Yahoo! Optimizes Your Ads? Is That Good?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, 3 of June , 2008 at 9:58 am

I’m not so sure this is a good thing. Yahoo! is optimizing advertisers’ ads without approval or even letting them know. They’re just going into your accounts and tinkering around.

According to my Yahoo representative: “essentially, this means that Yahoo! will automatically go into an account and optimize the ads and keywords in the account without prior knowledge of or approval by advertisers. This program is designed to help optimize your account to its fullest potential. We optimize accounts on a daily basis and are in tune with dynamic changes in the marketplace, and know the tactics and strategies that have proven successful on the Yahoo! network. Any changes we make to your account will be very carefully selected, and are designed to help you become a more successful advertiser with Sponsored Search.”

OK, let’s think about this for a minute. If you are good at optimizing your own PPC then you probably don’t need this. The good news is, you can opt out. You have submit your request to Yahoo! in writing. But what if you are new to PPC advertising and haven’t learned how to optimize your ads very well. In that case, it could be good; but watch out!

It’s possible that Yahoo! knows precisely how to optimize your ads for you. And if you are in a popular niche that is easy to optimize for then you likely have no worries. But what if you are in a niche that isn’t so popular and that might be difficult for someone who isn’t in the industry to know precisely what is searchable? It’s possible that Yahoo! execs could have difficulty optimizing your ads.

Psychologically, the company should want you to succeed. They’re not going to do anything that would cause you not to succeed because that would mean less future revenue for them. But humans do err. And I think it is a dangerous thing that someone who doesn’t know your company and its particular niche is in there messing around with your account without your knowledge or approval. You’re better off optimizing your own ads or hiring someone who is looking out for your interests to do it for you.

                      Category: Yahoo! Search Marketing                      

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