Welcome Back Rosenthal

It’s Offical! Deadpool is the New Marvel Mascot-Move Over Spidey

Dave — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:48:57 +0000

Well by “official” I mean I’m declaring it. But how can I NOT declare it given all the evidence? A slow and steady tidal wave of Deadpool love has been churning in the collective underbelly ever since The Marvel Civil War.

As loyal readers know Deadpool has had books come and go since the 90’s and during the civil war thing they basically took him and a BUNCH of B-list characters and said “look if we can’t get these characters off the ground we’re throwing them out (or we’ll try again with the Skrull Invasion, or Dark Reign).” But low and behold Deadpool finally “took.” I mean even with they had Gail Simone trying to build her resume on the DP clone “Agent X” they couldn’t sell the comedy to the loyal fans. But in this age of angry politics, 2 wars, everybody broke-comedy works!

You may have noticed that Marvel and DC booth have been trying on this new Grimmer than Grim hat now for a couple of years. But Marvel has Also been trying to slip you the comedy in the form of Marvel Zombies (ripped off by DC and called Blackest Night) and the Pet Avengers. But the reigning clown prince has been Deadpool (who now has HIS own spin-off called Hit Monkey. Oh right I almost forget to mention who USED to be the clown prince; Spider-Man. But somebody had the bright idea to remove ALL the humor from his story line, re-boot it, give it multiple writers and artists and basically just see if anything stuck to the wall. It’s hell. I read it, but I kinda hate it. Y’know?

So what’s with all these word things!?? Let’s get to the digitally scanned proof! As you can see, by the sheer number of variant covers that came out in the last month that DP is a player. And by the way, this doesn’t include his THREE series currently running.

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Chicago Finally Got it’s 2010 Winter Snow

Dave — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:24:26 +0000

Well FINALLY. SNOW. I mean, really! We have had an incredibly mild winter. Don’t get me wrong it’s been cold. It just hasn’t been COLD. “Chicago style” means more than just our famous pizza, we get a kind of cold out here that really puts us on the mad in the lower 48. The only places that probably DON’T get credit for being super cold are the Twin Cities in Minnesota; theose guys have built sky walkways to get around. That place is insane (but nobody talks about it, so it doesn’t have the rep).

But yeah, remember a couple of months back I did my little piece on insulation when we got our first snow? No? Must not be a regular reader, well since then we had maybe 10 days where I’ve had to shovel. And as for as temp goes; let’s put it this way my last month’s gas bill was 8 dollars and this month 9. Now to be fair I insulated the HELL of my house (after all it is a renovation project I intend to sell) and I’m also on a bill payment plan you can get to divide your bill into 50 dollar payments-but that still means my bill is only 60.

At any rate; it snowed. So you know what that means! Time for me to go stand in my doorway in my underwear and take pictures and hope nobody sees my naked ass and my crazy hair. Ok, so this first pictures give you a clue about the severity.

A few hours later it calmed down enough for me to get a couple of shots where you can at least see what’s going on.

And finally around 4 AM ( hey I work on the internet, I keep weird hours) I was able to go out and shovel. My stuff was so clean that by morning I had dry ground, but those are not exciting photos…

First Big Snow of 2008 in Chicago So just like a groundhog on these snowy days I...
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My Apple iPad Arrived Today

Dave — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:24:41 +0000

But clearly it wasn’t really what I was hoping for. Seems a lot less low tech than I imagined…

The good news is there’s something on there about magic…

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The Sport of Player Hating. This week; Will Smith and Dane Cook Twice in one week . A blogger launched a salvo...
ANOTHER Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago. Northern Illinois University. I really can’t believe I’m in a position to write...

Williams Winners at Australian Open 2010 in Doubles

Dave — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:53:22 +0000

Last year I wrote about the Australian Open and joined it to the topic of how awful SNL was at the time. This year I’m just going to focus on the William sisters. So first let’s kick it off with a photo. Bam! There you go.

Ok, so now that we’ve had a few seconds to bask in their glory let’s get dirty. The FIRST thing we should probably mention is Serena’s year ending 2009; the US Open. I have a LOT to say about that and I STILL haven’t said a word, because my hard drive with all the multiple articles I wrote but didn’t publish is still of commission. So I wont go into it, per se, but it is an issue that’s been hovering in the background of Serena’s Australian Open performance. Certainly the newscasters have found a way to weave it into every discussion.

But realistically Serena DID start the AO off by playing her ass off. Something like 31 games won in a row. And then it stopped. She hit a WALLLLL. I mean all of a sudden it’s like the bottom fell out. Her next 2 games were brutal. Watching her play this 20 year old from Belarus (Azarenka) was rugged and a lesson in mortality. All I could think was “that’s a 20 year playing a 29 year old and MAN it looks like it.” Azarenka is this little boned lithe white girl and Serena looked like a heavy weight boxer. Now, I have spoken at great lengths about how much I love S’s body. I mean I LOVE it. But she’s “robust.” I mean let’s be honest, AND she seems to have gotten denser, not fatter, just DENSE. And where before her rear was the notable thing, now her boobs have become these heavy JUGGS.

