Archive for the ‘Microsoft adCenter’ Category

The ability to bulk edit your pay-per-click accounts varies between search engines. As usual, Google has the best system. Their AdWords Editor is fast, efficient and easy-to-use. However, Yahoo and MSN AdCenter also have bulk editing options, but theirs aren’t as elegant as Google’s. I was recently using MSN’s bulk upload feature and found a few quirks in the system. I thought I’d share these quirks to save you some time and many headaches.

First, a quick run down on how to use MSN’s bulk upload feature. This feature allows you to upload numerous …

MSN announced this afternoon that on Saturday, June 23 adCenter will undergo an upgrade that will allow you to manage your negative keywords at the campaign level. Currently you can insert negative keywords at the account level which means these negative keywords are applied to every campaign. This is a helpful step forward for adCenter.

Keep in mind that you will not be able to access your adCenter account for up to 14 hours during the upgrade.

What should you do on Monday when you get in to work? Your negative keywords will still be applied at the account level and if …

MSN has a feature for incremental keyword bidding on gender and age targeting that I think has potential for positive results.

The idea is to allow MSN to automatically raise your bids to rank higher if and only when a person of your selected age and gender is searching for your keywords. This person should, in theory should be more likely to make a purchase. I don’t mind paying a higher bid for someone who is more likely to make a purchase than non-purchasing types.

Be careful though, as it is ‘incremental bidding’, which means you’re increasing your bid for when …

I spoke with an MSN representative today and got the scoop on some upcoming features they plan to add in the next few months.

• ‘Today’, ‘Last 7 Days’, and custom date ranges will be added to the drop down in the campaigns tab. This way you won’t have to run a report for a custom date range. You’ll be able to do this right off the main page. (Like you can in Google & Yahoo!)

• A ‘campaign total’ line for all campaigns will be added in the campaigns tab. Again, you no longer have to run a custom report to get this …
  

A few weeks back, one of my MSN accounts was accepted into the new adCenter content network beta test. This particular client does exceptionally well with Content Match in Google, so my basic assumption was that I would see at least some improvement in MSN. Despite the addition of their content network, I have not seen any progress in this account.

The changes that MSN has made to the actual adCenter interface are excellent with this beta test. But optimized functionality doesn’t always mean optimized performance. Aesthetics aside, has anyone else had positive and/or negative results when using MSN’s new …