pubCenter Blog

Seven New Markets in pubCenter Now Live!

Avi Sagiv - MSFT — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:28:00 GMT

Following our previous post, we would like to announce the availability of seven new markets in pubCenter. This means that Windows Phone developers located in Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and Switzerland are now able to make money using the Microsoft Advertising solution.

Our goal is to help you make money using Microsoft Advertising Exchange which enables multiple ad networks to bid on the privilege to serve ads into your app. The Microsoft Advertising solution includes an ad control built right into the Windows Phone SDK (also available as a separate download); combined with pubCenter’s simple sign-up, reporting and automated payouts, we ensure a seamless experience. Once your app goes live in the marketplace and customers start to use it, you can watch your revenue grow.

Below is a list of all supported countries including minimum revenue amount required for payout. We are working hard to support more countries and plan to share more information as we get closer to the release date.

Thanks!

Avi Sagiv

New Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone - June 2011

Ron Grant - MSFT — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:06:00 GMT

Download the latest version of the Microsoft Advertising SDK from the Microsoft Download Center here.

Read the announcement on the PubCenter Forum.

You canalsofind the latest documentation in the MSDN Library.

Code samples to download are available for Silverlight and XNA:

Silverlight - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Advertising-SDK-for-855b2e37
XNA - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Advertising-SDK-for-91c0d463

Send us feedback (psupport@microsoft.com) -- it's how we improve. Tell us how to provide you the best way to make money from your Windows Phone apps.

And from the Ads SDK team, thank you for using Microsoft pubCenter and Microsoft’s Advertising SDK.

Two Ads on One Panorama Control (XAML)

Ron Grant - MSFT — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:08:00 GMT

This is a follow up to an earlier blog post of mine where I asked "can you have two different types of ads in one app?" The short answer is yes, you can have different ad units displaying different ads in your Windows Phone app.

UPDATE – As of October 20, 2011, the Terms of Service for pubCenter state:

7. PUBCENTER PROGRAMFOR APP DEVELOPERS. The following additional terms and conditions apply to Your display, in or on Your Apps, of advertising provided by pubCenter Program for App Developers:

(a) Your Apps may not display more than one advertisement (including both advertisements from the pubCenter Program for App Developers as well as other advertisements) at any time.

So the example in this exercise is for test mode only.

UPDATE – This post applies to XAML based apps. For XNA the issues are different. Poor or hindered performance and other framework issues make multiple ad scenarios difficult. Using more than one ad in any XNA application is not supported.

In fact, it can be done by adding two lines in MainPage.xaml – one for each ad.

To demonstrate this feature to myself, I created a new project that was a Windows Phone Panorama Application.

The XAML Visual Studio creates for the Panorama control with one StackPanel per page. Here’s the generated code for MainPage.xaml.

<controls:Panorama Title="my application">

<controls:Panorama.Background>

</controls:Panorama.Background>

<controls:PanoramaItem Header="first item">

<ListBox.ItemTemplate>

</StackPanel>

</DataTemplate>

</ListBox.ItemTemplate>

</ListBox>

</controls:PanoramaItem>

<controls:PanoramaItem Header="second item">

<ListBox.ItemTemplate>

</StackPanel>

</DataTemplate>

</ListBox.ItemTemplate>

</ListBox>

</controls:PanoramaItem>

</controls:Panorama>

So this code is already created for you by Visual Studio. Build it and run it in the emulator to get an idea of how the Panorama control works.

Before we can put ads in the app, there are three configuration tasks that have to be completed.

The first is to create a reference to the Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.UI. If you already have this reference in your project you can skip to the next task.

Configuration Task 1:

If you do not have a reference to Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.UI in the project, do that now. To do that follow steps 1 through 3 of this Walkthrough: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ff973753(v=MSADS.10).aspx.]

Configuration Task 2:

There needs to be room to show the ad on the Panorama pages. This will require completing two configuration tasks. For this configuration task, the bottom margin of each ListBox must be set to a value of 80 so there is room for the advertisement. Do that by finding the ListBox opening tag that looks like this:

For both Panorama pages (commented in the app as = and ) change the bottom margin to a value of 80. The open tag of each ListBox will look like

Configuration Task 3

The next configuration task that needs to be completed so there is space for the ads is to wrap the ListBox tags for each PanoramaItem with a StackPanel. To do this, after the openining tag of each PanoramaItem, create a new line and type <StackPanel>.

