We all know that adCenter Desktop is a great tool for saving time and allowing you to make bulk changes to your PPC campaigns. Here are three easy to remember tips that will help you use the adCenter Dekstop tool quickly and efficiently, maximising the benefits to your account.

1. Check For Errors

Advertisers sometimes see an 'internal error' when trying to upload new items through the adCenter Desktop tool. Although the error message may not tell you exactly where you have gone wrong, it is usually caused by a simple mistake. It is important to check each tab in the 'manager pane' for any highlighted errors before uploading - the stage at which the upload fails can also help you pinpoint where any potential errors may be.

Remember that if a campaign fails to upload, none of the ad groups, ads or keywords will upload either. To avoid the two most common causes for 'error' messages:

· Make sure campaign budgets are not set to £0

· Ensure that campaign and ad group negatives do not exceed 1022 characters. clip_image002

If you have lots of items in an account, an easy way to check through them is to select 'view errors' from the drop down in the top right hand corner of the manager pane.

clip_image004

 

2. Check Status Column on Import Sheet:

The second issue we have come across occurs when using an account export to update items. When an account is exported to Excel, all associated statuses are too. However, adCenter Desktop only recognises three statuses when uploading - 'Active', 'Paused' and 'Deleted'.

Importing keywords as 'disapproved' for example will mean that keyword/ad changes can be viewed on the 'preview pane' but do not import correctly onto the 'manager pane'. Below are some more examples of incorrect statues, so be sure to change any of these to either Active or Paused before importing your bulk sheet.

clip_image006

3. Uploading Third Party accounts

The adCenter Desktop tool has a great functionality for allowing the upload of third party accounts directly into adCenter. However, the difference in the way ads/keywords are tracked between the engines means that you need to make a small change to the sheet before importing.

adCenter defaults all destination URLs to the ad level unless you specify {param1} on the ad destination URL and put the tracking URL at keyword level in the param1 column.

1. Simply create a new column called 'param1' on the upload sheet and move all the keyword URLs into this column

2. Change all URLs at ad level to read '{param1}'

clip_image008

Thanks for reading and I hope you have found these tips useful.

Sean

For more in-depth resources and tutorials please visit the adCenter Desktop page on the Microsoft Advertising site.