clean visual and straightforward design is best. Here’s how:
• Design your site with a clear hierarchy with color and contrast for easily legible text
• Use meaningful and high-quality graphics (don’t clutter with too many)
• Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are on your site
• Employ a clickable logo that takes the visitor to your homepage
• Use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.

Just as important, make sure you don’t:
• Employ horizontal scrolling
• Direct links to new browser windows
• Have flash-based content unless required.

5. Call them to action
Focus on one primary action per screen (don’t stuff too many products onto one screen). Make the call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll; don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.

6. Get specific
Provide product details and a large product image while displaying incentives—such as free shipping and warranty information—high on the page and close to the product. Don’t discourage visitors by requiring registration to your site.

7. Flaunt what you’ve got
What differentiates you from your competitors? Free shipping (both ways?), discounts, a 365-day warranty, price protection, privacy, customer service, etc.? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

8. Search yourself
Make your site easy to navigate by helping potential customers find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. A search feature box should be simple and visible with a type-in field, not a link. To help increase conversions, make sure your search results link to product pages.

9. Rally the believers
Credibility is a true testament: people don’t buy from websites, people buy from people. Thus, testimonials from devout customers—or even a letter from the CEO/Editor—persuades the unbelieving.

10. Let them make the choice
“Why should I buy this specific product?” Almost every e-tailer forgets about this, but it’s the question that’s key to Mr. or Ms. Customer’s mind. Prove to him or her why they should buy this over the competitive product by offering reviews, ratings and comparisons.

200+ Negative Keywords for B2B PPC Campaigns

If you are a B2B pay per click advertiser this is a must read! Actually, even folks reaching the B2C market can surely pull some ideas from this list as well. As a paid search engine advertiser, I use negative keywords extensively in my Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns and/or Ad Groups to weed out unwanted clicks and an un-targeted audience.

Negative keywords are words and phrases that you do not want searchers to associate with your products and services (see Google’s AdWords blog for some high-level information on this topic).

When you add negative keywords to your PPC campaigns your ads will not be served if those words are part of the user’s search query.

Not only does this benefit you by directly saving money on wasted clicks, it also improves the click through rate (CTR) of your keywords/ads, which helps improve your ad quality scores in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Improved quality scores can help you with bidding strategies by allowing you to bid less than a competitor and maintain a high/higher ad positions on a search results page.

Andy Komack, through 6 years of pay per click advertising, has put together quite an impressive list of negative keywords for various types of B2B search marketing campaigns and I have found this list to be an extremely important tool in building my own campaigns.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and each company has its own unique market positioning. So, do not use this list of negative keywords indiscriminately!!! The list of B2B negative keywords below is meant to be a resource for you, and a starting point when you are deciding which words you do not want associated with your ads.

Avoiding Job Seekers
Prevent your ads from appearing for common employment and career-related searches:

career
careers
employment
hiring
intern
interns
internship
internships
job
jobs
recruiter
recruiting
resume
resumes
salaries
salary

Reference Keywords
Don’t waste money on people looking for information that is only loosely related to your products/services or industry:

about
definition
diagram
example
examples
history
map
maps
sample
samples
what are
what is

No Research & Stats
Assuming you have a limited advertising budget, avoid people doing research, and make sure your are using your advertising $$ to generate sales and qualified leads:

association
associations
book
books
case studies
case study
guide
guides
journal
journals
magazine
magazines
metrics
news
research
review
reviews
statistics
stats
success stories
success story
tutorial
tutorials
white paper
white papers

We Don’t Provide Education
Prevent your ads from being shown to people looking for classes and education:

class
classes
college
colleges
course
courses
education
school
schools
training
universities
university

No Bargains
These negative keywords will help if you are positioned as a premium provider. If you do want visitors for these keyword concepts, create an additional campaign or ad group to focus on these discount concepts, and specifically bid on keywords that contain these words. And then make sure to add this list of negative keywords to the campaigns or ad groups that do not target the discount audience:

bargain
cheap
clearance
close out
close outs
closeout
closeouts
discount
discounted
free
inexpensive
liquidation
odd lots
overstock
remainder
remainders

Avoiding Price Shoppers
You may want visitors to your site looking for pricing and/or quotes, but if not, make sure to add in these words as negative keywords to avoid prospects who may be more concerned with price than with quality or service:

price
prices
pricing
quote
quotes

Avoiding DIY
In many industries there are “do-it-yourselfers” or hobbyists who are searching for information on how to take on a project themselves. It’s a good idea to screen out this audience if you do not cater to it:

craft
crafts
create
creating
hand made
handmade
home
homemade
how to
make
making

Selling Commercial Software
This is a tricky one. If you are a company selling commercial or enterprise software, a) you are likely to want to avoid the thousands of software developers who are looking for free resources, and b) you want to avoid confusion with consumers looking for tools and home-use products. Use this list as a starting point, but also brainstorm and use keyword suggestion tools to find potential negative keywords that are specific to your software space:

burn
burner
cd
code
community
desktop
developer
developers
disk
download (if you don’t have one)
downloads (if you don’t have any)
dvd
error
file
files
forum
free
freeware
game
games
gnu
hack
hacks
libraries
library
microsoft ( )
open source
public domain
retail
retail
retailer
retailers
shareware
shortcut
shortcuts
template
templates
tip
tips
video
windows

