Get The Hell Off My Lawn, Yahoo!

I’m in a state of shock so intense I’ve been forced to eat half a box of Cadbury’s Fingers just to calm down.

Yahoo!, in a way reminiscent of a sinister clown saying you’ll enjoy what he’s about to do to you with a rusty knife, has sent out upbeat emails to some of its customers detailing their new powers to mess about with your search ads account without your knowledge.

They will “(i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s)“.

Not only that, but “Notwithstanding the foregoing, you remain responsible for all changes made to your account(s), including all click charges incurred prior to any reversions being made“.

What?! So some Yahoo! employee can go into my account, mess about with it and then blame me for the consequences? No offence Yahoo! but some of us had to pass a test to play with advertising and if you think that account is going anywhere outside my control you can bugger off.

I’d like Yahoo! to answer a few questions. What happens when the account manager, i.e. me, doesn’t know that a change has been made (I don’t pick up my emails every second of the day). If the client rings, what do I tell them? I can’t explain anything or even pretend to know the status of their account. Even if the changes Yahoo! makes have a positive effect, how am I meant to know why? What I mean is, online ads are often a case of trial and error – you start with your best guess and monitor, improve, monitor, improve and so on. If some Yahoo! goes in and “does stuff” then I won’t know for next time what was the right thing to do.

This really annoys me because I like Yahoo! It has better results than Google and it’s not their fault that no-one uses them. If Yahoo! ever, EVER goes near one of my accounts I’ll bring the wrath of Piggynap down upon them which, I can assure you, is cute but it hurts.

Whilst I’m shaking my head in disbelief, let’s take a look at Google. If you’re an agency person you’ll probably have an account manager at Google who you can email or ring if you’ve got problems or whatever. Adwords also has an Adgroup optimiser and a website optimiser option so you can get suggested improvements (from a crappy programme, not a person, but still). It’s a hands-off approach that lets the agency deal with stuff and doesn’t step on their toes.

Yahoo!…those idiots…are stepping on toes.

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