So after a couple of days of little news, there seems to be a buzz of activity today.

First up is the news that Yahoo has relased their new ad platform, codename Panama, in the States.

A number of the big names in search were invited by Yahoo to their HQ in Burbank to take a closer look at their new platform. Barry Schwartz has a big write up about the key features of the new platform over at SEW Blog. Some of his key findings are listed below;

• The new system is now live in the States & have been in testing for months.
• Migration will begin for those with invites first, followed by current customers and eventually mandatory to all newer customers. US advertisers can get an early invite here.
• The interface itself is apparently snappier and certainly looks sleak. Check out the pictures below.
• Same Google like structure, ie. Account > Campaign > Ad Group
• Bidding by adgroup
• Multiple adverts per adgroup
  
• Faster Ad Approval
• Campaign start and end dates like Google
• No day parting as yet
• “Very cool AJAX-based spending caps, budgeting and forecasting interfaces that show impressions as you increase your bid.”
• Advanced geo-targeting
• Use of a quality index system for ranking adverts. This is not due to be introduced until Q1 2007 however.
• The quality index is Google-esque in that ranking will be based on click through rate (CTR), keywords in relation to adverts, display url, landing page quality and various other factors.

It looks like there ad platform will finally offer the kind of tools that both Google and MSN already do which is great. The old DTC (Direct Taffic Center) will be a thing of the past…Whose going to miss it?
Andrew Goodman has a cool post titled “No Turning Back: Panama Goes Live” which is worth a read and mentions that Panamas new pricing formula “may include a larger than expected price discount for ads with very high relative quality score”. So a better quality ad, a higher quality user experience and thus cheaper bids. That sounds like an improvement to me.

Check out some pictures from Danny Sullivans Flickr account below.

The new dash -

Geo-targeting -

Bidding -

The SEroundtable has picked up on a thread over at Webmasterworld where a member has heard from there Yahoo UK representative and been informed that thier new ad platform Panama, will not be released until Q2 of 2007.

These rumours have been circulating for sometime and can to be honest with all the delays, are we really that suprised? Panama is still scheduled in for a Q4 ‘06 release in the States.

The SERountable reports about a mass mail Yahoo! sent out to advertisers over in the US about their new ad platform, Panama. A copy of the e-mail contents is shown below -

Current Account Structure vs. New Sponsored Search
When your account is upgraded (these transitions will begin in fourth quarter 2006), some of the account structure terminology that is currently in use will change, and we will add some new terminology. Here is a summary of those changes and additions to the way your ads are organized:

Current: Listings
“Listings” have been the combination of keyword, bid, title, description and URL.

New: Ads
The marketing messages that your potential customers see will be “uncoupled” from keywords, and be known as “ads,” but they are similarly comprised of a title, description and URL.

New: Ad Groups
“Ad Groups” are the combination of multiple ads (your creative) and keywords. You may set one bid for your entire ad group, or use individual keyword bids.

Current: Categories
Categories have served as the organizational structure you assigned to groups of keywords that are similar in a particular way, for purposes of bid management or reporting.

New: Campaigns
“Campaigns” replace categories, and will consist of a combination of one or more ad groups that share the same budget, schedule and geo-targeting criteria, usually created to achieve a particular marketing goal.

After your account is upgraded, you won’t need to manage your account at the listing level anymore. Instead, you can manage and optimize your account performance at the account, campaign ad group or keyword/ad level. We recommend starting out by managing at the ad group level, in which you can use multiple versions of your creative (titles and descriptions). The benefit of using ad groups is that you will be able to test different versions of your creative, and have more impressions shifted to those ads that provide you with the highest click-through rate.

It’s quite funny to see how they have changed their platform to be so unique in both design and terminology. Who else would of thought of having keywords in ad groups contained within seperate campaigns?!

It will never work I say.