Does Adcenter Suck?

[dertyfern]

Is it just me is Adcenter more problematic that it's worth?

The interface sucks and is slow. It doesn't remember that I don't want to participate in their customer feedback program (fairly simple programming guys). Every few weeks there are program changes/issues and campaigns come to a halt. Their customer service is far and away superior to google's; reps are super nice but lack knowledge.

And the crazy thing is--I REALLY want to spend money with them as Bing converts rather nicely for me..low volume but converts.

Is it just me facing these issues? If so it's scary how much market share they're loosing.

[Tropical Island]

Low volume is my biggest problem.
The work needed doesn't justify the paltry returns.

[werty]

I always suggest setting up an account, try to add a few things into it. Eventually they will contact you with quicklaunch... with that you basically give them your google account as an export and they do all the setup and everything for you. Then you just have to manage it rather than set it up yourself.

Their system needs an overhaul.

[Zarqon]

Does Adcenter Suck?

Yup.

[smallcompany]

Conversion is terrible since they got together with Yahoo. Plus the volume trouble.

[RhinoFish]

y's syn partners = yuck.
thugs, adware, poppers, ppv junk.
and they're both adding rtb exchanges, making it worse still, because policing and ethics are not in their vocabulary, the more the merrier is their motto.

adcenter platform = yuck.
serious neg issues.
language region issues.
silverlight crashes.
slow.
poor nav, tools, hierarchy.
no mod broad.
got a few hours, i can keep going...

their editorial team is a joke. they randomly and haphazardly disapprove mainstream keywords and ads... i suspect their checkers are on a quota system... for years i've run ads and keywords, nice ctr, decent conversions, they come along and say their disapproved for various reasons... they recently disapproved some terms for me like "La Biblia" and "Santa Biblia" where my client sells spanish bibles... i'd like to reach a human being who could talk publicly with me AND OTHERS to justify their actions in disapproving these core, relevant terms... i know some Spanish folks who would be offended by their disapproval stupidity. really, i'd like to have a public chat with them - maybe someone would get embarrassed, and go back to their offices and let everyone know their editorial team is a disaster, and most clients / peers / advertisers ignore them to a large degree, because they make no rational sense.

on silverlight... once you understand how they think on this choice, the entire situation becomes clear... they are not focused on their ad platform serving the needs of their advertisers... they have divisional squabbles... msn passport guy wants to force people to use their junk... silverlight guy, same deal... active server pages guy, same deal... it reminds me of Johnny Cash's 'one piece at a time' car. nobody is making a decision based on the needs of those they serve - it's like Washington DC, each decision maker has a self-serving promotional agenda.

but here's the crazy part, it's still worth it for large accounts where there's broad product appeal. but it's like lake fishing, bait-less, using a 40-pound coffee cup (my arm is tired!) to occasionally scoop up a fish or three...

years of effort on their part to improve... like watching a 7 year long, slow motion, train wreck.

the work is just marginally sufficient to justify use. that's a perfect recipe to get your butt kicked by competitors. on their way to being baked.

[handsome rob]

Anything that touches Yahoo is virtually guaranteed to get infected with a terminal case of stage 4 SUCK.

[ByronM]

Works great for me. I was never able to spend enough on G to get to speak to a human being, with adcenter they're more than helpful. have some of you people bothered to call and get to the bottom of what the issue is vs guessing? If you aren't making money, neither is MS so if you want the relationship to be beneficial tell them that.

[J_RaD]

i've had adcenter totally piss me off and ban every ad i had, no matter what i did my traffic was ZERO.

but i was able to pick up the phone - SPEAK TO A HUMAN - and work out the issues, then once i fixed what they didn't like, they approved and i was back in action.

try that with adwords, you get slapped and you are done go away and don't come back or we'll instantly slap that account too.

instead of driving yourself nuts... call and get an answer, you could even explain your situation and get the issue resolved! *gasp*

[Kobayashi]

Unfortunately most of the problems I have experienced cannot be immediately solved by contacting them as they are fundamental design issues with their interface. They created a special site for people to vote on what needs to be improved the most so if there is something you don't like or would like to see, let them know.

[microsoftadvertising.uservoice.com...]

[werty]

Their latest editor update was a huge step forward IMO. It works much better now and allows you to import directly from your google adwords account. The only thing is the desination URLs can get screwed up. It is solid compared to previous versions though.