Manufacturing & Industrial
This is a very broad list of words, covering many different concepts related to manufacturing and industrial companies. Use this list to start the process of generating negative keywords specific to your industry, product lines, and business model.

antique
consumer
export
exporter
exporters
hobby
import
importer
importers
measurement
model
models
regulations
rent
rental
repair
repairs
retail
retailer
retailers
rules
safety
specifications
specs
standards
store
toy
toys
used
vintage

Product Materials
Obviously not all of these materials will apply to one business. I created this list of product materials as a reminder to screen out searches for product types that a company does not offer. One might wonder if it is OK to not screen for these in the hopes that someone will search for one type of product, but be convinced to buy a different type once they see what is available. Most B2B marketers have limited PPC budgets, so usually it is a better idea to only show your ads to people who don’t have a specific alternative to your products already in mind:

aluminum
ceramic
cotton
fabric
glass
gold
iron
leather
metal
paper
plastic
rubber
silver
stainless steel
steel
stone
vinyl
wood

Legal/Law
It is probably a good idea to prevent your ads from being shown to people looking for information related to legislation and regulations. There will be cases where this might not apply, especially if your product/service solves a regulatory/compliance issue (and if you have a landing page on your site that speaks to the legal issue AND provides a conversion action right there on the page):

act
act of
compliance
law
laws
legal
legislation
regulation
regulations

Other Negative Keywords B2B Marketers May Consider
Here are just a few more words that seem to come up in B2B search advertising campaigns…

club
clubs
consultants
consulting
gift
gifts
online
photo
photograph
photographs
picture
pictures
send
sending

Remember, the list above is not comprehensive, and does not apply to all B2B marketers.

While you're at it, check out this free trial for Market Samurai - it truely is one of the best keyword research tools available!

Yahoo Conversion Code Expires After 45 Days

One of my favorite blogs for pay per click information had a great article this morning regarding Yahoo! Conversion Code - or lack thereof after 45 days if zero conversions are recorded.

Here is the low-down:

“They’ve never really explained to me why this happens, it just does”, says my Yahoo! rep about my conversion tracking being automatically turned off because I didn’t generate any conversions within a 45 day time frame.

This came up about a month ago when I noticed the conversion column was missing in the Dashboard of my Yahoo! account. I knew I had not only turned on conversion tracking a while ago but you also have to enable it, which I did. You must complete both of these steps in order to get the conversion code in the first place.

I have a client that doesn’t generate very many conversions but when he does, it generates quite a bit of revenue. However, when I noticed one day that the conversion column was missing, I checked to make sure the conversion tracking was on, and indeed it was turned off…not by me or anyone on my team, but by Yahoo!

When I called my rep from Yahoo he stated that for ‘safety measures’ the conversion tracking is automatically disabled if you don’t generate any conversions within a 45 day time period. Why? I asked. He said no one had ever really explained to him what the safety measures were that made disabling conversion tracking a good idea.

I tried to think of the best way to prevent this from happening, and all I could come up with is to start generating more conversions! However, it could be as simple as setting a reminder in Outlook to turn conversion tracking back on every 45 days if you haven’t received any conversions. I personally think it’s a little strange that they don’t explain this in the Yahoo! help section. What other things are they hiding from search advertisers?

Yahoo Announces changes to ad copy

I received emails from Yahoo this morning stating Yahoo will be cutting off ads at 75 characters. They had started this shortened descriptions some time ago but still allowed for the 'long description' and would simply truncate the ad at 75 characters.

Seems now you will not have the option - all ads will use the 75 character limit.

Per Yahoo: "Beginning in late November 2007, if you have created short descriptions for your ads, those short descriptions will automatically be displayed on Yahoo! Search results (currently the short description will not always be displayed) but if you have not created a short description for a particular ad, the long description will be automatically cut off to fit within a 75 character limit," the emails stated.

Why is Yahoo making the change?
"We are implementing these changes to streamline the search results displayed on Yahoo!, making it easier for users to read and absorb your ad messages. Our research has shown that by improving the search experience in this way, advertisers may see an increase in clicks, while maintaining their conversion rates" the announcement explained.