We’ve recently been asked a question regarding ad URLs: “Hi, I’ve been using Google Adwords and MSN Adcenter for a while and have decided to have a look at yahoos PPC offering, now all seems ok, except it doesn’t seem to support a display URL/destination URL differentiation. Is this possible in Yahoo PPC? And how do I go about it. Basically I want my display url to be my main sites url (www.example.com) and I want the destination to be a subpage on the site (www.example.com/product.html).”
Yes, Yahoo! can certainly support a differentiation between the destination and display URLs. In fact, I practice this technique with a few clients: use the main, or root, URL as the display (ex: www.example.com) and the destination URL is a subpage of the main page (ex: www.example.com/specificproduct.html).
However, be sure that your display URL is the root of your destination URL, for example: your destination URL should not be www.greatexamples.com/specificproduct.html if your display URL is www.example.com. Make sense?
When choosing your display URL, here are a few things Yahoo! will be looking for:
- Choose a display URL that accurately reflects the site found at your submitted landing page.
- The display URL must include the domain extension, such as www.example.com.
- The display URL cannot be used as another line of text or as an email address field.
- The display URL cannot include text that violates any of the Editorial Guidelines.
- The display URL has a 250 character max.
When choosing your destination URL, here are a few things Yahoo! will be looking for:
- Take users to a page where they can easily find what they’re searching for.
- Submit a landing page that is obviously and immediately relevant to the keyword.
- Submit a URL that links to a fully functional web page.
- Make sure your back button works from the landing page.
- Do not submit landing pages with pop-ups, pop-unders or exit consoles.
- The destination URL has a 1024 character max.
And one last tip: using dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) within your PPC ads can make your ads more relevant to users, and increase your CTR. In AdWords and MSN you can utilize DKI within your headline, ad text and display URL. However, Yahoo!’s editorial guidelines does not permit DKI within the display URL.
If you have any other questions, send them our way!
