Overture Services to Become Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions in the US

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Overture Services to Become Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions in the U.S.

Will Offer Sponsored Search and Submit Products, Providing One-Stop Search Marketing Resource for Businesses

SUNNYVALE, [March 1, 2005] – Overture Services, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced that it will be re-branded Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions and will bring together its sponsored search offerings and Yahoo!’s listings submit products under the new banner. Through Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions, advertisers of all sizes will enjoy convenient access to the industry’s most comprehensive suite of search marketing and related products and services.

Overture will formally change its brand in the U.S. early next quarter. After the U.S. re-branding is complete, Overture’s international markets – except for Japan and Korea – will be re-branded at a later date. Several products within the suite will be re-named once Overture assumes the Yahoo! brand in the U.S.

Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions’ suite of offerings will include the following products:

· Sponsored Search Listings, the flagship search advertising product

· Content Match™, Yahoo!’s contextual advertising listings

· Local Match™, Yahoo!’s local sponsored search offering

· Site Match™ Self Serve and Site Match Xchange™, Yahoo!’s search URL submission products

· Marketing Console™, which enables advertisers to track campaign performance across multiple online channels

· Search Optimizer™, which allows advertisers to improve their campaign performance and reduce the amount of time spent managing their listings

The group will also continue to enhance and expand Yahoo’s network of sponsored search distribution sites.

In conjunction with the re-branding, Yahoo! will launch a new Advertising Solutions Center in the U.S., through which businesses can plan and buy Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions products. In addition, the new center will offer marketers information about Yahoo!’s customized, creative media solutions, providing them access to the largest set of search marketing and brand advertising solutions on the web.

“Our mission is to be essential to marketers of all types around the world,” said Ted Meisel, Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Inc. “Unifying all of our search marketing and related products under one banner and one common approach reflects our commitment to integrate and simplify online advertising, allowing businesses of all sizes to take advantage of the Yahoo! search marketing solutions that best fit their marketing goals.”

[Discovery]

We are not impressed with the myriad of ad options and reporting tools that Overture offers. I don't care how detailed and comprehensive these reporting and ad management tools are, if you can't get reports, make campaign changes and analyze results in near real time the whole reporting system is horribly ineffective.

If I use only Google and can create new campaigns or change existing ad content and URLS instantly, see cost/click data in near real time and get complete campaign data a few minutes past midnight for the previous day then I have a turn around cycle of about 24 hours.

Overture..
Account set up process and new campaign launch 3,5...10 days?
3-5 days to change existing ad content and URLS.
1-1.5 days for any cost data to appear
1-1.5 days for complete campaign data to appear
This makes for a possible 5 days turn around cycle.

Bottom line:
A marketing company like mine can go through a test, analyze and refine cycle for each of our campaigns about 300 times a year with Google.

I can only perform this task about 73 times a year with Overture.

Overture's new offerings will have absolutely no value until they listen to the leaders in SEM, many of whom are represented in this forum, and change their editorial review process and resulting reporting lag time.

If Overture were to do this, I rush to be the first company to throw all my resources into using their new products and services.

Lead Discovery

[grnidone]

I'd like to see Overture put their reports into an auto feed so I can dump into a database instead of having to do it by hand.

It is frankly stupid they haven't implemented this.