Our search expert shares tips on how to make the dynamic duo of search and display reap better results for your business.

Editor's Note: Where can you go to find answers to your burning Search Engine Marketing questions, quandaries, doubts, and dilemmas? Right here at “Ask the Search Expert,” our regular series featuring SEM experts from the crack Yahoo! Search Account Management team. Today Anna Rosholm, a Senior Account Manager who supports Technology and Telecom accounts, answers a frequently asked question from a search advertiser.

Dear Search Expert,

I’m considering investing in a display buy on Yahoo!’s new homepage and I want to make sure that I effectively capture the consumers who are exposed to my ad. Is there value in combining my search and display strategies to reach these people—and how can I get the biggest bang for my buck?

Signed, Curious Cathy

Dear Curious Cathy:

Search and display go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Campfires and ghost stories. Brad and Angelina. (You get the picture.) Maintaining a cohesive strategy between search and display advertising is a great way to get more eyes on your ads and ensure a better return on your ad spend. But before setting a strategy in stone, it’s important to understand how this dynamic duo works together and what you need to do to effectively optimize campaigns for maximum ROI.

Ed Helms fights crime in “Tiny Commando”; John Stamos asks celebs about their first time

We announced six new video programs at last week’s Digital Content NewFronts in New York, including two new comedies that show just how far we’ll go to make you laugh. There’s “Tiny Commando,” featuring a four-inch-tall private eye who fights crime. It was dreamed up by Ed Helms (of “The Office” fame). We’ll also bring you “Losing Your Virginity,” where John Stamos will interview celebrities to find out about their first times, their lives before fame, and the inside scoop on their insecurities growing up. We caught up with Ed and John at the Yahoo! NewFront and asked them to talk about their upcoming shows on Yahoo! See their videos below.

Check out more interviews with the stars of our new shows and ad industry leaders who attended the Yahoo! NewFront.

The director of global marketing for Jack Daniel’s brands at Brown-Forman talks about new technologies, global marketing, and preserving his brand’s values.

Since joining the Brown-Forman Corporation in 1992, Carmen D’Ascendis has held marketing posts on four continents before taking his current post as Director of Global Marketing for Jack Daniel’s brands in 2011. His first task in that position was directing the marketing campaign to introduce Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey. The campaign blended digital and television advertising, leveraged mobile and social channels, and made the new beverage the most successful line extension in Brown-Forman history. The Ad Blog asked Carmen about Jack Daniel’s new website, the challenge of marketing an iconic American brand to 185 countries, and his favorite way to drink Jack.

Yahoo! Ad Blog: Last year, Jack Daniels unveiled a totally revamped global website. What prompted the remodel?

Carmen D’Ascendis: The change was driven by two objectives. We wanted to enrich the visitor experience, regardless of which device they used to access the site, and we wanted to place content at the center of our digital world. Like many brands, we were seduced by social media and the promise of constantly interacting with our friends. But we learned that social media isn’t the right choice when you wish to provide the deep brand information that friends of Jack seek.

You could help decide the winners by voting for your favorite videos and spreading the word by May 13!

We’re in the final stretch of the 2013 Yahoo! Young Media Stars competition, and with all these great entries, it’s going to go down to the wire. Applications are closed, but the 37 applicants from the U.S. who made entry videos are now vying for five bonus points between now and May 13. That’s where you come in. By voting for your favorite videos and spreading the word about them via social media, you could help decide who will be announced as our three Young Media Stars on May 22.

Here’s how to do it:

• Browse the video gallery in the Young Media Stars section on the Yahoo Advertising Facebook page
• You can vote once per video entry per day, so vote for your favorites by the May 13 deadline
• Get more votes for the ones you like by sharing, tweeting and commenting on them through your social media networks right up to May 13.

Michael Hayes of IPG and Jet Wharton of OMD call our new content exciting and engaging

Last week, the Yahoo! Digital Content NewFront played to a packed house of more than 1,200 people in New York, which included top advertisers and agencies. The stage was full of celebrities from the six new original comedy and lifestyle shows that we unveiled there. We also announced new and enhanced content partnerships with the WWE, ABC, CNBC, and Conde Nast. Michael Hayes of IPG and Jet Wharton of OMD were right in the middle of the NewFront festivities, and they shared their impressions of the big night with our roving video reporters.

Check out more interviews with industry leaders and stars of our new shows who were there at the Yahoo! NewFront.

Search marketers who can leverage cross-channel data to increase campaign efficiency will win big, says Adobe’s Bill Mungovan

Editor’s Note: From time to time, we run stories by members of the Yahoo!-Bing Preferred Partner Program that offer expert advice and insights into SEM technology and improving the advertiser experience. Now we’d like to give you a closer look at the five partners themselves, which include Adobe. Here’s Bill Mungovan, Director of Product Strategy for Adobe’s advertising solutions, who talks about cross-channel collaboration, the rise of programmatic buying, and the advantages of the cloud.

Yahoo Advertising Blog: What do you consider to be the biggest opportunity for search marketers in the next year or two?

Bill Mungovan: Search marketers should move toward leveraging more data in their bid optimization to make them more efficient. A simple conversion event from a single search ad won’t be enough to beat out competitors using more sophisticated bidding algorithms. In the next couple of years, search marketers who leverage site-side analytics data to make themselves smarter and make their ad programs more efficient will be the winners.

Consumers forecast to spend $20.7 billion this year, an 11% jump over 2012

Mothers deserve lots of props, and retail spending forecasts for Mother’s Day indicate that their loved ones feel that way too. The average consumer will spend $168.94 for Mother's Day, an 11% jump from last year, according to estimates from the National Retail Federation. Total spending on Mother's Day gifts and outings will reach nearly $20.7 billion, up from last year’s total of over $17 billion.

At Yahoo!, we’re already seeing lots of Mother’s Day activity from advertisers on the search and display sides. That’s no surprise, based on our metrics from last year:

• Half of Yahoo! visitors shopped for Mother’s Day last year; 47% searched online for gift ideas
• 44% of Yahoo! shoppers spent more than $50 on Mother’s Day gifts last year
• 2.5 million Yahoo! visitors bought flowers, cards and gifts online, spending $160 million*

This year, the NRF forecasts that increased Mother’s Day spending will be driven by younger consumers, according to the NRF and a survey by BIGinsight:

Online video ads outscore TV ads 2-to-1 in message recall, according to IAB/Nielsen study

Digital video offers a big opportunity for marketers, and it’s getting bigger all the time. Today 58% of Americans stream online video. That’s a 20% jump from five years ago, according to today’s infographic, while TV viewing has remained about the same. Online video ads outscore TV ads in key categories such as message recall, brand recall, and ad likeability, says the infographic, which also shares demographic insights that can help marketers get the most out of their video advertising campaigns.

Here are some highlights from the infographic:

• Digital video streaming among TV viewers increased 10% from January 2011 to March 2012 (and grew 4% in the coveted 18-34 demographic)
• Video watchers view ads for an average of 20 seconds, with an average completion rate of 87%
• Online video ads outdid TV ads in message recall (40% to 20%) and brand recall (50% to 27%)
• More women stream online video than men; but men spend more overall time viewing video and watch more streams

See the full infographic, which is based on an IAB/Nielsen study, after the jump.