Problem with PPC Campaign and YSM
Submitted by Apollo12 on Wed, 01/03/2007 - 01:04.
Jeremy,
I have been conducting a PPC campaign since November and was using Yahoo Search Marketing to directly link to the merchant. The problem is that today, Yahoo removed all of my ads which directly link to the merchant, citing the problem of site ownership and the need for personalization of a website! I called customer service and explained that the merchant encourages paid search campaigns that link directly to them, but Yahoo confirmed that I cannot directly link to the merchant.
They did say that I could redirect.
1. Has anyone had a similar problem with Yahoo? Google and MSN seem to allow direct links to merchants from affiliates.
2. Are there any work arounds for this problem with Yahoo Search Marketing, such as redirecting traffic from ads to my website and then to the merchant.
By the way Jeremy, thanks for putting on a great MSN webinar!
Thanks,
Patrick
Problem with PPC Campaign and YSM
You can just do a simple php redirect. For example if you are promoting a CJ merchant and using yahoo tracking url's the following code will work.
$location = "Location: http://www.youraffiliatelink.com";
if(isset($_GET['OVKEY'])) {
$location = $location . "?sid=".$_GET['OVKEY'];
}
header($location);
exit;
?>
Only use the above code and save the page as php. Don't use html.
Then just use that page as your destination url and your visitors will be redirected.
Problem with PPC Campaign and YSM
Thanks Harbor I will check that out. Do you know if that meets CJ's terms of service?
Patrick
Problem with PPC Campaign and YSM
Well, Yahoo was right, in that affiliates cannot direct link to merchant sites using search marketing. So, I am retooling my PPC campaign. But, thanks to the php redirects I learned here and on Jeremy's video, I up and running on Yahoo again.
I have upgraded to Panama, and seems simple to use except, that I am frustrated by the keyword tool. They require entering three words or phrases in the tool and I can't seem to generate a usable list of keywords when doing so.
Patrick
Problem with PPC Campaign and YSM
I'm not a big fan of the new keyword tool. You can still use this tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
I recommend WordTracker and KeywordDiscovery for keyword research, since Yahoo will eventually phase this old tool out. Google's Keyword Sandbox is also a good alternative. Maybe Y! will ramp up their new keyword tool and make it more useful.
What you mentioned about Y! is true - they want you to build landing pages. Linking directly to the merchant is getting harder to do. Microsoft and Google both have policies in place to prevent duplicate display url's per search query, making it harder to do affiliate arbitrage.