So watching her play, and beat, both Azarenka and Na Li from China you could just see how much more she’s got to move around. Compounded by the fact that her legs were in these excessive straps and she FELL LIKE 4 TIMES. And watching her get up, you just knew those falls were taking a toll. An older person toll. Those 2 matches were shocking because she won. The day before Na Li had beat Venus and it wasn’t really a shocker. It happened. I wasn’t happy but it happened. And STILL they were playing doubles. The day Serena played Na Li she somehow went and played doubles.

So if it sounds like I’m saying close the book on these two (things I’ve kinda hinted at in the past) I’m not. I still see them calling it a wrap in singles in the next 2 years or so. But not this year. Serena’s will to win is really unmatched. Nobody, I mean nobody, can touch it. She’ll be playing Henin in about 8 hours and it will really come down to Serena’s body vs her will.

Jan 30th Update; She won

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How I Got Yahoo Search Marketing to Suck a Little Less in January 2010

Dave — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:28:37 +0000

Let’s be honest, Yahoo Search Marketing is not great. In fact as far as I’m concerned they’re kind of awful. For Yahoo. I mean if they were Johnny’s Search Engine I’d say they’re fine. But to be Yahoo Search Marketing, with all the history, power, money, reach and knowledge at their disposal-they’re awful. Can you make a lot of money using it as it is? Absolutely. Will it be easy and smooth? No.

Anyway here’s the email from a week ago Jan 20th with my credit taking notes of course…

So what is this article about? This is me taking credit. I have changed Yahoo Search Marketing. Me personally. And yes, I really believe that. So let’s talk about what’s down below and then you can pick and choose which parts you want to read.

-First I’m going to talk a little about Google situation

-Then I’m going to give a quick recap of who I am (long story short; nobody, just some regular guy)

-Lastly I’ll show you the 2 months worth of emails that lead to YSM making those changes

MAKING MONEY WITH PAY PER CLICK

So it’s no big secret that people make money online. Not just companies, but regular people with just an internet connection a computer and a plan. There are many ways to do it blah, blah, blah-paying for traffic. The big player in the space for most people was Google Adwords. Adwords kicked a bunch of people out Dec 2 and 3 2009 (Oct 2009 too they did a minor housecleaning). You can read my piece on how to get your money back if you haven’t done that yet.

The reason Adwords was the big player was not just their huge volume of traffic but they ease of using their system. Until the end of 2009 when they switched to a heavy javascript interface they used a very straightforward look and feel AND they have tools and tools and tools. Just seemed to be bending over backwards to make it easier to spend money. Now, you KNEW they were out to get your money, BUT you didn’t feel like they were trying to rip you off by making you loose money on purpose. Everything was explained clearly in easy to find print and video-and free. And if you broke they rules they’d say so, problem.

But the FTC made some noise and after about 7 years Adwords had made Google super rich. So what did they did? Like a reformed whore, ex-smoker or recovering drug addict who had made a lot of money on her back Google “saw the light.” And now she’s the most outspoken person at church Google closed her legs and said. Everybody! You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here! All you filthy Johns (affiliate marketers) are no longer welcome, AND you can’t be saved. No redemption. Just get out.

Ok I’m done with that metaphor. But other 2 big players are Yahoo and Microsoft. There’s a bunch of smaller search engines where you buy traffic, but most people start with/depend on the big 3.

A LITTLE PERSONAL HISTORY

I’m old. By internet standards anyway. It’s like caveman times when 42 meant you were a grandfather and PRETTY much meant you about to be walked off the side of a cliff on the next new moon. The upside is that I’ve been around. Both on and off the net.

So a long time ago 1998 I got online in a big way. I started in 94 with using Mosaic but it wasn’t until 1999 that I decided to make money online. I’m not proud of this. I’m WAY too un-rich so I’m telling you this with serious shame. But it’s important because it connects to the fact that that’s when I started buying traffic.

There was huge complaining about making “the web” dirty when Go and GoTo came out. I bought traffic from both of them. And Lycos, then Overture and yeah, even Microsoft. Back in those days on MS it was all about thousands of impression with your 468 x 60 banner. You would find a site or category and basically do a banner exchange. Sometimes you’d trade links. When Adwords started in 2003 I opened up 2 accounts. I think it was 04 that Overture switched to YSM. Anyway in those days link exchanges were big too. I had a dating site and I think I traded with Rosalind Gardner, I think she had a dating site too. Could be wrong. That takes us up to 2001.

