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November 17, 2009

adCenter Allows Bidding for MSN Tech & Gadgets, Hotmail

adCenter is enabling the ability to bid specifically for two Microsoft entities: the MSN Tech & Gadgets portal and the popular web-based email, Hotmail.

Here's how to do it:

Create a new ad group, setting the bid type for Networks and websites
Create your ad
In the Select Placements window, choose the Websites tab
Enter tech.msn.com and/or *mail.live.com
Click View available placements
Select the sites that you wish to bid on, then click Add.
Click Continue.
Set your Default bid

You're all set. adCenter offered up the following demographic details about the audience for these entities:

MSN Tech & Gadgets - 42% have a household income of $75,000 or more
Hotmail - 83% have purchased online in the past six months

Is advertising on MSN Tech & Gadgets and/or Hotmail attractive to you? Tell us why or why not in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 10, 2009

New adCenter Feature Shows If Your Ad is Showing in Bing

So, you've set up your ad campaign for Bing in adCenter and now you want to know whether or not the ads are showing. Now, you can with a new feature called Ad Preview.

The adCenter team has added this feature due to much request from advertisers. The Ad Preview enables advertisers to check their ads without artificially padding the impression and click data.

If you find your ads showing in Ad Preview but not in a regular search, remember that you might have set demographic and/or geographic targets that you yourself do not meet. Also, you may be outbid at the time you check an ad on the regular search. Ad Preview, however, does not currently provide a geographic or demographic preview, but they're working on it and hope to release it soon.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 21, 2009

Bing's Conversion Rates are Awesome; Volume, adCenter, and Agency Relations Not So Much

Today I had the great privilege of meeting with Bing Director Stefan Weitz and local search marketers here in Raleigh, NC. There was a consensus that Bing had a better conversion rate - by far. But there's a couple things still holding search marketers back: volume, adCenter, and agency relations.

The volume of traffic sent by Bing is just so small compared to Google and Yahoo! Anyone who follows the search industry understands why. Google gets a majority of the searches. It's clear that marketers want more traffic from Bing, especially if the conversion rate can remain higher.

If that happens, Bing would do well to overhaul adCenter. SEMs do not like it. What they really want is the best of Google and the best of Yahoo! Even though the new deal with Yahoo! has adCenter as the paid search platform, hopefully Bing will integrate the goods from Yahoo! to make things easier on SEMs.

Another thing Bing needs to do is communicate more with SEMs. Google and Yahoo! reps contact search marketers frequently, but adCenter is just crickets. However, when you're not bringing in as much money as Google and Yahoo! (at least on the search front), it's harder to staff up with account reps. It's your classic catch-22, chicken and egg situation.

The disparity between ad spend on Google and ad spend on Bing seems disproportionate to the difference in market share between the two. This should not be, especially when Bing's conversion rates are higher.

As Frank Watson pointed out today in his expert column, part of this lies on search marketers. If you're getting higher conversion rates but fail to advertise because you don't like a platform, then you're leaving money on the table.

What are you seeing in terms of conversion rates and Bing? Tell us your Bing stories in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

August 7, 2009

Microsoft adCenter Addresses Accusations of Illegal Pharmacy Advertisements

Earlier this week, a report from LegitScript.com and KnujOn stated that 89.7% of Bing's ads for online pharamacies were from illegally operating pharmacies. Microsoft's adCenter has responded by saying the report is true, but the number of violations is substantially lower.

adCenter uses PharmacyChecker.com to verify pharmacy advertisers. PharmacyChecker.com is a competitor of LegitScript.com.

Microsoft says that the illegal pharmacies essentially hacked the system:

Based on our initial findings, we believe the advertisers noted in the report found a way to work around the PharmacyChecker.com verification process after being validated to advertise on Bing. These rogue advertisers manipulated the system by "hijacking" and/or misusing landing pages. Our internal teams are continuing to investigate how these advertisers sidestepped the policy.

adCenter is taking several steps to address the problem, including:

All pharma-related keywords have now been manually reviewed to sweep out any advertisers who are in violation of our policies
The editorial team is validating the claims in the report around "hijacking" and misuse of landing pages
The quality and editorial teams are reviewing our processes to document how these advertisers made their way onto our system. This documentation will likely lead to changes in process as well as product requests moving forward

What do you think of Microsoft's response to LegitScript's report? Do you think they'll be able to stop the "hijackers"? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

July 29, 2009

The Yahoo-Microsoft Deal from Searchers' Perspective

So by now, you've probably heard about the Microsoft - Yahoo search deal. You may even have read my take that this will be good for advertisers. If not, go back and start there, so we're all caught up.

I got responses from several other search marketers saying the deal looked good from their side too. We'll be putting up a collection of industry responses later today. In the meantime, I wanted to look at the deal from a searcher perspective. Is it good for them too?

For most searchers, Google = search. They don't know or care about the fact that Microsoft just launched a search engine, and unless they have Yahoo as their home page (likely decided by their ISP), they don't have much use for Yahoo Search either.

Will a combined Microsoft-Yahoo search change any of that? Not likely.

"The deal is both good and bad for searchers. Bad in that there will be less choice. I personally prefer to have more options rather than less. Good for searchers in that Bing is actually a pretty good search engine," said Amanda Watlington, owner of Searching for Profit.

