Yahoo Ads Japan

Yahoo! Japan – Linking Yahoo! Japan Accounts with the Platform

Introduction

The following are required account credentials for using Yahoo! Japan in our platform:

  • Account ID
  • Application Account ID
  • Password

Important: You won’t be able to link your account into the platform with your password if it’s only associated with your publisher login. Please make sure your password is associated with your Application Account ID.

How to Find the Account Credentials in the Yahoo! Japan interface

Please note that you have to be an administrator of your Yahoo! Japan account to follow the steps below.

  1. Log into https://login.bizmanager.yahoo.co.jp/login with your Business ID and password
  2. Click on Campaign Management Tool
  3. Click on Campaigns
  4. Click on Administration
  5. Click on the account name in question
  6. Click on Account Settings
  7. Click on Application Account to see your credentials

If the Application Account ID is not found on the Settings page, you will need to create a new Application Account ID by following these steps:

  1. Click on Campaigns for Sponsored Search 


  2. Click on an account
  3. Click on Account Settings 
  4. Click on Application Account shown at the upper-right corner
  5. Generate the Application Account ID and PasswordYahoo! Japan will provide an Application ID similar to this: 1j4nO-4MLA-hPxssM-LXUI. This value should then be inserted into the Application Account ID field in our platform.

How to Link in a Yahoo! Japan Account

Please take the following steps to link a Yahoo! Japan account into the platform.

  1. Click on the Channels tab.
  2. Click on the Create button.
  3. Click on Yahoo Japan.
  4. Enter account credentials.
  5. Save your settings.
  6. Once an account is linked, sync your campaigns by selecting the campaigns and clicking the Sync button.

Note: Once you have chosen an account name, you will not be able to change it.

hoo! Japan – Understanding the New Text Ad Format

Introduction

Yahoo! Japan launched a new version of the sponsored search API, v.3.0, in February 2013. This update is a major revision, and includes some features that are not backwards compatible with our platform, including a new text ad format. Support for this new ad format was added to our platform since March 2013.

New Text Ad Format

The upgrade on February 12th 2013 includes a move to a new format of text ads. There was a transition period from March 2013 to September 2013. During this time, both formats were in use. Currently, Yahoo! Japan no longer allow users to create new ads in the old ad type Text, so all ads must use either Text2 or Mobile:

  • New text ad format: Two description lines with maximum length of 19 characters each (each Latin and Japanese characters count as 1 character).

Please note that our platform allows you to:

  • View and edit creatives using both old and new text ad formats.
  • Add new creatives using new text ad formats.

Bulk Uploads

Note that in order to upload new creatives in bulk sheet format with the new text ad format, you need to include the [Creative Type] column. The field can be populated as follows:

  • For the new text ad format, the value should be: Text2 (15-19-19)
  • For the mobile ad format, the value should be: Mobile

Handy Tips

  • Please note that all the restriction and Yahoo! Japan’s editorial limitations remains same. For example to drive traffic to your website, no special characters can be used, double byte spaces and characters, 29 character display URL limitation, Display URL must end with “/”, etc.
  • More details on Yahoo Japan’s restriction can be found by clicking here.

Timeline of changes

Yahoo! Japan Our platform Outcome
Before Feb 12th Text Ad (15-33)Mobile Ad (12-12) Text Ad (15-33)Mobile Ad (12-12) No difference
Feb 12th Text Ad (15-33)Text Ad (15-19-19)Short Ad (12-12) Text Ad (15-33)Text Ad (15-19-19)Mobile Ad (12-12) Our platform does not yet support new Text Ad (15-19-19)
~ March 8th Text Ad (15-33)Text Ad (15-19-19)Short Ad (12-12) Text Ad (15-33)Text Ad (15-19-19)Short Ad (12-12) Our platform now supports new Text Ad (15-19-19)
~ Sept 2013 Text Ad (15-19-19)Short Ad (12-12) Text Ad (15-19-19)Short Ad (12-12) Old Text Ad (15-33) no longer supported
Sept 2014 Old text Ad (15-33) Old text Ad (15-33) Old text Ad (15-33) cannot be created nor edited
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Yahoo! Japan – Platform Support for Yahoo! Japan Unified Campaigns

What are Unified Campaigns?

In an effort to simplify the management of paid search campaigns by device, location, and time of day, Yahoo! Japan is rolling out Unified Campaigns.

