Forum Moderators: werty
Speaking of AdCenter, how long is the wait to get your ads approved and running?
Microsoft today is launching its adCenter online advertising system in the U.S., and will now compete directly with Google and Yahoo! in selling ads on the Web.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 6:26 pm (utc) on May 4, 2006]
[edit reason] added link [/edit]
Although download the IEView extension for firefox, it works perfectly for solving this problem.
For one keyword in MSN, to get ist spot I was asked by the system to pay $760/click. (We pay about $.60 on Google and Y! for the same term at top spot.)
Then I changed my bid in MSN to $0.90 (90 cents).
System told me my average position will be 1.76.
I think the REAL bugs are in the algorithms.
It boggles the mind that they actually think that they have completed beta testing. I thought Yahoo's interface was horrendous, but this....I am speechless, which is no small feat.
I think the info they give for each keyword is pretty interesting: traffic trends, age and gender, geography, wealth index, and lifestyle. not sure how reliable it is but it has sure got my attention.
I always used to scorn the MSN traffic until I recently starting using google analytics. It turns out that my traffic from MSN has 30% more page views than traffic from Google. Very interesting in light of the new MSN adcenter. -- now if I can just get my ads online...
I just opened an account and setup a campaign (order?) using Firefox.
That is so unacceptable. There is no way I am going to spend 5-10k a month somewhere that I can't see reports.
Remember when advertisers used to buy TV adverts based on a nebulous Media pack? How our demands have changed :)
[edited by: Receptional at 7:24 pm (utc) on May 5, 2006]
Some things I can see that pi*s me off:
1. ads have to be approved by some editor first. Why do this when Google always puts the ads online immediately. Even if you don't put the ads online immediately people get really ticked off they have to wait a whole day before their campaign is approved.
2. traffic seems to be non-existant on my popular keywords.
3. cant define content/site bids.
It seems MSN adcenter has a long way to go before it can be anywhere as powerful as Adwords. But the interface is a lot better than Overture.
If you are Al Bundy with a mon & pop shoe store you MIGHT be able to set up and manage a campaign very well.
For everybody else (especially agencies) it's a bust and something to be avoided for now.
- Was it really tested in beta for near year?
- Did the beta participants not provide ANY feedback on this mess or did MSN IGNORE them?
- Negatives limited to 1022 characters? Worse than Yahoo AND they are really at the keyword level!
- Called support so I could move a bunch of accounts to MSN and get some dedicated support... no way.
- Asked them what period of time the default display of stats were for... they did not know.
- Asked how to modify adcopy.... they did not know.
- Asked if multiple ads per order can be run in A/B type test.... they did not know.
I give.... will recommend clients ignore and wait for a while (like 2 years)
Everyone keep griping to customer support, reps, posting your issues and sending feedback. Perhaps a larger number of users complaining about the same things will get some results.
Originally posted by jbgilbert
- Negatives limited to 1022 characters? Worse than Yahoo AND they are really at the keyword level!
You know, I've been avoiding adding keywords because as you point out, you have to add them to EVERY keyword, where most of us simply have campaign wide negative keywords that you add once.
Anyway, to expand my campaigns, I was thinking of biting the bullet and adding my list of negatives to each order in a bulk upload.
BUT, you've just pointed out that you can only have 1022 characters. That's about half my list of negatives. Oh well, looks like I won't be expanding my campaigns afterall.
Campaign level negative keywords has got to be up there on MSN's 'must do' list, along with getting updated report stats. Just these two things would make so much difference.
You would have thought they would have looked at just that during beta.
Actually Yahoo is making improvements:
"Fast Ad Activation
Most new ads will go online within minutes, allowing you to connect with customers quickly, and easily make changes to your ads whenever you need to."
Why do this when Google always puts the ads online immediately
Google doesn't. In the Adwords forum there have been many complaints lately about ads not running after hours and sometimes days of waiting...
Great idea, but if they did not listen to their beta testers, what makes you think they will listen now?
More squeaky wheels?
Also, we kept telling ourselves "It's in beta, be patient." We certainly didn't think they'd release it from beta with all these issues still pending.
I fully expected a huge update before they even considered releasing it from beta. Silly me. We were also under the impression it would be June (at the earliest) before it was released.
firefox and mac compatibility are very high on our priority list for future releases. so is improving reporting. that said, i can't say a date for these future releases because i don't know. i do know that all of us here are working hard to improve our customers' experience with adCenter.
keep your feedback coming. i'm here to compile your feedback and take it back to the appropriate adCenter teams. i'm sorry if i haven't been more present or made it more clear that that's what i've been doing. generally i haven't been posting about feature requests unless i know a date when they'll be implemented. if you'd rather hear from me that your requests are on the list, without an ETA, let me know and i'll be more proactive about communicating with you.
let me know what you think.
thanks,
adCenter411
Sorry if I can't see your post as other that a weak attempt at damage control, but I've spent 8 months trying to participate in the beta and was not allowed to because it was invitation only and to "giant" accounts and the 60+ or so accounts I manage for clients apparently did not qualify.
