Search results matching tag 'Categories:Advertisers:adCenter'

Feedback and Feature Requests: Share Your Thoughts and Help Us Improve Microsoft adCenter

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:00:00 GMT

If you're a regular reader of the adCenter Blog--and if so, you rock!--you know that periodically we pop up to ask for feedback on how we're doing. Your feedback is crucial for us to help bubble up pain points, feature requests and give visibility to your thoughts on adCenter and how we can improve it. If you'd like to share what's on your mind, you can...

1.) Use the adCenter Feedback Form, simply enter your feedback and/or feature requests, and click "Submit".

2.) Add your thoughts to the adCenter Feedback & Feature Request Thread on our discussion forums; share your ideas and see what others are saying.

Keep in mind that the more specific the information you provide is, the more helpful it will be. Telling us that you’re unhappy or frustrated with something is the first step, but if you can detail why you feel this way and provide some examples of things that could be done to remedy the issue, that could go a long way in helping us understand how to best address the issue.

Your feedback is directly tied to the changes and upgrades made to adCenter; it plays a big role in how features are prioritized for future releases and informs the development of time-saving tools like Microsoft Advertising Intelligence, the Ad Preview Tool and adCenter Desktop^Beta.

Thanks to all of you who have sent us your comments, suggestions and feature requests in the past… keep ‘em coming!

Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook

adCenter Desktop Beta 7.4 Update Release Notes (July 2010)

Adib Kadir - MSFT — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:29:00 GMT

This update for adCenter Desktop includes several fixes:

Fixed: FR/UK users receiving errors on application startup after upgrading.
Fixed: Users unable to subscribe to different accounts with the same name under the same customer.
Fixed: “Internal error” when uploading account with too many editorial rejections.
Fixed: Agency users suffering application crash when clicking copy to Excel or when trying to export account.
Fixed: Some agency users receiving "Target ID is invalid" error when uploading new targets.
Fixed: Validation error after importing large numbers of ads/keywords into very large accounts.

This update also includes new updates to the import feature:

The Import Summary filter is being added for better visibility of your imported items. The Import Summary filter is an additional item in the "view" drop down menu that filters the grid to show only items recently imported. This view is helpful for reviewing and checking the items recently imported, for errors and consistency. After importing files into the desktop, the view will automatically switch to the “last import” view to allow you to quickly see the items you’ve imported and any potential issues that may have occurred.

Note: With this upgrade you will find Desktop tool at industry parity for market and language neutral exports and imports, making it easy to exchange MSN/Google bulksheets. Any French files previously exported from FR version of Desktop (before installing the July upgrade) will not be usable for Desktop imports after you install the July upgrade. You should create new exports after installing the upgrade for a smooth experience.

Users who are unable to launch the desktop or upgrade will need to uninstall the desktop and re-install it from the following location:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=164973&clcid=0x409

Share your questions or comments in the Desktop Forum.

Get Great Digital Ideas from our US and EMEA Creative Showcase

Mel Carson - MSFT — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:51:00 GMT

Bereft of digital ideas? Looking for some creative inspiration?

Check out our brand new Creative Showcase. You’ll get to experience a full range of digital experiences and creative executions – from simple banners to innovation multi-screen campaigns.

You can search campaigns by top verticals, ad formats, countries and properties.

If you’re looking for something specific, use the search bar. Or simply select see all to visually browse the thumbnails for whatever looks interesting.

Each campaign includes a short description with insight into the advertiser’s brand, their communication challenges, the campaign implementation or other helpful information.

Click through to view our US Sizzle Reel video highlighting some of the more innovative Microsoft Advertising campaigns we’ve put together in partnership with brands and agencies.

If you’re not based in America, our team in London has compiled an EMEA Creative Showcase with their own video featuring Creative Digital Advertising Ideas.

Look for new and exciting campaigns from Advertisers and Rich Media Vendors to be added to the showcases each month.

Pretty groovy huh? Do let us know what you think!

Cheers

Mel

adCenter Reports Delayed

Jeff Dillon - MSFT — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:24:00 GMT

Due to back end server processing, our reports may be delayed today (Sunday July 25) and should be available early tomorrow morning. This would affect reports via both the API and web UI. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We will post additional information here when available.

