Sunnyvale, California — The rivalry between Yahoo and Google over the analytics arms race has been escalated a bit further on Friday as Yahoo released an upgraded version of its Web Analytics interface with new looks and features now available free for search and display advertisers and supported by Yahoo’s account team.
Organizations employing search and display advertising to promote their Internet marketing campaign may be interested to hear that Yahoo! We Analytics is now available to them for free.
In a Yahoo! Search Marketing blog post, editor Jeff Sweat said search advertisers can use the tool to track the performance of their ad campaigns.
In addition to upgraded features and functionalities, which includes new demographics and interest group reports, as well as new segmentation, filters, a demographics and interest groups dashboard, the ability to create more scheduled reports, and custom fields with more actions.
This includes campaigns on other search engines, display campaigns and email marketing, allowing them to make necessary enhancements to boost their overall success.
“Yahoo! Web Analytics offers user insight that you are not likely to find in other free analytics tools,” said Sweat.
Yahoo has also made the tools available for any search or display advertiser with an account manager. Dennis Mortenson, director of beta insights at Yahoo, said the new interface was designed for larger clients who need deep, complex analytics, as opposed to smaller advertisers who might be better suited to a do-it-yourself approach.
“If you have a select group of people you want to roll this out to, you can add more functionality and advanced metrics because you can cut certain segments off,” he said.
New reports included in the new dashboard include:
- Age report
- Gender report
- Age and Gender report
- Interest Categories report
- Y! Properties of Interest report
These categories can be applied as filters and segments, and can help demographic targeting with Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns.
Here is what the dashboard looks like:
Earlier, users could only program up to 3 reports for delivery at a time. Now users can create up to 10. Similarly, in the past you could only define up to 9 custom actions, and that number has been increased to 50 now.
Among those added functionalities is new demographic metrics that can inform advertisers about their audience’s age, gender, location and primary online interests. Yahoo is also offering more in-depth snapshots of the conversion process so advertisers can see where they are losing potential customers.
“Instead of me telling you you had 10,000 visits last week, I can tell you how many were male and the age distribution and what their primary interests are,” Mortenson said. “Then if you figure out that your primary audience is female, between 32 and 45, and primarily interested in politics, you can go in and buy against that segment.”
Yahoo web analytics is also providing moderate support for creating and tracking up to 38 custom fields, which can be used to add reporting categories to reporting structures.
“Merchants should note that custom fields require manual setup and page tagging,” says Yahoo. “We will soon be providing a Merchant Solutions-specific help page where you can learn more about custom fields and how to integrate them.”
Yahoo offers a variety of resources for users to get a firm grasp on what they’re doing with Yahoo Web Analytics. There is a help center, a Yahoo Web Analytics course, and a Training and Consulting page.
“Yahoo!’s emerging Web Analytics service surpasses Google in several key categories relevant to enterprises,” says a recent report from independent analyst firm CMS Watch. Search advertisers can use Yahoo! Web Analytics to track performance of their campaigns — not just Yahoo! Search Marketing, but campaigns on other search engines, display campaigns, even email campaigns — from click to conversion.
Yahoo introduced Web Analytics in October 2008 after purchasing IndexTools in April of that year. It said at the time that the service would be rolled out in stages, and that its intention was to “provide a full suite of analytics to our head and tail advertisers, agencies, publishers and development partners.”