Suffice it to say I divided my time between making money online and “dark stuff” like cracks, hacks, warez and phreaking. But you know, today with torrents I don’t need to waste time like that anymore. But all that got interrupted with real life.

Personal life; NYC, violence, martial arts, Asia, South America, violence, violence, violence, showbiz, LA, violence, military, violence, violence, back to Chicago finally and started doing the internet thing again.

2007 started this blog. Fist 6 months I went the SEO route and then I realized I was wasting my time. I started buying traffic again; first for this site then for dedicated sites. So I woke up my old Yahoo, Google, and MS sites. Also started with smaller engines like 7Search, GoClick, Findology and ABC (now called Advertise.com). And man I really need to write a piece about how awful those last 2 are, and again can you make money on them? Yes. Is it easy. Hell no.

NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT THE YAHOO SITUATION

Like I said I fooled around with Findology, ABC and 7Search from about Nov 08 through March/April 09. Then I still want to give 7 a chance, but the other told convinced me I need to go back MSN and YSM as my non-Google back-ups. Now, here’s the thing; I don’t think most people are aware of how big Yahoo is in the advertising space. Check it out…

So MSN is what it is, but they’ve got the Ad-intelligence plugin I wrote about a couple of years ago AND they’ve got a keyword/campaign desktop upload tool too, like Adwords Editor. Yahoo HAS a desktop tool, but they’re sure as hell not going to give it to you. It’s in “beta.” Ever notice how long Yahoo stuff stays in beta? So I from here on out I’m going to put up my emails and I’ll start interrupting myself every so often to emphasize a point. Maybe I’ll put in the Yahoo responses too. But this thing is SO long already.

Now it goes without saying that Adwords Editor is powerful and great, but shit, nobody as an account anymore. That’s not true I still have 2 other accounts but probably like a lot of people I’m VERY reluctant to use them. And to tell the truth it’s really the CONTENT NETWORK I miss, I was just getting that down pat, after YEARS. But I bring up there editor just to point out that Microsoft Desktop Tool just copied it straight out. They changed a “couple” of things, but basically they copied it. They didn’t know how to NOT be Microsofty and make it use a ton of computer resources, but it works. So that’s why you don’t need to worry about the Yahoo Desktop thing-since they just merged with MS the tool issue will be resolved before the year is out, I’m positive.

Oh, and don’t freak out over my “tone.” I have to be honest, I’ve been dealing with ad networks a long time and I’ve learned if I’M the one spending the money I’m entitled to express my opinion. To be fair; the Yahoo are the NICEST ad people I’ve ever dealt with on the phone. MSN has some nice folks too, but what they know about their own systems is embarrassing. But honestly, I find that across the board. Speaking of embararssing, I can’t even show you the nasty emails I sent to those guys-ESPECIALLY when they were so nice-but their system has problems, and as you’ll see below I have no patience for shitty systems in BIG companies.

Anyway it all started reasonably nice with me just trying to get my password after my hard drive died….

EMAIL ONE

Hi
Thanks for the reply. As I said, my hard drive on my desktop is gone, so I’m REALLY locked out of my google account, but I figure I’ll have a much easier time getting going with my yahoo account.

Ok, so you want 4 digits of the billing card-I’ve got a lot of cards; which one did I use? Man I wish was the question was last 4 of social security. But I’m going to guess *****

Email is easy-this one
*********
By the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to mention how weird it was that I couldn’t find a “welcome aboard” email from YSM with the login info. Does your system even send those? I’ve got emails going back 2 years but no welcome aboard…

Address
********

Ok so that should be it. I tried to call; when I did the system asked so I gave my account number, but then the system kept hanging up on me. It’s stuff like that that kept me over at google for most of the year. I mean either phoning is an option or it isn’t. But not “we’ll answer the phone just enough to tell you we don’t answer the phone.”
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/04/2009 06:03 AM

Dec 4 2009 11:38 PT

Hello David,

We received your email regarding providing the login information and certainly understand your concern.

In order to provide you the login information, we require you to verify at least two of the following information for security reasons:

1. Last four digits of the credit card in the account.

2. Email address on file.

3. Billing address.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

******

——————–Original Message——————–

Hi
My hard drive failed yesterday. Is there some way to get my login name?

I can probably guess my password, but I don’t know my login name. Here is my account number.
*****

EMAIL 2

Thanks

I should have known it was the same as my stupid yahoo email. Wow!

Anyway I get the fact that you don’t have phone support, what I was saying it’s not great to throw a phone number out there with the purpose literally being to say “we don’t do phone support.” For example “thank you for coming to my open house to sell my house, we don’t do open houses here, but I wanted to invite you here to pick up a card that has a number for you to call and I’ll describe how the house looks.” See how weird that sounds? This is rhetoric, and I don’t actually require a response; you may consider this case “closed.”

