Search Engines Daily

I have greatly scaled back my use of YSM (Yahoo! Search Marketing) mainly due to the poor conversion numbers in comparison with AdWords. But one of my biggest issues over the years is being passionately discussed over at Webmaster World.

The issue?

If you want to leave YSM how difficult is it to take your data? Or, if you control multiple accounts, can you manage them effectively while giving only certain clients access to their data? The answer has been “no” for years and remains so. Why? Who knows. All I can say is I grow tired of hearing “it is in development and should be available in an upcoming update” from my account rep.

Dan Boberg, who is one of the leading people at YSM, and who I first signed a contract with back in 1999 when he was with GoTo.com, is not only bright but does what he can to ensure customer needs are met. He and I have discussed this issue for what seems like years now, but nothing is done due to resistance from above.

Look, Yahoo! needs to understand that your typical super affiliate or heavy PPC user doesn’t use just one network but several. And if I can set up a Yahoo account and then take the data to setup other accounts with AdWords and adCenter, then that makes me happy. However, handcuffing me to your system makes Panama more of a joke than it is.

You guys had, what, four years to rewrite the engine and this is what you came up with? Give me flexibility in taking MY data elsewhere - after all, it is my data. And if I manage 20 accounts, and a client wants to see the account, don’t give him access to my other 19 because they are all on a master account. Just allow them access to their domain only. I cannot tell you how often privacy has been breached over the years because of this. Google does it and it isn’t that hard.

You bought Overture five years ago. What’s been going on over the last five years? From the looks of Panama, not much. I’m going back into my AdWords account …