At this point Intellisense makes things a bit awkward by adding the end tag for the StackPanel right after the opening tag. A bunch of wavy lines under all of the XAML in the ListBox are trying to tell you that you have made a mistake.

Ingore that. Select all of the lines of XAML that make up the ListBox from the comment before the line <ListBox Margin="0,0,-12,0" ItemsSource="{Binding Items}"> to the end tag of the list box. Drag them between the StackPanel tags and drop them there. After that, move the cursor to the end of the start tag and hit enter so the comment line is located under the opening StackPanel tag. Do this again after the end tag for the ListBox so the end tag of the StackPanel is on its own line. Then press Ctrl+E, D. This will reformat the text so it looks well formed (or open the Edit menu and select Advanced and then Reformat Document).

Make sure you do this for both the first and second PanoramaItem.

Configuration Task 4

The AdControl namespace needs to be added to MainPage.xml. To do this, find the end of the listing for the XML namespaces. After those, insert a new line and type xmlns:my=.

Intellisense will add quotation marks after the equals sign. Click between the two quotation marks to move the cursor to that point and you will see a drop down box. Scroll down until you see the Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.UI namespace.

With that preparation done, you can place advertisements at the bottom of the page. After all those configuration tasks, you may want to take a break for a bit – stand up, get a drink, etc….

Moving on. To each PanoramaItem (the individual pages in the Panorama control), I added a different type of ad. The ad on the first page is an image ad. The ad on the second page is a text ad. This will demonstrate that your app is showing two different ads.

To insert the first advertisement, in Panorama item one ("first item"), find the end of the list box. This is the line of code around line 36 with the </ListBox> end tag. Immediately following that line of code is the stack panel end tag for that Panorama page, </StackPanel>.

You will put the AdControl between those two lines. Insert the following code between the end tag for the ListBox and the end tag for the StackPanel so it looks like this:

</ListBox>

<my:AdControl Height="75" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="0,0,0,0" Name="adControl1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="300" ApplicationId="test_client" AdUnitId="Image480_80"/>

</StackPanel>

You can run the app in the emulator now and see the test image ad.

Now, do the same thing for the Panorma item two. Find the end tag for the ListBox, </ListBox>. After that line (and before the end tag for the StackPanel) add the code for the AdControl so it looks like this:

</ListBox>

<my:AdControl Height="75" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="0,0,0,0" Name="adControl2" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="300" ApplicationId="test_client" AdUnitId="TextAd"/>

</StackPanel>

Build it, run it, and in the emulator click and hold on the first page and scroll it so the second page is visible. You can see the text ad.

That’s it. Two lines of XAML for two different ads.

I’m writing this series for two reasons: 1) we get many support questions about how this is done, and 2) since it raises support incident numbers, there is a credible argument for cutting this feature and lowering the functionality to meet that of the standard set by the competition.

I don’t want to see that happen, since multiple ads in an app is such an easy thing to do.

Don’t overthink the solution and don’t fight the XAML framework. I think many C# developers, most of whom use WinForms for their UIs, tend to fight the Silverlight framework. I did when I started working with XAML. Don’t do what I did. Let Silverlight take care of the UI, and you can focus on the important stuff – making an ad enabled app that makes you money.

How Many AdUnits Can I Have in My Windows Phone 7 App?

Ron Grant - MSFT — Fri, 27 May 2011 21:53:00 GMT

Can you have more than one ad unit in your app. Yes! Do competitors offer this feature? No.

Despite these facts, one of our highest ranked support issues is from app developers who ask:

Can I use the same AdUnit more than once in an app? Answer: Yes.
Can I have many different AdUnits in my app? Answer: Yes.
Do I have to have a different ApplicationId for each of my apps? Answer: Yes.
Do I have to have an ApplicationId for each of the AdUnits in my app? Answer: NO!

I sometimes think that this feature -- having multiple AdUnits in an app – can be confusing to understand simply because the standard, set by the competition, is that you can only have one ad in one app.

Having one ad in one app is easy to understand. The reality is though that having multiple ads in one app is just as easy to understand. So how do you have more than one ad in one app?

Let's start by clearing up some confusion. Forget about ApplicationId – ApplicationId has only one very important thing to do with ads. The ApplicationId tells Microsoft how much money you should be paid for showing advertisements. One way to think about it is that you can have an app that has an ApplicationId but has no AdUnits. However the opposite is not possible, you cannot have an AdUnit display ads in your app unless it has an ApplicationId provided by Microsoft pubCenter.

