Sample Chapter
Section 5: Managing Your Account
Eyeballing Your Account
To get a quick idea of the performance of your account, or a campaign, look at the Performance graph in the upper right-hand side of the Dashboard or the Campaign Details screen. On the default setting of "Clicks", you can see the trend of clicks in your account. If you are maxing out your daily spending limit, then you should probably be seeing about a straight line. If you see an upward trend, then that would imply that you are receiving more clicks for the same amount of money, which is good. If you have been adjusting your bids downward, then that might be the result, especially in a situation where there is more traffic than you can afford to buy.
If the line is trending down, however, then that means you are paying more for clicks, so you will want to investigate. We have seen this occur where some kind of news event caused a spike in clicks for a keyword for which we have bid high because of the specialized nature of the keyword. In this type of situation, tracking becomes especially important because you need to know if those expensive keywords are converting. If not, then you may be robbing clicks from more productive or cost effective keywords.
To add more clarity to what is represented in the graph, on the Campaign Details page, scroll down the page to the ad group performance table, which shows average cost per click, impressions, clicks, etc. for each ad group. This is where you can spot if anything looks strange that could cause significant changes in the total number of clicks or total daily cost for your campaign. This is also where careful attention to ad group breakdown comes in handy. If each ad group represents a specific and narrow set of keywords, then you can get an idea of what keywords are performing based on the performance of the ad groups.
Changing Campaign Settings
To change the settings for any campaign, go to the Campaign Details screen for that campaign, then click the big blue "Campaign Settings" button on the right-hand side of the screen. To specifically change tactic settings, geo-targeting, or to delete the campaign, click the little arrow to the right of the Campaign Settings button and select the appropriate option. All of those settings can be configured from the main configuration settings page.
Clicking the "Campaign Settings" button takes you to the Campaign Settings page for that campaign. The Campaign Settings page is divided into four sections: Campaign General Information, Campaign Budget and Schedule, Campaign Geo-Targeting, and Tactic Settings. To change the settings in any of the sections, click the "edit" button in that section.
Account Funding
To add funds to your account, click the Administration tab. In the section labeled "Billing and Payment Information", click the "Add Funds" link next to your account balance. On the next screen, if you have more than one credit card associated with your account, select the one you want to use from the dropdown list. Type the amount of money you want to add to your account in the "Amount to Charge" textbox. This amount will be charged to your credit card. Then click "Save Changes". Yahoo! will automatically charge your card at certain times (as discussed below), but it may be useful to add more funds than Yahoo! charges at any one time.
When you first created your account, you specified a deposit amount. If you have active campaigns running, and your account balance gets too low, Yahoo! will automatically charge your credit card the original deposit amount (your "charge amount") in order to keep your ads running. If you do not want to pay for additional ads past your original deposit amount, you need to make sure that your campaigns are set to end before your funds get too low.
The total amount that Yahoo! will charge you if your account balance gets too low is the lower of 3 times your account daily spending limit or the prior 3 days worth of click charges. If your current charge amount (the maximum amount you have specified Yahoo! may charge you at any one time) is too small to bring your account up to Yahoo!'s minimum, then you will be charged consecutive days until your account balance does meet the minimum.
To change the amount that Yahoo! will charge you at any one time, click the Administration tab. In the section labeled "Billing and Payment Information" click the "edit" button next to "Payment Method". You will see your current charge amount listed. Click the checkbox next to "I would like to specify a new charge amount." Type your new charge amount in the text box labeled "New Charge Amount". You can also add a new credit card to your account on this screen by clicking the "Add a Credit Card" link. When you have made the desired changes, click the "Save Changes" button.
To change your account daily spending limit (if you want to run more or less ads on any given day), click the Administration tab. Then click the "edit" button in the "Account Daily Spending Limit" section. On the next screen, type your new daily spending limit in the "Account Daily Spending Limit" textbox and click "Save Changes".
Tweaking Ad Groups
From the Campaign Details screen, click on the name of the ad group in the ad group performance table. This brings up the Ad Group Details screen for that ad group. This screen also has the performance graph that, by default, will show the trend in clicks for the ad group. If the trend is up, then this may be an ad group for which you would want to increase bids. However, as in all instances, the determining factor is whether the clicks in this ad group are converting. If not, then you might actually want to decrease your bid so as to not take clicks away from more profitable ad groups.
To add new keywords, click the "Add Keywords" link next to the "Ads" tab. To create a new ad, click the "Create New Ad" link.
Changing Bids
To change your bid for a single keyword in the ad group, click the checkbox to the left of the keyword and click the "Set Keyword Bids" button. If you don't see the keywords, make sure you are on the Keywords tab and not the Ads tab. To change bids for all of the keywords at the same time, click the checkbox beneath the arrow next to the "Edit Keyword Status" label. This will select all of the keywords. Then click the "Set Keyword Bids" button. Do this if you want to set a separate bid for each keyword. If you want to set a single bid for all the keywords, click the blue "Ad Group Settings" button right above the ad group performance graph.
If you use the "Set Keyword Bids" button (rather than the "Ad Group Settings" button), you will be taken to the Edit Sponsored Search Keyword Bids screen. The Edit Sponsored Search Keyword Bids screen lets you change the sponsored search bids for all or a group of keywords (depending what you selected on the previous screen). Type the new bid in the textbox beneath the "New Bid" label. If there is more than one keyword row on the screen, you can place a bid in the top row and click the "Copy Bid Down" button to set all the keywords to that same bid. After bid adjustments have been made, click the "Save Changes" button.
To see how much you would need to bid to be listed at the top of the page for each keyword, click the " Bid Range for Top Positions" link next to each keyword. A popup will appear that will tell you what you must bid for the number one spot, and what you must bid for the final position at the top of the page.
On the Ad Group Details screen, to change the default sponsored search bid for all of the keywords, or to change the content match bid for the group, click the "Ad Group Settings" button. The Ad Group Settings screen is divided into two sections: Ad Group General Information and Tactic Settings. To change bids, click the edit button in the upper-right-hand corner of the Tactic Settings section. On the Ad Group Tactic Settings screen, you can turn sponsored search or content match on or off, and you can set your default ad group sponsored search bid and content match bid. You can also set the match type to Standard or Advanced.
[End of Sample Chapter]
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