Platform support for the new type of campaign will be rolled out during the first half of 2013.

Current platform support for Unified Campaigns

Unified Campaigns has resulted in a number of changes to the platform. You are able to sync down and manage certain settings specific to Unified Campaigns, as explained below:

Settings and support

  • Campaign mobile bid adjustment: You can report (via the grid) and manage (via campaign settings page) mobile bid adjustment settings for your Unified Campaigns.
  • Device preference: You can set new or existing ads to mobile preferred. Note that editing device preference for an ad creates a new ad in Yahoo! Japan with identical headline and description lines. This is default Yahoo! Japan behavior and not controlled by the platform. Please note that creatives of type TEXT have been deprecated and are not editable in our platform or Yahoo! Japan. The new creative type to be used is TEXT2. More information on “Text2” ads can be found in here.

Workflow

The following changes apply to the way in which you manage campaigns in the platform:

  • If you create a campaign in the platform, it will default to the Unified type.
  • You cannot change an Unified Campaign into a Legacy one (this is a Yahoo! Japan limitation).
  • You can sync or push Unified or Legacy campaigns created in the publisher interface and the platform will honor the setting.

Summary of platform changes (June 28th 2013)

The following changes have been made to the platform’s UI as a result of Unified Campaigns:

  • Two new settings added to the campaign settings page:
    1. Unified or Legacy selection option.
    2. Mobile bid adjustment field.
  • One new setting on the main Creatives tab grid:
    1. Device preference (only applies to ads within an Unified Campaign).
  • Three new columns in the main Campaigns and Creative grids (Campaign Type, Device Preference and Bid Adjustment).

The following support has been added to the platform:

  • Campaign mobile bid adjustment: Ability to report (in the grid) and manage (through campaign settings page) mobile bid adjustment setting for unified campaigns.
  • Device preference: Ability to create ads set to “Smart phone preferred” in an unified campaign. Ability to manage, sync and push such ads.

Bulk and multi-edit support

Additionally, bulk and multi-edit support has now been enabled  for unified Campaigns, and the platform has been updated in the following ways:

Mobile bid adjustment accepts values from -100 to 300.

  1. The bulk add/edit creatives page has one new field: Device Preference.
    • This field accepts values Smart Phone (or Smart Phone preferred) or None (or Null), which map to Smart Phone preferred and Non-Smart Phone preferred respectively.
  2. The multi-edit campaigns settings have one new field in the drop-down: Mobile Bid Adj.
    • This field will set adjustment to a value between -100% and +300%.
  3. The multi-edit creatives settings have a new Device Preference checkbox under creative edit.
    • Checking the box will set the selected ads to Smart Phone preferred. Leaving the box unchecked will have no effect. Note that changing Smart Phone preferred to non-Smart Phone preferred is not supported in multi-edit at this time. Until this support is added, you can use bulk and upload None or Null as explained above.
  4. On the campaign single-edit page, we have added Yahoo! Japan’s recommended value for mobile bid adjustment as an advisory.

The following support has been added to the platform:

  • The {ifmobile}/{ifnotmobile} parameters: We now support Yahoo! Japan’s new  {ifmobile}/{ifnotmobile} parameters. These allow you to direct traffic to the relevant landing page based on the user’s device. For example: http://{ifmobile:m}{ifnotmobile:www}.example.com . (Please note that Yahoo! JAPAN does not allow these parameters in Creative Destination Url’s.)Learn more about these parameters by reading A Guide to Using the {ifmobile} and {ifnotmobile} ValueTrack Parameters.
  • You can now upload destination URLs using the {ifmobile}/{ifnotmobile} formats listed above. Note that URL Builder and Autocorrect support will be added in our next release.
  • We have added the Devices grid which will provide visibility on device-level reporting. You will find this under the main tab; just look for the new Devices sub-tab. Note that this grid will display all campaigns from all Yahoo! Japan publisher client accounts. Users can now report on cost and revenue metrics by device, and adjust campaign Smart Phone bids based on device performance.There are four categories available, based on Yahoo! Japan’s classifications:
    • Desktop
    • Tablet
    • Smart Phone
    • Other

Note that in order to have revenue attribute correctly by device, your URLs will need to include the {device} parameter. Please see the Enhanced and Unified Campaigns Resource Center for more information on how to migrate your URLs.

Additionally, note that cost and revenue data by device is only available for Google and Yahoo! Japan at the present time. All other publishers’ data will be attributed to the Other category.

