Auto Payment Calculator - Review
Posted by Administrator on Jun 30, 2008
Auto Payment Calculator - While there are many auto payment calculators online line, many of them require personal information or are part of a finance applicatioin.
Auto-Payment-Calculator.com offers visitors with no hooks the ability to calculate car payment amounts, car purchase price, affect of down payment, and then prints out an amortization schedule for your records.
In the future, this site will offer some account options where visitors can store their car payment information such as amortization schedules for multiple vehicles, tips on rapid loan repayment and refinance notifications for lower interest rates.
Give this site a try if you are planning on buying a new or used vehicle and give them some feedback as they are still in development.
Yahoo Optimizer - Does It Really Work?
Posted by Administrator on Jun 30, 2008
I’d love to think that the Yahoo Sponsored Search Campaign Optimizer works, but I’m not convinced it does. We set most of our Yahoo sponsored search campaigns to run with the “Optimizer” turned on. This feature allows you to enter some variables for some business action such as revenue or CPA (cost per action).
We tried this for several weeks and all we seemed to get were ulcers and the campaign optimizer could not maintain any level of consistancy for us. Below are a few screen shots:
As you can see from this first screen shot, The optimizer did not maintain our revenue projection, CPA, and allowed clicks on keywords run with no conversions.
Here’s a 2nd screen shot from another campaign:
Here’s what Yahoo had to say….
Read the rest of this entry »
Mountain Biking - Give It A Try
Posted by Administrator on Jun 25, 2008
Have you been looking for a new way to get in shape and have some fun? You might want to try mountain biking.
Several months ago, I was looking to ride the trails at North shore near lake Grapevine. We have lived in the Dallas area for over five years and always talked about trying mountain biking. After begging my son to give it a try with me we discovered an amazing way to get in shape, have some fun, find new challenges, and make some new friends.
Mountain biking is alive and well here in the Dallas Fort Worth area and there are literally hundreds of trails. For information on Mountain biking trails here in Dallas visit DORBA, short for Dallas Off Road Bike Association.
DORBA and area bicycle shops sponsor weekly rides, endurance races, and skills clinics to provide activities for every level of riding experience.
After just a couple of months of riding my son and I participated in Judgement Day, a 65-95 mile endurance event over 12 trails in North Texas all which have to be completed within 24 hours. While we only made it 23 miles, we’ll be ready to give it a try again next year.
So if you are looking for a great way to get in shape and are bored with the tread mill, gym, or track, give mountain biking a try.
Dallas Bike Shop - Dallas Bike Works has a wide variety of frames, and bikes for every skill level and budget. Visit them online or call them at: 214-341-8921
Yahoo Trademark Block On Keywords Too Aggressive
Posted by Administrator on Jun 24, 2008
Yahoo as most search engines tries refrain from allowing advertisers to infringe on trademarked names, but has gone too far with its aggressive blockage of keyword phrases for sponsored search advertisers.
For example: If you try to advertise your product or service in Alamo California, Yahoo will decline your keywords because of the word “Alamo”, or possibly Gateway, Washington. Sure, Alamo and Gateway are recognizable trademarks, but does one business entity have the ability to block advertisers from using a single word to target different products or services that are not remotely related to rental cars or computers? There are literally hundreds of cities that fall under this scenario including single word trademarks that could easily apply to other products or services.
Additionally, try to bid on keywords for Gun Barrel City Texas or Rifle Colorado and you’ll find your advertising blocked because the names of the these cities are mistakenly identified with firearms.
Have you experienced anything similar? Has Yahoo blocked any of your keywords or sponsored ads for too aggressively blocking a possible trademark? Share your story with our readers.
Yahoo Sponsored Search Complaints
Posted by Administrator on Jun 21, 2008
Our daily spend rate with Yahoo puts at a Gold support level. We would like to be at the platinum level at some point, but until Yahoo gets their new sponsored search platform fixed that might not be possible.
We had our campaigns working well making incremental progress each day until Yahoo implemented their new platform. It flat out sucks and all you get is the standard company line when you call support. We have experienced a range of oddities from prices changing, deleted keywords un-deleting or un-pausing, price changes not working. We now spend 3+ hours per day doing Yahoo damage control.
It has gotten so bad for us that we now take screen shots of everything odd we find.
Yahoo sponsored search also has keywords / search terms mismatched. We found a keyword for our auto related business that mapped directly to a porn site. If you can find one smoking gun you are bound to find another. We are now searching our logs to see how many more keyword mismatches we can find.
Bottom line, the new Yahoo sponsored search does not work as advertised. It is now quirky where you could once rely on consistency. Conversations with some of our business partners and even competitors reveal the same inconsistencies and reduced ROI.
