Some of their efforts receive a little publicity on the Traffic Quality Center, recently opened at Yahoo Search Marketing. The company provided some insights into the ways they protect advertising customers.

They also offered a peak at what is to come with their search marketing platform. On quality based pricing:

Later in 2007, we plan to apply quality-based pricing to a broader group of keywords.

There’s nothing you need to do to take advantage of quality-based pricing. Discounts are applied automatically based on Yahoo!’s Quality Based Pricing technology.

On domain blocking:

While quality-based pricing provides discounts based on traffic performance, you might identify certain domains that you don’t want to receive traffic from due to branding considerations or other reasons. To help meet this need, we plan to launch a product that will provide our advertisers with the controls and tools to block their ads from appearing on certain domains.

Advertisers who want to report possible click fraud but aren’t familiar with the procedure can view a walkthrough of the process on the Traffic Quality Center website. Yahoo said they will contact the submitter within 48 hours, and will try to resolve the issue within ten business days.

Yahoo Responds To QBP Conspiracy Theories

Some people saw Yahoo’s pricing model switch as one that might be a little less beneficial to advertisers as well as the site publishers who could receive less revenue from Yahoo ad clicks. On the advertiser side, some fretted Yahoo had its best interests in mind, at their ad clients’ expense.

Suggestions that Yahoo wants to damage the good start its had with the revamped search advertising system, Panama, by hitting advertisers harder in the wallet were dismissed on the Yahoo Search Marketing blog.

“There seems to be a perception in some quarters of the blogosphere that we launched QBP with the purpose of using the knowledge we gain about publisher conversion rates to raise prices on clicks from high-converting publishers,” said Yahoo.

“Sorry to ruin the fun of a good conspiracy theory, but we really did launch QBP to help provide better ROI to advertisers.”

It was revealed in comments on Yahoo’s post that conversion rate data does affect prices. As to how much, Yahoo isn’t saying.

“Yes, conversion rate is an important factor in determining pricing, along with other factors, but we

“Previously, you were charged the same for traffic from all web sites within our distribution network,” Yahoo said. “Now, with quality-based pricing, you may be charged less for certain clicks than you otherwise would pay, depending on the overall quality of the traffic provided by our distribution partners.”

Yahoo will measure quality based on conversion rates and what they described as “other measurements” of the traffic coming to advertisers from partner sites. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land said implementation type will be one of those other measurements.

What’s great for advertisers won’t be so wonderful for publishers. Jen Slegg pointed out at JenSense that the people who bailed out of Google AdSense when smart pricing impacted their revenues will see a similar situation with Yahoo.

“So Yahoo could discount publishers for specific traffic sources, whether it be from spammy third tier engines or theoretically even taking a competitive stance against Google or MSN traffic while boosting Yahoo referred traffic,” she wrote.

Classified Intelligence reported how Monster will respond to events like the million-share selloff its CEO and chairman, Andrew McKelvey, just conducted. Classified Intelligence writer John Zappe cited stock analysts who perceived the stock sale as meaning Monster isn’t going to be sold at a premium anytime soon.

They will build on their success internationally. Monster ranks well in Europe, with comScore figures showing the cumulative Monster properties ranking first in traffic there.

Some price cutting will take place, as they seek to undercut CareerBuilder for listings:

Monster, like CareerBuilder, took a price increase at the end of last year that raised the single job-posting price to $475 (vs. $419 at CareerBuilder and $349 at HotJobs for a specific geography). Monster now cut its single-listing price back to $395 and reduced its multiple posting packages as well.

Monster will take other strategies from Europe, and bring them to the United States. One of those will be the implementation of mobile services for US customers. Monster Mobile will come to the US, but a date has not been announced.

Another hasn’t been connected to a US move, but we would be surprised if it didn’t happen. Zappe said Monster wants to grab passive job-seekers, those who have a job and are desirable to other companies due to their skills and experience.

That passive market has been coveted in the US as well. Monster will have to communicate to people the adage that the best time to look for a better job is when you already have a job. First, they will refine that strategy in Europe and build on their existing strength on the Continent.

Here are my thoughts on how to go about charging (gasp!) money for your software:

7 Pithy Insights On How Not To Give Your Software Away For Free

1.  Design for Dollars:  If you are hoping to charge for your software someday, it helps to actually design it from the beginning with this goal in mind.  As you are building the product, try and think about how you might build it so that someone, someday will actually pay you money for it.  Trust me, it helps.  [Note:  Apologies for the reference to dollars (vs. rupees, Euros or something else).  The poet in me likes the alliteration and I happen to reside in the U.S.)

2.  Resist Guilt:  This is a tough one.  Many software people find it hard to rationalize in their heads that they can actually charge money for their product.  Though I’m a big fan of free (as in beer) software myself, the reality is that not all businesses can afford to do this.  There’s nothing inherently wrong for charging for a product that costs you money and talent to build.  If doctors, lawyers and architects can charge for delivering something of value, why not you?  The key is point #1 — build something people are willing to pay for.

3.  Charge Early:  Try and find a way to start charging for the software as early in your development process as possible.  This can get a bit tricky in the early days, but it is worth the effort.  The key here is to build something of value as early in the process as possible and then to amplify that value by throwing your personal passion into it.  For example, at my startup HubSpot, we’re still in beta but have been bringing on paying customers for months.  Rather than being embarased that the software is so early, we make up for it by fanatical support for our early customers — and letting them help drive the product development.

4.  Charge Often:  Avoid trying to lock your customers in to some long-term contract.  I’m a big fan of monthly agreements.  If you are charging your customers monthly (instead of a big up-front fee), the burden is on you to "earn" your customer’s business every month — or they leave.  Keeping your customers happy is your problem not theirs. 

5.  Let Them Try Before They Buy:  This one is obvious.  Minimize buyer’s remorse by letting customers try out your offering before making a large committment. 

6.  Ease Adoption:  Reduce the "time to enjoyment" for the customer. Help them get immediate benefit and enjoyment.  We live in a fast-paced world.  If it takes your customers days or weeks to get even marginal enjoyment from your product, you’re going to have a hard time charging for it.  Make it simpler and make adoption easier. 

7.  Make Your Customers Smarter:  This is a bit of a weird one.  When you’re charging your customers, remember that not all of your value is delivered through the software — a lot of value can be through the experience of dealing with you.  Customers want to learn and grow.  They want to improve their lives and/or businesses.  When buying from you, customers want some direct benefit from your product (basically, the ones you promised), but they also want to feel like they got something out of the relationship.  Seek ways to help your customers get smarter in whatever area of expertise you have.

Those are my thoughts.  If you have any additional insights on ways to make it easier to charge (gasp!) money for your software please share them in the comments.

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