Our preferred partners can help you boost search engine marketing performance and efficiency

Here's your search engine marketing (SEM) management wake-up call. If you answer "yes" to any of the questions below, you know it's time to improve the way you handle SEM management:

Do you:

• Have so many keywords and ads that you can't manage them manually?
• Need to boost the number of keywords and ads in your account?
• Yearn for integrated tools to help manage and track ads in a multi-channel marketing environment?
• Want to build advanced and robust reports on your campaign performance?
• Wish you could automate mundane campaign management tasks?
• Get headaches worrying about managing budgets across multiple campaigns?

Okay, we can practically hear the heads nodding out there. If one of them is yours, you should check out how our Preferred Partner Program can make SEM management easier and more efficient for you.

Our preferred partners are Marin Software; Kenshoo; Adobe and Acquisio. They're all certified Microsoft advertising accredited professionals and leading SEM technology providers who have committed to a higher standard of platform and feature support.  Plus, they're dedicated to providing outstanding customer service---that's another reason why we call them "preferred."

Our full-page expandable ads take over tablets with engaging, interactive content and video

An iPad offers a clear, beautiful canvas just waiting to be filled with ads that can tap its full potential. Our Elevation Ads are just the ticket---full-page expandable ads designed specifically for iPads that deliver eye-popping video and content panels that users can (and will want to) touch and swipe.

The graphic below shows three steps of an Elevation Ad in action---this one for Flakes 'n Fiber cereal---and illustrates three reasons why these ads belong in your tablet ad arsenal:

More visible: First, a large expandable ad and companion floating ad attract users' attention (left).

More engaging: Second, a full-page Elevation Ad rises up to take over the page with customizable auto-play video, up to three content panels and background wallpaper (middle).

More interactive: Third, users can quickly swipe through video and content panels, control videos with a tap, and click to easily access landing pages (right)---sticking them to your ad.

Set-top boxes, social buzz, and decompressing with vampires

Editor's Note: "Meet a Media Planner" is our ongoing series of Q&As where we find out what's on the minds of media planners at agencies across the country. Today we're talking with Kyle Wesemann, a digital media supervisor for Deutsch Inc. in Los Angeles. Kyle's media planning career began about 6 years ago, but she has dedicated the past 4-plus solely to Deutsch---one of the only traditional ad agencies to still handle media in-house. In her current role, Kyle oversees the media planning for mobile device manufacturer HTC.  

Yahoo! Ad Blog: You've been in the business for a while now. What are the biggest changes you've seen during your years as a media planner?

Kyle Wesemann: The digital media planner has to wear so many hats now! There are so many areas where you have to be an expert, and it's difficult to be able to apply your knowledge and give a great recommendation to the client for everything. So the job is starting to be broken up by mobile media and social media and display.

Social media played a key role in the 2008 elections; how much bigger will it be in 2012?

Four years ago, social media burst on the scene as a vital communications tool for both voters and politicians. Back then, there were just over 44 million Facebook users and only 3.4 million Twitter users in the U.S., according to this infographic from MDG Advertising; now, just four years later, there are more than 143 Facebook users and 24 million Twitter users.*

These numbers might differ from other estimates of active users, because various sources define active users in various ways. But the bottom line is, social media usage has exploded since the last election---in fact, today roughly 4 in 5 American adults use social media, and most of them are voters. And as we reported last week, 82% of all U.S. adults are predicted to get most of their election news from the Internet.

This week's infographic tracks the meteoric growth of social media since the last election and forecasts how it will be used and the impact it will make in this year's vote. 

View the entire graphic after the jump.

* Data represents Internet users age 18+ who access their Facebook/Twitter account at least once a month, according to eMarketer

When it comes to ad agencies, size matters---at least with office supplies

Is the grass always greener at the other agency?  If you work in a mega-firm, do you daydream of toiling at a humble but pure little shop, making it solely on your own grit and genius? 

If you work in a shrimpy shop, do you yearn for the prestige and budget of the big dogs, and imagine yourself flexing and swaggering down Madison Avenue?

David T. Jones has worked at shops large and small, and judging from this week's cartoon, it's hard to say where he falls on the big shop versus small shop issue. (Although small shop guy seems a bit happier, winning the smile competition two panels to one.)

Check out the full cartoon after the jump.

A brand new rich media display format makes a star-studded debut on Yahoo! TV. And that's a wrap!

The third week of August saw the world premiere of the double brand wrap on the Y! TV homepage.

As the country gets primetimed for the start of a new TV season next month, Warner Home Entertainment would like to double give you the chance to catch up on seasons of yore, in this case season two of "Mike & Molly," starring the Oscar-nominated Melissa McCarthy from "Bridesmaids," as well as the seventh and final season of "The Closer," a police procedural starring Kyra Sedgwick.

Consumers will begin their shopping soon. Upcoming webinar will help you prep your campaigns.

With back to school in full swing you know that means the holiday shopping season will be here faster than an eight year old can unwrap a present. 2011 was a record breaking holiday shopping season with Cyber Monday exceeding $1.25 billion in retail sales, and nine additional shopping days in November and December also topping a billion, according to comScore. So, search marketers, while everyone else is enjoying the last vestiges of summer, you need to put on your reindeer sweater, grab a mug of hot cocoa and get into the holiday spirit by preparing your 2012 holiday shopping campaigns now if you're going to take full advantage of all the season has to offer.

The majority of shoppers will start well before the holidays.

Source: Yahoo! Pre-Holiday Intentions and Attitudes Survey *Yahoo! Holiday Shopper Study December 2011; Q2: When do you typically START thinking about holiday shopping?

Genome uses big data to continuously update target audiences

Editor's Note: "Genome Decoded" is our new Ad Blog series that tells the story of Genome from Yahoo!,our new data-driven audience-buying solution, from many angles, including interviews, videos, client stories, infographics and more.

"Know your audience" is a marketing commandment that should be chiseled in stone. But when marketers think about audiences, they should also remember these wise words---people change.

Every marketer likely has some core attributes in mind when defining their target audience — think age range, gender, income level. But those attributes, which may remain constant, don't necessarily tell the whole story. They miss unexpected audience attributes that can also drive conversions, but are more fluid---think trends or seasons---and require deeper and more detailed analysis to find.

"Audiences are dynamic," says Pedro Ponce de Leon, director, Solutions Engineering, Yahoo!. "To grow your campaign, extend your reach and get better performance, you need to look for data that changes over time and discover the not-so-obvious audience data points that will perform for you."