Yahoo Makes Important Change to Advertising TOS

Monday, January 12th, 2009 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing | 1 Comment

In mid-2008, Yahoo changed their TOS to include the following clause:

“In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request. If you would like any of such changes reversed, please reply to such email within 14 days of the change(s), and we will make commercially reasonable efforts to reverse the change(s) you specifically identify. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made. It is your responsibility to monitor your account(s) and to ensure that your account settings are consistent with your business objectives.”

What does this mean for end users?  It means after you spend hours creating your campaigns, adding your keywords, and deciding how much money you want to bid on each term, Yahoo has the right to “optimize” however they feel necessary.  Not only can they delete some of your keywords and replace them with different ones, they can also increase and/or decrease your bids.  Best of all, you are not told about the modification(s) until afterwards.

While this did happen in June of last year, businesses are just now starting to discover changes to their advertising accounts.  The email you’ll receive from Yahoo will read something like this:

“Yahoo! is committed to the success of account “account name” and we believe there is an opportunity to provide you with improved performance.

To help you save time and get the most out of your campaigns, we are launching a new automatic account optimization program. It’s intended to help raise the performance of accounts that are experiencing issues like low quality scores, low lead volume or low click-through rates.

And the best part is, we will do the work for you: Our content developers will use their search advertising experience to help your marketing dollars go further.

What we will keep an eye out for:

• Search ads with low click-through rates relative to competitors
• Ad testing not in use? missing an opportunity to optimize ad copy
• Ad groups that have a quality index score of 2 or lower

How we can help:

• Create new ads for existing ad groups, enabling ad testing
• Write multiple versions of ads for any new ad groups we create, enabling the use of ad testing to help ensure that the best-performing ads are displayed more often
• Search our database for keywords that can drive more targeted traffic to your site

In short, our goal is to make sure that your account is firing on all cylinders–and do this while keeping your existing keywords and without exceeding your spending limits!

As always, you are in control of your account. If we make any optimization changes to your account through this program, we will notify you by email, and you can let us know whether the account changes are positively affecting your account. Also, you are welcome to contact your account manager to review, edit or ask us to reverse any of the changes. Finally, if you do not wish to participate in this program, you may opt out by contacting your account manager.

We’ve identified keywords and ads in your account that are significantly underperforming, and we’ve initiated the changes to the creatives that you will find attached.

We are very excited about this new program, and hope it will provide you with improved performance and a higher level of service. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.”

SEO and SEM bloggers seem to be outraged by the new TOS.  One went as far as comparing it to your investment adviser buying stocks on your behalf or switching your portfolio from bonds to hedge funds.  I can’t say I disagree.

I recommend contacting your account manager or marketing company and making sure that Yahoo doesn’t change your campaigns.  You should determine how much money you spend, and what to spend money on.  Not Yahoo.

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Tags: ppc, PPC Advertising, PPC campaign optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo

SEM and PPC Webinar

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

“SEM 101: Everything You Wanted to Know About Search Engine Marketing but Were Afraid to Ask!”

This webinar will educate you on Search Engine Marketing basics, illustrate industry trends, and demonstrate successful marketing strategies that work in almost every advertising vertical. The holiday season is approaching and this year consumers will be comparison shopping more than usual. In today’s economy, can you afford to miss this webinar?

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Tags: ppc, Search Engine Marketing, webinar

Is RICO being Added to the Google Adsense for Domain Typosquatting Case?

Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments

Vulcan Golf now wishes to add a RICO 18 U.S.C. §1962(a) charge.

“The plaintiffs now seek to file a second amended
complaint repleading certain of their previously dismissed claims and adding a RICO count under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a).”

I believe Google using its power and organization to engage in illegal activity. The illegality trademark infringement, profiting by trading on trademarks owned by other via typosquatting, and of course the organization is the Google the registrars and the Domain holders. But my reading of RICO tells me that there must be a vilolent act to qualify under RICO. Can anybody help clarify that?

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Tags: 18 U.S.C, Goolge, racketering, RICO, Typosquatting, Vulcan Golf

Google Sued over TypoSquatting on Domain Names can go forward

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising | No Comments

Judge Blanche Manning of the Northern District Federal Court in Illinois ruled that there was sufficient cause to move forward in the case brought by Vulcan Golf. For anyone that follows my thoughts on this they might remember that I believe that Google profits from, enables and in part created the typosquatting problem. Google:

“pays registrants for its use of the purportedly deceptive domain names … uses semantics technology to analyze the meaning of domain names and select revenue maximizing advertisements and controls and maintains that advertising”

What was not said is that Google profits from this action.

Online Media Daily Reports - Wendy Davis

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Tags: adsense for domains, google, gougle sued, typosquating

Adwords Update - Quality Score adds load times to metric

Friday, March 14th, 2008 | PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

Google Adwords has added the load times of the destination url to the quality score. What this means? I think there may be a rash of servers being upgraded, conversion of dynamic pages to flat html and a lot of attention to graphic load times, sequence, preloads etc.

Google’s metric does take into account the general region that the site is located in and compares it to the average of the site load time in that area. This will help to even out the difference caused by connectivity.

Load time to be incorporated in Quality Score

As we strive to continually improve the user experience, we’ll be adding a new element to Quality Score: landing page load time. Waiting a while for a page to load isn’t a positive experience and can hurt your conversion rate if users decide to abandon your site. To learn more about this change and where you’ll be able to see your load time evaluations, see our Inside AdWords blog post.

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Tags: adwords, goole, load time, ppc, quality score, Search Engine Marketing

Quantifiying Leads from Lead Generation Campaign

Thursday, February 28th, 2008 | Internet Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments

Scrubbing leads generated from lead generation campaigns has always been a challenge. What is a good lead? Most campaigns generate a high percentage of bogus leads: John Doe at 123@nowhere.com. NetSearch Direct has addressed this issue for many clients by providing lead generation metrics that really work. Tracking phone leads is one way that works. Phone calls from prospects are proven to be one of the best sources available. Quantifying these leads by defining the length of call NetSearch Direct can deliver leads filtering the wheat from the chaff.

Adotas article, Lemon Law For Leads , chides the industry for not defining leads. We are proud to be int he forefront of this issue providing client solution where the industry on a whole cannot.

Lemon Law For Leads?
Opinions: Anyone who participates in online lead generation is left with one of two conclusions at the end of a campaign: there are either a disproportionate number of John Smiths at [...] More…

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Tags: Lead Generation, leads, quality leads., quantifiying leads