Yahoo! Search Marketing > Yahoo! Search Marketing Help > Sponsored Search > Fine-tune Your Account
| Learn about: | Generating Sales | Generating Leads | Generating Traffic | Generating Local Business | Related Resources |
Generating Local Business
- Setting Up a Campaign
- Selecting Keywords
- Writing Effective Ads
- Setting the Right Bid
- Optimizing Your Landing Pages
- Tracking Your Results
- What is the account structure?
- Top 5 things to consider when creating a campaign
- How to create a campaign
- What is the Advanced match type?
- What is Content Match?
- What is Geo-targeting?
What is the account structure?
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Keywords
A [span]keyword is a single word or multi-word phrase that relates to the products and/or services you wish to advertise. When potential customers are looking for information related to your keywords, your ads may be displayed.
Ads
Your ads are the marketing messages that your potential customers will see. An ad is comprised of the [span]title, [span]description and [span]URL.
Ad Groups
An [span]ad group contains your ads (the marketing messages you created) and your targeting criteria (such as keywords). Your ads are rotated against your targeting criteria and are displayed to your potential customers. You can create multiple ad groups within a campaign.
Campaigns
A [span]campaign is made up of one or more ad groups that share the same budget, schedule and [span]geo-targeting criteria. Typically, campaigns are created to achieve a marketing goal (for example, a summer clearance campaign, a new product launch campaign, or a campaign that targets customers in a specific geographic location).
Account
Your [span]account contains all the elements you need to advertise in one market (i.e., the United States and English-speaking Canada). An account generally represents a business, or a portion of a business, that has a particular budget as well as marketing objectives.
Top 5 things to consider when creating a campaign
- Group your keywords by a certain attribute, i.e. by product, product category, offer or geographic region.
- Decide on your [span]bid for each group of keywords.
- Think about the core message you want to communicate to customers, and create specific ads for each group of keywords. This can improve the relevancy of your ads.
- Determine the most effective landing pages in order to increase [span]conversions (purchases or lead submissions). Learn more about optimizing your landing pages.
- Place tracking tags on your site so you can understand the performance of your campaigns and help optimize your results. Learn how to install tracking tags.
Log in to your account. Click the “Create Campaign” button on the Dashboard tab.
Follow these steps:
- Name your campaign.
- Set up geo-targeting by market, U.S. state, Canadian provinces or city and surrounding areas, also known as DMA1(if this applies to your business objective).
- Select your [span]distribution tactic: [span]Sponsored Search and/or [span]Content Match.
- Create ad groups with keywords, ads and a bid. if you select Sponsored Search, you can choose either [span]Advanced Match or [span]Standard Match Type.
- Set the budget for your campaign.
- Schedule a timeframe for when your ads will be online or offline.
- Review your campaign details before you activate your ads.
What is the Advanced match type?
Your potential customers may search on many variations of your keywords. It would be overwhelming for you to bid on and manage every possible variation. The solution is the Advanced match type, which enables you to leverage your existing ads to appear for a wider range of relevant keywords.
For example, if you activated the Advanced match type on the keywords “hotel,” “flight” and “vacation,” you could receive customers searching on terms like these:
- New York hotel
- California luxury hotels
- flight to Paris
- London flight
- family vacation
- vacation adventure
Content Match complements your Sponsored Search campaign by displaying your ads for a broad range of content throughout the Yahoo! distribution network, thereby providing an additional source of targeted leads. The Content Match distribution partner network includes numerous popular content and information sites. You also have the option to define separate bids for your Content Match ads.
Learn more about how to use Content Match.
Geo-targeting allows you to target your ads to potential customers located or interested in particular geographic areas within the market selected for your account. For example, if your business sells real estate within the state of California and you select California as a geo-targeted region, your ads will be shown to potential customers located in California, as well as to customers who may be located outside of California but enter search terms such as “California real estate".
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Learn more about how to use geo-targeting.
1DMA® is a registered service mark of Nielsen Media Research, Inc., and is used pursuant to a license from Nielsen Media Research, Inc., all rights reserved.
- Choosing keywords to reach out to local customers
- Additional guidelines for creating keywords
- Use geo-targeting
- Organize keywords into campaigns and ad groups
Choosing keywords to reach out to local customers
- [span]Bid on phrases containing geographic information (“San Diego plumber,” “Visalia bike store”).