Anyway. I HAVE had good support via email AND some phone calls back a few months ago (April maybe) and I was remiss in not writing a letter to that effect. I’m sure the website is still awful and slow though so I’m not looking forward to that part of the experience but hey, gotta find traffic wherever I can. But I have to admit even the Overture interface was easier to deal with, yet I have faith that 2010 will be the year of the YSM downloadable tool.
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/05/2009 05:36 PM

Email 3

You’re kidding right?

You are not going to tell me that the slow, sticky nature of YSM interface is my browser’s fault-are you? Really? OK, right. You do know you’re FAMOUS for the slowness of the interface and it sticking and hanging nature is well known by everybody. But listen; let’s all be friends and pretend it doesn’t exist and I’m not going to give you any hassle about it. So case closed on my end; the issue “doesn’t exist.” Sorry if I offending anybody by even suggesting it might exist. hahahaa

Now to more important issues. Until my hard drive is repaired I can’t get into my google account so that means I’m going to try this yahoo thing again. If it works out maybe I can finally start spending enough to be eligible for phone support. Wow that’s insulting as all get out. Ever read Animal Farm? “we’re all equal, but some of us are MORE equal than others.” But again, we’re all friends here, so I’m going to ignore that too. I WANT to be a successful advertiser with YSM. If YSM has HUMAN, legit traffic in volume I can easily reach the $600 threshold.

I’ll start submitting this week and we’ll just see what gets approved… that’ll be fun!

But the reason I’m really writing is for actual instructions. I recently noticed that the Sun Times newspaper in Chicago saying on their terms page their ads were supplied by YSM. I would like to be able to do this. Is there a way for me to target newspapers? I’m assuming it has to do with content network placement buying. I also assume it’s in your instructions somewhere, so probably nobody wants to write me a long detailed “how to.” But if somebody can send me a link to that specific “how to” I’ll read it and set myself up.
Thanks

Dec 7 2009 12:08 PT

Hello David,

Thank you for contacting us. We understand your concern regarding the phone support for your account, and apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. We are happy to assist you.

While we do not offer phone support at this time we wanted to let you know that we are available for all support within your account via email. We can provide any support necessary on your account through email support.

The change with our phone support was made in order to dedicate the appropriate resources for advertisers with higher monthly spending amounts.

Once you start spending $600+ per month, you can call us, and we will gladly help you further. Please note that we review your average spending every quarter and will contact you automatically if you qualify for a new service tier.

With reference to the slowness in the website one reason is that you are using an internet browser that is not fully compatible with our system. If you are using FireFox or Internet Explorer you should not have this problem. Some other systems do not allow you to utilize all of our system features.

If you?re having difficulties with some features within your account that are not due to the browser, you might be able to resolve them by clearing the cache (cookies and temporary Internet files) for your computer. Please be aware that by clearing your cache you may erase cookies that have been stored within you computer.

To clear cookies for internet explorer:

1. Go to Tools | Internet Options.
2. Click on the General tab and then click the Delete… button.
3. Click the Delete cookies button.
4. Click the Yes button.
5. Then click the Close button, followed by the OK button

To clear cookies with firefox:

1. Open Firefox and go to Tools | Options.
2. Click Privacy.
3. Click the “Show Cookies” button and then click the Remove All Cookies

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Customer Solutions
Yahoo! Search Marketing

For more info and best practices, please visit our Help Center (help.yahoo.com/ss) and the YSM Blog (www.ysmblog.com).
——————–Original Message——————–
Thanks Kyle

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/07/2009 02:06 AM

EMAIL 4
Hi
I have a question; I just discovered that there IS a desktop tool to manage campaigns. I’ve gotten the software but clearly I’m not part of the special group who can use the software. So is the $600 a month spend minimum the only requirement, or is there a a list of things I need to do before I can use the desktop tool?
Thanks.

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/07/2009 02:06 AM

EMAIL 5

ahhhhh!

Nobody answered my previous way more important email, so now I’ve got to wait another 24 hours for this email to get answered I guess on India time. So here the question that I didn’t get a response on.

So that’s really what I would like to do even more than plain search marketing.
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/09/2009 02:03 AM

EMAIL 6

Thanks
So now that I’ve got my password and I’m able to log in, I’d like to retract my statement about speed. Since I stopped using this account back in March/April there has been some progress in the website functionality.That doesn’t mean it wasn’t crap before, its’ just better now. Congratulations. None the less I still submitted a form for the desktop beta tool

Speaking of forms, you’re saying I have to do one for placement targeting? Ok .

Speaking of delays, I”ve been trying to do some targeting by country. What’s that about? Can’t seem to do it, no matter how many buttons I press. PLEASE do not tell me that the research I’ve done indicating I have to sign up to YSM for each country at YSM international is true. Please tell me that I can target my ads within my current account and not have to open a bunch of other accounts.

