Yahoo! Search Marketing > Yahoo! Search Marketing Help > Sponsored Search > Managing Your Account

The Blocked Domains tool lets you specify websites in our partner distribution network where you do not want your Sponsored Search or Content Match ads to be displayed. Blocked Domains helps you connect with traffic that better meets your business needs. For example, you might sell video game software, but you don’t want your ad to appear on certain sites that only appeal to online video game enthusiasts. You could then block the online video game websites, so that your ads will not appear there. Or, you may have identified lower-performing sites where your ads have appeared using data from the Ad Delivery Report. You can then block those domains that do not meet your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) goals and may be less cost effective.

Benefits of Blocked Domains include:

• Block your ads from hundreds of web sites *
• Works with Sponsored Search and Content Match
• Block sites on your entire account
• Complements our pricing algorithms which are designed to take into account our assessment of the performance of traffic sources within our network

View best practices for using the Ad Delivery Report to help inform your use of the Blocked Domains feature.

Blocking an entire domain blocks all sub-domains and directories under that domain (i.e. blocking electronics-planet.com also blocks traffic from games.electronics-planet.com and electronics-planet.com/products/videogames, etc). Rather than attempting to block all sub-domains you may want to block the entire domain in order to block all traffic from a website.

*Currently, it is not possible to block sites on the Yahoo! domain

Using the Ad Delivery Report to Help Inform Your Use of the Blocked Domains Feature

The Ad Delivery Report allows you to view:

• a list of domains and specific URLs where your ads were displayed
• performance metrics for your campaigns in terms of impressions, clicks, cost, conversions, etc by URL (Analytics must be installed to track conversion data. Learn more about installing Analytics)
• information about how certain URLs are performing, potentially enabling you to make better decisions when using the Block Domains feature

Since not all clicks are valued the same, consider using Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) and conversion metrics found in the Ad Delivery Report to inform your decisions about which domains to block. The following steps can help inform your use of the Ad Delivery Report to block lower-performing domains that you determine to be of lesser value to you:

Tracking Domains Using Conversion Events and Revenue

Ensure you are opted into Conversion-Only or Full Analytics and have added the Analytics tags to your site in order to view conversion data in your Ad Delivery Report, and then:

1. Download the data from the Ad Delivery Report into a spreadsheet file.
2. Sort your data by ROAS($) (Return on Ad Spend), and then by Cost($).
3. After determining what an acceptable ROAS is for you, you can select to block domains that do not meet your ROAS.
4. Enter the domains you want to block using the Blocked Domains feature in the Account General Information panel under the Administration tab.

Important note: Prior to blocking domains that do not meet your ROAS goals, you may want to make certain the cost associated with clicks from those domains is significant relative to their performance. Blocking domains can reduce the amount of traffic you receive.

If You Prefer to Track Domains by Conversion Data Only

Consider using ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) to track which domains you want to block rather than Cost per conv. (Cost per conversion) since not all conversions are valued equally. However, if you prefer to track by Cost per conversion, first, make sure you are using Conversion-Only or Full Analytics to receive conversion data in your Ad Delivery Report, and then:

1. Download the data from the Ad Delivery Report into a spreadsheet file.
2. Sort the data by Cost per conv.($).
3. Determine what an acceptable cost per conversion for you is.
4. After determining what an acceptable cost per conversion for you is, you can select to block domains that do not meet your goals by entering the domains you want to block using the Blocked Domains feature in the Account General Information panel under the Administration tab.

Important note: Domains that receive clicks but do not have conversions will not have a Cost per conv. associated with them and you may want to select these domains for blocking. Prior to blocking domains that do not meet your goals, you may want to ensure the cost associated with clicks from those domains is significant relative to their performance as blocking domains can reduce the amount of traffic you receive.

If You Prefer to Track Domains by Cost Per Click (CPC) Only

Using CPC as a sole metric to block domains may not align with your ROI tracking goals as all clicks are not valued the same. Consider using ROAS or conversion date to track which domains you want to block. To view ROAS and conversion data you must opt into Conversion-only or Full Analytics.

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