  • Full URL Builder and Autocorrect support has now been added for Yahoo Japan’s {ifmobile} and {ifnotmobile} parameters. See this guide to using these parameters with the platform’s URL Builder.

Group-level support

Mobile bid adjustment at the group level

Users can now edit mobile bid adjustment at the group level.

 

 

 

Following are important notes regarding group-level mobile bid adjustment:

  • If  a group has no mobile bid adjustment, it will default to the campaign level value.
  • By default, all existing Google groups are set to use their campaign’s mobile bid adjustment in the platform, before they are synced from the publisher. Note that this setting will not be synced from the publisher unless explicitly changed.
  • Users can edit group-level mobile bid adjustment in three ways:
    • Single edit: Users can decide whether to use campaign or group level adjustment
    • Multi edit: Same as with single edit, but accessible via the multi-edit menu in the grid.
    • Bulk edit: There is a new optional column: Mobile Bid Adjustment. Upon creation, groups are defaulted to use campaign level mobile bid adjustment, unless there is a value specified in this column at the group level. For bulk editing, if the column is left empty, the same group setting will be maintained. If a value is specified, it will edit the group to use that value as the mobile bid adjustment moving forward.

Device reporting at the group level

Users can now report by device at the group level

  • We have added group level cost and revenue reporting by device. This includes most cost metrics, and revenue metrics by totals and conversion types.
  • We have added a Device sub-tab under the main group tab (as explained above).
  • Similar to the campaign-level device sub-tab, users can multi-edit group mobile boost from the group-level Device sub-tab.

 

 

 

Yahoo! Japan – A Guide to Unified Campaigns

What are Unified Campaigns?

Yahoo! Japan has now released a new feature known as Unified Campaigns. It is similar in concept to Google’s new enhanced campaigns, in that it offers advertisers easier campaign management in an increasingly multi-device world. Find out more about unified campaigns from Yahoo! Japan’s help section.

Platform support for Unified Campaigns

The introduction of unified campaigns has resulted in a number of changes to the platform. You are able to sync down and manage certain settings specific to unified campaigns, as explained below:

Settings and support

  • Campaign type: Ability to view if a campaign is unified or legacy in the Campaign Settings page and Campaigns grid, change from legacy to unified, sync and push unified campaigns.
  • Ability to create new unified campaigns.
  • Campaign Smart Phone bid adjustment: Ability to report (in the grid) and manage (through the Campaign Settings page) Smart Phone bid adjustment setting for unified campaigns. Like Google enhanced campaigns, allowable values are -100% to +300%
  • Device preference: Ability to create ads set to Smart Phone preferred in a unified campaign. Ability to manage, sync and push such ads.
  • The Smart Phone preferred option is only available for text2 type ads

Bulk and multi-edit

At this time, no bulk or multi edit support is available for unified campaigns within the platform.

Workflow

The following changes apply to the way in which you manage campaigns in the platform:

  • If a campaign is created in the platform, it will be set to unified by default.
  • If a campaign is unified, it cannot be changed to legacy.
  • For an existing ad, device preference cannot be changed due to an API limitation – even if it’s in a unified campaign. Users can, however, set an ad to mobile preferred upon creation.
  • Users can sync and push unified/legacy campaigns and the platform will honor this setting.

Changes to the platform user interface

The following changes have been made to the platform’s UI as a result of unified campaigns:

  • Two new settings added to the campaign settings page:
    1. Unified or Legacy selection option.
    2. Smart Phone bid adjustment field.
  • One new setting on the main Creatives tab grid:
    1. Smart Phone Preferred (only applies to ads within a unified campaign).

ahoo! Japan – Understanding Interest Match

Introduction

Similar to re-targeting, Interest Match displays text ads based on user’s past search terms and content of the page that he or she visited. For example, let’s say you were looking for travel deals on Yahoo! Japan last weekend and came across a site about diving. When you visited another site a few days later, you see text ads that are related to diving.

Does Sponsored Search API Support Interest Match?

Not yet. Advertisers currently cannot manage Interest Match in our application.

Managing Interest Match in Yahoo! Japan UI

On May 12, 2012, Yahoo! Japan combined Sponsored Search and Interest Match into a single tab for advertisers who manage their campaigns without agency involvement. This change had no impact on Yahoo! Japan campaigns managed by agencies, which is the case for most of our clients. Agencies will continue to manage Sponsored Search and Interest Match separately in Yahoo! Japan.

