• Include your keywords in your ads
• Clarify your business type
• If contacting you requires your prospects to call you, mention it in your ad
• If contacting you requires a contact-me-form be filled in by the user, mention it in your ad
• Address newsletter sign-up options in your ad
• Top five things to avoid
• Ad testing

Include your keywords in your ads

To make this easy for your Yahoo! Search Marketing offers the Insert Keyword feature. This feature can enable you to save time and help increase the relevance and click-through rate of your ads by using the keyword token to dynamically insert the keyword that matches a searcher's query into your ad's title. Learn more about 'Insert Keyword'

Example listing for keyword: online trading platforms

Clarify your business type

Many businesses advertising in the search listings are online stores. Since you don’t sell products on your site, make sure you attract customers looking for your type of business.

Example listing for keyword: custom t-shirts

If contacting you requires your prospects to call you, mention it in your ad

If your goal is for customers to call your business, mention it in the description. This will help you attract the appropriate customers and properly set their expectations. Bear in mind that you are not allowed to include a telephone number in your ad.

Example listing for keyword: Santa Monica real estate

If contacting you requires a contact-me-form be filled in by the user, mention it in your ad

If you want customers to visit your site and fill out a contact form, mention it in your description. Using your ad to tell potential customers what you want from them may translate into targeted and motivated leads to your site.

Example listing for keyword: IT administration

Address newsletter sign-up options in your ad

If you want customers to sign up for a newsletter or other content, mention it in the description. This should help you attract customers interested in information, rather than shopping.

Example listing for keyword: IT administration

Top five things to avoid

1. Superlatives (“best,” “lowest,” “hottest”) and exaggerated language. It comes across as less trustworthy than clear, factual language.
2. Putting your phone number or entire address in your ad is not allowed.
3. Language and product presentation that are too “salesy.”
4. Ampersands (&) and numbers in place of words (“buy 2 get 1 free”). They look junky.
5. Titles and descriptions that are too generic. Even if it’s tempting to have one creative per thousand keywords, the listing will likely:
• be perceived as less relevant
• experience a lower click-through rate
• weaker conversion rate

Ad testing

Within an 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 Sponsored Search listings for the keywords in the ad group. The test will generate a quality index score that reveals which ad generates the highest response.

Ad Group: "LA Real Estate” Keywords:

• Santa Monica Apartment


• LA Real Estate


• Hollywood Property


• Venice Beach House


• Huntington Apartment

It’s important to make sure the ads you test remain relevant to all the keywords in an ad group. Therefore, we suggest you set up ad groups that share key similarities, such as product type and shipping options.

Learn more about ad groups and ad testing.