- Select a range of [span]keywords that encompass your geographic area, from general to specific (“Los Angeles real estate,” “Pasadena real estate,” “Bungalow Heaven real estate”).
- If potential customers can only contact you by phone or in person, we suggest that you avoid using keywords containing words like “online” or “Internet.”
Additional guidelines for creating keywords
- Try to predict what your customers will type in when searching for what you sell.
- Choose more keywords than less to improve your chances of being found.
- Generate keywords with multiple words (“custom fabric roman shades”).
- Periodically add new keywords and remove the non-performers to keep your [span]account administration at a manageable level.
- Use the Find Keywords panel in the Choose Keywords page.
[span]Geo-targeting is a feature that allows you to target your [span]ads to customers based on their geographic location or geographical interest. (e.g. the United States and English-speaking Canada), state or province, or designated market area (DMA®).1
Your ads are then displayed to customers who are either located in or interested in the geographic regions you have targeted.2 This mean that, in addition to having your ads displayed to customers physically located in the targeted regions you select, your ads may also be displayed to customers located elsewhere if these customers search for information related to your targeted regions.
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Learn more about how to use geo-targeting.
Organize keywords into ad groups and campaigns
To keep your account organized, you can pool your keywords into [span]ad groups and your ad groups into [span]campaigns. An ad group contains a set of keywords that apply to a single ad ([span]title, [span]description and [span]URL).
Example: How to organize keywords into ad groups and campaigns
| Keywords | Ad Group | Campaign | Geo-Targeting |
|---|---|---|---|
| pizza delivery Italian home delivery Italian take away |
Delivery | Burbank | ZIP Code 91504 + 10 miles |
| Italian restaurant authentic Italian food stone oven pizza |
Restaurant | ||
| hot wok service home delivery Thai take away |
Delivery | Hollywood | ZIP Code 90068 + 10 miles |
|
Thai restaurant fresh Thai curry |
Restaurant |
Example: How to associate keywords with ads (title, description and URL)
| Keywords | Ad |
|---|---|
| pizza service Italian home delivery Italian take away |
Pizza Delivery in 30 Minutes In Hollywood, choose Dimora Ristorante for famous stone oven pizza. www.url.com |
| Italian restaurant authentic Italian food stone oven pizza |
Authentic Italian at Dimora Ristorante Visit our restaurant in Hollywood and enjoy authentic Italian dishes. www.url.com |
Ad groups can improve efficiency by enabling you to manage only one ad for multiple keywords. You can even start testing multiple ads within an ad group to determine which message attracts the most leads and/or converts at the highest rate. Learn more about ad testing.
Determining how many campaigns and ad groups you need depends on the size and complexity of your business. Consider the following divisions when organizing your account:
- Service or delivery areas (downtown, residential, office buildings).
- Product variations (mp3 video player, mini mp3-player, color display mp3-player).
- Product class or family (e.g. books, hardcover, paperback, thriller, sci-fi)
- Products (shoes) vs. services (shoe repair)
- Products that have one attribute in common (price, discount).
- Trials of new keywords
- Seasonal keywords (Christmas, summer clearance)
1DMA® is a registered service mark of Nielsen Media Research, Inc., and is used pursuant to a license from Nielsen Media Research, Inc., all rights reserved.
2Please note that geo-targeting accuracy is not guaranteed and may vary depending on the level of targeting selected, as well as other factors.
- Include your keywords in your ad
- Include geographic information
- Clarify your business type
- Specify shipping area
- Specify your expectations
- Top five things to avoid
- Ad testing
Include your keywords in your ad
To make this easy for you, Yahoo! Search Marketing offers the Insert Keyword feature. This feature can enable you to save time and help increase the relevance and [span]click-through rate of your [span]ads by using the [span]keyword token to dynamically insert the keyword that matches a searcher's query into your ad's [span]title and/or [span]description when it is displayed. In order to include your keywords in your ad. Learn more about 'Insert Keyword'.
Example listing for keyword: car detailing
| Good Ad | Bad Ad |
|---|---|
| Hollywood Car Detailing Car detailing starting at $199. 5% discount when you book and pay online. www.url.com |
CarCorner Car Services CarCorner is your partner for all services around your car. www.url.com |
| Why is it good? | Why is it bad? |
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Include geographic information
Even if you are using [span]geo-targeting, it’s a good idea to include your geographic location or service area in your ads. This will make your ads more attractive to the right audience, and will help prevent unwanted [span]clicks.