If you are a direct advertiser who manage your own Yahoo! Japan campaigns, please be aware that 10% of your budget is now allocated for Interest Match by default, and your ad will appear on sites within Interest Match network. If you don’t wish to allocate your budget for Interest Match, please take the following steps to turn off this functionality.

  1. Log into Yahoo! Japan Listing Ads Campaign Management Tool
  2. Click on the Account Settings link
  3. Click on the Change Account Settings button
  4. Open Interest Match Display Settings
  5. Set Display Setting to Off

 

Yahoo! Japan – “The operation is missing a required field or parameter or the value is empty.”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When trying to copy creatives of Yahoo! Japan in the platform using bulk sheet, you may encounter this error message:

 

The operation is missing a required field or parameter or the value is empty.

 

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This problem most commonly occurs when you try to copy creatives with the old text ad format (single description line with maximum length of 33 characters).

In Yahoo! Japan Sponsored Search, you can no longer create new ads with the old text ad format, as it is not supported anymore. Therefore you cannot copy the existing creatives with the old text ad format.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

When copying creatives with the old text ad format and creating new ads in bulk, you need to change the text ad formats by including the [Creative Type] column in your bulk sheet. The field can be populated as follows:

  • For the text ad format, the value should be: Text2 (15-19-19)
  • For the mobile ad format, the value should be: Mobile

You can learn more on Yahoo! Japan’s text ad format in this Help article: Understanding the New Text Ad Format

 

ahoo! Japan – Changes in Yahoo! Japan are Not Reflected in the Platform

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

You make changes to items in Yahoo! Japan but the platform won’t reflect them.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

Our current platform’s API with Yahoo! Japan only syncs down cost report data differences during the nightly sync.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

If you make any changes to items in Yahoo! Japan, some of the changes will not be reflected in the platform, unless you perform a manual sync in the platform.

Please be aware that you do/don’t need a manual sync in the following conditions:

For these cases you do need a manual sync:

  1. Keyword destinationUrl change
  2. Keyword Bid (Max CPC) change
  3. Keyword minimum CPC change
  4. Keyword quality score change
  5. Keyword status change
  6. Creative status change
  7. Group status change

For these cases you don’t need a manual sync:

  1. If a not-active group shows up in report
  2. If a not-active creative receives impressions after creative’s object_version
  3. If a not-active keyword receives impressions after keyword’s object_version

Yahoo! JAPAN – Frequently Asked Questions About Quality Score

Introduction

Below you’ll find some of the most common questions we receive regarding Yahoo! JAPAN Quality Score and their answers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Quality Score keyword metric supported for Yahoo! JAPAN?

The Quality Score column in the Keywords grid shows the current quality score of each keyword. However, because of the limitations of Yahoo! JAPAN API, this value is not available for viewing in the platform now.

What is the difference between Historical Quality Score vs. Quality Score?

Historical Quality Score is obtained from each night’s cost report. It is a snapshot of the keyword quality score for that particular day and may change from day-to-day. Historical Quality Score is also available as a statistical value. It is averaged using impressions as weights, so keywords with higher impressions and dates with higher impressions would contribute more to the final value. Keywords with 0 impression or dates with 0 impression would not contribute to final results. Since this column is computed as impression-weighted-average, it is available on the Campaigns, Groups, and Keywords grids.

Historical Quality Score is closely related to Quality Score. And it may be used in place of Quality Score for Yahoo! JAPAN by following below steps:

  1. View Historical Quality Score on the Keywords grid
  2. Only select yesterday in the calendar filter in the left-hand menu

Yahoo! Japan – “YAHOO_JAPAN, INVALID_STRING_FORMAT adName”

What Is The Issue?

When posting creatives into Yahoo! Japan, you may encounter such an error message:

Error Error: YAHOO_JAPAN, INVALID_STRING_FORMAT adName:

What Causes The Issue?

This problem is most likely caused by having the R Registration or ™ Trademark symbol in your creatives.

More details on the restriction for the special characters and symbols is listed here for your reference.

How To Fix The Issue

For Google, we would file an exemption request to get such ads approved. For Yahoo Japan, however, please reach out to your Yahoo! Japan representative to ask if Yahoo! Japan sent the INVALID_STRING_FORMAT error to the platform because of the special characters and symbols.

