An important note about URL characters

Note that all Landing Pages, Tracking Templates, and Custom Parameters used in Yahoo! Japan Advanced URLs must be RFC3986 compatible. This means that you cannot use certain special characters in these fields, even though Google does allow these in its URLs. Examples include pipes | and exclamation marks ! 

With the above in mind, we recommend that you use hyphens - or underscores _ as delimiters in your URLs. 

An important note about redirects

With Advanced URLs, Yahoo! Japan will no longer allow third-party redirects in Landing Pages. Therefore, if you are using third-party redirect URLs, you will now need to place redirects into a Tracking Template. If you're using obfuscated redirects, please work with Yahoo! Japan directly to migrate your objects.

The Landing Page may contain internal redirects (i.e. the redirect points to another URL within the same domain). For example, let’s say the advertiser is www.powpowsports.com. Example 2 below will become invalid because trackingredirect.com and powpowsports.com are different domains.
 

1. Allowed Landing Page (domains are the same, sub-domains can be different):

Landing Page: http://redirect.powpowsports.com?mkwid=a1b2c3d4&device={device}

2. Invalid Landing Page (domains are different):

Landing Page: http://www.trackingredirect.com?mkwid=a1b2c3d4&device={device}

1. Prepare for Migration

You should plan to avoid making changes (such as editing, creating, or deleting) to your Yahoo! Japan objects directly on the publisher's side, or using publisher tools, for the duration of your migration. Working in multiple platforms increases the risk of data loss during the migration. We recommend that you perform a hard sync within the Platform at the beginning of the migration process to ensure all objects are in sync between the Platform and Yahoo! Japan.

To perform a hard sync, just follow these steps:
 

1.  First, navigate to the Channels tab, then click on Manage Accounts or the + ('plus') button above the grid.
2. Next, select the relevant Yahoo! Japan publisher account.
3. Click Manage Account Settings.
4. Scroll to the bottom and select all campaigns within the given account to sync, then click Synchronize. 
    

Note that the syncing process runs a little longer for accounts with a large number of groups. We recommend starting the hard sync at the end of a work day, or the end of the week for larger accounts. The entire migration process should take around a week for most clients start-to-finish, though this is largely dependent on account size.
 

2. Check Your Google Advanced URL Tracking Template Level

If you are already using Google Advanced URLs, we recommend checking your current URL Builder configuration to confirm the level where you place the account Tracking Template, as well as the custom parameters. You will most likely want the same or a similar setup for Advanced URLs too. 

To do this, go to Admin > Revenue > URL Builder and click Google. To determine Tracking Template level, click the dropdown at the top of the URL Builder and identify the lowest level Tracking Template (i.e. campaign will override the account-level Tracking Template). Please note, if using a Tracking Template that's lower than the account level, the account-level Tracking Template may still exist and be blank; this is expected behavior. 

If you are copying your Google URL Builder settings to your Yahoo! Japan URL Builder, please refer to the following table which list the Google parameters that are also supported by Yahoo! Japan, and those that will need to be removed or replaced by another value.
 

3. Assess URL Structure And Identify Custom Parameters Needed 

Review each tracking parameter in the Destination URL to ensure it can work successfully within your new Tracking Template.

Any parameter that is not referencing a Yahoo! Japan ValueTrack parameter, such as mkwid, will need to be replaced by a new Custom Parameter. Custom Parameters can be defined at a given level (except for account), so they do not need to be hard-coded IDs.

Example

http://www.example.com?mkwid=12345&pkw={keyword}&pmt={matchtype}&pdv={device}

• mkwid: This value represents a unique ID for each object. Replace ‘mkwid=12345’ with a Custom Parameter, i.e. {_mkwid} Important: The system will know to re-pull and apply your existing unique ID
• pkw: This value represents the publisher keyword that Yahoo! Japan will dynamically resolve at the time of click. No Custom Parameter is required.
• pmt: This value represents the publisher match type that Yahoo! Japan will dynamically resolve at the time of click. No Custom Parameter is required.
• pdv: This value represents the publisher device value that Yahoo! Japan will dynamically resolve at the time of click. No Customer Parameter is required. 
   

After following the rest of this Self-migration guide, your Final URL structure should look like this basic example:

http://{lpurl}?mkwid={_mkwid}&pkw={keyword}&pmt={matchtype}&pdv={device}

And the served URL on Yahoo! Japan will look like this:

http://www.example.com?mkwid=12345&pkw=shoes&pmt=e&pdv=m

4. Create Bulk sheets For Objects To Upgrade

The next step is to generate a Yahoo! Japan bulk sheet report for objects that require URL migrations, such as keywords, creatives, and quicklinks. You can do this by creating a report as usual via the Platform.

Please read our Bulk Uploads Advanced Guide for information on how to prepare a bulk upload. 

If you're defining any Custom Parameters at the campaign or group level, be sure to create campaign or group bulksheets. For more information about creating bulk sheets, please read our Support Center article.
 

Important note: You must upload your Landing Page with a question mark (?) at the very end of the URL. If you do not do this, the URL may not resolve correctly, or the upload may result in an error.