You want input? Try this:
- If you want to get serious about input, contact me and I can provide tons of valuable input. Sticky me and I'll call (or if you are part of the new breed that can only communicate with other humans via IM, we can try that too).
- I've spoken with beta users and they tell me you DID NOT listen to input. You had almost a year of beta to identify all the problems and institute improvements.
- Unlike Google and MSN, you HAD BOTH of their products to use in developing YOURS. And the result is worse than both of them! That is saying something since I can't stand the Yahoo/Overture product and consider Google to be generally arrogant!
- Me and some of my clients are ticked because you kicked Yahoo advertising out 100% and released a product that IS NOT ready for release. Some of them know what MSN traffic is like and have openly stated they do not want to advertise there anymore -- darn, I was ready to increase their PPC manage fees by 33% since I had to manage a new PPC engine.
- I spent almost 3 hours with your support team asking for answers to what they should easily be able to answer. They could NOT answer any of my questions -- I mean NONE of them.
- Your support team was going to email me some of the answers this morning. None have arrived, not do I expect them to.
- If Bill Gates cared even the tinyest bit and knew what you all built, he would at least be terribly embarassed! He may even understand that the product is so bad it reflects directly and poorly on the very "search engine" it is trying to monitize.
- Now, a "few" of the ridiculous things that make the product unusable...
o Campaign and order screen shows stats from a time period that even support can't figure out.
o Can't change the time period (whatever it is). This makes it virtually impossible to manage one campaign, much less bunches of them
o Support team says to generate a report and print it, then go through the orders keyword, by keyword to manage -- yea, like an agency has time to that and manage multiple large accounts.
o Import system won't work and support can't make it work either.
... I give WAY too much to even try to cover here. And, you say none of the beta users mentioned this stuff?
... Like I said, sticky me and I'll call you. Remember this one?
Action speaks louder than words.Sorry to say it appears not to be a popular quote in today's corporate environments.
Fixing the reporting needs to be the HIGHEST priority. I can't stress that enough.
Everyone, please tell me if I'm correct.
we do realize that there are still adCenter areas that need improvement and our team is working hard to address these. we're continuously improving the tool based on your feedback. example - the development team is aware of each item listed in this thread as a known issue. they are completely aware of your feedback here and at other forums. that's why i ask that you keep your feedback coming, because our goal is to keep improving and ultimately make our customers happy. in the meantime, we appreciate your patience during this period.
i definitely hear you on the support issues. for those of you who've had a bad experience with our support team via phone or email, send me a sticky mail with the ticket #, details of what happened, and in what way your issue wasn't resolved / what questions you still need answered. i can escalate these to the Support team and help you get what you need.
thanks,
adCenter411
First, I can assure you that MSN listens closely to their advertisers. Having been a beta advertiser, a beta API developer, one who participates in adCenter community phone calls, and one who talks to several team members (for a variety of reasons) both at conferences and via phone/email - they are definitely listening, soliciting, and incorporating feedback.
Secondly, when GoTo (formerly Overture, currently Yahoo Search Marketing) launched, it was phone call only account creation. When AdWords select launched, the tools were pretty much non-existent.
Creating a self-serve advertising platform is a very complex process. There are only a few models with enough volume to try to get a baseline of user expectations. Until one launches a product, aggregates feedback (feedback from one person doesn't mean much - sorry to say that - however, the same suggestion over and over again means it really needs to be listened to), and determines the best way to take advantage of features, there will be some early struggles.
Yes, the UI needs help. Some tools need to be created & modified. However, Microsoft is taking a very aggressive step in terms of functionality by adding features that no one else has at present, so determining how it's used (therefore, how it needs to be changed) is crucial before reorganizing the UI.
I don't mean to jump on a soapbox defending MS as I agree there are many things that can be improved.
However, there's a difference between criticism that is non-productive (and treats one as a vendor) as opposed to treating someone with a partner who has the same goals as you (to effectively spend money on the web) and working to create solutions.
Anyway, enough of a too-little-coffee rant.
Check out the related tool keyword in adCenter, the vanity based keywords it suggests are better than anything in the marketplace today.
You guys also need to implement image ads like adwords. :P