If the above is not the case or you have more questions, please contact our Support Services team, who will be happy to help investigate.

Yahoo! Japan – “YAHOO_JAPAN, INVALID_STATUS destinationUrl”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When editing objects such as keywords and creatives into Yahoo Japan, you may encounter such an error message:

Error Error: YAHOO_JAPAN, INVALID_STATUS destinationUrl:

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This problem is most commonly caused by having objects with the status PENDING. This means that the objects are currently under Editorial Review in Yahoo Japan.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

Generally speaking, approvals for new objects (such as keywords or creatives) by Yahoo! Japan take 2 or 3 working days to process. Once you are 100% confident that all of the objects you are trying to amend have been approved by Yahoo! Japan, you should be able to submit changes from the Platform successfully.

If your approval takes longer than 3 working days, please reach out to your Yahoo! Japan representative.

 

Yahoo! Japan – Important Information about Mobile Ad Support after May 29th 2014

Introduction

Support for mobile (feature phone) ads has been removed from Yahoo! Japan Sponsored Search as of May 29th 2014.

The focus is now on delivering ads to smartphone devices. After May 29th, new mobile ads can no longer be created, but existing mobile ads and their traffic and conversion data will still be available in the platform.

Detailed information

The following changes are in effect as a result of this update:

  1. Existing mobile ads can still be synced into the platform for reporting purposes.
  2. New mobile ads cannot be created via the platform.
  3. Existing mobile ads cannot be modified via the platform (including Status and AdName).
  4. Traffic, conversion, and revenue data will still be available for existing mobile ads, and they will continue to operate normally.

Managing Yahoo! Japan Quicklinks via Bulk Upload

INTRODUCTION

Quicklinks are an Ad Extension supported by Yahoo! Japan which can be used to include extra links below your text ads. Much like their natural search counterparts, they can drive clicks to deep content on your website. This article will explain how you can create, edit and delete your quicklinks via the platform’s bulk upload functionality.

EXPORTING SITELINKS

On the Ad Extensions sub-tab, you’ll see a Create Report button. This can be used to export all quicklinks for Yahoo! Japan . This report will appear in the completed reports tab and be named Yahoo Japan Sitelinks Export. (Similar to Creative reports, sitelink ID is automatically included).

In the export, sitelinks that are no longer linked to any campaigns appear without a value in the Campaign column. A sitelink cannot be edited unless it is linked to at least one campaign.

HOW TO MANAGE SITELINKS IN BULK

Here are the key points to remember when working with sitelinks in bulk:

  • Bulk rows without a sitelink ID will create a sitelink.
  • Bulk rows with a sitelink ID will edit a sitelink.
  • Account, Campaign, Sitelink ID are the required columns to share a sitelink with another Campaign.
  • Edit a shared sitelink by uploading the ID once, rather than for every campaign it is linked to.

You can learn about how to prepare and upload a bulk sheet by reading our Help article A Guide to Bulk Editing and Adding. From the Bulk Sitelinks page (https://app.marinsoftware.com/bulk/sitelinks), you can upload your bulk sheet and make any required changes.

Note: Currently, sitelinks bulk files must be for Yahoo! Japan.

Similar to the behaviour of bulk creatives, Sitelink ID needs to be included in the bulk sheet to edit an existing sitelink. Rows without a sitelink ID will create a new sitelink in that campaign.

Account Campaign sitelink ID Link Text Destination URL Status
Create Account1 Campaign1 Special Offer Text http://www.powpowsp…
Edit (Text) Account1 Campaign1 9876543 New Offer Text
Edit (URL) Account1 Campaign1 8765432 http://m.powpowsports…
Link Account1 Campaign2 8765432
Delete Account1 Campaign1 7654321 Delete or Deleted

 

Yahoo! Japan SPECIFIC SITELINK SETTINGS

The following optional bulk columns are supported for Yahoo Japan Quicklinks:

  • Start Date: A date in the future or NULL to remove an existing date.
  • End Date: A date after the Start Date or NULL to remove an existing date.
  • Device Preference: Mobile or All (Mobile Preferred and None also accepted).

 

GROUP-LEVEL SITELINKS

You can add, remove and edit group-level sitelinks in bulk in much the same way as you would for campaigns.

To manage group-level sitelinks, simply follow the process in the How to manage sitelinks in bulk section above, but also include the Groups column as part of your bulk file.