Jeff Dillon, API Support

SEM Advanced Series: Budget Optimization – Daily Budget Goal

Kim Farmer - MSFT — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:00:00 GMT

This is the 3rd post in the SEM Advanced Series, a continuation of the SEM Intermediate Series and SEM Beginner Series. These posts are intended for search engine marketing professionals looking for guidance in monitoring and adjusting the key performance indicators (KPIs) that determine the success of a PPC campaign.

For the last installment of this series on budgeting, we’ll be covering the Daily Budget Goal option in budget setting, looking at the same questions we asked in the introduction post. The Daily Budget Goal is basically setting a monthly maximum budget and then telling adCenter what you’d ideally like each day to attain. This can be beneficial for certain goals, which I’ll elaborate on below. Keep in mind that if you set your daily target for lower than your monthly maximum budget you will not receive any error in adCenter; this is important because you could be limiting your budgets. If you have a $1000 monthly budget, but only $25/day daily target, you’re essentially only using 75% of your budget each month.

Fitting Your Business Goals

Results Driven: With this setting you have a specific target you’d like to attain each day. As a best practice you should always be pulling budget reports to see how you’re landing against this goal. If you are going into budget pause, this could be a good move to rethink the other budget types or assign a higher budget for these particular campaigns

- Optimization Suggestions:
  - Be sure that you’re running keyword performance reports and optimizing the keywords to your ROI goals. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence can help you devise bids and understand the auction on particular keywords.
  - You can also run a search query report to devise negative keywords to qualify the traffic you’re receiving. Implementing negative keywords helps ensure that the traffic coming to your website is better qualified and therefore, more likely to convert.
  - If you’re looking for conversions, enable our conversion tracking to make optimization easier.

Branding: For branding campaigns with limited budgets this is a way to optimize to a daily amount. Be sure to pull budget reporting to make sure you are live at the best times for your brand.

- Optimization Suggestions:
  - Run a budget report to see if more reallocation of budget is necessary. For brand advertisers this is the most vital campaign to have live at all times. This reporting will tell you when you’re being paused so you can optimize from there.
  - Keep a careful eye on when your ads are most profitable, you can add additional targeting by geographic location or demographic to qualify and optimize for the leads you have coming in. For example, if you are only able to ship to certain states, or appeal to a certain demographic more often than others.
  - Remember: Be mindful not to over-target your potential consumers with branding campaigns; you’d be surprised how many times your perceived and actual demographics vary. Pull data to make sure this is correct.

Lead Generation: If you are looking to spend a specific amount per day on lead generation for your business make sure that you’re revisiting your results regularly and analyzing the traffic you’re receiving to effectively use your budget.

- Optimization Suggestions:
  - Run a budget report to see if more movement of budget is necessary to meet your lead goals. This reporting will tell you when you’re being paused so you can optimize from there.
  - When do your leads come in? If you have conversion tracking enabled, analyze when you’re getting the most leads. For example, if the weekends are really slow, it might be more beneficial to allocate budget to Mon-Fri traffic instead, or target a certain time frame during the day and exclude another (Use Demographic Targeting - Is it right for you? by Rob to help).

I hope that you’ve found a lot of value in this series. Please be sure to read through the others if you're just catching this for the first time. We’ve examined Spend Until Depleted and Divide Across Month, as well as looking at some questions to ask yourself before setting your budgets up. Good luck!

Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook

Installing adCenter Desktop With Elevated Privileges

Adib Kadir - MSFT — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:01:00 GMT

In organizations where users are not the administrators of their computers, there are several methods of elevating the adCenter Desktop installation:

Log on to the computer as an administrator and install adCenter Desktop.
Use Group Policy software installation and management to assign or publish adCenter Desktop.
Use a software management tool, such as Microsoft Systems Management Server, in an administrative context.
Setting the Windows Installer policy Always install with elevated privileges allows a user without administrator rights to the computer to install any Windows Installer package.

To allow users with limited permissions to install and update adCenter Desktop Enable the Always install with elevated privileges Windows Installer policy under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Installer and Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Installer.

