Yahoo! SM has sent out e-mails apologizing for the problems and has issued credits for over-spending that resulted from daily budgets being inadvertently ignored. I am impressed, not only by the quick response but by how seriously Yahoo! SM is taking the whole situation.

The fact that Yahoo! Search Marketing cares about what its advertisers think is evident not only in this upgrade situation, but in the many things that they have done over the years to make dealing with Yahoo! SM a smooth and rewarding process. From insisting that advertisers run 'good' ads that link to 'relevant' pages to the clean and straight forward bidding process - Yahoo! SM knows its stuff.

Perhaps I would not be feeling so mellow towards Yahoo! SM if the accounts we manage had been seriously hurt by the upgrade hiccup or if I had not just spent several hours working on Google AdWords - a system that is not as user friendly, especially when it comes to bidding. While Google's new 'simplified' quality-based bidding does have some advantages for some bidders - it still lacks the simple, direct elegance of Yahoo! SM's current bidding model.

Caveat
Despite my current fondness for Yahoo! Search Marketing we do need to keep in mind:

Yahoo! SM has more system upgrades planned for the near future.

Warnings normally precede upgrades, so take the time to evaluate your site's risk and adjust accordingly.


Brenda Wright
Head Sponsored Search Strategist
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing

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