Yahoo! and MSN Merger Made Easy: An Interview with Yahoo
Let’s start with understanding what exactly the Search Alliance means to your business. The Search Alliance will result in Yahoo Search Marketing’s current platform (Panama) being replaced and both Microsoft and Yahoo would be powered by Microsoft’s adCenter platform. For this month’s newsletter 360Partners interviewed Michael Aragon, Senior Account Manager at Yahoo to talk about this Search Alliance and how customers can successfully plan their paid search marketing.
360Partners: What does the Search Alliance mean to Yahoo! and MSN advertisers?
Michael: The Yahoo! and Microsoft Alliance will provide advertisers a unified marketplace to run search marketing on a single platform. It will help advertisers get better results by advertizing on both search engines and partner sites. This will lead to increase in overall volume and traffic with less effort. Our main objective is to provide advertisers with quality paid search experience.
360Partners: When does the Alliance take effect and how soon in advance will the advertisers be notified?
Michael: We are looking to start sending out new Insertion Orders for the unified market place at the beginning of September. For the convenience of advertisers they will continue to have Yahoo! access and view Yahoo reports for an extended period of time. Microsoft already transitioned organic search in the United States and Canada. We expect the final transition to be completed by the end of October. Yahoo! will send out emails to their advertisers once the paid search transition is complete. The only caveat that endures is that in case the transition does not seem to go as planned, we may defer the transition until 2011.
360Partners: Will MSN have a partner network and will it include the current Yahoo! partner network?
Michael: Yes, the Alliance will have two separate partner networks and advertisers will be able to collectively target both the networks. However, one catch to the partner networks in the unified market place is that the advertisers cannot split traffic between Yahoo and Bing. However, we are looking to add enhancement features like these a little later. Advertisers are able to choose between showing ads across the entire market, Bing and Yahoo! owned and operated sites and partner networks. The alliance does not factor in the display business of either engine so both Microsoft and Yahoo! will continue to compete in this arena. Advertisers would not be required to bid separately to advertise on both engines at the same time, which makes it easier and less time consuming for advertisers.
360Partners: Will advertisers still be able to use Yahoo multi-channel analytics? Will MSN be able to track revenue?
Michael: The existing full Yahoo! analytics interface within Panama will go away once the unified marketplace comes into picture. However, Yahoo! Web Analytics will still be around for advertisers to take complete advantage of. With regards to revenue tracking, It is our understanding that this capability will be available during a September adCenter upgrade.
360Partners: How can advertisers make a smooth transition?
Michael: It is our top priority to ensure the transition goes through as smooth as possible for advertisers. The biggest task on the advertiser’s part is to create a transition plan. It is our responsibility at Yahoo! to provide optimum flexibility and support to advertisers and we aim is to ensure the transition is complete before the holiday season. In addition, to help prepare for the transition, we will provide premium advertisers a forecast tool that provides recommendations and estimates of cost per click, impressions, clicks, budget and volume with running campaigns in the unified marketplace. Finally, our goal is to ensure a hassle free transition and if advertisers have any questions or concerns they should feel free to contact their Bing or Yahoo! representatives.
Summary:
We at 360Partners are excited about the unified marketplace and the opportunities it offers advertisers. We recommend advertisers take advantage of this single platform. The Yahoo! and Microsoft Alliance will definitely bring a big change in the way paid search marketing industry works. We expect to see an increase in the overall search volume at lower Pay per Click costs and we are looking forward to this change.
360Partners has been managing paid search for clients across multiple channels for the past 10 years. As an agency we are on top of the Alliance related activities, constantly assuring our clients that their accounts are very well taken care of. We would be happy to set up and manage your search marketing accounts as well as suggest ways to improve your current search marketing campaigns. If you would like to learn more about managing your business post-merger, contact us and we’ll help you get started. Contact us at searchmarketing@360partners.com for a free analysis.
