Yahoo high rollers are given an “import” link under the campaigns tab in their Yahoo Search Marketing accounts…available upon request. A user can convert their existing Google PPC account into an Excel file for upload to their Yahoo account. I commend Yahoo for making our lives easier…or at least trying.
As a sidebar, this is a feature that Yahoo only offers big spenders. If my competition holds the majority market share, would it not be in my benefit to let everybody know that they can “easily” convert their existing Google accounts into Yahoo accounts AND on top of that, we’ll give you $50 free bucks. That certainly would be an attractive offer, but I will attempt to get back on topic and slide on “easily” for now.
I think most would agree that this is a nice feature, importing one account into another. I’m not sure, however, if Yahoo has ever seen a Google bulk file. My Google bulk file which was uploaded had headers like this:
“Campaign | Campaign Daily Budget | Ad Group | Max CPC | Max Content CPC | Max CPM | Keyword | Keyword Type | Min CPC | Headline | Description Line 1 | Description Line 2 | Display URL | Destination URL | Campaign Status | AdGroup Status | Creative Status | Keyword Status | Suggested Changes | Comment”
Upon downloading and viewing the “converted” file, the header looked like this:
“Campaign | Ad Group | Max CPC | Keyword Type | Keyword Headline | Description Line 1 | Description Line 2 | Display URL | Destination URL | Campaign Status | AdGroup Status | Creative Status | Keyword Status | Suggested Changes”
The only suggested changes were that it balked at my negative keywords. When I attempted to upload my new converted file, Yahoo stated that I had changed my header, deviating from the template.
The Yahoo Search Marketing bulk upload file has headers that look like this:
“Campaign Name | Ad Group Name | Component Type | Component Status | Keyword | Keyword Alt Text | Keyword Custom URL | Sponsored Search Bid (USD) | Sponsored Search Bid Limit (USD) | Sponsored Search Status | Match Type | Content Match Bid (USD) | Content Match Bid Limit (USD) | Content Match Status | Ad Name | Ad Title | Ad Short Description | Ad Long Description | Display URL | Destination URL | Watch List | Campaign ID | Campaign Description | Campaign Start Date | Campaign End Date | Ad Group ID | Ad Group: Optimize Ad Display | Ad ID | Keyword ID | Checksum | Error Message”
So, in the end I had to copy and paste everything around, add a lot, and filter a lot. The converted file did not inherently pick up the component type. It did not delete duplicates duplicate, based upon the fact that Google allows for bidding on singular and plural forms of the word and Yahoo does not. It did not changed Keyword Type from Broad to Advanced. It did not realize that Negative Broad probably meant Excluded.
In closing, I was ecstatic. I am still thankful to the people at Yahoo for those 5 minutes when I thought bulk file conversion was possible. I was, however, somewhat disappointed with the converted file…and I’m pretty sure it cost me more time and certainly more emotion.
Tags: yahoo, google, ppc, file, conversion, bulk, upload