It's been less than a month since Yahoo officially launched its upgraded search advertising platform Panama, but Avenue A/Razorfish has said it's already reporting on how its clients are faring under the new system.
Search impressions, click rate and overall CPA were all up on average for the agency's 33 clients, but on a client by client basis the impact was varied.

CPC was down an average of six percent though that varied from branded keywords which were down between 10 and 30 percent and non-branded keywords whose CPC remained steady or rose slightly. The overall downward trend may reverse after marketers become more accustomed to Panama. Search impressions were up an average of 5 percent, largely because reduced CPC rates allowed the agency to more effectively target other keywords.

Click rate was up an average of 10 percent across the 33 clients, but behind that is an average 28 percent increase for those doing better and an average 18 percent drop for those not doing so well. Again, that was largely expected since Yahoo now takes click rate into account when determining search ad position.

Unfortunately conversion rates were down an average of five percent, with changes ranging from a 20 percent drop to an increase in conversion of 25 percent.

The agency cautions that it's too early and results are too varied to draw anything but the broadest of conclusions right now.