Example listing for keyword: Mexican food
| Good Ad | Bad Ad |
|---|---|
| Mexican Food Home Delivery in Pasadena $4 taco and burrito dishes. Pasadena delivery only—$10 minimum. www.url.com |
Mexican Food Home Delivery Tacos and burritos starting at $4 per dish. $10 minimum delivery. www.url.com |
| Why is it good? | Why is it bad? |
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Many businesses advertising in the search listings are online stores. Since you don't sell products on your site, be sure you attract customers looking for your type of business.
Example listing for keyword: Custom t-shirts
| Good Ad | Bad Ad |
|---|---|
| Custom T-Shirt Shop in Santa Monica Visit our Santa Monica, CA store for a wide range of custom t-shirts. www.url.com |
Get Custom T-Shirts at CustomDesign.com Choose from a wide range of custom t-shirts, caps and bags. www.url.com |
| Why is it good? | Why is it bad? |
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Don’t waste your ad spend on users who click through to your site, only to discover they’re outside your delivery area. Put this key information up front in your ad.
Example listing for keyword: dress shirt
| Good Ad | Bad Ad |
|---|---|
| Premium Tailored Dress Shirts Customized shirts made to order. Shipping to North America only. www.url.com |
Top Dress Shirt Online Shop Your favorite dress shirts delivered to your door. www.url.com |
| Why is it good? | Why is it bad? |
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If you expect customers to call or visit your physical location, mention it in the description. This will help attract the appropriate customers. Bear in mind that you are not allowed to include a telephone number or address in your ad.
Example listing for keyword: Santa Monica real estate
| Good Ad | Bad Ad |
|---|---|
| Buy or Rent Santa Monica Real Estate Call us for a free appointment in our Santa Monica Office 8am to 8pm. (Publisher) www.url.com |
Find Santa Monica Real Estate New offers added every day for Santa Monica real estate. www.url.com |
| Why is it good? | Why is it bad? |
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- Superlatives (“best,” “lowest,” “hottest”) and exaggerated language. It comes across as less trustworthy than clear, factual language.
- Inaccurate claims. If you get users to your site under false pretenses, they will be annoyed and will lose confidence in your business.
- Language and product presentation that are too “salesy.”
- Language that is too “salesy.”
- Ampersands (&) and numbers in place of words (“buy 2 get 1 free”). They look junky.
- Titles and descriptions that are too generic. Even if it’s tempting to have one creative per thousand keywords, the ad will be perceived as less relevant and will result in a lower [span]click-through rate and a weaker [span]conversion rate.
Within an [span]ad group, you can test multiple versions of your ad to determine which message works best. The various versions of your ad will be randomly displayed in the [span]Sponsored Search listings for the keywords in the ad group. The test will generate a [span]quality index score that reveals which ad generates the highest response.
The example below shows two ads to test for one ad group, which contains several related keywords.
Keywords:
- Pizza
- Home delivery
- Home service
- Pizza delivery
| Ad Copy to be Tested | Point of Differentiation |
|---|---|
|
Homemade Stone Oven Pizza Premium toppings and handmade dough. Order online for home delivery www.url.com |
Focuses on quality |
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Italian-style Pizza Starting at 4$ M starting at $4, L starting at $6. Additional toppings $0.50 each. www.url.com |
Focuses on price |
It’s important to make sure the ads you test remain relevant to all the keywords in an ad group. Therefore, we recommend you set up ad groups that share key similarities, such as product type and shipping options.
Learn more about ad groups and ad testing.
How to improve landing pages and increase [span]conversion rates
A landing page is the first web page a user will see after clicking your [span]ad. This could be your homepage, a dedicated page for a product or service or a deep link to a specific product in your online store.
Top 5 tips to optimize a landing page
The following optimization tips for landing pages and web site navigation can help make your [span]Sponsored Search [span]campaign more effective.
- Offer transparent and easy-to-understand navigation, and create deep links that go directly to the advertised product or service.
- Use landing pages that show multiple ways to get in contact with you and additional information that might bind the customer to your offer.
- Make sure users will have a positive experience on the landing page.
- Ensure that your online shopping engine and shopping cart are safe and easy to use (if applicable).
- Maintain good server availability and remove any broken links from your site.
You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression—so make life easy for potential customers.
