UPDATE: Keyword Unmapping Postponed
We recently notified you about a change to the way we “map” keywords for the Standard match type. A limited number of synonyms that are currently mapped in your account will be unmapped in the near future. The original launch date that was communicated, July 29th, has been postponed by a few days.

We will notify you shortly after the launch so that you can begin uploading new terms. If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact us.

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Today we received a an email from Yahoo concerning one of our search accounts. Yahoo is going to be implementing keyword changes July 29th 2008. Here’s the email in its entirety:

We wanted to let you know that a limited number of keywords in your account that are currently linked to synonyms, or “mapped,” will soon become unmapped to give you more control over your keywords. As you may know, we use various matching technologies to link some bidded keywords to other terms that a searcher might use synonymously to look for them. This mapping connects some keywords with related synonyms, such as “car insurance” with “auto insurance.”

What does this mean for your account?
You may still receive traffic for these terms through the Advanced match type even after these terms are unmapped. For better control, however, we suggest adding these “new” terms to your existing account, along with new bids and ads. If you choose to add the new terms, keep in mind that they will be rejected as duplicates prior to July 29, if you are adding to the same ad group as your existing bidded term.

This seems like a good thing, the more control we have over our terms and their individual bids the more valuable our campaign. Yahoo has certainly taken a lot of heat recently from the industry including myself but this seems like a smart move. Please don’t stop here Yahoo!

Here’s the keyword that was mapped and its new terms via the email from Yahoo. I don’t think i’m giving away any secrets by posting this

Apparently Yahoo freaks out after you make a number of changes to your adgroups, and feels that your using to much bandwidth. I got the error below after about 35 text ad changes using their interface. A colleague of mine tried as well and it looks like it actually blocked our network, we’ll see how long it lasts for. Makes me feel good about paying money to use their service…..

Everyone’s got their opinion in terms of in-house vs outsourcing whether it be search marketing or other services. An article that I read this morning entitled “The Great (And Completely Ridiculous) ‘In - house vs. Outsourced SEM’ Debate” attempts to make the case for outsourcing paid search because in house teams are pretty worthless and not qualified.

You can basically take any sentence from this article and make valid points as to why its completely wrong but I’ll just pick out a few that really stuck out to me.

Quote #1 “I’ve been doing SEM for more than 10 years, and I’ve never, not once, seen a search campaign created by an in-house team outperform one crafted by a competent SEM agency.”

Well from this IN-HOUSE SEM’s experience over the years, every campaign I’ve taken from a search agency and that includes very competent agencies whom I have the utmost respect for, have performed better within the first month in terms of ROI by typically 20 - 30% ROI. One of the first things they teach you when your a kiddie in school is to be very careful when using words like “never” and “not once” because you put yourself at risk of sounding foolish. Yeah… lets continue.

Quote #2 “I continue to be amazed by the number of CEOs and CMOs who have told me - with a straight face — that “Google is doing a great job running my campaign.”"

I’ll agree that Google is in it for the money but this has absolutely nothing to do with an in-house SEM team and everything to do with a corporate executive who is making marketing decisions that they shouldn’t be involved with. One corporate executive who knows there’s value in search but hasn’t explored creating in-house team or an agency is a whole other argument.

Quote #3 “Today, senior managers not only lack the objective criteria required to distinguish competent from incompetent search managers; most don’t even know the right questions to ask job candidates.”

All I can say is the last 2 SEM managers that I’ve had are not only very qualified but have asked top notch questions in interviews using questions that you actually have to use your brain to answer as opposed to reading a misguided blog post about SEM.

Quote #4 “As I’ve said before, the only thing that an in-house search team should ever be doing is SEO, because it’s a relatively trivial task that is hardly “rocket science.” Anything beyond this requires a specialist firm to take your search objectives forward.”

There’s so many things you could say about this and I know that the ’seo and rocket science’ comment has been stated before. The bottom line is that more companies are moving their SEM efforts in-house and this is scary to some.

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To sum things up:

For companies looking to move in-house it takes a lot of work but from personal experience the hard work is certainly worth the rewards. Having the flexibility to manage your own accounts and to make immediate changes is so valuable. For me spending time marketing a handful of sites and dedicating energy to researching their audience gives me the advantage over an agency who deals with a large number of sites where they don’t have the ability to give each site the individual time it deserves. With that being said, I’d be curious to hear other opinions and certainly there’s some good points to be made for both sides.

The company I work for (Scripps Networks) just announced a deal today with AOL. We’re partnering with them to deliver video clips from some of our top channels through AOL Video. You can check out the new AOL video channels here:

HGTV: http://video.aol.com/video-category/hgtv/113525
Food Network: http://video.aol.com/video-category/food-network/113524
DIY Network: http://video.aol.com/video-category/diy/113522
Fine Living Network: http://video.aol.com/video-category/fine-living/113523

Next week SMX Advanced in Seattle begins and I’ll be helping out the folks at Search Engine Roundtable like I have in the past. I’m really looking forward to this show and I’d love to meet as many of you as possible.

This time around I won’t be covering as many sessions but the ones I am writing about personally seem pretty interesting. Here’s the sessions I’ll be covering.

June 3rd
10:45-12:00 pm - Winning from the Start: Getting Ad Copy Right

1:30-2:45 pm - Conversion Optimization: Winning After They Arrive

June 4th
10:45-12:00 pm - What You Should Be Measuring — But Aren’t!

I’ll also be updating my status on twitter which I’ve had problems keeping up with in the past so shoot me a note if you’d like to meet up. My badge obviously has my name (Justin Davy) and the company I work for is Scripps Networks. See you all there.