10 Reasons Yahoo Should Kill Direct Traffic Center

[sebastian]

As we all know the Direct Traffic Center is the nemesis of advertisers and the worst aspect of Yahoo Search Marketing. PLEASE OVERTURE - KILL THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE ...here's why:

1) DTC (Direct Traffic Center) is excruciatingly slow.

2) DTC reporting is over 24 hours behind

3) DTC requires almost weekly updates *(see #4)

4) DTC updates always make DTC worse * (see #5)

5) DTC updates not only run longer than expected, but DTC will usually not work at all after an "update"

6) Your reps will "all-of-a-sudden" not be there to answer the phone when DTC is down. Are ya listenin M.A. ???

7) You can only create "one-word" categories for organization

8) Deleting keywords and phrases does not always do so ...trust me, finding out later that you spent $100 on words you thought you deleted is quite common and highly aggravating ...can i get a witness?

9) DTC is a joke with respects to User Interface Design. I have since learned that Yahoo inherited DTC from a previous acquisition. ...Know when to fold 'em big guys.

10) Direct Traffic Center is a stupid name ...much like Yahoo Search Marketing. Brand managers at Yahoo should be fired.

Thank you. Good luck with your trials and tribulations regarding the awful online management products offered by Yahoo Search Marketing.

bah.

[shor]

I think I'll print this out and hand it to our rep in tomorrow's upcoming meeting

We actually delay our weekly paid search reports for a day to cover for the DTC lag effect.

[Mel66]

11. DTC reports are a joke. Even when they are working, they don't always give you the information you need. In other words, "NO CUSTOMIZATION!" And, one of the recent "upgrades" has broken the "output to spreadsheet" function. You can't download a spreadsheet to Excel - you have to copy, paste and save the info from your browser into Excel, then hit the "back" button and hope it works without hanging. Argh!

Sorry OV, you are being blown away by the competition in this area. Even the 2nd tiers have better reports than you.

Melissa

[vinniesmith2227]

I am in complete agreement with these statements. I like the traffic and conversions we get from Yahoo, but frankly, the whole system is getting old.

Why should I have to go three days without being able to log into my account?

Why doesn't my rep give me the service I deserve by answering her phone and/or returning my call on the same day?

There are many reasons to be unhappy with YSM, but they are still an important part of the PPC mix. I hope they get their act together and make this thing as great as it should be.

[vinniesmith2227]

Originally Posted by Mel66

You can't download a spreadsheet to Excel - you have to copy, paste and save the info from your browser into Excel, then hit the "back" button and hope it works without hanging. Argh!

EXACTLY!!! What's more, if you ask your rep to run the report, it takes them weeks to do it!

[sebastian]

hallelujah...

For the record, i agree with everyone who enjoys the conversions. I think Yahoo converts rather well and click fraud seems much less rampant (at least in my industry) than Google's teenage clicking machine; however, that can't allow us to become complacent in demanding top-notch tools and communication from our partner.

Yahoo is asleep on this issue and someone is not thinking "business relationships" very well. If Yahoo improved in these areas of reporting lag, user interface and application efficiency, advertisers would make more sales, be able to control ROI much better and would be singing the praises of Yahoo Search Marketing.

Instead, Yahoo chooses to continue on the path of thinking, "well, advertisers are making money, so they should just deal with it".

I know my rep will say differently, but let's all face it - most reps are merely zombies regurgitating what their sales managers pump into their heads during morning meetings, retreats and "seminars". If they were intelligent, free-thinkers they wouldn't be "followers" ...they'd be leaders. Reps only agree on the poor functionality of DTC in the most secret of communication.

Come on Yahoo reps. Print this thread out and show it to your managers. Stand up and get noticed in your behemouth company for going to bat for your customers. Show the tie-guys that the natives are restless ...that the product is garbage and that things need to change.

have some "kahones" and stand up for what's right ...don't just collect a paycheck and stare at your stock options all day.

Thank you.

[Discovery]

I just had to jump in on this thread, both because I have been frustrated to no end with everything Yahoo, and because I'm forced to stay with them for the waning traffic they deliver.

Reporting is terrible, lagging and inaccurate.
Editorial review system is a joke.
The whole system of how one sets up campaigns and keywords is cluttered an confusing.
No ability to exclude specific domains from running ads is costing us thousands/month.
Same for not being able to exclude other counties.
Countless times I have been told by my rep, OK this is serious and I'm going to discuss it with...so and so and call you right back. Never get a call, not even an email.

The number 1 frustration though is knowing that there is a ton of high quality traffic hiding behind this atrocious interface. If they gutted this beast and offered some of these features we are discussing here Yahoo would once again rival Google in PPC. If MSN comes out with these features before this type of change occurs at YSM I'll be gone and I believe so will many of my peers.

ahhh i'm feeling slightly better
Any chance an YSM rep can respond like Google does so well in thier forum?

