CogBlog

In 1997 I co-founded COGBOX in with Michelle DeCol. Since then we've offered online marketing, web development and corporate and brand identity to a wide range of clients. Here I post thoughts and comments on search marketing, recent projects, and other things I find interesting.

Yahoo Search Marketing Eliminates Monthly Minimum

Published Thursday, October 20, 2005 by chris | E-mail this post

Yahoo Search Marketing eliminated what never should have been implemented -- the $20 monthly minimum spend on inactive or low spend pay-per-click accounts.

Personally, I think they should have never instituted that kind of a policy in the first place. It is just the kind of thing that will really irk customers while also providing very little benefit to Yahoo.

Still the most customer unfriendly system is the Looksmart/Ask Jeeves plan where you specify your monthly budget and they charge your card for the full month immediately. Your card will be charged again to bring you back up to the monthly balance no matter what your spend was. For instance, if your monthly budget was $500, and they delivered only $50 in clicks, you'll be charged another $50 at the end of the month. They essentially force you to loan them a full month's budget as long as your account is open.