Yahoo!

Search Marketing and Microsoft Advertising adCenter Feature Comparison Guide

Soon, you will be able to advertise on Yahoo! Search and Bing with one ad buy through Microsoft Advertising adCenter. You have the option to transition your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns into adCenter using the adCenter tab in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Clicking there will take you to the beginning of the account transition process, where well walk you through the simple steps to import your Yahoo! campaigns into adCenter. Use this guide to learn more about the adCenter features and how they may differ from those youve used with Yahoo!. For more details on the transition, please visit the Yahoo! Transition Center or Microsoft Transition Center.

Account setup and distribution

How it works in adCenter
Distribution Tactic (Set at the account level) Ad Distribution (Set at the ad group level)

Feature snapshot

Microsoft adCenter allows you to choose whether youd like to distribute your ad groups in the search auction, the content auction, or both. If you are importing campaigns from Yahoo!, the distribution settings will be maintained in adCenter. For example, an account with content match turned off in Yahoo! Search Marketing will have content distribution in adCenter turned off at the ad group level. In adCenter, serving content ads to partner sites is automatically turned on when you create a new campaign or ad group.

Network Distribution (Search ads)

Distribution Controls (Search ads)

We are currently developing new adCenter features that will help you control search ads distribution across Yahoo!, Bing, and partner sites. The intent of the new features coming soon to adCenter is to allow you to display search ads on the bundle of Yahoo! and Bing properties exclusively, on partner sites exclusively, or on the entire combined network (which is the default setting). In addition, youll be able to indicate domains and sub domains that youd like to exclude at both the ad group and campaign levels. These search ad distribution controls are currently in development for a future adCenter upgrade.

How it works in adCenter Market (Set at the account level) Language and Market (Set at the ad group level) As you transition your Yahoo! account to adCenter, you will be asked to select the language and market for your ad groups. This is the language in which the ads are written and the market or set of websites through which the ads are distributed. In adCenter, the United States, Englishspeaking Canada, and French-speaking Canada are considered three different markets. Your North American market Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns will default to the English United States language and market in adCenter. If you want to run a North American English language campaign, but the messaging is different for each market, you could create one ad group with the language and market of English United States (www.bing.com and www.yahoo.com), and another ad group with the language and market of English Canada (www.ca.bing. com and www.ca.yahoo.com). In this way, you will have ads distributed to the local search engines for all of your target markets. Blocked Continents (Set at the account level) N/A adCenter does not currently allow you to block distribution in certain continents; rather, it enables you to select distribution in the locations that you want. If you had blocked continents in Yahoo! you will need to update these setting in adCenter by targeting customers by geographical location. In adCenter, we currently allow you to exclude specific websites from campaigns and ad groups that distribute content ads. Excluding sites ensures that your ads will not appear on those websites. Microsoft plans to enable website exclusion for search ads in the future. The current limit of websites you can exclude is 500 at both the campaign and ad group levels, and the excluded websites designated at the ad group level override the websites you exclude at the campaign level.

Feature snapshot

Blocked Domains (Account level for search and content)

Website Exclusion (Campaign and ad group level for content only)

How it works in adCenter Time Zone (Set at the master account level) Time Zone (Set at account and campaign levels) If you transition your Yahoo! account to adCenter, your master account level time zone will be automatically set as the default time zone for your account in adCenter, which will carry down to all of your campaigns for that account. In adCenter you have the additional ability to also set a time zone for each new campaign individually. The time zone should be where your office is located because its used for billing purposes and to help control your daily and monthly campaign budgeting. The time zone is not associated with the location of your potential customers. Username and Password (Associated to contacts) Username and Password (Set at customer level and assigned to accounts)

Feature snapshot

If you manage multiple accounts with adCenter, you can have one username and password set at the customer level, that you can use to access the multiple accounts you manage. With Yahoo!, you have separate usernames and passwords for each account. This is a key benefit with adCenter to help you save time by allowing you to sign-in to adCenter just once while you manage multiple accounts. If you do not already have an adCenter username and password you will be able to create one at the time of your transition to adCenter.

Budgeting and bidding

How it works in adCenter Monthly Budgeting (Used with Insertion Order accounts only) Monthly Budget (Required at campaign level) Setting a monthly budget for your campaign in adCenter is required. When you transition your campaigns into adCenter, your daily spend limit in Yahoo! will be multiplied out to create a monthly budget, then divided evenly across your campaigns. You have a variety of budgeting options to choose from in adCenter. If you choose to adjust your budget settings, you have flexibility and control over how your budget gets allocated across the month by choosing to set a daily budget target, divide your monthly budget across the month, or spend your monthly budget until its depleted. Make sure that you select an appropriate budget for your campaigns, taking care to choose settings that maximize your performance. Daily Spending Limit (Set at the account and/or campaign level) Daily Budget (Set at the campaign level) Feature snapshot

There is no daily spending limit in adCenter. You can set a daily budget, in addition to a monthly budget. Please note that the daily budget is a target and does not provide a hard stop. The actual daily spend could be higher or lower than the daily budget, but the monthly spend will not exceed the monthly budget you set.