[sebastian]

Greetings Discovery ...great point about the domains. I see these sites all the time in my logs: (spelling out domains to make sure these dogs get no search relevancy from this forum)

- AllTheVacations[dot]com
- resultsifter[dot]com
- trustedsearch[dot]net

Brace yourselves - Yahoo has openly partnered with these sites and worse, defends it tooth-n-nail. By many definitions, these are nothing more than duplicate content sites. ...especially the last two that i provided. The pages are just a bunch of popular search term links. NO content. NO contact info. NO internet responsibility. These domains all seem to be owned by shady offshore companies with no contact info and no "corporate identity" for which to associate them.

But Yahoo allows them to slap the Yahoo logo on 'em.

Why would Yahoo partner with these sites? and worse, why can't we (as Discovery mentioned) choose to be or NOT be associated with such sites. I'll tell you why - no advertisers would opt-in and thus, those sites would be useless and would not make any revenue on clicks...

Lastly, as these "nothing-but-link" sites garner more traffic and the owners of them see more revenue, what is to stop them from creating a thousand of the sites, a million of 'em ...a billion of 'em?

Isn't that muddying the internet and making it more difficult for users to find what they're looking for? Do we really need billions of mortgage, travel and pharmaceutical link sites? Isn't that awfully similar to the SPAM we all get daily in email?

Yahoo is making some very big mistakes with regards to brand and like i said before, Yahoo should fire it's brand managers. ...they should stick to yodeling contests on TV. ...at least that made us laugh.

[128hotkaties]

I know my rep will say differently, but let's all face it - most reps are merely zombies regurgitating what their sales managers pump into their heads during morning meetings, retreats and "seminars". If they were intelligent, free-thinkers they wouldn't be "followers" ...they'd be leaders. Reps only agree on the poor functionality of DTC in the most secret of communication.

My favorite Yahoo Search Quirks:

1. Inconsistant, pointless editorial policy. This became apparant when I tried to change the ad text on an existing paid ad. The ad was rejected "because of the url". The problem with this? The url had been approved before!

2. Poor Explanation for Editorial Decisions. When called to account for rejections, customer service just kept repeating the rule.

3. Puritanical nonesense. Our dating review site was rejected because the site mentioned sex. I am not exaggerating. We were told that dating sites "must only be about love and romance." Thanks grandma.

[sebastian]

funny post 128hotkaties....

I guess we can sum your comments up as the "editorial process" of the DTC is your biggest gripe. ...and many would argue rightfully so. I am still on the fence regarding editorial. I am not saying I like it, but I do believe an argument could be made for its' existence and its' association with better conversions than most of the competition.

BUT, that being said - the editorial process, since it's done by humans, is not consistent. What gets banned for you could easily get through for others ...including your competition. I have seen this happen. the "editorial process" is really, "a specific editor's interpretations" and this leaves too much possibility for error. It gets compounded when you have an industry in which the editors are unfamiliar. They just guess.

Thanks for all comments and everyone sharing. While I would love to take people up on the PMs regarding a collective bail-out from Yahoo PPC for a specific number of days, I would have a hard time rationalizing that above. I still believe Yahoo has ample time to heed our warnings, to listen to what we are saying and take a logical approach to fixing the problems.

If they don't ...well then, we have hella ammunition to substantiate why we feel Yahoo is mistreating us as advertisers and their salary providers.

Without advertisers, Yahoo is just a second rate search engine with a bunch of fluff products. Think the stock sucks now - wait 'til advertisers start leaving.

[128hotkaties]

Yeah, my guess is Yahoo has no idea how much money it is losing with its inconsistant "editorial status" stuff. I am being serious that my company's marketing budget is virtually unlimited. But Yahoo has done virtually no work to get our ad dollars. They have only given wildly variable reasons for rejecting our ads. Another thing? They apparantly have no process to provide advertisers with discrete, actionable steps to ensure acceptance. Even when they did throw out vague recommendations, and we followed them, they found yet another reason to reject us.

[Mel66]

Originally Posted by sebastian

Thanks for all comments and everyone sharing. While I would love to take people up on the PMs regarding a collective bail-out from Yahoo PPC for a specific number of days, I would have a hard time rationalizing that above. I still believe Yahoo has ample time to head our warnings, to listen to what we are saying and take a logical approach to fixing the problems.

Like many of you, we do get good ROI from Yahoo/OV, and significant volume, so a pullout is unrealistic. However, you are all correct in that it is high time they stand up and take notice that they are being out-classed all over the place. Their interface is clunky, outdated, and annoying to use. Their editorial process is inconsistent (we, too, have had ads rejected that had been running for literally years, because I had updated the prices in them and nothing else!). Their customer service is god-awful - even those of us who are supposed to be Platinum or Diamond or whatever don't get replies to our emails or phone calls, nor are we notified when our rep quits and we've been assigned a new one.... Like I said, I've gotten better reports and better service from the 2nd tiers than I get from OV. OV's saving grace is they do get results - but they shouldn't sit on their laurels or they'll get left behind.

Melissa

[sanity]

Originally Posted by 128hotkaties

My favorite Yahoo Search Quirks:
3. Puritanical nonesense. Our dating review site was rejected because the site mentioned sex. I am not exaggerating. We were told that dating sites "must only be about love and romance." Thanks grandma.

