To better understand the feature differences between Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft Advertising adCenter, and Google AdWords the following guide outlines the key variances between the three platforms.
Microsoft Advertising adCenter: Language and Location Targeting (Set at the ad group level)
Yahoo! Search Marketing:
Language and Market
(Set at the account level)
Geo Targeting (Set at the account level)
Google AdWords: Language Targeting and Location Targeting (Set at campaign level)
Yahoo! Search marketing allows setting Language and Market at the account level and enables geo-targeting of users at the campaign level. When you transition your Yahoo! account to adCenter, your campaigns will be set to Language and Location targeting. To illustrate with an example: Yahoo! account with language and market setting of En_UK will have its campaigns migrate in adCenter to language = English and Target Location = UK.
Language and Location targeting in adCenter enables you to reach potential customers in different locations speaking the same language with one campaign or ad group.
Location targeting in adCenter also offers you greater control to target by specific countries/regions, states/provinces, metro areas, or cities where your target customers are. You can also target potential customers who live within a specified distance, or geographical radius, from one or more business locations or other types of locations. If you target postal codes with Yahoo! Search Marketing, these settings will not transition to adCenter as we do not have these geographic designations in adCenter at this time.
After migrations make sure to check your ads to ensure they’re serving to the desired locations.
Microsoft Advertising adCenter: A feature to block continents is not available in adCenter
Yahoo! Search Marketing:
Blocked Continents
(Set at the account level)
Google AdWords: Not available
Microsoft adCenter does not currently allow you to block distribution in certain continents; rather, it enables you to select your targeting by language and location.
Microsoft Advertising adCenter: Time Zone
(Set at account and campaign levels)
Yahoo! Search Marketing:
Time Zone
(Set at master account level)
Google AdWords:
Time Zone
(Set at account level)
When you transition your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to adCenter, your master account level time zone will be automatically set as the default time zone for your account in adCenter, which will carry down to all of your campaigns for that account.
In adCenter, you also have the ability to set a time zone for each new campaign individually. The time zone should be where your office is located because it’s used for billing purposes and to help control your daily and monthly campaign budgeting. The time zone is not associated with the location of your potential customers.
