If you're using the new Landing Page by Match Type framework, here's how to help make sure you're not missing potential performance gains

Editor's note: This is another in a series of posts by members of the Yahoo!-Bing Preferred Partner Program, a group of leading SEM technology experts who bring innovative search campaign management platforms and services to our advertisers. Adobe is one of those partners, and in this post, Kiyoshi Ihara, Product Manager of Search, Adobe AdLens (left), and Kohki Yamaguchi, Business Analyst, Media and Advertising Solutions (right), share tips on how Adobe AdLens customers can achieve new levels of efficiency using the new Landing Page by Match Type framework.

Search marketers have lots of great tools at their disposal, and Adobe® AdLens™ is one of them.  It's the first unified ad management system designed to help advertisers optimize campaigns across search, display, and social media channels. 

If you're currently advertising on the Yahoo! Bing Network, you probably know about the valuable new functionality that's rolling out globally right now---Landing Page by Match Type, which completed its transition into the U.S. market in October.  If you're not familiar with the framework, it's designed to allow unique match type level destination URLs, and thus match type level tracking, at click time. We believe it's the missing piece that advertisers need to effectively link their match type investments with their corresponding performance.

As we at Adobe tracked the roll out, we heard that many advertisers and third-party tool providers are allowing their accounts to transition "as is" without taking advantage of the new functionality. If you're merely ensuring that your ads are continuing to serve, you could be leaving a lot of performance on the table.

5 billion searches, 152 million unique searchers---and a sweepstakes for advertisers!

Search drives a substantial share of online advertising revenue, and this week's infographic illustrates some interesting facts about the Yahoo! Bing Network's slice of the search market pie that should get advertisers' attention, including:

• The network represents almost 30% share of the U.S. search market
• It includes 152 million unique searchers in the U.S. (and over 45 million of them do not use Google)
• Searchers on the Yahoo! Bing Network spend 7.4% more than Google searchers

Here's a holiday bonus for advertisers in the U.S.---the Yahoo! Bing Network is running a sweepstakes with $5,000 in Bing Ads credits up for grabs. What better way to get in front of this large and lucrative search audience?  Enter the sweepstakes here---plus, entrants will be given the chance to share this infographic via Facebook for even more chances to win those Bing Ads credits.

See the full infographic after the jump … and click on it to land on the sweepstakes entry page.

Black Friday sales were up 28 percent this year and surpassed $1 billion

When it comes to retail sales, Thanksgiving weekend could be called the "Super Bowl of sales," especially for e-commerce. And this year was no different.  Black Friday and Cyber Monday continued to be huge events for e-retailers to promote their holiday offers, and start the holiday shopping season strong.  For those in retail, the results of these key shopping dates are more anxiously awaited than Santa himself.

So was a touchdown scored over this holiday weekend?  According to comScore, yes!

"Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, "we continue to see this shopping day become more and more prominent in the e-commerce channel — particularly among those who prefer to avoid crowds at the stores. With Black Friday online sales up 28 percent and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8 percent, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon." 

AT&T's gallery is an online winter wonderland that showed off featured smartphones in a beautiful snow globe

Did you bolt straight for the stores on Thanksgiving night seconds after inhaling your last bite of pumpkin pie? Did you drag yourself out of bed before sun-up on Black Friday to land department-store bargains? Another option would have been to stay at home and whittle down your gift list by shopping at AT&T Wireless' Cyber Monday smartphone ad on Yahoo!'s homepage.

The AT&T Wireless custom overlay promoted a one-day sale on Cyber Monday (Nov. 26) that let users browse through a gallery of featured smartphones, with links to a gift center and an accessories page.  

The auto intro, capped at once per day per user, presented a striking giant snow globe filled with a quartet of smartphones, each on sale for 99 cents (!) with free shipping.

It takes a special kind of spy to serve both agency client and the consumer at the same time

Of all species of spies, the double agent has the toughest assignment---pretending to serve one government while actually serving another.  Ad execs have to walk that fine line too, wholeheartedly serving a brand while serving its message to heard-it-all consumers. Okay, it's not like you're Bond and a super-villain could bite your head off with metal teeth, but an unhappy client can be pretty scary, too.  

This week's Ad Land cartoon shows a double-agent ad exec on a mission, splitting his personality to serve both camps.  It ain't easy and looks kind of painful, but you have to admire his pluck.

Strap on your jet-pack and hop over to the jump page, where you'll see our agent in action. 

In the spirit of abundance, we launched a bundle of search ad enhancements this month

We have so many new and enhanced features to share, it's been tempting to just rename the month "Newvember." Here's a quick rundown of the new tools that can help you realize even better returns from your search ads on the Yahoo! Bing Network:

New Search Ad Format

• Sitelink Extensions let you include additional links in your ads to direct searchers to specific pages on your site. Initial testing shows they can improve clickthrough rates by 15-25%.* 

Editor's Note: It's time once again to gather some of our advertising agency friends around the virtual water cooler to hear their responses to one burning question. In this installment we asked: "What's the latest thinking on digital marketing metrics that you, your agency and your clients are discussing?"

Ed Gorman, Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Carat USA 
Historically, most measurement in media was based on traditional currencies of the media world. Clients were interested in share-of-voice, cost-per-thousand, reach and opportunity-to-see. The industry evolved to also include sales metrics, specifically the media's impact and the return-on-investment by channel.  

These are all still vital signs, but we have further evolved to also include the impact of media on other marketing elements and the multiplier effect. The phase of paid/owned/earned media is now commonplace, but we believe the measurement of the interactions and result on sales is the new opportunity to focus upon.  We are now working with our clients to measure, regulate, and amplify the entire media ecosystem for increased business results in the market.

Decoding consumer culture, coordinating brand messaging, and rapping about coworkers

Editor's Note: "Meet a Media Planner" is our series of Q&As where we find out what's on the minds of media planners at agencies across the country. Today we're hearing from Miguel Mora, an associate media planner for Digitas in Chicago. After spending a year-and-a-half practicing law, Miguel's fondness for interactive marketing and social media led him to a new career in advertising. Now, nine months later (or a full-term pregnancy, as Miguel jokingly refers to it), he services the media needs of wireless provider Sprint and also takes part in the Digitas Cross-Cultural Team, which helps align brands with consumer passion points.

Yahoo! Ad Blog: You've just finished your "full-term pregnancy" as a media planner---what's been the biggest surprise about your new career?

Miguel Mora: I usually say how social the job is, but that's just my water-cooler answer. My real answer would be how many different publishers, networks, and vendors there are, and how they're working tirelessly to set themselves apart and get to the front of the pack. It's like a gold rush in this space.