When working with group-level sitelinks, please bear the following notes in mind:

  • If a group is using campaign-level sitelinks and you navigate to the Ad Extensions tab within the group, you may see a message stating This group is currently using Campaign Level sitelinks. Click Here to edit. This message will take you to the campaign bulk page so that you can bulk edit the sitelinks for this group.
  • Group-level sitelinks can only be edited in bulk. The single view within the grid is for viewing only.
  • The Create Report button that generates the report of all existing sitelinks will automatically include the Group column. The report is the same when generated from either the Campaigns page or the Groups page.

LINKING SITELINKS TO CAMPAIGNS

Uploading Account, Campaign, Sitelink ID is all that is required to link or share an existing sitelink with another campaign. However, Yahoo! Japan only allows a campaign to be linked to a single Publisher Feed, therefore you cannot link sitelinks from different Publisher Feeds to a campaign. The Publisher Feed column can be ignored if you only have one feed per account.

For Bing, it is not possible to link or share a single sitelink via bulk. The entire Ad Extension needs to be shared via the Ad Extensions sub-tab in the interface.

EDITING SHARED SITELINKS

Any sitelinks that are shared across campaigns will appear in the sitelinks reports multiple times to highlight the sitelink’s relationship with each campaign.

If you are editing shared sitelinks, each sitelink ID only needs to be included in the bulk file once. Any changes to a shared sitelink will automatically be reflected in all the campaigns sharing it.

DELETING AND UNLINKING SITELINKS

To delete a sitelink from a campaign requires the Sitelink ID to be included and also a Status column with the value Delete in the relevant row.

For shared sitelinks, deleting will remove the sitelink from that campaign, but remain linked to any other campaigns (it also remains available in the feed to be linked to a campaign at a later date)

FTP SUPPORT

You can upload sitelink files via FTP using the following naming conventions:

  • sitelink_FILENAME.txt or sitelinkHeld_FILENAME.txt

For more information, please read our Help article.

TRACKING SITELINK CONVERSIONS

If the URL Builder is set up to build sitelink URLs, then any URLs uploaded in bulk will automatically have tracking parameters appended. For more information, please read our Help article.

KNOWN ISSUES

  • The first sitelink in an account needs to be created in Yahoo! Japan.
  • You cannot edit single-edit sitelink. If you’d like  to edit that, . you need bulk edit.
  • You cannot change the device targeting from Mobile to All, because of the API limitation.
  • There is a known issue regarding duplicate sitelinks. Please read our Help article on the topic for more information.
  • When using Chrome, you can only attached a Unicode text file of the sitelinks to bulk upload. For other browsers (ie. Firefox), you can attach a Unicode text file or paste the sitelinks into the text box for bulk upload.

ahoo! Japan – “approvalStatus of the keyword must be APPROVED” Error Message

What is the issue?

When attempting to post changes to Yahoo! Japan via the platform’s Activity Log, the operation may fail and you could encounter the following error message:

To update destinationUrl at keyword BiddableAdGroupCriterion, approvalStatus of the keyword must be “APPROVED”.
This message will likely be found within the failed task’s Activity ID (accessible by clicking the ID within the grid on the Admin screen).

What causes the issue?

This error message is displayed if you attempt to make changes to objects within your publisher account before they have been approved by Yahoo! Japan.

How to fix the issue

Generally speaking, approvals for new objects (such as keywords or creatives) by Yahoo! Japan take 2 or 3 working days to process. Once you are 100% confident that all of the objects you are trying to amend have been approved by Yahoo! Japan, you should be able to post your changes from the platform successfully.

If your approval takes longer than 3 working days, please reach out to your Yahoo! Japan representative.

 

 

 

A Guide to the Yahoo! Japan Sitelinks URL Builder

WHAT IS SITELINKS URL BUILDER?

Sitelinks are fast becoming one of the most popular ad extensions for advertisers. For this reason it’s essential that our platform allows users to track their sitelink conversions. With Sitelinks URL Builder, you can do just that.

Sitelinks URL Builder will allow you to track conversions back to the keyword that triggered the sitelink. It does this by using the {copy:xxx} parameter to copy the triggering keyword from the parent creative’s destination URL (i.e. the ad that your sitelinks appear below).

