A few months ago, there was a big hubbub about changes Yahoo made to their search marketing terms of service.  They announced that they were now allowing themselves unfettered access to make changes to your campaigns at will, courtesy of their “search marketing specialists.”  This access was such that you had to go out of your way to opt out of it, rather than as a bonus you could opt into.  Much of the search blogosphere was strongly opposed to these changes because it is unlikely that corporate search drones could understand the nuances of a particular account’s market, product, target audience, and goals, especially in smaller campaigns.  Many people whose campaigns were hijacked noticed additional keywords added (largely very expensive, generic keywords that pulled costs way up), paused negative keywords (which dragged costs way up), generic ad copy, which at times contradicted the very product they were selling, or reorganized ad groups that were not in line with a coherent plan for that particular account. I read very few responses that expressed any positive feedback on these changes – except for those that came directly from the Yahoo! blog.

A few days ago, there were some changes made to one of the accounts I manage.  I was alerted via email three days after the changes took effect.  I looked into it, wondering what sort of changes I would find, and I ended up in a hysterical laughing fit.  Two ads were added to an ad group in one of my Yahoo! accounts; I was thankful for the very minor changes, knowing I wouldn’t have to go back in and overhaul my campaigns.  The ad copy wasn’t awful, it was far too generic, but at least it didn’t contradict the meaning of the ad.  Then I looked a little closer.  Now, these changes are supposedly made by specialists, but clearly these specialists haven’t finished elementary school because in one of the ads they created, there were not one, but two spelling errors.  That’s a pretty impressive feat for just 70 characters.  Since when does “choose” have three o’s in it?  Also, if the content of the ad is about apartment listings, wouldn’t it be crucial to actually spell the word apartment correctly?  I couldn’t help but laugh at the blatant errors and make a comment to a coworker to the tune of “no wonder Yahoo is a distant second behind Google.”  My Google rep has never recommend I write ad copy that isn’t spelled correctly.  It’s been proven time and time again that misspellings in ad copy look unprofessional and I have to say that I was frustrated that the misspelled ad ran for three days before I was alerted to the changes.

This policy change has proven just how misguided Yahoo’s perception of search marketing is.  If this was a program you could opt into (like Google’s Website Optimizer and similar tools), it could be seen as helpful and beneficial and maybe win Yahoo some supporters.  Instead, it just looks like a money-grubbing attempt to hijack campaigns in hopes of adding more expensive keywords and generic ad copy.  If you get an email from Yahoo, check every single change to make sure that everything is copacetic.  Don’t take their word that the changes are made by specialists and that they will improve your conversions.