I have a similar experience with a popular culture website. They sell a few things that I guess would be classed as "soft porn" - adult anime and the like. Ads would be approved then disapproved then approved again. This was for ads for products such as a Britney Spears calendar. In fact we never advertised the adult stuff. Finally I was told if we wanted to continue with YSM a warning page with Click to Proceed had to be before every page. Every page! It was just madness.

[sebastian]

They sell a few things that I guess would be classed as "soft porn" - adult anime and the like.

Please let's try to keep the thread focused on the Direct Traffic Center as much as possible. I say this because in the past, it seems that threads can wafer off into other areas and I would really like Overture / Yahoo Search Marketing to take notice regarding these Direct Traffic Centers issues.

For problems with the editorial process, perhaps either a new thread could be developed and/or add to ones already started regarding this topic.

Direct Traffic Center has been such a problem for all of us for many years and I am dedicated to getting Yahoo to give a hoot. Even on this same forum I have complained over the years and nothing seems to get fixed. I am afraid they will take our problems less seriously if we turn it into a ***** session about Yahoo PPC... (trust me it's tempting but...)

Hopefully, that makes sense. Let's really try to express just how awful this DTC application really is and work diligently to get some action from Yahoo.

If anyone can remember back as far as February, to when Yahoo! locked advertisers out for upgrades during the Super Bowl weekend!! Only the single biggest day for advertisers during the year!

How many brand managers trying to time campaigns online/offline were jammed into higher CPC's or were one-upped by competitors who had better timing?!

After an upgrade last year, I discovered my program somehow had reverted back several months to ads/editorial/bids I had since changed quite a bit. If I didn't have a backup, if I'd made all changes in the DTC instead of downloading the listings and working on the .csv file, I would have been toast.

The update before last, I was unable to generate reports for 11 days.

[Vural Cifci]

I agree that DTC sucks 100%. On the other hand due to the $ amount I spend Yahoo made their search optimizer available for free. So whatever account management function I do perform I do it directly through Search Optimizer.(including adding/removing keyords and etc.) It still is not the most friendly tool but more "real-time" and accurate.

[danielanaidu]

here are my additions:

12) Reporting by category has repeatedly not worked. Over the last several months, I have had clicks reporting to an "unavailable" category. Every time I complain, the reps start with a canned answer about how it's my fault for moving keywords between categories (which I NEVER do). Then they promise that the reporting will eventually correct itself (which it NEVER does).
13) Cannot edit and resubmit rejected ads. Instead, you have to recreate every ad from scratch; ridiculously time consuming.
14) Newly created ads end up in the Unassigned category. For various reasons, I need to report clicks by category. Why can't I assign the category for the ad during the creation process??

[Mel66]

Originally Posted by danielanaidu

here are my additions:

12) Reporting by category has repeatedly not worked. Over the last several months, I have had clicks reporting to an "unavailable" category. Every time I complain, the reps start with a canned answer about how it's my fault for moving keywords between categories (which I NEVER do). Then they promise that the reporting will eventually correct itself (which it NEVER does).
13) Cannot edit and resubmit rejected ads. Instead, you have to recreate every ad from scratch; ridiculously time consuming.
14) Newly created ads end up in the Unassigned category. For various reasons, I need to report clicks by category. Why can't I assign the category for the ad during the creation process??

Actually, you can sort of edit and resubmit rejected ads by downloading them into Excel from the Editorial Status page (although this is harder than it used to be - see my previous post! ). Then you can make your changes in the spreadsheet and just resubmit it as a bulk upload, making sure you've deleted the columns that don't belong in a bulk upload sheet (see their template for specifics).

And when I've created new ads under the Add Listings function, the first thing it does is ask me what category I want the new ad to go into. Since I only have one category that's not "unassigned," and since I no longer use that category any more, it's kind of an annoyance for me. Are you using "Add Listings" to create new ads, or are you bulk submitting them?

[danielanaidu]

Originally Posted by Mel66

And when I've created new ads under the Add Listings function, the first thing it does is ask me what category I want the new ad to go into. Since I only have one category that's not "unassigned," and since I no longer use that category any more, it's kind of an annoyance for me. Are you using "Add Listings" to create new ads, or are you bulk submitting them?

I should have been more specific. I almost always create new ads using Copy Listings, because my ads are similar, but not identical. Also, I only create a dozen or so at a time. You would expect those ads to end up in the category where you are copying the listings from, but they don't.

[Mel66]

Good point, you're right. I sometimes do that too and it is indeed annoying. The "copy listings" also defaults to Advanced Match, even if the original listing is set to Standard. We have Advanced Match turned off at the account level, but if we didn't, I'd be very unhappy to have a listing go live as Advanced that I wanted to be set to Standard.

15. The "copy listings" function doesn't work right, because it does not copy all the settings from the listing you are copying.

16. The "Listing On/Off" function doesn't work either. We had a listing show up for days that I had turned Off. I did get a refund for clicks, but it caused some problems for us. Always use the "Delete" function if you don't want to get clicks on an ad! Which is a pain too if you just wanted to pause an ad and restart it later.

Do I hear "20 Reasons"?

Melissa