netmeg - 7:40 pm on Jun 29, 2006 (gmt 0)

(that's NETmeg)

Does someone from MSN actually read this forum?

Well, they've approved two of my campaigns, and they appear to be running. 3 of the remaining 4 are still "pending" and the fourth had a bunch of words rejected, presumably for trademark issues, but the email didn't say and the support person I called said she couldn't tell why either. The thing is, they rejected some trademark names but not all, and they allowed some generic names but rejected some of the generics as well, so it doesn't make any sense. They sent me an appeals form, but if I have to keep going through this, it's going to be a real PITA, as I have somewhere around 7000 keywords, and some are no doubt going to trigger disapprovals (one client is a drug clinic, so the words will be pharmaceutical in nature, another sells supplies to casinos so there are some gaming words, even though the client is not advertising gaming itself)

I was most disheartened to be told that the report feature could take up to two days update the stats, and the campaign and order screens even longer. That will have to change.

Apparently once I get to a certain level I can request a premium account which will come with an account rep and some other perks, and the amount is relatively low for my budget ($10k per month) but until I can get some of the campaigns actually going, I ain't gonna get to that level. Nor do I want to commit that kind of money when I can't get reports in a more timely fashion than two or three days later. I realize that the program is just getting going, but I don't think it's quite ready for prime time.

I can envision this all taking WAY too much time.

Oh, and another issue - I went to look at some of the help files, and apparently it requires you be logged in to a Passport account to view the files. I have a Passport account; I don't use it much, but I have one. When I try to access a help file, it gives me an error message that my Passport account is not available from that page for an unspecified reason, and takes me to a screen where I can CREATE one. I already have one, but when I type in the email for it, it tells me that the @hotmail.com portion of the email address is "reserved". I have no idea what any of this means, but the bottom line is that I can't read the help files.

I remain unimpressed.