Looking forward to the response in 24 hours,
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/11/2009 03:45 AM

EMAIL 7

Hello

I have read and agree to the Master Terms and Conditions and applicable Program Terms as set forth at the following URL: http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/advertising/masterterms/masterterms-322.html

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/13/2009 02:41 AM

EMAIL 8

Thanks for the reply

The 2 areas I want added are United Kingdom and Australia/New Zealand
Time zone GMT 0600 Central time
Display URL www.welcomebackrosenthal.com

But the previous email to me was so specific about a verbatim reply I didn’t know what I could or couldn’t say in that email. Besides I’m still trying to confirm the fees.

-is this considered “assisted-setup” because I’ve had to email you, i.e., do these emails cost me a fee?
-are this sub accounts linked to my current account in terms of fees? To clarify, it says Australia needs 100 AUD and the UK £ 60. Do I have to fund those separately for this setup process AND going forward can I just pre-pay with one account or will I be paying the accounts individually?

The next big important thing to me is content match. I was going to try Display Ads, but the response I got from that department was WAY too complex, so I think I’ll shoot for content match. So please let me know if I need to write an entire new department to learn if it’s possible to get text ads on specific sites or how best to use the “content match” feature. Is it just keyword based or can demographic and/or site targeting be done on a self serve basis? Or do I need to get a specific person from Yahoo to manage my ad insertions? Anyway those are the questions, but it might not be your department, so let me know if I need to start a new “case.”
Thanks
Dave R

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/15/2009 12:54 AM

EMAIL 9
o I guess this is a really a test for me about following instructions.
My first email had the verbatim information and the second had the time zone etc. So they can’t be in 2 separate emails, they have to be in the same email. Ok let’s try it again.

?I have read and agree to the Master Terms and Conditions and applicable Program Terms as set forth at the following URL:

http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/advertising/masterterms/masterterms-322.html

The 2 areas I want added are United Kingdom and Australia/New Zealand
Time zone GMT 0600 Central time
Display URL www.welcomebackrosenthal.com

Next issue;

Content match. Let’s get back to this. I had read already the information in the links provided to me. I already know what it is I’m trying to find out if there’s a way to target specific websites. I know Yahoo provides content relevant ads to lots of sites across the internet, and I know you must have some demographic information; so as an advertiser is there a way for me to get specific text ads onto specific sites other than the words I use to write the ads and the keywords I’ve included with the ad? I hate to bring up competition, but perhaps you’re familiar with Advertising.com and Pulse360.com? They doe this type of thing (so does Adbrite for that matter) I’m trying NOT to have to resort to using those 2 sources and be able to have all my efforts under a limited number of umbrellas.

On top of that, listen to this; about 6 months ago or whenever I decided to start trying to use YSM again somebody I talked to a YSM person on the phone who told me that 10 cent bids were really all I needed to do for Content Match. She said something like there was no real bidding in that part of search, that relevancy would determine placement. So does bidding higher gain a better placement or that 10 cent thing true?

EMAIL 10

Hi
Wow I actually got a day time response! Wow. Of course it’s also in the 2 o’clock range. Except PM instead of the usual AM.

Anyway I’m so excited not having to wait 24 hours to get a reply I’m actually sending my, hopefully, LAST set of requests and questions. And then I’ll finally do one of the 8 or 9 surveys I’ve gotten. Or maybe I’ll do one for each email.

Ok, my first surprise is that I was actually supposed to name my accounts? Jesus. First the verbatim thing in one email, then the time zone in one email, and the account name. You know what? For opening these foreign accounts the instructions should be WAY more explicit. Like this.
1) send this exact reply
2) You must answer these 3 questions about time zone etc
3) You must provide new account names or we’ll make one up for you.

Speaking of that last issue. I originally opened these Yahoo accounts to sell “Kryton by Kreeton” t shirts and I’ve haven’t done that in YEARS so if possible I’d actually like to rename all 3 accounts something simple like “Dave Rosenthal YSM-US, Dave Rosenthal YSM-UK, Dave Rosenthal YSM-AU.” I’d even be ok with just “Dave’s YSM” for all 3.

Content Match issue again. So the last reply said I can bid higher amounts if I want to, but that’s NOT the case. I’m not looking for ways to loose money. What I am trying to do is have my ads show up on sites with higher value and more traffic. I’d much rather have a text ad I wrote on a Yahoo Health type sub-site about weight loss than some guys home page he wrote 4 years ago about how weight loss never really worked for him. And I guess what you’re telling me is there is no way to get this to happen. It’s just luck of the draw. No matter how well I compose my ad, pick keywords, choose demographic bidding, group adgroups-my ad can still show up on anybody’s old site. Sad situation. But with Display Ads I could regulate that-but the price point is so vastly different. Very sad that there is zero ability for text and super expensive for Display image ads if you want the ability to focus where your ad ends up.

