I received the following email today regarding the recent upgrades to the Microsoft adCenter Desktop.
Microsoft Adcenter Desktop
Microsoft says its recent improvements to the adCenter Desktop make it faster and easier to make bulk changes to adCenter accounts.
The latest version of Microsoft adCenter Desktop includes:
A clearer, easier-to-understand user interface.
Faster campaign importing from other search engines.
Targeting via importing and exporting
I haven’t yet had an opportunity to try out their latest advertising account management tool in my Microsoft accounts.
Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta
Whether or not these recent account management improvements will make managing search advertising accounts in a Bing driven Yahoo search environment remains to be seen.
I just now noticed the following message in one of my Google Adwords accounts:
Target CPA Bidding
Clicking to learn more about Target CPA bidding produced the following Google Adwords help page:
With the Bid Type advanced option, you can select the method that suits you best when setting your Conversion Optimizer bids.
Max CPA
With this option, which was previously the only option offered with Conversion Optimizer, you set bids using a Max CPA. This amount represents the most you would want to pay for any individual conversion. The way a Max CPA bid works is similar to the way a maximum CPC bid works. If you set a maximum CPA bid of $5, for example, the actual average CPA is likely to be somewhat less, such as $3. Likewise, a maximum CPC bid of $0.50 may result in an average CPC of $0.30.
Target CPA
This new option allows you to bid based on the average amount you would like to pay for a conversion. For example, if you want to achieve an average CPA of $25, you could use this option and set your bid to be $25. Advertisers with CPA targets they would like to reach may prefer to use Target CPA so they can specify those goals directly.
To change your bid type to Target CPA, please follow these instructions:
Select the Settings tab from within your Campaigns tab.
Under the “Bidding and budget” section, click “Edit” to change your bidding option.
Select the “Target CPA” option and click “Save” to finish.
Although I haven’t yet bested my own performance using Conversion Optimizer, allowing Target CPA bidding should help those Adwords Advertisers who are using it to better manage their acquisition costs.
I saw this ad today for Facebook.com in a Google search result for advertising.
Reach The Exact Audience You Want With Targeted Ads
Any search marketer who has successfully sold paid search to clients should be able to spot how Facebook’s argument for advertising on their site is fundamentally flawed.
Although digital, advertising on Facebook is still display advertising.
New SEO salesman are similar to other media sales people particularly those who are new to the business.
Traditional media sales people often canvas other media’s advertisers in an attempt to generate leads for their media offer over the advertiser’s existing media advertising preference.
New SEO “media” salesman often take a page from their traditional media contemporaries with one notable exception – they don’t canvass other media for prospects – they look for prospects in of all places – search engines!
The problem with this strategy is that unless the prospector drills down beyond the fifth or six page of results for a particular query, they end up contacting a business who already knows enough about search engine placement to be visible in search results to begin with!
This results in the SEO salesperson contacting prospects usually via their “contact us” form who are most likely not in the market for their services because their site is already present in search engine results pages.
SEO Comments
Although the SEO salesman in the example above may claim use of white hat tactics for getting a website on the first page of Google, he obviously isn’t aware his hat is also pointy.
Yahoo Search Marketing has created an offline tool that enables advertisers with multiple campaigns to easily create and manage their Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts.
The Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop tool offers simpler and quicker campaign management than bulk sheets or the Sponsored Search interface.
Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop
I have downloaded Yahoo’s new search marketing desktop tool and will report any discoveries I make at TimothyCohn.com.
Search Marketing Desktop
I for one am glad to see Yahoo finally get this type of tool into the hands of Yahoo advertisers who are already used to managing bulk campaign tasks in a similar manner in Google.
comScore released a study today on social networking access via mobile browsers.
comScore’s study found that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago.
Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent jump.
Number Of Mobile Subscribers Accessing Social Media Sites
However, the growth in mobile access of social networking sites trend appears to have missed MySpace.com which instead saw a 7% drop in its mobile visitors during the same time period.
Why isn’t the MySpace audience making the leap to mobile?
Many Twitter users have recently been greeted with the following “Be found on Twitter” box when they log into their Twitter account on the web.
What seems unusual about Twitter’s efforts to “make it easier for people to discover their friends and colleagues on Twitter” is the two options they present to users – “Good to go!” and “Ask me later”.
Seems like Twitter should also offer a “No I don’t want to be found, Don’t ask again!” box.
Be Found On Twitter Opt Out?
By virtue of the fact Twitter hasn’t offered this third type of option, I would then guess they have additional plans beyond their just “make it easier for people to discover their friends and colleagues on Twitter” claim.
With an a Twitter advertising platform imminent, the additional location, email and phone data they happen to gather on users will surely also be used to help Twitter target advertising based on the data users provide.
Until Twitter offers the “No I don’t want to be found, Don’t ask again!” box, I will continue to x out the “Be Found on Twitter” box each time its presented.
Search Marketing Communications 
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