The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has announced changing the minimum bid amounts on Sponsored Search keywords. Yahoo! says, following the auction model we are changing the way we set the minimum bids required to participate in a Sponsored Search keyword market, intended to help advertisers better align their minimum bids with the value and quality of their keywords.

In the next several weeks, we will start calculating a variable minimum bid for some of the keywords you’re bidding on. That means that sometimes the minimum bid may be lower than 10¢. Sometimes it may be higher. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at 10¢.

Yahoo says that there are multiple factors considered when setting the minimum bid on a keyword in Sponsored Search, including:

• Value - the number of bidders and their bid amounts in a particular keyword market
• Quality - the relevance of keywords, or how frequently users click on the ads associated with them relative to competing ads

A keyword term becomes “active”—switched “on” in the system and eligible for display—when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. Keywords become inactive when your bid falls below your minimum. You will be notified in an alert on your Account Dashboard if your bid is about to drop below your minimum, and you’ll have a grace period of up to a few days to raise your bid to keep your keyword active.

Here are some of the best ways advertisers to manage your account:

• Get to know your keywords
• It is important to know which keywords work best for your business
• Group relevant keywords together
• Make the right bids and monitor
• Use the Advanced match type to get broader exposure in search results
• Maximize the quality of your ads
• Quality plays an important role in how you get charged
• Learn how to track your quality
• Utilize ad testing with optimization
• Group relevant keywords together in your ad groups
• Continually monitor for any changes
• Stay updated to the Account Interface
• Become familiar with new tools that can make managing your keywords simpler.

More info: FAQ

Yahoo!, Search, Marketing, Search Marketing, Sponsored, Keyword, Keywords, Sponsored Search Keywords, Bid, Search Ads, Yahoo Search, SEM