Conversion Fall-off after July 11th

[poster_boy]

Since 7/11, we've seen a 30% decline (vs. June & 7/1 to 7/10) in conversion across millions of keywords - which is not from a select few bad apples, but simply masses of keywords that have all gotten worse...

During this period, click volume looks mostly normal, we haven't seen dramatic changes in referring domains (although, many are 'Not Available'), and several other leads showed up as dry. Also, site outages and/or landing page conversion issues are not the culprits as other engines remain unharmed while utilizing the same sites and pages.

Has anyone else seen a conversion decline specifically for Yahoo since this period? Just wondering if it's more widespread or due to a change in the mix of syndication partners w/ blocked domains...

[IanTurner]

Some industries are seasonal, and people may be looking and not buying because of the economic climate. We have seen generalised drop in conversions in some luxury industries especially since the end of April.

[poster_boy]

Some industries are seasonal

Agreed. Our data, however, shows no historic difference in June vs. July or in early vs. later July...

[shorebreak]

poster_boy,

There's some talk over on the SEW YSM forum (perhaps you're there already) wherein someone's complaining of generally worsening YSM results since beginning 2008, and with even worse results recently. The thread's titled 'Yahoo Performance Drop'.

[Tropical Island]

Maybe the Google AdSense effect is beginning to kick in.

[ppc_newbie]

I've been noticing that some of the matching since mid May is similar to Google. I'm wondering if they incorporated some of the Google match logic when they did the tests.

[shorebreak]

ppc_newbie,

Do you mean that YSM's matching more or less broadly than normal?

[tracking90]

In the last 2 months, I've seen a huge drop in our conversions on Yahoo Search. It's very likely that the drop in performance is related to Yahoo Search revamping its model. In the last two months they have unmapped key terms and instituted keyword inactivity initiatives.

I'm sure they're doing other things that benefit them but not their advertisers. Senior mangement is recieving a lot of pressure from their stock holders and the recent drop in performance may be a reflection of their efforts.

[Dougy]

We have noticed a huge drop in conversion rates too over the past 2 months. We only get around a 3% conversion rate on yahoo now compared with about 10% with google.
Its almost as if we're advertising with MIVA again!

[tracking90]

Dougy - Are you still profitable with Yahoo Search? We are not and have started pausing campaigns and redistributing their allocated budget.

[Dougy]

It has become marginal with Yahoo so like yourself have concentrated our advertising on other means.
I havent really read to much of late with what search partners Yahoo uses but it is as if they have signed up to some poor ones with trash traffic. Does anyone know more about this?

[mortgagesem]

I've experienced the same drop in performance with Yahoo. I was reluctant to post on this thread in hopes that Yahoo's performance would turn around. I've reached out to my account manager as well as management about the issues. I went as far as showing them this tread. Their solution was to send a deck which explains that we should try different creative.

I'm basically winding down with Yahoo. I've spent the last month moving my Yahoo Search budget to display. I will reach out to management once last time. I'll keep you posted.

[bears5122]

The drop has everything to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of their search partners.

[mortgagesem]

For us...its a combintation of poor quality sites,non us-traffic and the inactive function.