Targeted ads bearing much less weight now

That was quick

[mikey158]

Has anyone noticed the higher priced ads no longer appearing as much even with targeting turned on?

[elguapo]

Dunno. I only see the same 4 ads over and over again in my leaderboards. I am not sure if those 4 are ALWAYS without fail day in and day out the highest paying ads (which I doubt)

[yevlesh]

Yep :( . I wonder if it's just a temporary change or if the party is already over.

[Erku]

What happens here is this.

I see ads that are not related, however, once I refresh the page, it shows closely related ads. I reported the issue and will wait and see when this will be solved.

[mikey158]

I like what they are doing with the mix now with regards to targeting. Very smart move and great for all involved.

Its fun to watch this product live and breathe before my eyes. I like the way Yahoo works. Kudos yahoo!

[Swebbie]

I too have noticed that my first visit to one of my site's pages - after clearing the cache and history on my browser - is showing totally unrelated ads. After I refresh, they're relevant from then on. If this holds true for all visitors, it would explain the low CTR. Hope Yahoo fixes it.

[motorhaven]

Yeah, it dropped through the floor. I thought it was just us. I've never seen a drop this fast with any ad network in our company's 9 year history.

[yevlesh]

I went ahead and put AdSense back up instead of Yahoo. Without category targetting, our revenues (and CTR) dropped through the floor.

[bnhall]

My earnings, which have been very steady for the last month, are 50% of norm today. Is this what you guys are talking about? Ads still look quite targetted, so I'm not sure what's up until I see stats tomorrow.

[yevlesh]

Anyone emailed Yahoo about this problem? I just contacted them about 20 minutes ago, obviously haven't heard anything back yet.

[Swebbie]

Yes, I emailed them about it as well 2 days ago... no reply yet. This is why companies put things through BETA testing, I suppose. I figure in a couple of months, the real competition between YPN and AS will heat up. Can't wait!

[fearlessrick]

My CTR with Y is pretty horrible but it was only on a very small number of pages (12). I do like the presentation and the somewhat funky relevance.

I never was a true believer in ads being perfectly targeted. Like most people, you have more than one set of interests. It's why tire ads always are on sports pages and so forth. There's also what's known in the newspaper biz at ROP (run of page) which always meant whatever/wherever. Those ads were cheapest, but the advertisers NEVER complained.

Reinventing the wheel doesn't always work...

I've begun replacing G with Y on a number of pages as my Adsense revenue has been flat to declining this month and my eCPM is dropping like a stone tonight with AS. Fortunately, I can experiment. I just replaced a G leaderboard which continued to show 1 ad (looks stupid) with a Fastclick leader. I figure I'll get more just off impressions than I did with no clicks.

I also sent a lengthy email to Y advising them to kick some A$$ and take some chances, show some initiative and stop being so corporate. I also mentioned that a 45 day wait for payment actually turns into 75 if you begin counting at the first day of the month. Told them to cut that to the 20th like Fastclick. They're not a bank or finance company.

I encourage everyone in this beta to push on the Yahoos vey hard. Their success will free us from the monoploy of Google, which has grown a wee bit tiresome.

Sorry to prattle on. Got some late energy left.

Good luck to all.

[bnhall]

I wrote to YPN to say that due to EPC/eCPM deterioration since September 19th/20th I am removing YPN ads from a number of sites but would absolutely put them back on if EPC/eCPM reverted to last week's levels.

[TammyJo]

How will you know if ecpm goes up if you take them off your pages ;)

With Googles new search update one of our long standing major sites took a hit, so we bit the bullet and took off Adsense for a trial run of YPN. We had put the YPN on one of our smaller sites and it received less clicks, but more revenue. Looking forward to see if this holds true for the larger site...maybe it will recover what was lost due to traffic.

Also noticed the refresh from off target ads to on target ads.

[yevlesh]

Anyone got a reply from them?

I received pretty much a form letter along the lines that "we use optimal combination of category targetting and your site's content". My long reply to that email haven't been answered yet.

Anyone had better luck?

[bnhall]

I did - they told me it's in beta and expect some flux. They did say that the EPC problems around 19/20 September should be resolved now and give it another try. Looks like they're right.