Well, Yahoo has finally responded to Google’s Display Builder tool in AdWords through their own Display builder of sorts. And while I haven’t been able to get my first campaign to go live yet (more on that later) at first glance, I like it, maybe even more than Google’s display builder.
Yahoo! My Display Ads is great because of the sheer variety of customizable ads available. While they’re not online marketing revolutions, I’ve always been a disappointed in the lack of selection from Google. With hundreds of options to chose from, you should be able to find a template that will give your company an ad that doesn’t look like it came from 1999.
Another cool feature is that Yahoo provides the average (I’m guessing) click through rate of the different ad variations. This is a very handy feature when trying to decide what template to use. When you know that some ad designs have historically resonated better with customers than others, its a no brainer to start there when designing ads. Similar to Google, there are static and Flash ad options.
I have run into some difficulties with the program, so I hope you have a Yahoo rep that can step in when the online interface becomes a bit of a problem child. Some of my ads were disapproved, and the only explanation Yahoo gave was that it violated their terms of service. Not particularly helpful when trying to determine why an ad for a local university would be rejected. The software also seems picky about uploading your own image ads to run on Yahoo. Again, here is where it’s helpful to have some Yahoo support.
The targeting options in Yahoo are definitely worth testing out. Besides the general categories options that you’re given, you have the standard geo-targeting and some demographic targeting options as well. I’ll keep you posted on how these ads actually perform compared to Google’s Display Advertising once we get some solid performance data. But for now, check it out and see if Yahoo Display Advertising makes sense for you.