IMPORTANT NOTES BEFORE ENABLING SITELINKS URL BUILDER

Following are some key points you should consider before activating this feature:

  • If you use redirects, there are some URL structures that are unsupported. Please see A Guide to Sitelinks URL Builder’s Supported URL Formats for more information.
  • If you already have parameters within your sitelinks URLs, this feature will not remove them. You should remove the parameters manually, then click Save to re-append parameters using {copy:xxx}.

HOW TO ENABLE THE SITELINKS URL BUILDER

You can enable Sitelinks URL Builder by following these simple steps:

  1. Click the Admin link in the upper-right of the screen.
  2. Navigate to the Revenue sub-tab.
  3. Click URL Builder from the menu on the left.
  4. If you have selected Use the Same Settings for All Publishers, you’ll see the Publishers box, which includes a section labelled Sitelinks Settings. If you use specific settings per publisher, you’ll find the Sitelinks Settings section within the Yahoo! Japan  tab of the Publishers box. Here you can choose whether or not to build Sitelink URLs.

HOW TO ADD A NEW SITELINK

You can create sitelinks using a bulk upload to the Platform. For more information about this, please read our Support Center article.

HOW TO APPEND TRACKING FOR EXISTING SITELINKS

When Sitelinks URL Builder is first enabled, your existing sitelinks will not be updated or modified. To append tracking to existing sitelinks based on your recently enabled URL Builder settings, you can follow the steps below. Alternatively, you can modify your sitelink destination URL’s by adding a forward slash to the end of the URL in order to trigger URL Builder as mentioned below under the Important Information section:

  1. Go to the main Campaigns tab and click into any campaign.
  2. Go to the Ad Extensions sub-tab and view the sitelinks page.
  3. Click the Create Report button. This will export all sitelinks.
  4. Next download the export from Reports> Completed Reports.
  5. Open the report, then remove any existing tracking.
  6. Remove any extra report header rows, or columns which are not in this list:
    1. Account
    2. Campaign
    3. [Sitelink ID]
    4. [Link Text]
    5. [Click Through URL]
    6. [Destination URL]
    7. [Start Date]
    8. [End Date]
    9. [Device Preference]
    10. [Status]
  7. Save as a new bulk sheet and re-upload it to the platform.

HOW THE PLATFORM BUILDS SITELINK URLS

In order to track conversions to the keyword properly, Sitelinks URL Builder needs to include the dynamic parameters that are used to identify the triggering keyword. To do this, the feature uses the {copy:xxx} parameter. When {copy:[parameter name]} is included in a sitelink URL, both Google and Bing recognize this and copy the relevant details to the sitelink’s destination URL.

With Sitelinks URL Builder enabled, the platform will automatically copy over the relevant parameters as specified in your URL Builder settings.

USING AUTOCORRECT WITH SITELINKS

Autocorrect is available for sitelinks in just the same way as it does for other trackable objects (such as creatives, placements, and keywords). If you have any questions or issues using it in this way, please speak with your platform representative.

Autocorrect for Bing sitelinks is not yet supported in the platform. Please use the instructions in the How to append tracking for existing sitelinks section above to manually add tracking.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

  • The platform does not currently support multi-edit of sitelinks. To kick-off Sitelinks URL Builder, you must use single-edit/single-create or bulk edit as described above.
  • There are some URL structures that are unsupported. Please see A Guide to Sitelinks URL Builder’s Supported URL Formats for more information.
  • If your sitelink Destination URL has not updated with the redirect tracking parameters or if it still matches the Click Through URL if using redirects, add a slash “/” at the end of the URL via single or bulk edit. This slash will trigger that an “edit” is made, and should then add on the missing redirect tracking parameters on the Destination URL. This will create an Activity Log job. When you confirm that the Destination URL looks correct for your sitelinks, you can post this to the publisher.
  • Sitelinks edits made in the platform will not synchronize to the publisher if the sitelink is in Pending Review status in Yahoo! Japan. Please make certain your sitelinks are in an approved status before making any edits.
  • If using redirects and you have the Build Sitelink URLs option checked off, you may not see the “Click Through URL” field within the Ad Extensions page for your site links (there is only a “URL” field, meaning the system does not recognize that the account is set to build sitelink URLs). This is typically an easy fix in which you would just need to reinforce this setting again:
    • Navigate to Admin > Revenue sub-tab > URL Builder in the left-hand menu > SITELINK SETTINGS
    • Check Do not build Sitelink URLs and Save
    • Check Build Sitelink URLs and Save

 

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