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Yahoo Panama Conversion Tracking Broken

posted on March 5, 2007


Panama has been live and growing for a long while now so you’d think the major bugs would be worked out. Well, apparently not.

One of my clients has a premium account and put off upgrading until Yahoo forced it about three weeks ago. Everything seemed to go smooth except the conversion tracking and full analytics that Yahoo provided with the new system seemed to be off.

That lasted for about a week and then the conversion tracking went completely blank. It has been that way for two weeks now. A call to Yahoo premium support informs me that they are aware of the problem and my clients account is one of many affected. To top it all off, they have no ETA on a fix which tells me they don’t even know what the problem is after two weeks.

Luckily we have other conversion tracking software in place. I’m sure there are others that aren’t as lucky. I’m disappointed in Yahoo to say the least.


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  • http://www.markbarrera.com Mark Barrera

    I guess it is time to pause all the accounts… Another fun day in the life of an internet marketer.

  • http://www.xuru.com Jeremy Luebke

    I’d check your to make sure it’s working or not. From what I understood, not everyone is seeing the problem.

  • http://www.exposureonline.com ExposureTim

    Yes, be careful about crying wolf. If this only affects a few then you are telling the world to be concerned about something that might not affect them.

    I know we are not affected by whatever you are describing, and with alternate tracking which everyone should use anyway, then why is it a big deal?

  • http://www.merchantaccountblog.com Jestep

    We’re having the same problem on our account. While we also have other analytics options to fall back on, it makes it more time consuming, and a PITA to do any changes. Also, it makes it much more difficult to optimize any ads because you have to dig even more to see which ads conversions are coming from.

  • http://www.xuru.com Jeremy Luebke

    @Tim

    I wouldn’t call pointing out an active bug or warning people who might not have upgraded already of the potential issues.

    And I’m sure there are a large number of people who use the Yahoo conversion info exclusively for Yahoo PPC as it’s the easiest way to integrate true CPA with fluctuating bid prices without paying an arm and a leg for industrial stats programs.

  • http://www.genesis-internet.com John Winningham

    We’ve had the same problem since we “upgraded” the account (aren’t upgrades supposed to make things better?). Nice to know we aren’t the only ones, and nice to have three different ways to track conversions (at least one will work at any given time).

  • http://www.exposureonline.com ExposureTim

    It’s the headline that really bothered me. Yahoo conversion tracking is NOT broken… Maybe there is a bug that affects a few accounts, but there is a big distinction there.

  • http://Yahoo Matt

    I’m a technical account manager with Yahoo and I manage the advanced analytics part of YSM. I’m interested in learning more from any advertiser who is having conversion issues. I’ve found that 90% of the issues surrounding advanced analytics (Conversion Only or Full Analytics) have resulted in improper implementations. We did recently have an issue with advertisers using Yahoo Store, but that has been resolved as of last night. I’d be more than happy to help resolve any issues you might have.

    I’d also be more than happy to send over our QuickStart Guides for full analytics implementations so that you can make sure that tracking tags have been implemented properly.

    Conversions definitely work as I’ve been managing dozens of accounts.

    Let me know if I can be of assistance!

    Regards,
    Matt Lillig

  • http://www.xuru.com Jeremy Luebke

    Matt,

    Thanks for the update. This client is on a Yahoo store which does the auto addition of the code. I’ll check the stats tomorrow and see if todays conversions are fixed since you said it was fixed last night. I’ll post the findings.

  • http://www.genesis-internet.com John Winningham

    Matt,

    I’d like to see the QuickStart guide. I followed the instructions online for placing the code, but no luck.

  • http://Yahoo Matt

    Jeremy. Is there a way to add attahments to your blog? Otherwise, I’ll need to get some email addresses.

    Thanks,
    Matt

  • http://www.xuru.com Jeremy Luebke

    No attachments, but is this the guide you speak of?

    http://help12.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/helpui/resources/content/us .market/content.source/en.language/YSM%20Setup%20Guide.pdf

  • http://Yahoo Matt

    No. In fact we are currently working on updating that Setup guide for advertisers. It is a little outdated since the launch of Panama. I have created two easy-to-use quick start guides for both Conversion Only and Full Analytics.

    I designed them for not only advertisers but for training our account managers here at Yahoo. They are very visual, step-by-step, powerpoint docs.

    Matt

  • http://www.xuru.com Jeremy Luebke

    Email them to me and Ill upload to a site and link them from post if you want unless you have them online somewhere else. There’s no way to upload directly to the blog as Andy is on vacation.

    jluebke at xuru.com

  • http://Yahoo Matt

    Sounds good. I just emailed them to you.

    Regards,
    Matt

  • http://www.plumbersurplus.com Ryan

    Matt-
    I’d like to talk to you about conversion tracking for multiple Yahoo accounts on the same checkout page.

    ryan at plumbersurplus.com

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