Yahoo! (Overture) Pay Per Click Advertising Programs
Article Originally Posted 2002 October 04,
Revised 2006 May 12,
by Gord Collins - Bay Street Search Engine Optimization | Toronto, Ontario | Canada
Overture, now owned by Yahoo, (now called Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions) is considered the original pay per click program. Its clients include some of the most prestigious web sites and you'll have front page ads on all of them. Overture's top of page placement and the fact that you have lots of room for descriptive copy gives your ad writer more power to generate click-throughs.
In contrast to AdWords, which has remained stable, Overture has created new programs to complement its main PPC service now called Precision Match.
The Process
Similar to Google AdWords, you open an account with a credit card and you can begin choosing keywords to bid on. The account interface offers billing, transactions, listing management and report production.
The Advantage
Overture's listings are seen in Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and AltaVista and Infospace which means you might reach up to 80% of all Internet users. Your bids will have excellent visibility to a high volume and variety of targeted prospects. As a pay per click program, you can get free brand awareness because of the volume of impressions. Click-throughs depend upon the quality of your written offer in the link so they must respond to the benefits customers are seeking.
Overture's Account Interface
You can place exact bids and know right away what your rank will be. If you want to appear in Yahoo top three results, you must have one of the top three bid positions. There is an auto bidding feature that allows Overture to handle your bids automatically.
Overture offers a keyword search volume reporting tool that helps find keywords that are actually used. Jimtools.com offers a combined volume/price comparison service that is very handy.
The Overture Pay Per Click Bid System and Guidelines
Human editors review your keywords and your site. You may bid on a search term only if the web site has substantial content that is clearly reflective of the search term. What's new is Overture is now forcing clients to rewrite their ads if they don't maintain a certain click thru rate. The pages you want visitors directed to should be relevant to the query phrase. In the listings manager, you type your keyword phrase, title, and description along with the specific page for visitors to be directed to. Overture makes reports available for all of your approved phrases.
They may or may not allow you to bid on misspelled words. They tend to reject three or four word phrases that don't have sufficient search volume from searchers. Although they don't have minimum click through requirements you could end up spending money repeatedly on losing phrases. On the other hand, some phrases may have a very low click through rate, yet still produce some good sales. That's in contrast to Google AdWords program where you may have some good sales from a .04% click through rate, then watch your ad get deleted because it does not meet the minimum click through rate or what is referred to as CTR.
Overture will reject superlatives in your titles or descriptions which tends to make the listing appear matter of fact. There is no keyword exclusion option which means your site will come up in irrelevant searches. Titles cannot exceed 40 characters and descriptions cannot exceed 190 characters. Ads display on one line at Yahoo.
Overture PPC Tips
Fast Versatile Laptop Computers - Don't work Without One Buy direct with no interest financing. Our power laptops feature Intel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology and powerful wireless antennas for much better WiFi hotspot performance. It's the future now.
www.laptops-usa.com
The advertisement above in Yahoo format, is loaded with good sales cues. It leverages Intel's brand and talks about wireless connectivity which is an important feature for many business people who travel. It speaks in a straightforward fashion in ways the buyer understands.
- Do not use a framed site, since there is no direct url to the inside pages.
- Make bids on several related phrases and your ad may appear more than once on the same page.
- Ensure you have benefit rich copy on your landing pages or your visitors may leave as fast they arrived. Think about what you want them to do when arriving.
Conclusion
Overture delivers good value for advertisers with top of the page presence in Yahoo and many other good portal placements.
Often, the best approach is to bid on the search phrases you can't achieve in the free search listings. Overture is easier to use than AdWords, so you can spend more time finding the best bargain keyword phrases and then not have to worry about ad performance restrictions.
Pay Per Click and Cost Per Click Services
- PPC Pay Per Click Advertising Programs
- Google AdWords Select Cost Per Click
- Google AdWords Tips
- Overture Pay Per Click
- Other PPC Advertising Resources
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