5. Enable New URL Builder 

Note: If you are using Marin Professional, this step may not be required.

Please reach out to Customer Support to enable the Upgraded URL Builder.

Once ready for use, you'll need to open the URL Builder, then click the + ('plus') button in the lower-left corner and select YJP Advanced.
 

6. Upgraded URL Builder Review 

Familiarize yourself with the new URL Builder in the article below, then continue to follow the steps below to set up your structure.

For more information about the Upgraded URL Builder, please read our dedicated Support Center article. 

7. URL Builder: Tracking Template Setup

Add your Tracking Template structure, including all custom parameters and ValueTrack parameters.

Note that there may be exceptions to this if you have full URL templates that need to live at a lower level in the hierarchy. Just be aware that any templates created at lower levels, such as campaign or keyword will override everything set at the Account template level.

If not using redirects, set the Redirect Level to off. 
 

Example
 

Redirect Level: Off

Landing Page: {lpurl}&mkwid={_mkwid}&pkw={keyword}&pmt={matchtype}&pdv={device}
 

For Redirects, you would set the Redirect Level to single or double and add the redirect snippet into the field and select the level of encoding you would like for the {lpurl} or Landing Page URL.

Examples of Custom Parameters that may need to be replaced in the tracking parameter block are things like {_campaign}, {_group}, {_keyword}, {_dimensionname}. Although these parameters live at other levels, they will need to be referenced at the Account Tracking Template level.

Note: Custom Parameter names must only contain lowercase letters and numbers (i.e. {_mkwid} or {_group} and not {_Mkwid} or {_Group_Name}) to comply with Yahoo! Japan requirements and avoid issues. Custom Parameter value must not exceed 200 characters.

For additional information regarding Tracking Parameters, such as {lpurl}, please visit this Yahoo! Japan help page.

8. URL Builder: Custom Parameter Setup

Create the Custom Parameters that you have now referenced in Tracking Template. To create, you will also click on the blue +New button.
 

Example:

Custom Parameter

Name: {_mkwid}   

Level:  Keyword

Value (box): [uniq_id]
 

Notice the value for Custom Parameters is in hard brackets, while the Custom Parameter name is denoted by curly bracket underscore.

Now when the Tracking Template references the {_mkwid}, it knows to grab the unique ID at the Keyword level.

If you want unique IDs for creative objects, you would create additional {_mkwid}=[uniq_id] Custom Parameters and adjust the Level to creative.

Note: The {_slid} custom parameter used for Google is not supported for Yahoo! Japan.
 

9. Review Your Creative URLs And Post To Publisher

Important: Per Yahoo! Japan’s recommended upgrade method, we strongly advise you migrate your creatives to Advanced URLs before migrating your Keywords and Quicklinks.

10. Review Your Keyword and Quicklinks URLs And Post To Publisher  

1. Verify that the Landing Page column contains the URL that was originally the Destination URL without tracking.
2. Check to see that Custom Parameters have been defined properly (keywords tab, campaigns tab, etc.) in the Custom Parameters column.
3. The Destination URL is essentially a 'Preview URL' of all URL parts assembled. Click on a handful of URLs in the Destination URL column to ensure landing pages resolve correctly.
    

After confirming your updates are accurate, please post your URL changes to Yahoo! Japan by navigating to the Activity Log within the Admin section of the Platform, selecting the operation with the checkboxes in the grid, and submitting the Post Now button.

11. Final Template review

Review the Preview Template section at the bottom of your URL Builder to ensure the Final Template looks as expected and includes all of the Custom Parameters needed in your URLs
 

Example (Non-redirects)

Example (Redirects)

12. Additional Template Review steps

Important note: The workflow described below will only work if you are using SmartGrid Channels tab, rather than the standard Platform grid. If you're unsure if this applies to you, please reach out to your Platform representative. If you are not using the SmartGrid Channels tab, the template can be applied using this link.

It's important to note that saving the URL Builder does not apply the Account Tracking Template to your linked Yahoo! Japan accounts. To apply the saved URL Builder settings to your Yahoo! Japan publisher accounts, you will need to follow the instructions below.

Click on the Channels tab and select the check boxes next to any Yahoo! Japan publisher accounts where you wish to apply your Account Level Tracking Template. From there, click on the Edit button and select URL Settings from the menu on the left. Here you will need to paste the Tracking Template Value into the text box. 

You can then go ahead and hit Save.

Once you Save, check the Activity Log, find and select the corresponding activity and post the Tracking Template to Yahoo! Japan.

13. Confirm your migration with our Support team

After configuring the URL Builder and posting your final changes to Yahoo! Japan, please reach out to our Customer Support team to inform them that your account is fully migrated to Advanced URLs. This will allow Customer Support to hide the legacy URL Builder and ensure that only Advanced URL fields are used moving forward. 

13. Sit back and relax

That's it, you're all done!

Now that these steps are completed your Yahoo! Japan Sponsored Search accounts will be upgraded to the new Yahoo! Japan Advanced URLs format. If you have any questions about the process above, or anything else to do with the Advanced URLs migration, please contact your Platform representative.