Yahoo recently introduced traffic segmentation that gives the option of segmenting your traffic between the search engine and their partner networks. This is an option that Google has had for years, but it is just making it’s way to Yahoo. This is important because as you track conversion rates and attempt to maximize your paid search spend, the type of traffic from the Yahoo Search Engine will perform very differently and probably convert differently than the partner networks, but if it is like Google, the click prices on the partner network should be much less than the search network.
It is important to note that the Yahoo Search network will still include other Yahoo properties like e-mail, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Finance, but will be separate from their partners which are properties like City Search, Buy.com, Forbes, Comcast, etc.
What is not yet clear is if Parked Domains are considered as part of the Yahoo Search Network. Parked domains are those domains that have great domain names like candy.com and benefit from tons of direct type-in traffic that the domain owner simply places ads on the page without any content as a way to greatly monetize the traffic. Yahoo has historically paid more than most other networks for clicks on parked pages, but for search marketers, this traffic does not convert very well. I am not sure what percentage of traffic that parked pages contributes to the traffic for Yahoo, but my guess is that it is a moderate amount. In my opinion, this traffic should be considered as part of the Partners network, but I have not seen anything that has said definitively either way.
This change by Yahoo should help tremendously to improve conversion costs and to identify the most successful traffic sources. It will also be very interesting to see how the click costs vary between the two networks.
To make the changes, simply edit your network distribution settings from the main campaigns page. Although setting up separate campaigns in Yahoo is not as easy as Google, it will definitely be worth it over the long term for tracking conversions.
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