As a web design company, we offer several services to promote websites such as search engine optimization, email marketing, and pay-per-click marketing. Specifically, we manage several pay-per-click marketing accounts for our customers. Between the Yahoo Search Marketing accounts, we have always noticed a problem with the account balance.
The first instance of the account balance is located in the Account Summary in the Dashboard. This value is usually from the past, as indicated by the date. The next instance of the account balance is in the Billing and Payment Information in Administration. This value, in our experience, is very inconsistent. It can mirror the first account balance, display a different past account balance, or display the current account balance. Again, a date will indicate the time of the given account balance. Usually, the account balance between these two instances is not current or just plain inconsistent.
How do we determine what the current account balance is if the two account balances available are from the past or inconsistent? Reload the page! Use the browser’s refresh feature (a browser button or the F5 key) or click the Administrative tab. Both methods will refresh the page, and hopefully recalculate the account balance to the current value. It may not always recalculate the current account balance on the first or second refresh, but it will eventually.
This is not a user-friendly way of getting a significant piece of information from any account. The account balance should display the current balance. After all, reports are available to find out any past account balance. We asked Yahoo Search Marketing’s Customer Solutions team why the account doesn’t display the current account balance.
We would like to let you know that the balance amount that you see when first logging is the amount displayed the last time you logged in. Normally this updates within a few minutes but can take up to 10 minutes to refresh the data. Be sure you are checking the time stamp which is located underneath the balance whenever you check your account so you know when the displayed balance was last updated.
While Customer Solutions’ response doesn’t answer the question, it reveals the account balance displayed after logging in is the account balance as of the last login date. This makes some sense, but we remain skeptical of its accuracy after a quick test. We signed into a Yahoo Search Marketing account that displayed a day old account balance when the last login was a week ago. Customer Solutions’ response also fails to provide any enlightening information on the issue. We will continue to use the old fashion approach to getting the current account balance, refreshing the page.
If you would like to increase incoming traffic to your website with pay-per-click marketing, , email marketing, or search engine optimization let our experience and skills get you off to a good start!