The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
June 2006, Volume 5, Issue 7

Know Your Audience – Yahoo! Search Submit Pro’s New Reports

by John Krochune, Paid Search Manager, iProspect

Yahoo! has rolled out a number of advanced reporting features for their paid inclusion (PI) offering, Yahoo! Search Submit Pro. These reporting enhancements give marketers new insights into the performance of their PI campaigns. However it is important to note that these new reports are available only to PI marketers that submit their home page. The main features and benefits are detailed below.

Impressions Report

The Impressions Report displays an estimate of how many times a marketer’s PI listings were displayed [to searchers] within Yahoo!’s search results. Receiving impression data is commonplace for pay per click campaigns but because PI listings appear among the organic results in Yahoo!’s search result pages, getting impression data for this type of campaign is groundbreaking. Yahoo! has created a competitive advantage that no other search engine publicly makes available.

Impression data gives customers a better understanding of their campaign’s performance because they can analyze peaks and valleys in user demand or the effects of listing optimization. With this information, they can continuously make improvements to their campaign in order to maximize ROI.

Share of Voice Insights Report

The Share of Voice (SOV) Report allows the marketers to see how many impressions their PI listings are getting as compared to competitor results that are within the same Yahoo! designated category. Yahoo!’s Search Submit Pro program requires feeds to be categorized by industry, such as Business/Professional Services or Travel/Flight. This report reveals the percentage of impressions a marketer’s PI feed is obtaining within the top ten rankings of Yahoo!’s natural search results compared to the total number of impressions for keywords that are relevant to the marketer’s PI category.

The flip side of the SOV Report is Yahoo!’s Top Terms Without Coverage Report, which displays the top 50 keywords, in terms of popularity, in which the marketer’s PI feed is not appearing within the top ten rankings. These keywords are relevant to the marketer’s PI category, but not necessarily to their website since categories are usually broader than their business offering. Early experience with the report has shown that many keywords that appear in the Top Terms Without Coverage Report are not applicable to the website in question, but on occasion an important keyword is uncovered that can be used to optimize the feeds.

Demographic Insights Report

The Demographic Insights Report displays demographic data about the users who click on the marketer’s PI listings. Monthly click data is broken out by Yahoo!-designated age ranges, which can then be filtered by gender, state, and designated market area (DMA). The Top Demographic Clicks Report allows the marketer to see the keywords users are querying that result in PI clicks and breaks them down by user age range and gender. This information can be used to get a better picture of the marketer’s audience and incorporate that knowledge into optimizing PI listings.

Geographic Insights Report

Closely related to the Demographic Insights Report, the Geographic Insights Report presents information about the location of users who click on the marketer’s PI listing. Monthly click data can be viewed by DMAs, by state, and by time zone. Plus, there is a Top Geographic Clicks Report which shows the top keyword phrases by number of clicks and associates the keyword with the users’ location by time zone, state, and DMA. So far, the Geographic Insights Reports are based on U.S. registered traffic only. This type of data can help marketers to understand where their audience lives and could be put to use in the tailoring of a campaign’s messaging.

Knowledge is Power

This expanded reporting gives search marketers a wider universe of data to power their optimization plans. A better understanding of who your search audience is and where they live can help mold your PI feed’s messaging. Understanding the visibility of the PI feed through impression data gives potent feedback on how the feed is performing today and how it could be optimized to perform better tomorrow.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: June 2006, Volume 5, Issue 7

Know Your Audience – Yahoo! Search Submit Pro’s New Reports

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
June 2006, Volume 5, Issue 7