My 2012 End Of The World Post

Image courtesy of www.bizarrocomics.com

OK, I don’t really believe the world is ending on Friday. But I do want to take this opportunity to share some of the highlights of 2012, both in the PPC world and personally.

The beginning of 2012 brought with it a new job for me, and it’s been nothing but rewarding. I’m thankful for the opportunity to work with the fantastic team at gyro and to do it mostly from home!

I also crossed 3 things off my bucket list: seeing Van Halen in the front row, walking a half marathon, and celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary with a cruise. All in all, it’s been a very good year!

2012 has been a good year for PPC in many ways, also.  There were some amazing PPC conferences, including the inaugural HeroConf.

There was the uproar over Google ad rotation, and Bing went from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Every year I’m surprised by posts saying PPC is dead, and by the blatant misunderstandings about how PPC works. In fact, my Adwords Debacle post was one of the most-read posts on this blog in 2012. PPC has been around for well over 10 years now, and yet the lack of understanding amongst many advertisers is always a surprise.

2012 brought some amazing info-sharing around the blogosphere. In June, I listed some of my favorite posts. Since then, there have been more good posts, including this one on testing millions of ads and this one on increasing PPC sales. My bookmarked list of great PPC posts grows by the day!

For a roundup of big PPC news in 2012, check out these Search Engine Watch posts by my friends Joe Kerschbaum and Alex Cohen.

And finally, no 2012 roundup would be complete without a shout-out to my favorite PPC resource, PPC Chat. Founded by Matt Umbro, PPC Chat has become my go-to source for quick answers to tough PPC questions. Someone is always there on the hashtag ready to help! I’ve met so many friends and PPC pros, both online and in real life, as a result of PPC Chat. If you do nothing else in 2013, get in on the PPC Chat action!

Finally, I’d like to wish all my readers a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year in 2013. Without all of you, I’d be, well, talking to myself. You all rock!

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YSM, You Are the Liar!

Yahoo Search Marketing caused a stir recently when they updated their Terms and Conditions to include “auto-optimization” of YSM accounts. They decided to update one of our client’s accounts shortly thereafter, and it was anything but “optimized.” I’m quoted in the Search Engine Roundtable post, so I won’t reiterate Yahoo’s idiocy here.

Now, Yahoo has decided to speak out on the issue on their blog. They sing the praises of this “service” and claim that it “helps small advertisers improve performance issues on their accounts.” While that may be true for some advertisers, it was anything but for my client. Then Yahoo has the audacity to say that “not everyone in the blogosphere understands this new program, which we believe is the result of misinformation more than anything else.” What?!?!? Misinformation???

Bullcrap. My story is 100% true, and it offends me that they would call it “misinformation.” Furthermore, it appears that they went against their own intentions when they took it upon themselves to optimize our client’s account: Yahoo claims in their blog post, in bold font no less, that auto-optimization “is not designed for larger advertisers who actively manage their accounts.” I manage hundreds of thousands in advertiser spend and have been doing SEM since 2002 (before Yahoo even HAD a PPC program – it was still Overture then). I do actively manage all of my clients accounts. Yet Yahoo felt the need to add a new campaign with ad copy that could have been written by one of my 11-year old twins (wait, I take it back- it wasn’t even that good). And they were bidding on keywords that aren’t even relevant to my client’s offering. It was as far from optimization as it could be.

Yahoo goes on to say that “Advertisers are notified of any changes within 24 hours (usually, fewer than eight hours).” Double bullcrap. I never received any notification that this had been done – I found it by accident when I logged in to “actively manage” my client’s account.

Yahoo, you screwed up once by launching this “feature” in the first place. You screwed up a second time when you violated your own principles by doing this to an account that is being actively managed by a professional SEM. You screwed up a third time by calling all of us SEM pros – A-list bloggers and long-time SEMs – liars.

Three strikes and you’re out. I shut off Yahoo for this client and many others as a result. It’s just too risky and their attitude sucks.

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