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My New Favorite Keyword Research Tool: MSN adCenter Ad IntelligencePosted by Joe on September 8, 2008 in Uncategorized |
Way back in January MSN announced a new adCenter add-in tool for Excel 2007 call Ad Intelligence. Recently, MSN adCenter announced that they are releasing this add-in for Microsoft Excel 2003. With this release more people are going to be able to utilize this tool so I thought I would conduct a quick review of the MSN adCenter Ad Intelligence tool for Excel.
The adCenter folks have done a good job pulling together a useful keyword tool that is quite robust. In fact, I can’t cover all of the functions in Ad Intelligence in just one post (otherwise this post would be huge!). So, I’ll break Ad Intelligence into digestible chunks and we’ll first focus on the keyword generation portion, and then we’ll discuss categorization/demographic functions at a later date.
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Keyword Wizard:The keyword wizard is the core tool for keyword generation. It seems like there are no perfect keyword tools out there but this one does a rather good job providing keyword ideas and alternatives. We’ll go step-by-step through this function so that you can see what Ad Intelligence has in store for you (if you’re not using it just yet).
1. Keyword origination: The first step in keyword research is to enter your core keywords and then expand from there. There are 3 options that you can choose here. However, for simplicity sakes, we’ll maintain our focus and just use the keyword tool (as opposed to the vertical search tool, or keyword extraction). The keywords I will be conducting research for include: pay per click marketing, ppc, paid search marketing, search engine marketing, pay per click advertising. This step is simple enough.
2. Keyword expansion: The second step involves 3 options to expand your list:
Campaign association: Suggest keywords based on advertiser bidding behavior.
Contained: Suggest keywords which contain the original keyword
Similarity: Suggest keywords on their category similarity.
In this example, I am going to choose all three settings since I want to see how expansive the keyword variations can be in this function.
3. Similarity: In step three you will determine your campaign association settings. Your association options range from 0.0 to 1.0, and 1.0 is the highest level of relevancy to your original keywords. As you can see here, I am going to choose a relevancy of 0.5 as I want my keywords to be targeted, but I’m still open to suggestions:
Once I’ve entered my original keyword list, and set all of my preferences then I am served a list of keywords that are ranked by relevancy. You can see that these keywords are ranked with a 1, which is the highest ranking:
4. Traffic & monetization: The next step is where you can really get some great keyword detail. You can select to see each keyword’s monthly traffic and monetization (projected CPC, CTR, impressions, etc.). As you can see below, Ad Intelligence provides a lot of detail for each keyword. Click on the image to see the details more clearly:
I know there a number of keyword tools out there but MSN adCenter Ad Intelligence is quickly becoming my favorite because of the quality of the results; the breadth of data for each keyword; and it’s relatively easy-to-use interface within Excel (2003 & 2007).
And I haven’t even covered the 7-8 other functions that tool has to offer! Some of them work better than others, but overall, this could be a very nice piece of your keyword research puzzle.
- Our Greatest Hits for September!
- MSN adCenter Desktop Is Now Ready For Public Testing
- Take a First Look at the adCenter Desktop Beta and Share Your Thoughts
- You Asked, MSN Delivered. Reporting, Billing and Keyword Research Features Now Live in MSN
- Google Now Including “Real Numbers” in the Keyword Tool Results
September 9th, 2008 at 7:02 am
I love this tool, but the fact that it uses data solely from MSN Live search database makes me wonder how effective it will be for making keyword reccos on other engines. But, I guess if you are using it for a MSN only campaign it would be great.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hi Rob:
Good point. I always take traffic & estimated CPC with a pound of salt. Especially when those stats come from MSN.
Thanks!
September 11th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Wow, That sounds like a really great tool, especially the CPC and CTR projections, but how accurate have you found that information to be?
I will be testing this nowish…
-Respectfully,
Kellen Chase
http://graphicFusionDesign.com
September 12th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Hello Kellen:
The information provided in this tool, at least from perspective, provides trending & scale. So, I use more to tell which keywords should have higher search volume and possibly higher CPCs - but I don’t use it to project exactly how a keyword will perform.
Hope that helps!
October 8th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I’ve just read somewhere else that it was only for Excel2007. It’s good that they made it easier for users by allowing those with an earlier version of Excel to use their tool.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Hello Franck:
Yes, the original version of this keyword tool was only for 2007, but it now functions with 2003.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hey Joe, thanks for the insight into the Adcenter keywords tool. It has been coming along nicely since first launch, the team really seems to be making progress all the time. We love to use a variety of research tools, from free ones, to paid solutions, however many of just plain confusing, are filled with non-sense words or cost too much for the small business owner. Recently we developed our own tool for use in-house, but we now offer a version of it for free on our website. Thought you, or perhaps some of your loyal readers may want to check it out. We encourage feedback, so please feel free to provide suggestions or constructive criticism.
http://www.visible.net/tools/keywords/