| Member |
Message |
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/13/2007 01:56 pm
I've had my program running under the new Panama system for about two months now. Since Panama is so similar to AdWords the respective programs use virtually identical AdGroups and even keywords, with liberal use of literals.
Comparing the two programs I have found that the CTRs I get with Google are much higher than with YSM for the same keyword and ad. An example using one of my best keywords is 7.14% with Google and 1.47% with YSM, but there are may others. The end result is that volume for my entire YSM effort is only a fraction of Google's.
Anyone else seeing such a large discrepancy between the two programs? Any comments as to why this might be happening?
|
 |
flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 04/14/2007 08:02 pm
If you had ads on the old Yahoo! Search Marketing system did you verify that the ads migrated correctly? Because the old and new systems work so differently, most of the time the keywords in the new system don't match the ads. That can definitely result in poor CTRs.
I would be more concerned with ROI and conversion rates than pure traffic. What you really want are sales and revenue and not just traffic.
Are you saying that you are using the same ads, ad groups and keywords on both? If yes, there are numerous potential reasons.
The first one that comes to mind is that I believe Yahoo only charges advertisers for one click while Google will charge you if the same visitor clicks multiple times and considers them all valid clicks. This is probably the reason many people report that Google charges them for more "unique visitors" than their web logs count.
Beyond that, high CTRs might not be a good thing. It could indicate that keyword is being "featured" on a popular social networking or parked domain site. Do those high CTRs generate high conversions to go with them?
I have noted that you can get good traffic from Google ads even if you bid low on the first page while at Yahoo it is really better to bid higher. Their search engine pages are laid out very similarly now so that is probably due to differences in traffic from partner sites.
Overall traffic volume has traditionally been higher from Google because their broad match was much "broader" than Yahoo's. Both of them have expanded over the years, especially Google's expanded broad match.
Don't forget that there are settings (country, language, content, Google search partner network, standard/advanced match, broad/phrase/exact match, negative keywords, etc.) that can make a huge difference in where your ads are shown and traffic on both systems.
|
|
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/16/2007 12:54 pm
Thanks for your rely. I manually (and I mean manually!) constructed the YSM from scratch. I had let the older system go pretty far astray while concentrating on the Google programs. When Panama came along, I simply ported the general Google architecture over to it. Man, that was a lot of clicking. YSM leaves a lot to be desired in ease-of-use terms.
I know I should concentrate on quality first, but I need some volume so the stats make sense. I get that with Google, but not YSM.
As for multiple click thrus, we review our programs daily, matching IP addresses with clicked-on urls for both AdWords and YSM. We detect multiple click thrus from Google, but also with YSM. There are fewer with the later, but also many, many fewer CTs in general. I've never tried to determine if the number of multiple hits that we get from YSM is proportional to those for Google. But even at the log file level, YSM is the tiniest fraction of Google's activity.
All have the same language and geography settings. In Google's case we use only search results from Google searches. YSM is only searches from Yahoo! (and whomever else they force down our throat). Finally, I'm only comparing [exact matches] in this exercise, so broad matching differences don't apply.
YSM programs simply seem to suck air, while equivalent programs in Google clip right along. Very strange.
|
|
flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 04/16/2007 02:14 pm
I've tried both trying to fix the issues caused by migrating well-optimized accounts from the old Yahoo! Search Marketing system to the new one and importing well-designed accounts from Google AdWords into the new system.
I can't recommend either method. Even though either would seem to save tons of time, at least for me it is faster to create on the fly what logically works than to fix the mess either option creates.
As for traffic, it isn't strange to me that Google AdWords drives far more traffic. Google gets the lion's share of free publicity in the media and is mentioned regularly online and off. Start noticing how often "Google this" or "Googling" is suggested. Have you ever seen a reference to "Yahoo this" or "Yahooing"?
As long as most people automatically search using google.com and/or use google as the default in their toolbars they will continue to have vastly more traffic to sell to advertisers.
There are many variables to who gets the search traffic. Here are a few:
defaults in and customized toolbars
defaults in operating systems
defaults in browsers
default search functions on major social networking sites such as myspace
contracts between search results providers and major sites
default search functions on all other sites
typing in a specific search engine
Most Internet users probably use whatever is handy and don't give where they're searching a lot of thought.
|
|
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/17/2007 11:35 am
All that is true, but I'm not concerned with search volume, only CTR. Here are some numbers for an identical [narrowly defined] search term, and virtually identical ads so far this month:
Program -> impressions, CTs, CTR
Google -> 1398, 110, 7.9%
YSM -> 4985, 83, 1.7%
So you see, it's not a question of impression volume. YSM simply yields a lower CTR than Google for virtually identical campaigns.
I don't expect anyone to explain this (unless I've really gaffed somehow). I'm simply wondering if anyone else has seen this disparity.
|
|
flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 04/17/2007 02:37 pm
If you have Google Analytics check the actual ad positions for the keyword phrases in question. I'm going to theorize that those are being moved to the T1-T3 positions at Google (top left) and are not in the top three at Yahoo.
If your ads are in the top three in both or neither I'd have to wonder why they're so much more popular at Google than Yahoo.
I've noticed and seen market research that Google users will click deeper into the ads than Yahoo users. That was on the old system. The "new" Yahoo looks more like Google so that may change everything.
I just tested opting one campaign for a specific product out of the Google Partner network. With all the traffic theoretically coming from google.com the CTR doubled and spending more than doubled while conversions dropped in half.
That is pretty much the opposite of what I would have expected so who knows? PPC used to make sense to me and I could stabilize accounts and spending. Patterns that used to be obvious are all over the place now.
Yesterday in the marketing summary in Google Analytics I saw visits on a top keyword jump over 1000%. Today in that same account GA indicates that visits to the fifth keyword in the top 5 keywords is up 13,100% and that keyword was not even on the list yesterday.
I had the account snapshot feature (still in beta) in one account. Until a couple of months ago most of the graphs had rounded lines. Then they changed and were very pointed indicating changes were far less gradual.
Hopefully some of these issues are not intentionally (bugs) and will get diagnosed and smoothed out sooner than later.
|
|
rjzak
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 57
|
Posted: 04/18/2007 04:12 am
It's interesting that for the same narrowly defined term that Yahoo is generating 3x more impressions than Google. With Google's market share, they should be delivering more impression volume.
Perhaps, this narrow term is not being interpreted narrowly by Yahoo, leading to more impressions and less click-throughs.
Or, that Yahoo is bundling in their content network into those stats, whereas Google does not include the content network stats into the data broken down by keyword. The content network almost always has significantly lower click-through rate.
|
|
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/18/2007 06:01 am
Rose,
You make a good point that I should have clarified early on. Ads for both products occupy the 1-3 positions consistently, with the edge going to Google where the ads average a slightly higher position. I just browsed the WSJ and noted that Yahoo's woes continue. Panama didn't produce the bump many had expected. Perhaps I'm not alone??
Rjzak,
I attribute the higher impression count in YSM to their broader search network (which I cannot opt out of). The Google campaign is set up for Google search only. This said, I am surprised also at the much higher volume for YSM. I expected them to be either near equal, or show a slight edge to Google.
|
|
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/18/2007 07:43 am
I just can't get it out of my head that there's something terribly wrong at YSM. My total CTs from all my campaigns yesterday was only 14, with pretty much the same activity yesterday. It's heading South in a hurry. Overall activity for the month to date of my four most important campaigns, virtual duplicates in Google and YSM, shows:
Source-> Impressions, CT, CTR
Google-> 23741, 1116, 4.7%
YSM-> 19971, 254, 1.27%
Again, not looking for explanations. Just confirmation that I'm not the only one on the planet who's CTRs are so dismal for YSM versus Google.
