New to PPC for Yahoo and MSN

Hi there,

Can anyone point me to good guides, strategies, learning and the like for PPC campaigns for Yahoo and MSN? Looking for something like Perry Marshals google adwords guide...

Thx in advance
Andrew

Yahoo! Search Marketing Book
Mona Elessily, who works for Andrew Goodman (of Winning Results with Google AdWords fame), and speaks at seminars as well, writes and updates an ebook on YSM. I'm not aware of one specifically written on MSN.

In my opinion, PPC is PPC, many of the same marketing principles apply in YSM and MSN AdCenter as they do in AdWords when it comes to what historically works. Of course there are many feature and user tool differences (less different now than Pre-Panama), but as far as strategies go, you might find some in Mona's book. I have not read it, so this is not an endorsement. This is the only somewhat updated book specific to Yahoo!, not put out by Yahoo, that I know.

YSM is becoming more like AdWords
It will continue to do so as long as Google is on top. One huge change that happened in the last six months was YSM introduced an ad quality advantage giving a lower cpc to better performing and/or better matched ads, keywords, & landing pages. Before that, the highest max cpc competitor would be on top. My guess is it hasn't quite yet reached the complexity of Google's Quality Score formula, with all its nuances.

Yahoo! & MSN Mindset
You might keep this in mind. Since MSN and Yahoo are more consumer-driven engines, with different demographics, the exact same ads may not work as well. Demographics may be less of an issue verses psychographics.

Optimize for AdWords First
Nonetheless, spend time optimizing and creating stellar AdWords campaigns, and ads, before branching out. Use your high performing ads from Google as a starting point when expanding to other engines, but test and adjust for each engine. Luckily a/b split testing was included in Yahoo's platform upgrade, and was available on adCenter from day one. I would also suggest cross channeling your accounts by tagging your ads attached to destination URLs so you'll be able to see Yahoo and MSN clicks and conversions from the AdWords interface at a glance. If you are using Google Analytics, you will need to tag destination URLs to see the difference in Yahoo/ MSN cpc and Yahoo/MSN organic.

Books? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Books
For a resident expert on all things ppc here at SEO Chat, read all posts and tips by GaryTheScubaGuy.
You can start with his PPC101 and PPC102 guides.

Cheers, some great stuff and ill do my research...