Sunnyvale, California — Yahoo’s search marketing division is invigorating their service, on Monday announced the addition of three new enhanced targeting options to its search marketing advertising solution, in an attempt to give its partner advertisers more returns for their investment. The enhanced features which will be enforced on Yahoo Sponsored Search include demographic targeting, ad scheduling and enhanced ZIP-level geo-targeting.
Here is what the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog has to say about these new features: “We try not to oversell the changes we make to Sponsored Search — sometimes a button is just a button, after all,” says Yahoo Search Marketing Blog editor Jeff Sweat. “So, we hope you will pay attention when we tell you this: the new targeting features we are adding right now are kind of a big deal.”
These new features will be applicable at the Yahoo Search ad group and ad campaign level. Furthermore, Yahoo has fine-tuned the content match segment to make the ads more relevant to the publisher’s content.
Demographic Targeting:
The demographic targeting allows advertisers to select the desired audiences based on age and gender on Yahoo sites in both Sponsored Search and Content Match, then set a premium bid for those groups. With demographic targeting, advertisers can take advantage of Yahoo!’s vast user base and its deep understanding of its audience. Our demographic targeting employs a concept called bid adjustments, which empowers you to set a premium bid for the categories that are worth more to you without losing other traffic volume.
Ad Scheduling:
We now take a look at the ad scheduling feature, also referred to as “day parting.” If you want to target the people that are most likely to respond to your ad at specific times of the day, or if your business is only open during specific hours, you can select what time of day and day of the week you would like your campaigns to run. The ad scheduling option enables advertisers to go after specific time-slots. Ads can be scheduled according to the advertiser’s own business hours, or just when they think the target audience is most likely to be online. Ad scheduling works in both Sponsored Search and Content Match, and at the ad group and campaign levels. Additionally, you can boost the price-per-click you want to pay based on the day or time of day.
Enhanced ZIP-Level GeoTtargeting:
An update to our beta ZIP-level targeting feature, advertisers will have even more control about how geo-targeting is used. Available for both Sponsored Search and Content Match, geo-targeting settings can be integrated at different levels within the same campaign or ad group. It also comes with new dynamic mapping features that allow advertisers to select individual ZIP codes and surrounding ones.
More targeting options are always better for advertisers, particularly when budgets are tight. Once you are through setting the targeting options, the overview page shows you the details of those campaign specific settings. Simply save the settings or re-start from scratch.
While many of these features are not new to the marketplace, there is nothing quite as effective as getting an ad in front of the exact people it was meant for.