Celebrity Video from Dougray Scott’s Leuka Charity Golf Day Sponsored by Bing

Mel Carson - MSFT — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:02:13 GMT

It’s not often Hollywood comes to Chiswick in West London. But last Friday it did just that!

Last week, I wrote that we’d been honoured to sponsor Dougray Scott’s Mini Masters golf tournament in aid of the charity Leuka.

It was a fantastic day filled with great humour, fabulous music from the likes of James Walsh and The View, plus some superb (and not so superb) golf from the celebrities and their teams that Dougray had assembled.

In the video we chat to Hugh Grant, James Nesbitt, Tim Henman, Damian Lewis, Tim Lovejoy, Phil Glenister, Mark Nicholas, Rob Brydon and Gianluca Vialli.

All were terrific sports, telling me how they got involved with Dougray’s charity, and answering the Binging question:

“What’s the best decision you’ve ever made?”

Quite fascinating responses, so watch on!

Thanks to the organisers for inviting us along, and we look forward to doing it all again next year!

FORE!!!

Mel

Microsoft Starts Testing on Yahoo! in Mid-July

Carolyn Miller - MSFT — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:28:00 GMT

As we continue to make progress implementing various aspects of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, our two companies continue to work together towards the goal of providing a quality transition experience for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, while being mindful of the holiday season. An important part of our approach is to do the necessary tests to help ensure all of our systems and processes are in place.

In mid-July, we began testing the delivery of organic results from Bing to Yahoo! Search, which may gradually increase to up to 25% of Yahoo! Search traffic. We also began testing the delivery of paid search results from Microsoft Advertising adCenter to Yahoo! Search which began with a small percentage of traffic and may increase to include up to 2.5% - 3.5% of live Yahoo! Search traffic in the U.S.

For adCenter advertisers in the U.S., this means you may see some increases in traffic for your search campaigns. Since this test is limited to just a small percentage of up to 2.5% - 3.5% of live Yahoo! Search traffic, we are not anticipating any significant changes to your expected performance, however you may see some fluctuations in volume as adCenter experiences Yahoo! traffic for the first time. Testing will continue throughout the summer and then volume will gradually increase as we transition. Since the traffic percentages are small, advertisers should not draw any conclusions from what they observe during these tests, as the results may not be indicative of the future marketplace with full Yahoo! volume.

As a routine best practice, we recommend that you closely monitor your budgets during this test phase and prepare to increase your spend if your budget is within a 20% range of being fully depleted.

Please remember that, if we feel that it would improve the overall experience, we may defer the transition to 2011.

Additional Q & A

How will this paid search testing impact my adCenter account?
As an adCenter advertiser, this means you may see some increases and fluctuations in the volume of traffic for your search ads during this test. As a routine best practice, we recommend that you closely monitor your budgets during this test phase and prepare to increase your spend if you budget is within a 20% range of being fully depleted.

What Yahoo! sites will be included in this paid search test?
Initially, the paid search test will be on a small percentage of traffic from Yahoo! Search.

Why does my publisher placement report in adCenter show my ads are serving on Yahoo! sites?
Yahoo! Network sites may be temporarily showing on your publisher placement report in adCenter due to the paid search test we are conducting with a small percent of Yahoo! Network traffic. Since this is a system test and not marketplace calibration, the performance seen within the publisher placement reports will not be indicative of the future unified search marketplace performance with full Yahoo! Network volume.

Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook

Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance News: Editorial Guideline Updates (US and Canada)

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:00:00 GMT

The upcoming Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is without a doubt one of the most exciting changes I’ve seen in the search engine marketing (SEM) industry since I started working in it back in 2005. Although I’m looking forward to seeing how this new partnership will alter the SEM landscape, there’s no doubt Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! advertisers alike are looking at the not-too-distant future with a skeptical eye and want as much transparency as possible when it comes to knowing what’s coming, when and why. We were recently given some information on how the new, hybrid Editorial Guidelines are shaping up, and so in the spirit of providing that transparency, we wanted to pass that info along to all of you.