- Keywords in a prominent location
- Unique product photos
- Product reviews and comparisons
- Offers (such as free shipping), discounts and rebates
- Consumer testimonials or case studies
- Buyer’s guides
- Method of contacting you directly (email or phone number)
The customer has already searched on a search engine—it’s unlikely he wants to start searching again on the landing page.
- Try to see your web site through the eyes of a potential customer.
- Make an obvious pathway to the product/service the customer was looking for.
- Avoid too many navigation layers between the customer and what they are looking for—2 clicks maximum.
- Deep links that lead directly to the offer and relate to the search query and ad are ideal.
- If a sale is your primary objective, move noncommercial related content/information below the fold.
- Why tracking is important
- Getting started
- What to do if you don’t have online conversions
- Using Conversion only tracking
- Calculating Your ROAS
- Tracking and analyzing your traffic
Tracking the performance of your online marketing enables you to effectively analyze your results, adjust [span]bids and revise [span]ads to make your [span]account more successful. Tracking is essential to help you spend effectively so that you are getting the most out of your advertising investment.
Tracking measures the [span]rate of conversion, which is a completed transaction event on your web site. What constitutes a [span]conversion varies from business to business. The most common conversions are:
- Site registration
- Newsletter sign-up
- Request for price quote
- Other lead-generating activity
If you’re ready to start tracking your results, the first thing you should do is determine your desired [span]CPA (cost-per-acquisition), which is the amount of money you’re willing to spend acquiring a new customer.
We recommend that you conduct a trial period during which your [span]ads can receive enough [span]clicks to provide you with the data you need. You can achieve that by setting a high [span]average position as the business objective for your [span]campaign.
As soon as you have gathered enough information (determining which [span]keywords perform best, and how much you have to spend to win a certain number of customers), you can start optimizing your account: add, remove and modify keywords, improve your ads and adjust your bid.
What to do if you don’t have online conversions
Most conversions are made by way of:
- An online shopping engine
- A newsletter sign-up form
- A lead submission form for your sales force
- An information request form
If you don’t offer the option for an online conversion, you have to rely on manually collected information to better understand your cost-per-acquisition. This is usually the case when you offer a telephone number or an email address that your potential customers can use to contact you. In this case, we recommend that you do the following:
- Make the question “How did you find our telephone number?” standard for your customer service or sales force.
- Set up a dedicated number or email address for each marketing initiative.
- Send your customers a short survey (bundled with a sweepstakes, perhaps) to ask how they found you.
Using Conversion only tracking
Yahoo! Search Marketing offers free, easy-to-use [span]conversion only tracking functionality that will help you optimize your marketing budget. You simply place a tag on your web site’s confirmation page, and then you can view conversion information in your account.
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Landing Page
The landing page is the destination of the [span]URL you are using in your ad. It’s the first page a customer gets to see. It is where they start the conversion process (e.g. shopping, submitting information, signing up for a newsletter, etc.).
E-commerce or Sign Up
During this part of the conversion process, the customer is using the e-commerce or the part of the web site where they can submit their address or sign up for a newsletter. The confirmation page will be the last page of this process confirming the purchase or the submission of information.
Confirmation Page
The [span]conversion tag is a short piece of code that is part of the confirmation page’s metadata. Each time the confirmation page is viewed at the end of the shopping process, the page view is counted as one conversion.
Learn more about conversion only tracking.
When your goal is to acquire traffic, your [span]ROAS is calculated as:
Value of Traffic Sold (e.g. your ad revenue)
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Amount Paid for Sponsored Search Traffic (i.e. total click cost)
Tracking and analyzing your traffic
In order to track and analyze the traffic on your web site, you will need to acquire specific software tools or learn how to analyze your web log files (see example below). Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) may provide these tools, or you can buy them from a third party (ask your ISP for a recommendation).
| Regular URL | http://www.electronics-planet.com/television |
| Tracking URL | http://www.electronics-planet.com/television?OVRAW=buy%20plasma %20television&OVKEY=plasma%20television&OVMTC=advanced |
Yahoo! Search Marketing provides you with the ability to use [span]tracking URLs, one of the most common techniques that associates where visitors came from with what they do on your site.
With tracking URLs, you will be able to learn:
- Which keyword brought the user to your site
- What the user was searching for before clicking your ad
- Which search engine referred the user to your site
Learn more about Tracking URLs.
Based on this information, you can start optimizing your account. For example, you can determine which keywords generated the most traffic, and then bid those keywords aggressively to help generate even more leads
