I just got an email from Yahoo! explaining a change in the Manage Bids page of the Yahoo! Search Marketing control panel. According to this email, the “Top 5 Max Bids”, “Position”, and “Your Cost” columns are being replaced with “Estimated Average Position” and “Bid Range for Top Positions”.
You are no longer going to see the bids of others. Internet marketers in Yahoo! will now rely on less information.
Apparently, the new Sponsored Search interface does not provide exact bids. Yahoo! is releasing the new interface to its customers in stages. To make it fair for everyone, they are removing the bid information from customers still using the old system.
I would be willing to bet that the companies getting the new interface the earliest are the biggest spenders on sponsored search ads.
So the big spenders get the benefits of the new system such as split testing, while the smaller spenders are stuck in the old system and having information removed.
Does that seem fair?
It’s going to be even more important for advertisers to try to track ROI on a keyword basis. Contact Work Media for help managing your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.