I will say one more thing about ApplicationId and then I'll follow my own advice, I will forget about ApplicationId . There is a one-to-one relationship between an ApplicationId and pubCenter. A one-to-one (1:1) relationship means that each ApplicationId relates to one, and only one record of your application in Microsoft pubCenter. When you register your app with Microsoft pubCenter your application gets a single ApplicationId.

So that is it. That is the only thing you need to know about an ApplicationId and how it relates to AdUnits. The takeaway, ApplicationId allows you to get paid, and has little to do with the number or placement of AdUnits in your app.

Now, forget about ApplicationId.

Apps have a one-to-many relationship with an AdUnit. A one-to-many (1:N) relationship means an app can contain zero, one, or many different AdUnits.

A single AdUnit can have criteria set up that eliminates the potential for showing an ad, so it will display 0 (zero) ads. An AdUnit can have criteria that restricts the universe of ads to be displayed to only one, or the criteria can be set so many different advertisements will be displayed.

Your app can have multiple AdUnits and each can be configured differently. Remember what an AdUnit is: an AdUnit is a request for ads that meet the criteria you specify. An AdUnit isn't an advertisement. An AdUnit is a container for the advertisements you want to show.

How many of these containers can you put in your apps? As many as you want. Can you use the same AdUnit more than once in an app, and in many different applications. Yes you can. It really is that simple.

Since an AdUnit can be used multiple times in multiple apps, AdUnits have a many-to-many (N:N) relationship with apps. That is, a single AdUnit can be in many different apps, and can be used many times in one or more apps.

For now, I'll leave implementation of multiple ads in an app as an exercise for the reader. Once you have had a chance to create multiple AdUnits and place those in an app, I will provide my simple C# examples of how to:

Use multiple AdUnits to display a text ad and an image ad in an application
Use the same AdUnit in an app more than once
Use the same AdUnit in multiple apps

Additonal Resources:

Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 Documentation on MSDN
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ff973757(v=MSADS.10).aspx)

Developing with the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 (links to walkthroughs that show how to put an ad in an app)
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ff973771(v=MSADS.10).aspx)

Microsoft Advertising pubCenter Maintenance 6/4 from 11AM-7 PM PDT

Ricky Poole - MSFT — Thu, 26 May 2011 19:00:00 GMT

On Saturday, June 4, 2011, pubCenter will be unavailable from approximately 11:00 AM PDT to 7:00 PM PDT for routine system maintenance. Users in all markets will be unable to access the pubCenter during this time. Please note that campaigns will continue to run normally. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Monetizing Windows Phone 7 Gaming Apps with Advertising

Jenifer Handler - MSFT — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft Advertising released an update to the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 to allow ad enabled mobile gaming apps. The Ad SDK is a single download that contains the Dynamic Linked Libraries (DLLs)/Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used to develop mobile apps using either the XNA Framework or Silverlight.

Mobile gaming developers can easily integrate banner or text ads into their Windows Phone 7 gaming apps while leveraging game-specific features like 3D graphics support, multiple graphic blend modes, built-in game loop and much more.

Together with real-time bidded, mobile ad exchange and best-in-class ad targeting for in-app ad solutions, Microsoft Advertising provides superior monetization opportunities including, enhanced ad relevance via best-in-class targeting, higher yields through real-time bidding from multiple sources of demand, easy integration of ads into mobile apps, and actionable reporting on how ads and apps are performing.

Getting started is simple and easy. If you are a US-based mobile gaming developer targeting the US market, you can get started in three easy steps:

Download the Ad SDK to build your app and run ads in test mode with no on-boarding. Go here to try out the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7.
Register your mobile app here. Sign up and register your Windows Phone 7 apps using Microsoft Advertising’s in-app solution for Windows Phone 7 publishers and app developers.
Implement and Submit. Set the Application Id and Ad Unit Id properties in the Ad Control and submit your ad-enabled app to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

For additional resources on our Mobile Ad SDK, please go here.

Sincerely,

Jen Handler

Register your Windows Phone 7 Apps with Microsoft Advertising’s solution for Publishers and App Developers

Raj Kapoor - MSFT — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:00:00 GMT

This is a popular post! If you want to speak to someone about Mobile, please Contact Us.

Today, we are launching the next phase of our Ads in Windows Phone 7 Apps program with the release of Microsoft Advertising’s solution for Windows Phone 7 publishers and app developers in the U.S. This solution provides self-service registration, account management, reporting and payout capabilities for Windows Phone 7 app developers, leveraging the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7.