I should add that my so-called YSM "Quality Index" averages over three bars, with some ads reaching four and five.
[ Message was edited by: webconfusion 04/18/2007 08:15 am ]
|
|
flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 04/18/2007 04:58 pm
I am not surprised that Yahoo's advertising is suffering. The Panama transition dropped more keywords than it moved in most accounts and those that did transition are primarily paired with ads that don't match the keywords.
It is necessary to completely restructure any transitioned Yahoo account. I kept thinking there had to be a logical way to fix the accounts. Only after the most brilliant PPC consultant I know confirmed that she also thinks it best to start over did I give up the idea that there was something I was just missing.
It is easier to add more keywords in their new system. Everything else is far more difficult to manage and confusing. There are multiple places to change settings.
Their old system had some excellent ways to set bids. Their new system isn't consistent about how it displays the pages for setting bids and the suggested bids don't match what you see when you actually do a search.
That is the advertiser's side of things though and would not explain why traffic is declining unless those who were using Yahoo advertising tended to use Yahoo to search and now they're not.
Yahoo's expanded match has always made some strange associations. You may want to be sure you opt out of expanded match. If you do that you may want to add many more keyword phrases.
I truly wish that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other PPC engines would have the most experienced, active consultants beta test their systems BEFORE they roll them out. We use their systems differently than most other advertisers do.
I can think of two people besides me who would have ensured that their systems were far more usable IF they would listen to them. Yahoo and Microsoft are particularly cumbersome and confusing.
Even Google's system is missing some really obvious ways to speed up management that would also greatly free up demand on their system resources.
Thankfully their recent maintenance did speed up their system and fix the way negative keywords display; however, their process for adding negative keywords at the campaign level took a step backwards for no reason I can imagine.
Can anyone think of a reason why the CTR from Google.com would be higher than the CTR for their search partner network? I don't click on ads on parked domains and those impressions would be counted so that could be part of it but I wouldn't think that could account for that much difference.
One reason why traffic from Google can be lower than Yahoo is the way Google's system uses the Daily Recommended Budget. To find out if this is affecting your ads change the Campaign setting to accelerated and very late at night use the magnifying glass icon to make sure your ads are not being limited by your budget.
For months now Google's system has indicated that budgets are fine at the same time the ad diagnostic tool says ads are not being displayed because of budget issues. You can also try greatly increasing your budget and see if your impressions jump.
[ Message was edited by: flyingrose 04/19/2007 03:59 pm ]
|
|
webconfusion
Joined: Jun 24, 2002
# Posts: 125
|
Posted: 04/19/2007 05:57 am
Great insights as usual, Rose. I've not set a budget limit in any of my YSM campaigns. I thought I'd ride the new system for a few days or weeks to get a better feel for volume and such before making a decision. As it turns out, it seems to be self-throttling. My Google budgets are set very high and the threshold is rarely pierced.
I'm so perplexed by this that I actually called YSM yesterday for some guidance, but received nothing of value. At this stage I suppose that it is what it is. Over the years I've seen PPC campaigns rage in volume, and then pull back and stagnate for a while, before resuming a healthy pace. Maybe I'm simply in a slow YSM period for reasons known only to searchers and God.
|
|
flyingrose
Moderator
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
|
Posted: 04/19/2007 07:11 pm
I didn't used to set budget limits because we wanted to receive all the available quality traffic. With the massive amount of traffic certain pages of major sites can drive now that is more risky than I can suggest any more.
Getting a product featured on the Yahoo Buzz page last Christmas drove more traffic per minute than we usually got in an entire twenty-four hour period. If I hadn't been fortunate enough to catch it in 36 minutes that would have increased spending by 1440 times!!!
I highly recommend tightening up budgets as much as possible which is tough to do the way Google's system works and who knows yet how Yahoo's works.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who used to be able to make sense of what Google's and Yahoo's systems did and am now challenged to get them working the way we know they could.
|
|
|
