We had a similar problem when they switched over to Panama.

Supposedly they do not have the ability to move accounts around. When they automagically brought our accounts into the new system they made one of our clients the master account holder and gave them access to all of our other accounts. This obviously lead to some distress and distrust by our client. They were wondering why they were now buying advertising for XYZ.com (c:

Some explaining was required on our end. So we spent hours trying to fix this with our rep, and got nowhere.

Thanks Yahoo!

While I agree that Yahoo is far, far behind, I am curious as exactly are you trying to do?

Why not just "take over" the existing account (i.e. get the logins, change the password, etc.) rather port over to a new one. This way, the account/history stays as is.

higgins - if we stay with the account as is ... they get the benefits from the account. No offense to the agency, but I would just prefer to be in our own account.

I am just seeing if anyone has had the same problem, knows why the issue exists, and if anyone had a better solution than a) making a new account or b) keeping the account where it is as a part of a master account and just changing the password.

Ah, it is part of the agencies master account... I know of agencies who don't use master accounts for that reason...

Not that you had the option here, but others can learn from your pain - a good lesson to those starting with an agency - insist that any existing Yahoo accounts remain outside of the the agency's master account or any new ones are not tied to it either.

Holy smokes what a nightmare I would quit if I had to redo our account it would take me months.

Response That certianly makes it better I can live without the history.

[edited by: bwnbwn at 8:05 pm (utc) on Mar. 27, 2008]

The nice part is we don't have to do it from scratch, they can load the account as it is, just without the history.

The solution I am checking with the agency on is:
1. creating our own account wit the import of keywords and ads
2. pausing the agency one keeping the old info intact
3. setting up a reports only login for us to that account to pull reports when we need them

It's not perfect, but seems to be the only self-service option that doesn't rely on us asking the agency for reports for the next year. It removes the possibility of my company making unwanted changes to the agency attached account, and gives us the data we need from our account. It also keeps us out of their other client accounts.

Maybe within a year Yahoo SEM will have the full detach option and it will save agencies and clients from this hell storm.

Since Yahoo seems interested in open source lately, they should look at developers who built tools comparable to the Adwords Editor and distribute it for the Yahoo Search Marketing Platform. I'll bet they would see an instant increase in usage and spend!