To monetize Windows Phone 7 apps via a Microsoft Advertising solution, developers will need to register their applications, as well as download and integrate the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7, before submitting the app to Windows Phone Marketplace.

To get started, visit https://pubcenter.microsoft.com / and create an account using your Windows Live ID. Next, follow the simple self-guided on boarding process for app developers (Learn more). The easy self-service process includes steps to sign up, register mobile applications, create ad units and integrate the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 into your app.

By using the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7, developers can shorten their app development time and simplify inclusion of ads in their apps. Developers can use trusted developer tools like Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, to enable ads in mobile apps with “zero lines of code” and easily track mobile app advertising performance (e.g. in-app ad revenue, ad inventory, CPM and sell thru rate). Since its debut in mid-September, a large number of downloads of the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 have already been completed.

At this time, the Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 is only open to U.S. developers that plan to distribute Windows Phone 7 apps in the U.S.

To find additional information about Microsoft Advertising’s solutions for Windows Phone 7 publishers and app developers, we encourage you to visit http://advertising.microsoft.com/mobile-apps, email or visit the community once you have registered. Also, developers can download the free Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 here.

Follow us on Twitter and our Facebook Page and subscribe to the Microsoft Advertising Blog for all the latest news on AdWeek in New York City.

Check out our Advertising Week microsite and follow the action on your mobile device too: www.adwk.mobi.

Thanks,

Raj Kapoor

South By Southwest: Problogger Darren Rowse discusses upcoming edition of popular book for blog publishers

Chris Norred — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:37:00 GMT

Writers who are starting out to earn a living by publishing a blog today often include merchandising as a key part of their monetization plans and count less on contextual advertising than even 2 years ago.

Darren Rowse, the successful Australian blogger who publishes Problogger.net and the co-author with Chris Garrett of the book, ProBlogger, Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income, talked Friday about the upcoming re-release of his book and the changes in the industry since it was released in 2008.

Social media is more important as a promotion vehicle and as a monetization mechanism, Darren told the audience at South By Southwest in Austin. In addition to Problogger.net, Darren runs two sites, Digital Photography School and TwiTip – Twitter Tips

He and Garrett published their book in 2008 - mostly because they had written a lot about how to make money blogging. “Blogging about blogging is a little bit sad” Rowse joked. “We’d written a lot, but still had people coming asking how do you do it.”

The new edition of the book coming out next month will cover social media in depth and will add a case study based on the successful strategies Rowse used to build Digital Photography School into a business.

The first 2 years when he started Digital Photography School were spent building content. During that time, he learned the value of the most basic, beginner level content for a site. An article “how to hold a digital camera” which he was almost too embarassed to publish because it seemed to simple, turned out to be one of his most successful pieces.

Publishing tips:

Quantity of content – It’s about quality AND it is about quantity. Instead of 1 post a week, if you write 2 posts a day, at the end of a year, you will have 700 pages that searchers can find, and your community can share.
Promotion – Use all of the Web sites available to promote your content, don’t expect it to be found. “I promoted my content with 2 questions in mind: Who is the reader I want? Where are they gathering already? Rowse then started to participate in existing photography communities and established his credibility.
Building Community, and using the community to create content. Rowse started “Reader Workshops” in which his readers were asked to help with a Selected question. The content from those has become more popular than some of his blog content. The community also takes ownership and helps with such things as acquiring sponsors and advertisers.
Provide e-mail subscriptions. Rowse said his e-mail subscriptions are 3 times more popular than RSS subscriptions and in the book he covers how the emails are used to monetize his site.
Today, Rowse combines ad networks with direct advertising sales, affiliate commissions, merchandising, and with premium content such as e-books – his own and some for others – which provide a high profit margin.

A lot of things he tried when growing his blog into a publishing business did not work. “My philosophy is try as many things as you can, then build on what works.”

SXSW Presentation: Awkward Family Photos monetizing cheery “awkwardness”

Chris Norred — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:04:00 GMT

200 people a day from around the world now add their awkward family photos to the Web site started by Mike Bender and Doug Chenack, www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Mike and Doug talked about the past year since they hit on the idea during a visit home and saw their Web site turn into an overnight, viral sensation. Today, they’re drawing 100,000 unique users daily and 15 million impressions a month and turning the photo blog into a profit machine with on-site advertising, movie tie-ins, merchandising and a soon-to-be-published book.

