It's now available! Page Zero has just released the world's first Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook, meticulously researched and written by my colleague Mona Elesseily. We appreciate all the input from the SEM community that helped in fact-checking and understanding advertisers' particular frustrations with Y!SM.
As you'll see, Mona doesn't pull any punches. And the 102-page illustrated guide to improved Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns (formerly Overture) is practically formatted with action items that correspond to the analysis.
From readers, I've heard time and again that Yahoo! is just frustrating to work with. In fact this week, I heard that exact story in sales calls with prospective clients, both Canadian. One e-commerce project manager, from the government, had actually budgeted more for Yahoo in 2004, but found nearly all the legit traffic and customer support came from Google, so the budget for 2006 is being radically reshuffled. That's fair enough, though it's a shame, and she did take the trouble to point out that "Yahoo! are just hopeless! They just don't help!" Hey, don't shoot the messenger.
Another, a North American telecommunications firm, sang a familiar tune: "our Yahoo performance has just continued to drop as our business has grown -- mostly with the help of organic referrals and Google AdWords -- over the past three years. We call Yahoo up begging them, telling them we *want* to spend money with them, but we seem to get different answers all the time from uninformed reps."
But just saying that kind of stuff doesn't help you if you actually want to make money in this channel.
I've noticed people are now talking more about the details of how these online ad platforms work, especially now that MSN AdCenter and some other competitors are rolling out robust new services. And it's the details you need to master if you want to consider yourself an ROI marketer instead of one of those blase people who just "buy media." With Yahoo!, there are a *lot* of details. Not all of them pleasant. But if it's your full time job (as it is for Mona), isn't it time you confronted your demons and slayed that Y!SM dragon once and for all?
The regular retail price of the Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook will be $64, but for the next couple of weeks -- call it March Madness -- it's 40% off, so take advantage now.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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