So, short answer is: I think we need a basic primer on Yahoo SSM. Let’s stick with that for now; when we master that, then maybe, maybe we’ll move on to Bing.

I hopped on to your website and blog and twitter, and found that you are an “ex-Yahoo! search geek”. MMM. My type of gal

But seriously, since you I’m sure are a Yahoo fu master, if you would be so kind as to help, I would be grateful. I know you’re running a biz and can’t give away too much etc., etc., and the time factor, etc., but I’d sure be happy to do some kind of barter with you.

I’ll email you
Thanks

Eric Bryant
Director
Gnosis Arts
Greater NYC

If it helps I’m more than happy to have a chat about this to see if I can give you a steer in the right direction. If you want to, you can email me nichola.stott(at)themediaflow.com to swap numbers.

The volume was fine with YSM/Bing. r.

As a follow up, do you think the best practice SEM for PPC differs much in YSM/BING as compared with AdWords? I fear I may be missing something since I focus so exclusively on “mastering” AdWords.

I’m sorry that these two sources didn’t deliver a good ROI for you. I know it can be difficult to find the volumes on these networks, particulalry in very niche sectors; however our experience on behalf of clients has always seen comparable ROI from these sources.

I’d be interested to know – did you run the same campaigns, keywords and copy on each provider? We often find that tailoring a campaign is required. As an example a lot of MSN searches occur off Bing and on network properties. Perhaps it could be worthwhile to do some demographic research and run a test campaign accordingly?

If your difficulties have been very much tied to volume then yes, the partnership could have a significant effect on ROI potential. If we were operating in a vacuum, then volume potential should double to a combined 7.4% (UK) share of market. Of course it is not as easy as that, as the partnership involves integrating the Yahoo! sales team to sell on the Adcentre platform. It’s going to take some time to integrate systems, move Yahoo! advertisers, absorb the respective partner networks and so on. I’d like to hope that during this time – Bing make an aggressive move to market in Europe, and release these product relevancy improvements that we’ve heard about; otherwise Google will erode this 7.4% potential before we even get to it.

But privacy and Google have never been friends. It’s only become much more apparent in recent times that they really don’t care about personal privacy. My mind still boggles at Eric Schmidt’s hopelessly naive and ignorant statement when he said “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”