13-Dec-2006 Marty Weintraub
There are 2 other articles associated with the former SEW Forum thread. (More Panama Geo-Targeting Angst and Yahoo Takes Down Panama Geo-Targeting ) The article below was the first in the thread. You may also be interested in a recent Wall Street Journal Article regarding Yahoo Panama search advertising. |
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Panam Geo-Targeting Pain It's official! After 2 days, 4 customer support calls, and a lost night's sleep dreaming of fishhooks in my finger, Yahoo has admitted to me that Panama geo-targeting does not work in some cases "during the transition process." They will fix it later. This dirty little secret was not understood by the first 3 customer support techs I talked to at Yahoo® over the last 36 hours. The information is not in the Legacy to Panama upgrade website. My guess is that the techs now are now being better briefed. The last one I talked to today said that Yahoo was "receiving calls regarding geo-targeting issues." Let me tell you, it's a time-waster if you need geo-targeting for locally tagged keywords. |
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I'm not greedy. Legacy did not geo-target at all. Panama is an improvement. I am taking several PPC clients through early conversion to Panama for campaigns restricted to smaller geographic areas. Overall we're transitioning a significant dollar amount for campaigns which rely on a balance of search engine optimization and PPC.
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The campaign in question is geo-restricted to Minnesota. I am marketing a Duluth, Minnesota hotel to Minnesotans. The competitors are mostly national chains and are likely purchasing the search for a Duluth, Minnesota hotel in national results.
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aimClear • 525 South Lake Avenue
Duluth, Minnesota • 312 Washington Ave. North • Minneapolis, MN 55401 • 218-310-2244
Panama Geo-Targeting Pain: AimClear is a search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing firm in Minneapolis and Duluth offering Website Promotion and Minnesota Internet marketing strategy nationally.
Unfortunately this affects an advertiser’s ability to place geo-targeted campaigns for contested keywords which are geo-tagged for the same area when competing against others who market the keyword to a larger geographic area.
It's Easier to Be Geo-Succesful on Google
At first, I thought it was my landing pages. I was confused because the quality and relevance of the landing pages content we deploy work well for geo-targeted campaigns in the Google App. By covering basic landing page SEO attributes we have no problem buying any keyword we want, in whatever position we want, with great ROI. It’s rare that we have a significant keyword bumped in Google for lack of CTR or relevance. It’s common for us to split out every campaign into a handful of (form or buy-button in the-page) content specific landing pages.
However, Panama eliminates displays of geo-tagged keywords in same-DMA targeted campaigns when the keyword is contending against competitors' purchase of the same keywords nationally. I’ve found at least a dozen contested geo-taggged keywords which I could not place in the Panama PPC results regardless of the bid or daily spend limit, even though the Panama slider tool (drilled down to the keyword level) indicates that my bid will harvest 100% of the clicks and is bid over the requirement to be #1.
While IP mapping is not a for-sure science, I am able to see other campaigns I have deployed which are restricted to Minnesota. Therefore, even Yahoo agrees that they perceive the IP address I am searching from as being from MN. Yahoo, in the several hours I spent on the phone dealing with them yesterday, chalked the issue up as a "mapping problem" and conceded that the ad should be #2 here in Minnesota where I sit. They promised to call me back. When they did, they finally admitted the flaw and said it "must have been that someone I talked to who was not up to speed."
Another interesting Panama fact is that the geo-targeting for locally tagged searches (when it works) does not really restrict the search results to the specified IP block if the keyword you purchase has the geographic tag in the keyword. According to Yahoo "Duluth Hotel" can show up anywhere in the country when someone searches for it regardless of any campaign geo-targeting. It also would display for searches for "hotel + zip code." The only true IP targeting being offered in Panama is for keywords which do not actually include a geographic prefix or suffix. "Hotel," geo-restricted to Florida would only be displayed in Florida. “Florida Hotel” (if it displays at all) is be shown anywhere the phrase is queried on Panama regardless of any geo-targeting of the search.
David Lee Roth is Still Better
Finally, Panama is clever and has nice features. I like Yahoo as a company to deal with and for their social media ethic. They throw great parties. Still, Panama requires you to drill all the way down to the specific keyword level to enter a custom URL for an individual keyword. The process is much less transparent than Overture Legacy. There is no such thing as a user maintained client center. (When I called Yahoo to ask about it they offered to custom-aggregate my clients’ accounts into one login upon request after the conversion process is completed). There are other annoying features in this young and someday robust advertiser directed platform. Overture always had results competitive with Google. For now, the Google app blows it away for campaign management.