So I’m re-reading the Smart Start guide trying to make all this work, but I could really use that desktop tool. I put my application in for that thing. Could you tell me how often people get approved? 50%? Or does it come down to monthly spend amount?

That’s it. I’m done with questions and ready to build some campaigns,
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/18/2009 02:26 PM

EMAIL 11

Please unlock the “import” feature in my account.

I swear to God I hate the way you have YSM set up. It’s ridiculous. It could not possibly be more user unfriendly if you tried. Really. For a top tier search marketing company I’m legitimately amazed. It’s just a series of roadblocks, dead ends and unnecessary limitations. Why, Why, Why do you make it so hard to spend money with you?
We wont answer the phone if you don’t spend enough money
We wont let you run campaigns around the world without opening individual accounts
We wont help you focus or specify your ads out to our content properties
We wont let you upload your ads and keywords in an orderly csv fashion
We wont, we wont, we wont.
Unless you ask.

Why do you have every single feature that would help a person spend the magic number of 600 dollars a month turned off by default? From my 2 weeks worth of emails I’ve learned that at that magical number the services are just SO much better. But it’s hard to spend that much with all these insane ways you have the system setup.

I spent the last 2 days building campaigns and then spent a day reading and re-reading the instructions on how to upload from excel (because YES you do have a desktop tool but wont give it to people) and then I finally find the special line in the help section that says “The Import link will not appear if the Import Campaign feature is not supported by your account”

Why are you fighting your customers? This is all rhetoric; you couldn’t possibly have a good answer. As I’ve said in previous emails AT LEAST the system website isn’t as slow as it used to be and sticking on pages for 2 and 3 minutes, but man I’m telling you; I hate it. And I’m not even spending any money yet! I’m just trying to get setup because everybody says branch out, don’t just stick to google. But man! I don’t even want to talk about the awful ad creation format. I just can’t detail all the clunky things one by one-you have to know about this. Some other person HAS to have said something. I can’t be the only person, so I have to wonder why none of these things have been dealt with-again that’s rhetoric.

Please turn on the import feature or tell me what kind of hoops I need to jump through to “qualify.”

And I haven’t done one of the surveys yet I’m just letting them stack up-but just so you know, I have no problem with the people. The help has been responsive and specific (except that Display Ads guy took a weird turn) it’s the system structure that I think is the problem.
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/19/2009 02:31 PM

EMAIL 12

Ok, so the job today is to try and see about uploading these spreadsheets. It’s failed a few times, so I’m hoping it worked out this time. I’ve included 2 campaigns. I’ve used the adwords editor export and not the YSM template to try and minimize the error factor. And I guess if there’s no problems I’ll email another half dozen to dozen. I’m sure you’ll tell me if there’s a problem.

The “golf lessons” campaign I would like to run in my US UK and Australia accounts. Can you do that? I think I’m supposed to put money in the UK and AU, so I’ll put 100 in each one and that should cover it.

Let me ask this; the previous email said I needed to do my 600 dollars in 200 increments. But can I just PAY 600 now and be done with it? I mean this account is almost 3 years old and my Overture account goes back to 2003 isn’t that enough history?

Yours miserably
Dave

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/28/2009 12:47 AM

EMAIL 13

OK
What’s going on?

A full week ago I uploaded 2 campaigns because you wont let me do it myself and I also included some questions. So far no campaigns AND no response to my questions. What happened?

And here’s the best part; because nobody is dealing with me I’ve resorted to sloppy uploads on my own. I assume those campaigns are just gone, so I’ll just manhandle the uplaods until I reach this 600 dollars in 60 days “qualification.”

So today I finally tried my “international accounts” and from what I can tell my British account is some kind of MOBILE phone account? Is that right, did you not give me an internet search account but instead some kind of phone account. Are you kidding me? If so how do I get it made into a regular Yahoo Search or get my money back out it? I have zero interest in marketing to people’s phones. I’m going to look at my other “international account” for Australia and I hope you haven’t done the same kind of deal.

And on top of that I downloaded my own campaign from YSM and tried to upload it to the UK account and I got an “invalid header” error. This is Yahoo to Yahoo and I get an error? Would it be so terrible to have a “copy campaign” function so people don’t have to download and upload and then get error from your own system. Wow. I can’t believe this is how you’re doing things. I’m literally amazed it how awful this is.

Just a reminder; I hate your system. So why do I bother? It’s not because you’ve got a good service for advertisers, but because you’ve got a popular search engine. I just want this to be crystal clear. Email support is good. I mean it takes 24 hours but I usually get an answer no matter how demoralizing the actual response is. Except for my last email seems to have thrown away.

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 12/28/2009 12:47 AM

EMAIL 14

NO you did not. No you did not look at your own attachment that you sent me on the 27th of December and then say to me “hey this thing is blank.” Yeah it’s blank, its the template your department sent me. In my last email I didn’t send the campaign I tried to upload, that was your own template still attached. But moot point, I’m not sending in anymore csv files. I’ll just dump all my keywords into one adgroup. It’s sloppy the money will still spend.