I’m at South By Southwest this week and it’s a nonstop showcase for Web publishers who've turned great ideas into good businesses, mostly using advertising as an element.

Awkward Family Photos started last spring when Mike got the idea during a visit with his dad and the two friends started scouring the Internet to see if it might be fodder for a successful photo blog. They found 10 family photos in a little searching that captured the idea of “awkward” and the site was born.

A friend at a radio station posted a link to their site, and within a week, they were shocked to have a million impressions, phone calls requesting interviews from national TV and magazines, photo submissions pouring in from around the world, offers for business deals from rock bands, greeting card companies and book publishers.

The key, they said, is the awkwardness. “We wanted to encourage people to give us their private family photos. We both loved the word awkward. There’s no negative connotation. Everyone has had an awkward moment and we’re awkward people.”

Monetization Excellence Director Leading Course in Yield Management Best Practices

Chris Norred — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:27:00 GMT

James Deaker, director of publisher monetization excellence for Microsoft, will be leading a course for publishers March 25th in New York at the Interactive Advertising Bureau. He will be sharing best practices on pricing and inventory management.

At Microsoft, James leads a team that identifies best practices for monetizing Microsoft’s own web properties, such as MSN, and shares these with other publishing teams working on other Microsoft properties.

This area of business is becoming known as “yield management” and it’s important for publishers as you seek to sell more impressions, but also to sell impressions at the optimum rate and maximize your revenue. Most of our pubCenter BETA users have multiple sources of revenue, including direct sales and display advertising, the focus of James’ session.

The goal of the session will be to help publishers monetize sites more effectively. James will provide an overview of best practices for product definition, inventory forecasting, rate card development and pricing policies. The session will help you gain an understanding of the current state-of-the-art techniques, as well as analytical skills for improving the revenue from your site.

To learn more or register: March 25 – Best Practices in Yield Management – Taught by James Deaker, director of Microsoft Advertising Monetization Excellence.

pubCenter Beta Users: Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Agreement Cleared

Chris Norred — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:27:00 GMT

pubCenter beta participants were sent e-mail today with info about the progress with the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance. Read Microsoft VP Darren Huston's Thoughts on the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance and read the update from Carolyn on the adCenter Blog. Visit the Search Alliance site at www.searchalliance.com for answers to FAQs and additional detail. Thank you for using the community,

-Chris

Community Program Manager

Updates to the pubCenter BETA in the new release

Chris Norred — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:43:00 GMT

The release announced today on the adCenter platform includes a host of feature updates in response to customer feedback. While adCenter users get the most dramatic new features, our pubCenter beta testers will also notice some changes in the self-service web site.

The first thing you will notice is the pubCenter beta now provides Windows Live ID sign-in. If you have been visiting the site infrequently, you might have needed help with your password from time to time. Now, Windows Live ID handles your password. You can reset it using the secret answer or e-mail process link on any Windows Live ID Sign-in page.

When you next sign in, follow the steps to associate your pubCenter ID with your Windows Live ID. If you need a new Windows Live ID, you can get one quickly at https://signup.live.com

The move to Windows Live ID also makes it easier for users to participate in our online community. . Register for the private forums by following the instructions in the pubCenter beta help documentation: Register for the pubCenter community.

Then you can participate in the forums, asking questions of our most experienced beta users without having to sign in with a new password.

You’ll also see a new design for reporting. Your feedback from discussions in our community shaped these changes, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts on them.

Message Center

We’re especially excited to announce the message center. Now, you’ll get updated alerts about your account, news about the beta, and FAQs about pubCenter, all within the website UI. It’s a tremendous convenience to have this content just a click away – and we’ll continue to add helpful advice from the pubCenter BETA team, and from other testers who participate in the community.

These updates bring us closer to many of our goals, but we understand there is still a lot of work to be done. We appreciate all the input and feedback we’ve received and the persistent contributions of our beta community.

-Chris

pubCenter advertiser site bidding—questions and answers to how you can use advertiser site bidding to try and improve your business.

Harlan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:16:00 GMT

An excellent post was developed on site bidding, which generated some conversation and questions. Advertiser site bidding, a relatively new feature in pubCenter, provides a great opportunity for publishers to promote their site to advertisers, allowing advertisers to bid directly on their property. Here are some common questions/answers to help explain advertiser site bidding.