Minimum Bid is $0.01

Minimum Bid is $0.05

Microsoft adCenter requires a minimum bid of $0.05. If your keyword bids in Yahoo! are under $0.05, the transition tool will prompt you for approval to increase your bids to $0.05. You can also customize your keyword bids on your own in adCenter. To get your ads serving, make sure that you adjust your bids to help improve your performance. A higher bid will give you a greater chance of achieving a favorable ad position and greater traffic from Bing and Yahoo! Search users.

How it works in adCenter Bid by Keywords (Set ad group level default bids for search or content, or keyword level custom bids for search only) Bid by Keywords (Set ad group level default bids and individual keyword level bids by match type for search and content) adCenter offers you more keyword bidding controls that allow you to customize a bidding strategy thats right for your search and content ads. With adCenter, you can bid on keywords in one or more of the following ways:
Enter one default bid for all content network keywords and another default bid for all search network keywords. (Your ad group default bids are applied only to keywords that do not have nondefault bids.) Enter individual (or nondefault) bids for individual keywords by match type. Use the bids that are estimated to achieve average position 1.

Feature snapshot

Bidding competitively helps your ad show up in a prominent position in search results or content pages for those keywords. N/A Bid by networks and websites (Set at the ad group level for new Content Network Only campaigns) For new content only campaigns in adCenter, you can choose to bid by networks and websites instead of by keywords. This allows you to bid for particular websites in the content network, or on the entire content network. If you win a bid, your ad will appear at that location. Be sure to use this feature to maximize your ROI from our content network. Note that you may not be able to target & bid on some of our Premium partner sites due to contractual limits. Instead of paying before you receive clicks in Yahoo!, adCenter has a threshold-billing system that applies charges either on your monthly billing cycle day or when you reach your billing threshold, whichever comes first. adCenter also has a Bill Me Now option that allows you to charge your Microsoft adCenter account balance immediately to your payment method. You can pay by credit card or debit card. Some advertisers also pay by invoice. In the U.S., PayPal is also an option. If you paid your Yahoo! account with PayPal and are eligible to do so in adCenter, you must re-enter that information because it will not be carried over as part of the transition.

Prepay billing

Pay as you receive clicks

Campaign management and targeting

How it works in adCenter Excluded Words (Up to 250 keywords each at the account, campaign, and ad group levels) Negative Keywords (Several thousand at the campaign and ad group levels, and 1,024 characters at the keyword) As part of your transition from Yahoo! to adCenter, your excluded keywords will carry over at the same level, except account-level excluded words, which will be set to the campaign level in adCenter as adCenter does not offer negative keywords at the account level. Currently, adCenter negative keywords are available at the campaign, ad group, and keyword levels. We recently expanded negative keyword limits at the campaign and ad group levels to several thousand, which is well above what is offered in Yahoo! Search Marketing. Negative keywords set at lower levels override those at higher levels within a campaign. Feature snapshot

Start and End Dates (Set at the campaign level)

Start and End Dates (Set at the ad group level)

Your campaign-level start and end date setting in Yahoo! will be applied at the adCenter ad group level as part of your transition. In adCenter, one campaign can include ad groups with different start and end dates, making it simple to manage promotional or seasonal ads within an existing campaign.

Targeting (Set at the campaign and ad group level)

Targeting (Set at the campaign and ad group level)

When you move your campaigns into adCenter, you will need to reset your targeting settings with adCenter targeting options. With adCenter, you can zero in on your ideal customers with targeting by geographic location, age and gender, day of week, time of day, and device.

How it works in adCenter GeoTargeting Geographic Targeting (Set at the campaign and ad group level) Take control of your geographic targeting by selecting specific countries/regions, states/provinces, metro areas, or cities where your target customers are. Microsoft adCenter uses reverse-IP address lookup to determine the customers location. At this time, adCenter doesnt offer targeting by postal code. When you move your Yahoo! campaigns into adCenter, you will need to reset your targeting settings.

Feature snapshot

Demographic Bidding

Demographic Targeting (Set at the campaign and ad group level)

You can use adCenters age and gender targeting to help reach your ideal target customers. adCenter provides you with more control by allowing you to exclusively target customers by gender and age, and then add incremental bids to your base bid as well. While adCenter does allow you to exclusively target specific genders and age groups, there is no option to absolutely block the 0-17 age range from seeing your ads. Instead you can exclusively target other ages and genders you wish to reach. As you transition your account from Yahoo!, you will need to reset your targeting options to take advantage of the exclusive age and gender targeting available in adCenter.

