Microsoft adCenter Articles by SEO Speedwagon

September 25, 2006

MSN adCenter Editorial Review, Review

I have noticed an interesting trend with MSN adCenter’s editorial review process. It appears that although keywords are accepted immediately upon entry, they go through a lengthy review process.

Now with lengthy, I don’t necessarily mean extensive. The only thing I’ve been able to confirm is that it can take 30-45 days for this process to take place. Whether that’s because it’s an extensive process or just because it takes them that long to get around to it I haven’t been able to confirm.

When I called in and inquired about this my question was not answered directly. I was able to find out that a computer or a human could be reviewing the keywords. If it’s a computer taking this long to do it, it makes me wonder about the backend infrastructure that they have in place at adCenter. Of course it could just be that a certain percentage of their servers are experiencing the ‘blue screen of death’ at any given point in time….

Okay, okay that was a low blow so I’ll move on and keep the focus on the editorial process.

The other thing I’ve noticed about adCenter review is the downright flood of ‘Editorial Action Notices’ that come in to my inbox during this period of time. It would be much appreciated if these could be aggregated for many reasons, not the least of which is trying to go through each one to track it down and remedy it individually.

Overall the editorial review process isn’t bad, I just think it’s showing it’s age. Or put into other words, it’s immaturity. Editorial review is a good thing, and a necessary part of our working environment. Let’s just try to keep the time focused on making quality revisions and not on tracking down each individual discrepancy 30-45 days after it was in the forefront of our minds.

MSN adCenter Editorial Review, Review
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May 05, 2006

Microsoft adCenter – A “First Eyes� Look

The term “first eyes� that is used quite frequently in the insurance realm refers to what people notice the first time they walk through your building. It is something that is very valuable for noticing things that you may have become used to because you look at the same scenery day in and day out. I’ve recently become on of the last of the select group of 6000+ advertisers who were invited to use adCenter before it was recently opened up to everyone, and I’d like to give all of you a “first eyes� impression of the site.

You never have a second chance to make a first impression….
My initial impressions are that of a clean interface that is responsive and informative, albeit a little frustrating to learn and sometimes even understand what they are trying to tell me.

Submitting orders….
Submitting an order was a pretty straightforward process. However, I would love to see from adCenter a disclaimer before you start telling you what you are going to need to accomplish this. They ask for basically everything from keywords to credit card information all on the “first date�. In my opinion that’s a lot of information to have all ready to go at once. I also found it a little frustrating to try to make campaign-wide changes through this process and kept getting error messages that I was doing it the wrong way. I was impressed with the built-in basic demographic choices that they allow you to make. Demographical targeting is the holy grail of PPC and this is a good start towards getting people accustomed to thinking in these terms. I’m sure they will continue to get even more advanced as data accumulates.

Research….
Perhaps the funniest, er….best part of the adCenter is the research. Although I enjoyed reviewing it, I’m not sure I trust it completely. With 5 basic trending breakdowns for the keywords you are researching it sure does offer a lot of information. The five are Traffic, Age and Gender, Geography, Wealth Index, and Lifestyle. It was the last two that caught my eye. In Wealth Index there was just something about the terms “Lower Elite� and “Lower Affluent� that just sat kind of weird with me. On the next graph, Lifestyle, I was perplexed by not only the names but how they came to these conclusions, and how I would integrate them into my campaign decision making. When I did research on the keyword “comedians� and chose the Lifestyle tab here are the “Lifestyle Clusters� that came up. Bourgeois Prosperity, Career and Family, Sophisticated Singles, Routine Service Workers, Comfortable Retirement, Low Income Elders, Industrious Blue Collar, Smokestack Survivors, Metropolitan Strugglers, and finally Rural Inheritance.

Huh?

Needless to say this quickly became my focus as in “hey buddy, what do you think “smokestack survivors� means?� I’m not sure if the creators are trying to be funny, ingenious, politically correct, or some weird combination of all three, but it definitely makes wonder not only what in the world they mean, but question the validity of the data they are presenting.

Reports….
I would love to be able to tell you about the reports that adCenter can generate except I can’t get it to generate any. I’m sure this is just a user glitch on my part but it sure is frustrating to try numerous ways and have NO success.

Final Grade….
Incomplete. I like the idea of focusing on demographical data for the core of your campaign. I like the clean lines and the responsive user interface. I don’t like the campaign setup process, and I don’t like the lack of intuitiveness that is the reporting section. Finally, I don’t trust the keyword research data beyond the actual search numbers but I would hate for them to take it away as it is still a head-scratcher and worth a good laugh just reading the categories they have listed.

Finally, unless you get a significant amount of traffic from Yahoo PPC I wouldn’t be too concerned about immediately opening up a Microsoft adCenter account. I’ll be very interested to see their numbers after the first quarter of results.

Microsoft adCenter – A “First Eyes� Look
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