Yahoo! 'Panama' - what does it mean for your search marketing?

So it’s not long now until Panama hits the UK, but what will the new system mean for your search marketing?   We’ve been studying the imminent arrival of the new paid search medium and, both technically & functionally, a lot is going to be changing. 

We’ve been studying what this means to the advertiser, and have broken down into five easily digestible bullet points what we believe to be the most important developments that will benefit your business and improve your returns from Yahoo!:

1. My bid’s bigger than your bid.

It’s not all about who’s got the biggest bid anymore; Yahoo! have followed in the footsteps of Google and MSN and will introduce a ranking score which will be factored into bid price. Targeted ad copy, click through rates and landing page relevance will all play a part. This is great news for us as it encourages best practice and rewards advertisers for improving the search experience.

2. More keywords, more reach, more sales.

In the past, Yahoo! has not accepted keywords that have had no searches against them within the previous month. This is all changing with Panama and much larger banks of highly targeted keywords can be used. They may only receive 2 or 3 clicks a month but, over 5,000 keywords, this could have a big impact on your business.

3. Ad testing & ad rotation.

Gone are the days of one creative per keyword; it was labour intensive and could never hold a candle to Google’s system of multiple ads serving groups of keywords. Yahoo! have done the right thing and adopted a system similar to Google and MSN – this means we’ll really be able to hone the creative message, improve click through rates and really find out what messaging is driving the most conversions.

4. Analytics & reporting

Yahoo! are stepping it up in this area and are looking to provide clients with the analytical power to really get to grips with their data. From what we’ve heard, and seen, we’re expecting it to be intuitive and easy to use and will give us the power to make key decisions to improve returns.

5. Instant Keyword Uploading

No more waiting around for your Yahoo! team to upload your new campaigns and keywords.  Panama gives us the chance to upload & launch campaigns instantly. So if you’re looking to respond to topical news items, new legislation or launch a new product quickly, Panama gives us the tools to do this.

So when’s it due I hear you cry? Yahoo! haven’t given us a definitive date as yet but it’s looking like a summer launch (exactly when in the summer will depend a lot on testing and de-bugging). We’ll keep you all informed of any updates as we gear up for this long awaited launch.