The new Editorial Guidelines combine the best of both search providers’ network quality policies, resulting in not only more effective ads, but also helping to create a safer search marketplace for the growing Bing and Yahoo! Search audience of 158 million searchers¹ in the U.S. and 15 million in Canada¹. Below is a brief summary of the editorial changes adCenter advertisers can expect to see implemented over the next few months, starting in August.

NOTE: As the new guidelines take effect, there may be slight delays in getting your ads live. Be sure to load your keywords and ads in advance so that they have time to undergo editorial review.

New Additions to Disallowed Content

Electronic cigarettes – if you’re currently running adCenter campaigns that advertise electronic cigarettes, these will soon join the list of disallowed products on adCenter.

Usenet content – while you’ll still find Usenet results in the organic listings on Bing, the PPC advertising of Usenet content will no longer be allowed once these new changes roll out.

Other Policy Changes

Privacy Policy – if you collect any personally identifiable information from visitors to your site, make sure you’re in compliance with the updated privacy policy.

Pharmacy and Prescription Only Medications – sellers of prescription drugs online should review this policy for applicability to their campaigns.

Ads and Content / Relevancy and Quality – it’s always a best practice to make sure you’re following these consolidated rules and tips to set your ads up for success in adCenter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I disagree with disapproval in my account, how can I get this changed?

A: If you feel strongly that your ad or keywords were disapproved incorrectly, you can attempt to appeal the decision. The adCenter customer support team responds to all appeals as quickly as possible; however, the appeal process may take as many as 10 business days. Please note that if your appeal is denied, that decision is final.

Q: What can I do now to prepare for these changes and avoid downtime?

A: Review the updated Editorial Guidelines to see if your ads and keywords may be affected.

Q: How do I know if my account is affected by the new editorial guidelines?

A: Review the updated Editorial Guidelines to see if your ads and keywords may be affected. Over the coming weeks, if your accounts are affected you may notice new disapprovals in your account. If your campaigns have been affected by the new Editorial Guidelines, use the Ads and Keywords Disapprovals Tool to help manage your disapprovals and get your ads live.

If you have questions that aren’t answered here, leave a comment below or visit our forums and post your question there; Microsoft staff will address your questions or comments in either spot.

¹comScore qSearch May 2010

Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook

The One Stop Shop for Common Microsoft adCenter Help and Resources Links (Part I of II)

Jeremy Lamothe - MSFT — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:00:00 GMT

As we all know, Bing and Microsoft Advertising have hundreds of resources and help tutorials all over the internet to help you, the advertiser, learn more about our product offerings and how you can be successful online marketers.

In an effort to help save you valuable time, I have provided a list of organized adCenter help and resource links to assist you including editorial guidelines, bulk management tools, video tutorials, Bing resources and Yahoo-Microsoft Search Alliance updates…

Microsoft adCenter FAQ & Help

- Editorial Guidelines

- Trademark Policy

- Available adCenter Reports

- Available adCenter Report Attributes

- How to Schedule a Report

- Create & Change adCenter Performance Alerts (ensure your email is correct by clicking “My Settings” in upper right hand corner in adCenter UI when logged in)

- adCenter Conversion Tracking

Bulk Management & Optimization Tools

- Microsoft adCenter Desktop

- Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI)

- Microsoft adCenter Desktop & MAI Video Tutorials

- Microsoft adCenter Labs

- adCenter Ad Preview Tool

Microsoft Advertising (Official Site)

- adCenter Learning Center

- adCenter Best Practices

- Case Study Research Library

- Microsoft adExcellence Certification

Stay Informed

- Microsoft adCenter Community (Official Blog)

- Microsoft adCenter Community Forums

- Microsoft adCenter Summer 2010 Upgrade: New Features

- Microsoft-Yahoo Search Alliance

Get to Know Bing

- Bing Community (Official Blogs)

- Bing Toolbox

- Webmaster Center

This list of links is only the tip of the iceberg! In the next couple of weeks, I will be posting a comprehensive list of best practice optimization links including various adCenter blog posts. Best practice topics include budgeting, match types, mobile, content, keywords, ads, account structure, targeting and niche verticals.

What best practices would you like to see included in the link list? What types of information do you find yourself taking too much time to find? Until next time!

Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook