More and more adCenter advertisers are discovering the adCenter Add-in Beta for Excel 2007, a unique toolset available for free from Microsoft adCenter that allows unparalleled visibility into the performance potential for your keyword list. The impact it can have on your paid search optimization efforts can be significant.

While there have been posts in the past regarding its use for keyword discovery and expansion, I'd like to share a couple of quick and easy uses of the Keyword Monetization module that can help inform your optimization efforts.

The first step I'd recommend taking is making sure your settings will give you the most granular information. Start by selecting the 'Options' button in tool ribbon. Next, select 'Monetization' from the menu on the left, and make sure your have 'all' selected.

Next, highlight the keyword(s) that you’d like to optimize and select ‘Monetization’ from the drop down menu as show below.

The tool will return impression, click, clickthrough rate (CTR) and average CPC data for each match type and position available based on the keyword’s historic performance over a trailing 30 day period.

Now run a keyword performance report in adCenter that covers the same time period, and you can compare your keyword metrics against the overall auction’s performance. Some ways in which you can use this data are:

• Match type analysis: Are you only bidding on Exact match? There may be significant opportunity to increase your ad distribution by bidding on Phrase and Broad match types.
• Bid analysis: How much should you increase your bids to reach a desired position? Please note, the CPC’s indicated above are the actual amount paid by advertisers when their ads are clicked on, not the bid amount they’ve set for that keyword. You’ll want to build in a ‘cushion’ on your bids to ensure your ads get to the desired position.
• CTR analysis: Take a look at your individual keyword’s performance against the same match type and position on this report. Is it on par with the auction overall? If it is lower than that of the auction, there may be room for improvement of your ad copy.

Of course, these are only a few of the ways in which you can leverage the data to squeeze the most efficiency out of your adCenter account -- stay tuned for more Add-In tips and tricks in the weeks and months to come.  As always, if you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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