Some reasons why Google is winning the advertising game

OK, it PAINS me to write this. I love Yahoo, and always have been and will be a loyal user. However, I've never been a paid advertiser. Until now. And my experience with this has been painful. I now see why the big G on the other side of Moffett is kicking ass by building long-term loyalty (and long-term advertising budgets) with long-tail advertisers like me.

First off, the background. I now run marketing and product for a small online startup called MerchantCircle . Our goal is to help small local businesses drive leads through the internet. Yes, we're trying to tackle the very difficult challenge of low-cost merchant acquisition. We've created web listings (a la yellow pages) for +14 million businesses, given them blogs and rss feeds, ad creation capabilities, and even the ability to advertise for FREE. That means, by being an active user of MerchantCircle they can advertise on us and other places like Google for free. (and perhaps on Yahoo or other places, depending on level of interest).

For months now, in addition to SEO efforts to increase MC indexing in the search engines, we've been running keyword campaigns targeted at merchants and merchant organizations, to make them aware of our services and solutions we've provided. (btw, on that indexing thing: Google indexes tens of thousands of our pages every day. Yahoo indexes less than 100. Even MSN indexes us more. What gives?)

Without giving away everything to my competitors who read this, we've run a very effective campaign on Google targeting a specific merchant organization with information on our benefits. It's converting well, and I've just increased the budget of the campaign significantly.

Knowing that Google drives the majority, but not all of search traffic, I was now excited to go to my buddies at Yahoo to try out the SEM stuff. I spent about $1,000 in set up costs, and the things needed to get MerchantCircle listed in the Y directory, too. I know some of the controversy behind setup costs, but I'm OK paying this because I believe in Yahoo's commitment to quality... and that it will ultimately pay off.

As a trial, I load up the SAME campaign that I'm running at Google, to see how effective it'll be, before committing a larger amount of my time. OK, the Yahoo interface seems like it might have more bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, it's more confusing and complicated than Google. (Google is no bastion of UED excellence, mind you. Anyone ever try linking AdWords and Goog Analytics accounts? Good luck.).

Regardless, I've paid my minimums, and I start my campaign yesterday afternoon. I come in this morning, and all my keywords are deactivated. Not only that, but my entire account was taken offline. Did I use a copyrighted word? Did I do something wrong? I click to find out, and it says "Insufficient Content". Essentially, that my site doesn't deliver what I promise in my ad.

Here's my ad:

Attention (merchant organization) Members: Get your free directory listing and get more customer leads. Free ads, coupons and search engine ads for new customers. Join now! (Link goes to MerchantCircle landing page detailing benefits, and encouraging registration so they get to their new web site)

Here's why it was declined:

We are unable to accept this listing because the content on your site does not sufficiently reflect the keyword. Yahoo! Search Marketing requires that Web sites possess substantial content that is clearly and obviously reflective of the keyword. We would consider the following as sufficient content: * Detailed (comprehensive) product or service information or reviews * Detailed reference information about the subject implied by the keyword * Comparative information spanning multiple dimensions, such as pricing, features and availability For more information on our trademark policy, visit our Trademark Information Page at: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/legal/trademarks.php The mere presence of the following elements on a Web site is not enough to justify keywords: * A link, banner, or picture * A brief description of a link * Lists of text without additional content * Contact information (address, phone number, stock symbol, etc.)

I've appealed my case to Customer Support. Btw, these painfully restrictive guidelines would probably eliminate a ton of the branded or even direct campaigns that Yahoo runs today with big advertisers. Those folks put in landing pages (like us) with bullet points on the benefits, and encouraging them to sign up to get the full experience.

We'll see how it goes. But I have to say the whole initial experience is really disappointing. I feel like Customer Support didn't spend time evaluating what my business was providing, but maybe it did, and they just want to be much tighter on things with small advertisers than their bigger advertisers.

I'm going to go back and revise the landing page for Yahoo to see if it works better for them (although the more content and links I throw on there, it's likely my landing page will convert worse).

I wonder if I should bother? I can just send more of my money to Google, where I know it works, where I know I'll get customers, and I know they understand my needs as an advertiser, and have a great process in place to make things happen. You may think, well, screw him, he only potentially brings a few hundred thousand dollars in advertising to the table. Two things: 1) Google's abundance of loyal long tail advertisers like me is helping them win, especially as they increase their marketing budgets. 2) The startup world is a really small community. Marketers share what works and what doesn't.

I really hope things improve with the SEM stuff at Yahoo. I already have money loaded into my account. I hope I have the opportunity to use it, and to come back here and post about how awesome YSM is, and why you should spend your dollars here, and not Google.