Archive for the ‘adCenter’ Category

Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance Advertiser Notification

February 18, 2010

I received the following email today from Microsoft regarding their “search alliance” with Yahoo.

Dear Tim ,

Microsoft® and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union. This milestone is an exciting step in our effort to give your business a time-saving and cost-efficient way to connect with a larger combined audience of potential customers.

How the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance benefits you After the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, you will:

Reach more potential customers: Search ad inventory from both the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks will be joined in a new, unified search marketplace powered by Bing™ , with a combined audience of over 150 million searchers in the U.S and nearly 577 million searchers worldwide.1

Save valuable time and effort: You’ll use a single platform Microsoft adCenter to manage your campaigns easier and faster. With just one buy, your search ads will reach users on Bing, Yahoo!, and other premium partner sites and networks, such as The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, msnbc.com, FoxSports.com, Facebook, and Buy.com.

What’s ahead For now, it’s business as usual; there is no change to your account or service. Your ads will continue to serve on Bing search results pages, and you will continue to receive the same great service from Microsoft.

Both companies are committed to making this transition a seamless experience. Our goal is to bring the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance to the U.S. by the end of 2010, prior to the crucial holiday season, with additional countries following on a staggered schedule beginning in 2011.

As our transition dates approach, we will contact you with information about what to do next. In order to ensure you continue to receive important service updates, please verify your contact information is current in Microsoft adCenter. View our help topic: Change contact information.

How to learn more In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance by visiting our new resource, searchalliance.com, where you’ll find plenty of additional details, including press releases, FAQs, and more!

We appreciate your business and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft adCenter Team

Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance

Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance

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Posted in adCenter, Marketing Communications, Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Firm, Search Engine Optimization | Leave a Comment »

and Microsoft Wanted To Buy Yahoo’s Search Business…

November 13, 2008

I have recently had some issues with a client’s account in Microsoft’s adCenter.

When Microsoft first launched adCenter – their search advertising system, I signed up and called in for some reason and realized at the time “customer support” was being handled by a call center.

During my call, I asked the CSR if they were an employee of Microsoft and she replied she wasn’t.

I thought maybe they had outsourced customer support initially because they were just launching their service.

I hadn’t called them since.

Yesterday I called in to investigate why my client’s ads were not being displayed under search queries for their brand name.

After a series of questions about the account from the adCenter customer support representative, I told her all I did was load two new text ads – over a week ago.

The entire account hasn’t generated any impressions let alone clicks since.

I then heard some additional voices on my call at which point I asked “is this call being monitored?”

She said “all calls may be monitored.”

I then asked are you in a call center offsite? Yes.

Are you a Microsoft employee? No.

If you have some free time on your hands, call adCenter’s customer support telephone number to discuss the nuances of pay per click advertising with “Microsoft’s” “customer support” staff.

You might be glad Microsoft hasn’t bought Yahoo’s search marketing business.

Microsoft adCenter Customer Support Telephone Number

Microsoft adCenter Customer Support Telephone Number

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Posted in 800-518-5689, adCenter, All Calls May Be Monitored, Customer Support, Microsoft, Paid Search, Pay Per Click, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing | Leave a Comment »

adCenter Dynamic Keyword Insertion

October 26, 2008

Paid search ads with the search term in the ad have been proven to receive higher click through rates (CTR) over search engine ads without the searched for term embedded in them.

From the Microsoft Adcenter blog:

“With adCenter, the easiest way to include the search term is through {keyword} insertion. This function allows you to drop the term from the search box straight into your ad.”

If inserting the keyword will likely take an ad over its 25 character limit for titles or the 70 character limit for descriptions – use default text in the ad.

Default text is then used in advertiser’s ads whenever their ads would otherwise exceed character limits.

If an ad title is “30% off all {keyword} ” and one of the {keyword} variables is “Chrysanthemums,” the resulting ad title, “30% off all Chrysanthemums,” would exceed the character limit for ad titles and as a result, the ad would not be displayed.

However, by using default text in the ad title, advertisers can keep their ad text within the allowable character limit. If the ad title is “30% off all {keyword:Flowers} ” and someone searches by using the keyword “Chrysanthemums,” the ad title would be displayed as “30% off all Flowers”.

Adcenter Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Adcenter Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Use dynamic keyword insertion in conjuction with default text to increase ad relevance and increase paid search advertising click through rates.

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Posted in Ad Relevance, adCenter, Click Through Rates, CTR, Default Text, Dynamic Keyword Insertion, Microsoft, Paid Search | Leave a Comment »

Microsoft adCenter: No Cost Per Conversion Data

September 15, 2008

Is there a particular reason why the Microsoft adCenter doesn’t provide a cost per conversion column for its advertisers?

Microsoft adCenter Cost Per Conversion

Microsoft adCenter Cost Per Conversion

The Microsoft adCenter dashboard displays ad group name, ad group start date, ad group end date, status, spend, impressions, clicks, ctr %, average position, conversions, average cpc and negative keywords.

adCenter data does show number of conversions – just not their cost. This unnecessarily creates an extra level of interpretation and work for advertisers.

Why?

If an advertiser wants to manage and understand their advertising campaign’s effectiveness through cost per conversion data – Microsoft through its omission of this metric – leaves advertisers to make their own calculations… or not.

Is this a lack of transparency in Microsoft’s adCenter?

If it is, Microsoft’s not providing its advertisers with acquisition cost data makes calculating their return on investment more difficult.

Both Google and Yahoo supply this type of data.

Surely this is just an oversight on Microsoft’s part.

If it is an oversight, adding cost per conversion data in the Microsoft adCenter dashboard would help Microsoft’s advertisers understand more about their campaigns acquisition costs and in turn their return on investment from advertising with Microsoft.

Surely providing this data in column form would be in the best interest of both Microsoft and its advertisers.

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Posted in Ad Group, adCenter, Advertiser, Aquisition Costs, Average CPC, Clicks, Conversions, Cost Per Conversion, CTR, Impressions, Microsoft | Leave a Comment »

Microsoft adCenter Advertising

June 27, 2007

Microsoft adCenter advertises its search engine advertising products via Google Adwords.

I wonder how much money Microsoft spends with Google to promote their search engine advertising products?

Microsoft adCenter Google Adwords

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Posted in adCenter, Microsoft, Search Engine Advertising | Leave a Comment »