Transition Complete: Troubleshooting Campaign Performance Questions in Microsoft Advertising adCenter

So here we are, winter is approaching, the clocks have been moved back an hour for daylight savings time and your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns have transitioned to adCenter. While most of you should have had a relatively easy and smooth transition experience, others have needed to contact support for assistance in troubleshooting performance issues.

With that in mind, I wanted to drop in to offer some quick tips that may help you troubleshoot some of the more common scenarios for newly transitioned accounts.

Problem: Your budget has run out sooner than expected, causing your ads to stop serving.

Solution: Increase your budget. With the increased volume in the combined Yahoo! and Bing marketplace, you may find that the budget that once carried you through to the end of the month is no longer sufficient to keep your ads live during this same time period; you could exhaust your funds before the end of the month and stop receiving traffic.  If this happens, you should increase your monthly budgets in order to meet the demand for your keywords. 

Problem: Your ads are showing poor to no impressions and/or clicks, though everything appears to be live.

Solution: Run a keyword performance report to check your position and adjust your bids as necessary. As new advertisers begin to compete in the adCenter auction, bid prices could be affected by more advertisers bidding on the same keywords. Monitor how your bid prices affect your ad position, adjust your bids as necessary, and set incremental bids to help meet your ROI goals.

NOTE: If either of the first two scenarios above are applicable to you, you may want to review the budgeting and bidding guidance posted to the adCenter Blog in the weeks leading up to the ad serving transition:

Yahoo! and Bing: 5 Tips to Optimize Bids and Budgets

Optimize Your Ads for Yahoo and Bing Now

Four PPC Tips to Get Your Campaigns Ready for the Bing and Yahoo! Search Transition

Yahoo! Ad Serving is Shifting to Microsoft Advertising adCenter Now... Are You Ready?

Feature Comparison Series: Budgeting, Bidding and Billing in Microsoft Advertising adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing

Bidding on Bing and Yahoo! Search and Partner Sites in Microsoft Advertising adCenter

Problem: Your need to differentiate traffic coming from Yahoo! and Bing sites versus syndicated search partner sites.

Solution: Use the enhanced search network distribution controls to create separate ad groups for ads that show exclusively on Yahoo! and Bing sites versus our syndicated search partner sites. Since performance may differ across these two segments, separating the ad groups will allow you to adjust keywords, bids, and ad copy to maximize your search marketing ROI for the different distribution channels.

Problem: Campaigns that had been performing well on Yahoo! Search Marketing aren’t doing as well in adCenter.

Solution: Monitor performance as you would for newly-created campaigns to find that ROI "sweet spot". The auction may take some time to reach a natural balance after Yahoo! ad traffic is supplied by Microsoft adCenter. Take an active role in the day-to-day activity of your campaigns and modify your campaigns to reach your desired performance results. Consider expanding your keyword list or bidding by match type.

If you suspect that your keyword list may need a tune up in light of the new combined marketplace, this step-by-step guide may be helpful:

1. Run a keyword report in adCenter to identify keywords with high impression volume but low CTR.

· Filter ad distribution for just search.

· Pick a date range that will give you enough data to be reliable yet current.

· Important: Add the columns for “Bid match type” and “Ad group item ID” (keyword ID). This allows you to make your edits right in the report and use it to create a bulksheet for uploading into adCenter Desktop.

· If the account is too large, start with a campaign report to
identify just the top-impression campaigns.

2. Create a “status” column so you can turn your report
into a bulk upload sheet for the desktop tool.

3. Sort by Impressions. Filter for anything with less than 1% CTR.

4. Delete the obviously bad keywords. Status on upload sheet = Deleted  Here’s an example of a bad keyword that is not only irrelevant but would also result in poor ad copy if using dynamic keyword insertion:

5. Investigate the poor-performing but relevant keywords

· Is broad match the culprit? Run a query report to see what to add to your list of negative keywords.

· Is the ad worded awkwardly? Try changing from {keyword} insertion to {param2} and update the keyword’s param2 to make more sense in the ad.

6. Upload your changes into adCenter Desktop

· Make sure you at least have the following columns in your spreadsheet:

These columns are all required and will give you a “duplicate keyword” error if you forget a column. Also make sure that Status is “Deleted” not “Delete”

· Separate out each account that you’re working on into different files.

· Save as CSV.

· Use the “Import” button in adCenter Desktop

· Select “Import from Microsoft adCenter”

· Make sure that the columns in the screenshot above all match up properly in the import wizard. It’s OK if other columns don’t match up, so long as you aren’t trying to edit those columns.

· Once you have completed the import wizard, synch your changes.

If you need additional campaign assistance, visit the QuickLaunch (for new advertisers) and Performance Improvement (for existing advertisers)pages on the Microsoft Advertising site.

If none of the above is helpful to you, please either post your question in our forums, or else contact support via phone or email.

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