Yahoo is preparing to launch its Search Marketing Desktop, an offline ad editor designed to make it easier to make bulk changes to a campaign, ClickZ reports. The tool, similar to Google’s AdWords Editor, is currently in private beta and is expected to be fully rolled out to advertisers early next year.
According to David Pann, vice president and general manager of Yahoo’s U.S. search advertising business, some advertisers who have had an opportunity to tinker with the new tool have reported that the time it takes to restructure a campaign has dropped from three hours to 30 minutes with the new Search Marketing Desktop.
Further down the line, the tool will permit advertisers to export their campaigns to another ad platform, ClickZ reports. Such a feature is likely in anticipation of pending regulatory approval of Yahoo’s search agreement with Microsoft.
The new Search Marketing Desktop is only one of multiple search enhancements that Yahoo has in the works. Next week, the company plans to begin offering cost-per-click bidding on its new Rich Ads in Search product, which until now has only been sold to select advertisers on a flat-fee basis. And yet another development scheduled for early 2010 will enable advertisers to create separate ad campaigns, with separate bids, for ads that appear on Yahoo only, on partner sites only, or on both Yahoo and partner sites.
