Reprise Media: thumbs up for Panama

Since the launch of Yahoo's new search marketing system, Panama, Yahoo campaigns improved significantly in several areas, with cost-per-clicks declining more than 6 percent and average-click-through rates increasing by 32 percent.

Reprise Media, a provider of search engine marketing services, released "Inside Yahoo Panama," an in-depth look into Panama. The report also touches on the impact the new system has on marketers.

Reprise believes that Yahoo's attempt to improve the overall usability of the system and bring its capabilities in line with market leader, Google have been successful.

With the launch of Panama, Yahoo unintentionally established industry standards . Many of the changes in the new system move Yahoo's structure and tools much closer platforms at Google and MSN, creating some defacto industry standards.

Additionally, new options like geo-targeting and enhanced tracking of contextual placements places emphasis on two areas of the market that are currently underserved.

Reprise also said that Panama increases the complexity of managing search marketing campaigns with Yahoo, making it harder for small market companies to compete with their big-brand competitors.

This upgrade allows Yahoo to compete more readily with Google and MSN, which can only mean good things for the industry as a whole, the company said in the report .