Now regarding my email from the 28th on my end I’m showing nearly 3mb of csv files sent. And if nothing else, why didn’t anybody answer my question; can I just GIVE you the 600 dollars now as prepaid and be done with this 60 day waiting period? I think I’m already 150-200 for the month of January.

My UK account has the word “MOB” on the end of it (account ****8) and when I try to create campaigns it a list of phone providers and regions this can’t be a normal Yahoo search engine situation. For one thing it’s using the word “operators.” But I’m guessing you’re going to tell you me you know nothing about and I have to write a totally different department in the UK, am I right? Here’s the list.

All Operators
Other Operators in UK
O2
3
Other – International Operators
O2 Ireland
T-Mobile
Orange
Vodafone
Other Operators in Ireland

So I’m logging in right now, and I’m seeing that by DEFAULT it’s set to deal with all these phone companies and I need to do multiple steps to make the phone companies NOT show up in a campaign. Is this correct? Could you possibly be set up like this? Oh that’s right you probably don’t know and I’ll have to send another email to England. Maybe they can tell me why MOB is on my account and what it means.

But hearing that I can’t duplicate a campaign from the US account to the other ENGLISH SPEAKING accounts is very disheartening. You’re telling me I STILL have to send my data to somebody and have them do this for me? It’s not a transfer from Google to Yahoo or MSN to Yahoo, it’s Yahoo to Yahoo. Seriously this is sad.

And why are showing 2 US counts for me? How do I consolidate this? This thing is already octopusing out of control; I need 3 accounts to do 3 English speaking parts of the word I really don’t want 4 accounts.

Anyway, I’m thankful to have gotten a response on the same calender day.
Dave R

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 01/06/2010 10:47 AM

EMAIL 15

The fun never stops does it?

Ok, so a little while ago today I had an issue with setting up campaigns across accounts and sent and email with that issue.

So now I finally managed to get a campaign up and I’m seeing traffic from all sorts of places I could go to a much crappier search engine and buy, just junk sites. Take a look

coloncleansingoptions.com
housenmembers.com
searchswitch.com
searchfindsite.com
allaroundworld.net
fastbrowsersearch.com
bestfors.com
overallsavings.com
howtogethealthcarenow.com
fastbrowsersearch.com
mydirectweb.com
mydirectweb.com

Of about 50 clicks for the day so far only about 5 have been from “yahoo” so what’s going on? Are these “partner” sites? I’ve got content turned off because I’m looking for traffic from “Yahoo.” People who go to to Yahoo search engine with a specific thing to look up and then my ad comes up. That was my plan; pay per click. So if these are partners am I paying the same rate? What do I have to do to NOT have my traffic come from these partners?

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 01/06/2010 10:47 AM

EMAIL 16

Nobody has answered this message from yesterday and the situation is now WORSE.

I don’t want to type a bunch of curse words are start name calling but I”m livid about this. Let’s review the situation;

-I asked “you” (meaning YSM US customer solutions) why I couldn’t run campaigns around the world
-You told me that you’re all split up etc, and that if I wanted YOU would open the “sub” Australia and UK accounts
-I said it’s tedious as hell but YES please do this (and even THAT was ridiculous and took 3 emails)
-I then go to my UK account and it looks “strange” the word MOB is attached and it seems very “phone centric”
-I wrote to you and said this account doesn’t look right
-You wrote a condescending message to me saying everything is fine I just don’t understand the big Yahoo picture
-I also wrote to YSM UK MOB and told them this didn’t look right
-They wrote to me and confirmed what I thought and told me they plan to STEAL my money

So what’s the problem? Do you people at Yahoo not understand Yahoo? HOW could you set up an account for the UK incorrectly? WHY do you not know they have a search engine and a phone search program? WHY am I the one that has to show you your own system? WHAT are you going to do to make this right?

At this point I have written to you extensively about the poor structure of the YSM workings from an advertiser point of view. Do I need to extend that assessment to the PEOPLE. The people so far have been the ONE good thing, but how did this happen? And to add insult to injury to DOUBT me when I told you it didn’t look right.

Yesterdays email to you
——-

My UK account has the word “MOB” on the end of it (account *****) and when I try to create campaigns it a list of phone providers and regions this can’t be a normal Yahoo search engine situation. For one thing it’s using the word “operators.” But I’m guessing you’re going to tell you me you know nothing about and I have to write a totally different department in the UK, am I right? Here’s the list.

All Operators
Other Operators in UK
O2
3
Other – International Operators
O2 Ireland
T-Mobile
Orange
Vodafone
Other Operators in Ireland

And why are you showing 2 US accounts for me? How do I consolidate this? This thing is already octopusing out of control; I need 3 accounts to do 3 English speaking parts of the word I really don’t want 4 accounts.

