webpublisher - 1:08 pm on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

1. When sorting orders by number of clicks please ensure MSN AdCenter does not forget this customisation as soon as a user clicks on a link to look at an order's settings.

2. It should be possible to rename a deleted campaign.

3. When clicking on Reports, the default is account performance. If I select the date range to be "This month" from the default "Yesterday" and then select "Campaign Performance" the date shoots back to "Yesterday". This should not happen, the date range should not change once I have yet it. I lose count of the number of times I have run a report, only to find it was on the wrong date range.

4. When running any kind of report please ensure there is a bottom row that shows totals for all columns. I'm currently trying to work out how much I spent last month and see that the only way is to run a campaign report and then use a calculator to add up the costs for each - very poor - definitely needs to be improved.

5. Just discovered that whilst downloading my daily reports to my PDA - I can not open the files in the format used. Lets keep it to xls or cvs format.

6. Having set up reports to tell me yesterday's cost I am finding that for example the data for the 1st July arrives on the 3rd July. This really isn't good enough because on the morning of the 3rd I want costs from the 2nd not the 1st. I find now that I have to log into AdCenter and that the reports aren't that useful for monitoring my costs.

7. When a user logs into Adcenter and is presented with "Summary of Campaigns" it is natural to want to quickly set a date range so as one can see the amount of spend per campaign for say "yesterday" or the "month to date". This is easily done in Adwords and should always be a 5 sec operation, enabling the user to get a feel for what is happening with the account. At present Adcenter does not allow this, the only spend total is for all time and really this is low down the priority of data needs to know on a day to day basis. In fact if you have to go to another main tab, namely "Reports" to access this required information. The problem that a user then encounters is the need to run a report, and then maybe have to click forward a few pages to get to the data they want. Then if the user needs to lower some bids they have to log into each order individually - saving for each one. Users are generally used to Adwords where they would say change bids in 5 adgroups based on yesterday's data in a few clicks - quickly clicking through each one. To do the same task in Adcenter is firstly not logical and secondly can take 5 times the amount of time (and if you don't believe just try it - it has to be the most frustrating thing I do online). Adcenter needs to integrate the data range into the main Campaign tab.

8. When running reports please remove the graphs that occur above the data. A survey of users will show that although they may look pretty and slick in the way they appear they serve no other purpose. This is because when you have say more than 10 orders for arguements sake, it is impossible to read the x and y axis and interpret the information properly. There should be a preference to turn these graphs off as they use valuable screen space and give nothing in return.

9. This relates to "point 7" but is so important that it needs special mention here. Imagine the current situation I am now have. I want to lower the majority of bids in most of my orders in a specific campaign. Before I even begin I am frustrated because I don't have the information from yesterday's spend readily available - I'm trying to remember data from when I viewed it 2 mins ago. If I click in to "Keyword Performance" and change some bids I have to hit "save" - even this bit is guest work because I have overall positions but no data on current monthly or daily positions - so how much do I lower or higher a bid by to get the position I want - I am basically in the dark. Anyway after hitting "Save" I have to acknowledge it has been saved within a pop up (MSN please note this is not neccessary and adds to ever increasing number of clicks). So now I want to edit the next order's bids - where is the "Next" or "Prev" button? There is none I have to click on the "Order List" and scroll or click through several pages to find the next "order" - this can add another few clicks and say another 20 - 60 seconds. By the time you get to the bids you want to lower or higher you can easily have lost your train of thought because frustration has set in. I am not exaggerating when changing bids in 20 orders has taken me around 40 minutes - in adwords it would take 5 minutes at the most. Resolving this issue should be the Most Important thing MSN Adcenter work on - NOTHING can be more critical in reducing the amount of time they are asking their users to spend on basic tasks - especially when their competitor allows you to it in 10- 15% of the time

-- Please add to this list if you come across anything that needs to be improved within MSN Adcenter. So as MSN can read a full and complete list of improvements at any given time. In fact it would be great if an representative could comment on each.

[edited by: Receptional at 2:41 pm (utc) on July 4, 2006]
[edit reason] (Merged double posting) [/edit]