Yahoo Sponsored Search Version 3 (Part 2)

Yahoo! Japan was faced with a situation where the already insufficient Panama Platform was at a point it was going to be scrapped by Yahoo Inc. If Yahoo Inc is going to start using Microsoft’s AdCenter it was obvious to everyone they would not keep updating the Panama Platform that Yahoo! Japan was using. Would Yahoo! Japan go with an untested SEM platform that Microsoft itself wasn’t even using in Japan for Bing? Or would they build their own in the alloted time? Yahoo! Japan is actually capable of creating their own platform. They have built their own mobile platform & content platform called Interest Match, so I don’t want anyone thinking they can’t build it’s a matter of can they build in time?

There are rumors that the talks between Yahoo! Inc & Yahoo Japan didn’t exactly go the way Yahoo Inc expected it. (Again this is a rumor). It was after that that Yahoo! Japan made an unprecedented decision in the Search World. Yahoo! Japan decided to get it’s new platform custom build off of Adwords. Yep Google Adwords technology. That was  announced around early summer 2010 finally the new platform Sponsored Search ver3 started it’s migration on November 8th. We couldn’t make any changes to accounts like 2 weeks before that.

The Migration from Panama Platform
Let me tell you the migration didn’t go perfect for everyone. Many search agencies & top advertisers use third party tools to control their ad bid rules & for reporting purposes. Someone forgot to check certain parameters in the development cycle because after the migration all third party SEM tools couldn’t connect with Yahoo’s new platform. When you are the person who is in charge of setting up the SEM tools for all accounts & all of them can’t connect I guarantee you there’s hours wasted trying to figure out what went wrong.

Initially they actual way to setup third party tools changed. We thought that after this give it a day or two & the data could be backfilled. Some accounts connected, some didn’t. All of the accounts had zero data the next day. All had trouble getting any data via API queries. This basically increased any SEM ad managers workload if your agency or your company utilized third party tools.

Also some of the guidelines changed with the transition. Some people may not have noticed but if you had disapproved ads you noticed. All in all any could say that the migration could have been handled but when you are replacing an entire advertising platform that is pumping million of dollars a day in media spends, could you have done any better? I feel the migration had mishaps but I think Yahoo! Japan and even the third party tool makers were trying to resolve most problems as soon as they could.

In Part 3 we’ll go over the actual system.

Please follow us on Facebook

I just started a Facebook page for the site.