As you’ve probably read, Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) will be updating Sponsored Search later this year. Finally! If you do any pay per click management, you know how much this upgrade is needed. The former Overture/Goto system can be extremely painful to use.
But what about YSMs Product Submit? The interface looks like it was built back in ’97, there are only 2 reports, there’s no conversion tracker (come on, just talk to the Sponsored Search team!), date specific reports don’t run chronologically (sounds silly, but it’s true and very annoying), there’s no product level bidding or click information, etc.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t get me started on the poor integration between Product Submit, Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Merchant Solutions…actually, I need to get started on it. Yahoo! Shopping needs a new VP – that VP should also be reponsible for Product Submit and Merchant Solutions.
I can’t agree with you more Brian. With out conversion tracking for product submit I pause each day and ponder whether I should continue using it. Aside from the poor interfaces (both YSM and Product Submit) there needs to definately be some integration between all acounts. I want one login for all my services I use for Yahoo. Google has this already worked out, a single Google Account can get you into dozens of services.
I know this is an old topic, but it occured to me how archaic Yahoo! Product Submit is. Here we are in 2009 and they’ve yet to supply merchants with the ability to track conversions. I personally tag the product URLS with UTM and track conversions through Google Analytics.
I can’t believe Yahoo is still in business…