Ad Scheduling

Target by Time of Day or Day of Week (Set at the campaign and ad group level)

When transitioning your Yahoo! campaigns to adCenter, you will need to reset your targeting options to select the time periods within which you wish your ads to display. In adCenter, you have the ability to designate ads to show more frequently to consumers on specific days of the week and times of day.

How it works in adCenter Carrier Targeting (Set at the campaign, ad group, ad, and keyword level) Target by Device (Set at the campaign and ad group level for text search ads) At this time, mobile carrier targeting is not available in adCenter. Instead, you can set your adCenter campaigns and ad groups to target your text search ads to smart phones and other mobile devices with full web browsers. Device targeting in adCenter allows your ads to display only to potential customers who are viewing your ad with a specific device, such as a smart phone, laptop, or desktop computer.

Feature snapshot

Bid Adjusments

Incremental Bids (Set at the campaign and ad group level)

Microsoft Advertising adCenter allows you to place additional bids, called incremental bids, in 10 point intervals from zero to 100% to target customers by location, day of week, time of day, customer age, or customer gender. An incremental bid is a percentage increase of the base bid, applied when customers who meet the target criteria click your ad.

Keywords and ad customization

Match Types (Advanced and standard) Match Types (Broad, phrase and exact) adCenter offers three search match type options: exact, broad, and phrase. While Yahoo! currently only offers standard and advanced match options, the three match type options in adCenter align with industry standards seen in other search advertising systems. If you transition your Yahoo! campaigns to adCenter, your advanced match keywords will transition to broad match, and your standard match keywords will transition to exact match in adCenter. In addition to having the three industry standard match types in adCenter, you can also specify unique bids for each match type giving you more control over your bidding strategies.

How it works in adCenter Ad Title and Short Description Ad Title and Text adCenter allows ad titles up to 25 characters and ad text up to 70 characters, while Yahoo! allows ad titles up to 40 characters and ad text up to 70 characters. It is recommended that you shorten your ad title and short description in Yahoo! Search Marketing before you transition to adCenter to help ensure your ad doesnt receive an editorial disapproval.

Feature snapshot

Keyword Canonicalization

Keyword Normalization

Microsoft adCenter uses a normalization process to find and flag duplicate keywords in your keyword list so you can remove them. This saves you time because you dont have to manage as many keyword variations. When you import keywords, if there are duplicates caused by normalization, youll see an error message, but you can still import your list. Microsoft adCenter removes the duplicates automatically. adCenter does not normalize for plural forms or misspellings like Yahoo! so there are significantly higher number of keywords that can be entered, optimized, and bid on in adCenter. Use the free tool, Advertising Intelligence, to expand your keyword lists to help capture more queries by your target consumers.

How it works in adCenter Params Params and Dynamic Text A customized ad is more likely to appeal to potential customers because it is more relevant. Using dynamic text can help improve the click-through rate and conversion rate of your ads, and when you use dynamic text as a placeholder, you can quickly update multiple ads simultaneously. Youll find three types of dynamic text: keyword, which allows you to customize your ad based on search queries; destination URL, which changes the destination URL based on search queries; and placeholders, which enables you to revise multiple ads simultaneously by using placeholders. For placeholders, adCenter offers more param options beyond {keyword}, including {keyword:default}. You can also customize your search ads by using text variables. You first create a base ad, and then you indicate which parts of the ad will change, depending on factors such as keyword search queries by potential customers.

Feature snapshot

Reporting
N/A Search Query Performance Report Currently not available through Yahoo!, once you transition to adCenter, begin using the search query performance report to get performance statistics about user search queries that resulted in impressions and clicks for your ads. You can use this report to learn what queries searchers are entering on Bing and Yahoo! that cause your ads to display. This knowledge can help you refine your keyword and negative keyword lists for your ad groups.

Ad Delivery Report

Publisher Performance Report

With the Publisher Performance Report in adCenter, you can see the sites within our network that your ads are running on and use this information to further optimize your campaigns.

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How it works in adCenter N/A Website Placement Performance Report (Available for content network ad groups that bid on website placements) ConversionOnly and Full Analytics Package (Set at account level) Conversion Tracking (Set at campaign level) Use the website placement performance report to monitor the performance of content ad placements in selected accounts, campaigns, and ad groups. This performance report shows a breakdown of web site domain for sites specifically bid on with the Site Placement Bidding feature. .Doing so can help you make well informed decisions as you optimize your campaigns.

Feature snapshot

adCenter currently offers conversion tracking functionality. If you use the transition tool from within your Yahoo! Search Marketing account (a tab labeled adCenter), your conversion tracking settings will be imported into adCenter. Youll want to make certain that the track conversions check box is selected for each of your adCenter campaigns because conversion tracking is not automatically turned on in adCenter. You will not be required to retag your sites with adCenter tags. Coming soon to adCenter we are developing a significantly enhanced conversion analytics product that is similar to Yahoos Full Analytics product, and will feature revenue tracking, an ad performance report, a custom conversion funnel with customizable goals, and much more.

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