Yahoo! Bid to Position...does it Jam Bids?

[seobook]

Yahoo!'s Search Marketing has a bid to position feature where you can say you want to rank at #2 and are willing to pay up to $100 a click to get there. does that jam the person ranking at #1 to their max bid or $100.01?

I am not talking about intentionally bidding one cent less than the competitor, but perhaps overbidding their max bid and setting a lower ad position in the bid to position to where you rank lower than them... if you do that does your effective max bid just go to one cent more than the person below your desired rank, or does it have a jamming effect on the person above you?

[AussieWebmaster]

Yahoo!'s Search Marketing has a bid to position feature where you can say you want to rank at #2 and are willing to pay up to $100 a click to get there. does that jam the person ranking at #1 to their max bid or $100.01?

I am not talking about intentionally bidding one cent less than the competitor, but perhaps overbidding their max bid and setting a lower ad position in the bid to position to where you rank lower than them... if you do that does your effective max bid just go to one cent more than the person below your desired rank, or does it have a jamming effect on the person above you?
It would have a jamming effect on the person at the #1 spot... though if he is sitting one penny above someone you will be paying the same amount as him to get that second spot!!!

[sebastian]

and don't forget Optimizer customers. Optimizer {in theory, anyway} is designed to constantly update your bids to keep you in a certain position for as long as you want that position; HOWEVER, and it's a big however, the updates are staggered based on the volatility (i.e. popularity) of that term or phrase.

So, if you say bid me #2 position all the way to a maximum spend of $5/click you would think you'd always be in second as long as the maximum cost per click was never higher than $5.

wrong. Unless the term is extremely popular, the updates will only happen every now and then. This means someone using traditional and awful DTC, can still sneak in and take your place in 2nd bumping you to third or fourth or fifth depending on how many people get in during the interval. If all the bids remain static and equal and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions all have the same bids, you will never get better than 5th place - regardless of bid automation - because optimizer DOES NOT automatically take you to the front of the line.

This is something to keep in mind when worrying about jamming, bidding and all-around placement hunting.