Seriously MSN you need to FIX the AdCenter!

[bostonseo]

So I'm just trying to create a new campaign and add 2 keywords - manually by hand. I make them exact match and hit the continue button - then I get an message that says 'pleasecorrect the issues in the status column'. There are no issues in the status column - in the status column it says 'New'...as in new keyword.

I've tried all your workarounds - restarted my computer, cleared cache/cookies. Guess what? Your system is broken! Fix it!

[breny]

Ugh--I've had that problem before. Usually restarting would fix it. I wish I had more to offer.

[bostonseo]

Yeah restarting isn't working for me today.

[Draconian]

I had that issue twice. It seems that if you choose match options, it will default broad match to the blank keyword box. This sometimes causes that error message.

*Hint: De-select broad match for the empty box if you don't want to pay for every single search made on MSN (Which would still be peanuts)

[wildbest]

All these bugs will be fixed soon, I am sure about that. There is something else I'm very concerned about...

Actually, MSN have not enough search volume for major keywords / phrases, and can not see how would they make more people use their search engine?

[ccam96]

Wildbest.. Microsoft will be incorporating MSN search directly into their new operating system by Q4. I believe it's called Vista. This should boost their numbers somewhat. How much is the question.

[wildbest]

I doubt that would help!

The only solution I see for MS is to incorporate ads coming from MSN AdCenter directly into Vista's web-related applications?! They should increase the license fee dramatically while in the same time offer a completely free version of an "ad-supported" Vista. This is the only approach they can apply to cope with this tiny search activity they have now. As far as I can see, they have about 4-7% of what Google has as search queries.

[xor0]

Often if you have hit continue and it has come up with something (whatever error message of the day) then your keywords have been added anyway - go back and check, they may well be there.

[ciaoenrico]

<i> Often if you have hit continue and it has come up with something (whatever error message of the day) then your keywords have been added anyway</i>

I've found this to be true as well. However, MSN Tech Support also has no idea why their product is doing this.

If you think of it, this is classic Microsoft: Get it to market as fast as you can, then start work on the patches.

My hope is that whatever patches they're considering come out before the Vista launch - because personally, I plan to cash in on Microsoft's continued monopolistic fiendishness.

[kaylowe]

I am with you all. How long does it take to "work out the bugs"?

I still cannot utilize adcenter in my Mozilla browser.

Kay

[bostonseo]

I doubt this product will be better anytime soon - they had at least 4 months of beta testing and it is still this terrible. Anyone expecting dramatic improvement anytime soon is way too optimistic (in my opinion).

[Craig87]

The problem for me is the whole UI. If they fix every single bug, it will still be the slowest and clunkiest ad system out there.

[bostonseo]

It's just a bad system in every aspect right now - my guess is that it will remain this way until 2007.

[adCenter411]

i escalated the errors you're reporting while adding keywords to our support team. they confirmed that this is happening intermittently and they're investigating. i'll let you know as soon as i hear more from them.

thanks,
adCenter411

[chief72]

Set up my first adcenter campaign the other day. 1 campaign with 11 orders took me about 5 hours(kwords & adcopy were prepared before hand & only needed to be pasted in). Though a large chunk of this time was used familiarising myself with the UI, my major problem was the buggy kword insertion process which I generally had to repeat several times.

Whilst initially frustrating, I think the UI sans the bugs will turn out to be fairly user friendly, though I do feel there is probably a few too many clicks required to edit ads.

The most important improvement required in my opinion is in the reporting of stats. I would like to see my up to date daily spend on the first page as in Adwords. I believe this to be of utmost importance to most users.

[bostonseo]

Wow I got to actually add 2 campaigns before I started getting the 'resolve your errors in the status colunmn' message when I tried to create a 3rd campaign.

MSN - The Little Engine That Could.

[bostonseo]

Today's new error message:

"Your task can not be performed because a malformed request was sent."

And yes that is how they spelled cannot - "can not"
:)

[chief72]

Though "cannot" is the more commonly used, "can not" is still grammatically correct. Personally though, I think grammar is probably the least of concerns at Adcenter (or as us Aussies would say, Adcentre) HQ.

[bostonseo]

True can not is accepted, but not preferred. Maybe it's just fitting that they spelled their error message this way - MSN is certainly not the preferred PPC program at this point :)

[ccam96]

Just my 2 cents here but I've actually found MSN Adcenter to be very good. My conversions compared to Google and the current Yahoo are superior.

Other than getting used to the different interface, it's been just great. My only real gripe is the lack of "real time" (at least within a few hours) acurate reports. This should be their priority right now.

I think that thier interface could use some improvement , however, it's very workable.

[TerriGW]

I have had the same experience as CCAM96. It has worked well for us. Much better than I anticipated after reading some of the input here.

[cococure]

My favorite is "Loading campaigns...." and nothing ever shows up.

[bostonseo]

cococure you sometimes have to wait an hour for them to appear.

[hawleyca77]

I found that error happened if running in firefox, but does not happen in IE....

[bostonseo]

hawleyca77 all errors happen in all browsers - they're just never consistent which is surprising.

[rise2it]

I knew I was 'in for it' during the Beta signups when I was 'forced' to update to IE6 (which I dispise on my Win2K machines - it seems bloated and slower than IE 5.5).

I wonder if there was a valid reason for this, or them just pushing everyone to the newest software versions...

[Qawsed]

I have a campaign that I set with a monthly budget of $120, divided evenly across the month. Today I notice Adcenter spent $26 on it in one day. It's been a while since math class, but I'm pretty sure that isn't dividing evenly.

I had to look at an invoice to see this because the reporting wouldn't load. I really don't know how Microsoft of all companies can't manage to make a simple site that operates correctly.

[bostonseo]

None of the automated tools that everyone thinks are so cool actually work properly - do not assume that they do!

[Qawsed]

I know AdCenter doesn't work properly, but I expect them to still work within reason. Spending six times the amount it should in one day isn't within reason.

I got an e-mail back today basically telling me I can't trust the system to work right. That's the official support, to tell me their system doesn't work. Why did they take this thing out of beta?

[bostonseo]

Dispute to pay the bill with your credit card company - we're not paying even half what MSN says we owe :)