Anyway, I’m thankful to have gotten a response on the same calender day.
Dave R

————————————
Hi. I’m normally a Google Adwords user. I live in the US. With Adwords having your ads run in other countries is not really an issue. Obviously that’s not really the situation with YSM.

So I’ve opened a UK account. For some reason it has the word “MOB” attached to my account, but more importantly when I try and setup up accounts I keep being presented with this list of “operators.” I’ve done everything I can to turn off what appears to be the option to run ads on mobile phones. And yet when I get to the ad creation area there’s that list again (see below) as well as a picture of phone. Is this account of mine Yahoo Search Marketing for the web or phone? Is there some way to totally remove the option to run phone ads?
Thank you
Dave R

All Operators
Other Operators in UK Offline at account level
O2 Offline at account level
3 Offline at account level
Other – International Operators Offline at account level
O2 Ireland Offline at account level
T-Mobile Offline at account level
Orange Offline at account level
Vodafone Offline at account level
Other Operators in Ireland
——————–Original Message——————–

January 7th, 2010

Dear Mr. Rosenthal,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! regarding your Search Marketing UK account *********

We would like to inform you that you have opened a ‘Mobile’ account, that is, to target your potential audience through mobile phones and related services/instruments.

If you do not wish to advertise on mobile phones, we suggest that you close this account. To close the account send us an e-mail confirmation stating that you wish to close this account and the reason for the same.

To advertise on ‘Web’, please sign-up using the link below for Yahoo! Search Marketing account:

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/en_GB/yahoo-search-marketing.php

Please note that there will be a set up fee of £60 for the UK account. The set up fee is non-refundable and stands as a credit on your account to be used against any click charges.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Thank you for choosing Search Marketing.

Yours sincerely,

Binu Varughese
Customer Solutions
Yahoo! – Search Marketing Team
uk-clientservices-ysm@cc.yahoo-inc.com

EMAIL 17

Nobody has answered this message from yesterday and the situation is now WORSE.

I don’t want to type a bunch of curse words are start name calling but I”m livid about this. Let’s review the situation;

Yesterdays email to you
——-

My UK account has the word “MOB” on the end of it (account **** and when I try to create campaigns it a list of phone providers and regions this can’t be a normal Yahoo search engine situation. For one thing it’s using the word “operators.” But I’m guessing you’re going to tell you me you know nothing about and I have to write a totally different department in the UK, am I right? Here’s the list.

All Operators
Other Operators in UK
O2
3
Other – International Operators
O2 Ireland
T-Mobile
Orange
Vodafone
Other Operators in Ireland

Anyway, I’m thankful to have gotten a response on the same calender day.
Dave R

January 7th, 2010

Dear Mr. Rosenthal,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! regarding your Search Marketing UK account *******.

We would like to inform you that you have opened a ‘Mobile’ account, that is, to target your potential audience through mobile phones and related services/instruments.

To advertise on ‘Web’, please sign-up using the link below for Yahoo! Search Marketing account:

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/en_GB/yahoo-search-marketing.php

Please note that there will be a set up fee of £60 for the UK account. The set up fee is non-refundable and stands as a credit on your account to be used against any click charges.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any further assistance.

Thank you for choosing Search Marketing.

Yours sincerely,

Binu Varughese

—–Original Message—–
From: “\”Yahoo Search Marketing”"
Date: 01/06/2010 10:47 AM

EMAIL 18

Thank you Andrea

I’m appreciative. But would you be kind enough to do me one more favor? Or do you say favour? Probably not.

Would you let Mr. Varughese know that his casual callousness regarding my situation caused me to have to write extensive emails and phone calls. Why do that to somebody? Why take that approach? Why put a foot down so firmly on a brand new account holder? What could motivate this type of response to a new account holder? Is this really the way things should be handled? Who could possibly benefit from handling people in this manner? I mean, let’s say you had decided to keep my money to “teach me a lesson” or whatever the plan was, would this have been the best long term strategy? Anyway, I’m sad that it took so much for me to inspire a second look at my situation. And I’m not actually expecting to these grand and numerous questions-just asking myself really.

As you’ve probably discovered by now I myself didn’t actually open the Search Marketing UK account, it was done by the team at Yahoo US, and if even THEY can get confused when opening UK accounts then surely regular people can and will too. And if/when that happens can they look forward to being told “If you do not wish to advertise on mobile phones, we suggest that you close this account.” Or would it not in everybody’s best interests to just say, you’ve clearly done something you didn’t intend so let’s get you set up correctly. The account holder can then happily spend money and you get to make money. Why make an angry enemy right up front? I just don’t get that. But you can know with certainty I was going to take that lost money as a waste of time and a write-off and never spend another dollar/pound with Search UK.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE END

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