My Experience with Yahoo Publisher Network

I put up Yahoo Publisher ads on a small site (averages only around 100 visitors/day) as an experiment.

During the first two days the relevancy of the ads being served was pretty bad.

Then there was somewhat of an improvement, which resulted in a pretty decent click through rate between the 22nd of May through the 1st of June when it really changed for the worst, which resulted in a drop of click through to a big fat Zero.

Frustrated with the quality/relevancy of the ads, I sent an email to Customer Survive on Sunday Evening. Much to my surprise I got a response from them first thing on Monday morning, which basically said: We have checked your site, your settings are right and that they agreed that the ads were not as relevant as they should be and that the email is being forwarded to their technical department.

Since the 2nd, until now the ads remain Irrelevant, Click Through is at Zero.

How irrelevant?

Site has pages ranging from 250 to 400 words, about and optimized for home mortgages.
Publisher Targeting set at Financial Services / Credit, Loans and Debt
Ads currently being served include: Acne Treatment, Bed and Breakfast, Apartments for Rent, and Local Real Estate Service Companies…

I wonder if Yahoo’s matching stinks or they have no control whatsoever over their advertisers who target any keywords the want…

One thing is for sure; Yahoo publisher is not going on any other site that I own any time soon.

raz