So, how do you see advertiser site bidding helping your business?

Q: What is site bidding?

A: Site Bidding is a way for publishers to realize more revenue by allowing advertisers to bid directly on their site. We have re-architected our network so that participation in the network means that you are visible to our advertisers. Advertisers can then use the Publisher Placement Performance report to see their performance on your site. In order for advertisers to bid directly on your site, they must be willing to bid higher and they must maintain relevancy to your site and to your advertiser exclusion preferences.

Q: Why should I use site bidding?

A: Site Bidding gives publishers a mechanism to create greater demand and increase yield for their site by allowing advertisers to bid directly on their websites. Site bidding means that advertisers are willing to bid more to appear on websites that perform well and/or are content-rich with audiences that match advertiser demand.

Q: How do I participate in site bidding?

A: When you participate in the pubCenter Beta program, you are automatically opted-in to Site Bidding. Publishers have the option to opt-out through the user interface.

Q: What if I am a new site or new to pubCenter?

A: All publishers who participate in the pubCenter Beta program are automatically opted-in to Site Bidding.

Q: How will advertisers find me?

A: Advertisers review their Publisher Placement Performance report, from that report they can find your site. They can search for your site through the adCenter user interface and select it and place a bid.

Q: What is the impact on ad relevance? What safeguards are in place to ensure that the ads served to my site are relevant?

A: Site Bidding does not have an impact on the current safeguards for ad relevance.

Q: How does site bidding work with existing filters that I have applied to my account?

A: Site bidding honors all existing filters.

Q: What if I don't want a specific advertiser to bid on my site?

A: Advertiser exclusions will continue to work in the same way.

How was your OOBE? Program Manager testing the scenario: pubCenter beta onboarding for a new publisher using non-MSFT blogging tools

Mick Gupta - MSFT — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:41:00 GMT

As a member of the pubCenter team from day one, it was embarrassing to not own a website till last week. Now, as a new blogger, I’ve just started showing beautiful pubCenter ads on my personal blog: http://micksalot.blogspot.com/. Impressive how I’ve already graduated to become an unabashed blogger happy to gain page rank benefits from the forum, no?

My non-Microsoft blogging software (Blogger) integrates with pubCenter to receive targeted ads through an AdRotator (to test various ad unit look and feel styles). It worked seamlessly and I was up and running within an hour. I ran into a couple of editorial issues but rest assured we’re already working on smoothing them out so you won’t have to face them! However, as a longtime pubCenter employee, I already know every nook and cranny in the system. I’m keen to hear what your on-boarding experience (or in the offline world: OOBE-out of box experience) was like. For most customers a new product means spending lots of time confused and/or overwhelmed around how to achieve their simple goal (in this case: just give me an ad!). On the other hand, if your first 5 minutes with pubCenter was exciting and straightforward, like getting a shiny new toy in the mail, even better—I’d love to hear that.

So, please tell me, what was your first interaction with pubCenter like? Were you able to signup and get into the web site easily? Once in, were you confused? Or did you find it easy creating an ad unit for your site with your ad serving preferences? Did you have any trouble getting the ads to show up, viewing/interpreting ad performance, or getting paid? My goal is to understand the first major glitch you hit in those first few days with pubCenter and went: how in the world can I accomplish this simple task? Please let us know so we can make the system more intuitive and user friendly for you!

Microsoft pubCenter browser compatibility with the UI and ad serving

Harlan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:49:00 GMT

The other day I was speaking with my sister and our conversation was on her son and his eating habits. You see my nephew is 2 years old and he thinks everything goes together with ice cream, or at least he used to think that way until a trip to the doctor. Sure sprinkles and ice cream are his favorite, but he will tell you “ Docta say no nuts. No nuts til 3. Spikles only.” This made me realize that no matter how much we want things to go together, they are not always compatible.

Lately there has been some discussion regarding pubCenter (BETA) and browser compatibility. Do keep in mind that pubCenter supports ad delivery in the majority of Java Script enabled browsers. However the pubCenter UI, is currently not supported in Chrome, Safari or Opera, which compose roughly 1.6% of all browsers in use*. This means when using these browsers you may experience sign-in problems. For best results, when accessing the pubCenter UI, it is best to use Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox 3.0.

What has been your browser experience with pubCenter? Have you come across any UI features that don’t seem compatible?

Thanks for your thoughts! Now who wants some ice cream?

-Harlan

*Forrester Research, 2008 Browser Adoption