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Bloggin' Away

Two months into its life, the Yahoo! Search marketing blog has been the source for updates on the account upgrade, previews of new features, news from the trade shows and a healthy dialogue between readers, advertisers and Yahoos

Everyone from Donald Trump to Star Trek's George Takei now has one, it seems. And in October, Yahoo! Search Marketing joined the roster of other Yahoo! properties to launch its very own blog, which opened up another avenue of communication with our advertisers, prospects, media and other interested parties.

If you're one of the thousands of daily readers of the YSM blog, our editors offer a hearty thank you. If not, where have you been? The blog is now our key method for letting you know about your upgrade to the new Sponsored Search, the many learning resources we're offering, opportunities to meet and party with us at industry trade shows, and much more. It's also opened up a terrific dialogue amongst advertisers, and between our blog readers and key personnel here at the Burbank HQ.

And in 2007, we plan to make the blog an even more valuable resource to you, with timely news on the upgrade process, links to informative articles outside of the Yahoo.com domain, and even some thought-provoking pieces on where advertising is headed in this digital age. We hope you'll bookmark ysmblog.com in your browser; or better yet, add it as a feed to you're My Yahoo! page or other RSS reader.

Looking Back
Here's a sampling of what we've talking about in our blog:

A Whole New Reason to Say...
Senior VP Steve Mitgang's opening salvo set the blueprint for what the blog is and will aspire to be: "Audiences are fragmenting, and advertisers both large and small are looking for understanding and insight into alternate solutions that will provide the connections they need to their target markets." We wondered if anyone would notice Post #1, but we needn't have worried—it has garnered 130 comments to date.

Feedback Loop
Some of the industry's brightest minds took the new platform for a test drive, and fortunately, the engine ran smoothly. The pundits described their favorite feature, such as in this quote about the slider bar from the famous Jen Slegg: "This feature is great for the old-timers who want to see the differences quickly with ease, as well as being a great learning tool for advertisers new to PPC, since they can see how the bid price they choose relates to how much traffic they will receive or miss out on when their ad campaign goes live."

Be Prepared
This post described how and where the basic structure of an advertiser's account would change in the new platform: "Being prepared, the Scouts say, can help you to adjust to changes and help turn challenges into successes." Readers learned the lingo we'll be using in the upgraded system.

Head's Up...
This is an example of how we use the blog to tell you about day-to-day changes related to the new platform, in this case the swap-out of some bid data columns in the interface (both the "old" and new ones). It also demonstrates how powerful and flexible a blog can be, as when our launch plan changed slightly, we were able to quickly amend the post with the new info.

Navigating Your Upgraded Account
We provided a quick tour of the interface in the upgraded platform, including the four main tabs: Dashboard, Campaigns, Reports and Administration. This "road map" also included links to a helpful tutorial and PDF comparison of "before" and "after."

It's holiday time, our (virtual) doors are open, and we're cooking some good things inside. Come pay us a visit and stay a while.