Basically, it's going to depend on just how good Bing is, and how good it will become, given the additional volume pumping through its platform. That volume should generate more relevant ads, since there will be more competition. It should also allow Microsoft to innovate with its algorithms faster, since it will have more data to work with.

Andrew Goodman, principal at Page Zero Media, agrees: "It's a good deal for searchers. Running a high-quality consumer search property is expensive and requires constant innovation. By consolidating resources these companies can focus on their strengths," Goodman said. "Microsoft has done a great job developing a consumer-oriented search engine in Bing. They may also have access to data from Yahoo that can help them to refine it."

Microsoft has proven with Bing and adCenter that they can not only keep up with Google, but actually improve on what's already out there in the marketplace. With a huge surge in traffic through those platforms, they should theoretically be able to improve on their ideas, refining their algorithms, adding features and improving relevance.

But, as has been said many times before, it's going to take something more than just "a little better" than Google to get searchers to switch. What may happen is that Yahoo-Microsoft becomes a more credible number-two. That in itself could be good for searchers, if only because it forces Google to innovate a bit quicker, given that it's nearest competitor will be quite a bit nearer than it's used to.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

June 18, 2009

Microsoft, NBC Universal to Sell Addressable TV Ads

Microsoft today announced that NBC Universal will be the first media partner for its digital TV advertising marketplace, Admira. The technology, which Microsoft gained with its acquisition of Navic a year ago, uses real-time audience measurement data to optimize the delivery and placement of television advertising.

This "addressable advertising" platform brings many of the advantages of online advertising to offline media, including better targeting and tracking capabilities.

For larger advertisers, Admira will provide new planning tools for NBCU to offer advertisers, including data-driven targeting and segmenting of specific audiences across its broadcast and cable television networks. For small to midsize clients, Admira will enable an automated planning, buying, posting and billing process across many of NBCU's national broadcast and select local TV properties.

"Admira can help clients efficiently plan, buy and engage specific audience segments across the breadth of our broadcast and cable properties, enhancing the close relationships we have with all of our agency and client partners," Mike Pilot, president of sales and marketing at NBC Universal, said in a statement.

Admira aggregates viewer data from multiple satellite and cable TV systems, then overlays that with geographic and demographic data to determine which ads to serve. In addition, Admira continuously optimizes ad placements in response to near-real-time viewership data. As a result, advertisers and agencies can buy just the audiences they're targeted, which may not have been reachable in the past without wading through piles of untargeted TV viewers.

NBC Local Media began testing the Admira system in March with inventory from L.A.'s Universal Sports Network digital channel and added inventory from KNBC, the NBC owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles.

VivaKi, the Publicis Groupe operation that encompasses Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia and Digitas, will be among the first agencies to use Admira to help its clients plan and buy media when Admira rolls out later this year.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 16, 2009

Microsoft Files Click Fraud Suit in Washington State

Microsoft has filed a click fraud suit against brothers Eric and Gordon Lam and their mother Melanie Suen. The suit was filed in the Western District Court of Washington and involves click fraud pertaining to a scheme involving auto insurance and the video game World of Warcraft.

The adCenter blog offered up a visual representation of what click fraud looks like. The image below maps IP sources and the clusters indicate automated traffic. Normal traffic would be more evenly spread with a variety of IP sources hailing from throughout the Internet.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 10, 2009

adCenter Add-In for Excel Out of Beta, Rebranded to Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

adCenter has released its Add-In for Excel out of beta and has given it a brand new name: Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. The tool is available in the US, Canada, UK and France.

The tool is designed to aid SEMs in their keyword research and optimization within adCenter. It includes keyword expansion, research, pricing, and KPI data.

US customers will also see new features including Vertical Top List, Vertical KPI's and Content Impressions by Month.

Have you used the Add-In for Excel? Do you recommend the newly named Microsoft Advertising Intelligence? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 3, 2009

Microsoft's adCenter Team Answers Your ProBING Questions

One of the biggest ponderings regarding the rebranding of Live Search to Bing has been: "How will this affect adCenter?" The adCenter team finally took to its blog to address this timely question.

And the answer is.....drum roll please....It will not change adCenter at all. The number of ads shown will remain the same. The mainline ad rules remain the same. Ad position will not change (at least not just because of a rebrand - your bidding is what affects your ad position). There will not be any new ad units.

The algorithm changes, but even that's not a change because they're constantly changing the algorithm. Still with me?

What could change is an increase in traffic. With all the buzz surrounding Bing and Microsoft's $80-100 million ad campaign for the new search engine, your ads might get some action.

Let us know if you're seeing any traction on your adCenter ads. Share what you can in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 22, 2009

adCenter Makes Website Exclusion and Site Performance Reports Available for Content Ads

Earlier this week, Microsoft's adCenter launched a contextual ad network, Content Ads. Two new adCenter features allow advertisers greater control in ad placement.

Website exclusion does exactly what the name implies. If you don't want your ad to appear on a specific website, this feature prevents it from doing so. Do this by clicking "edit" in the ad group settings when modifying a campaign.

Site performance reports enable advertisers to view how their Content Ads are performing on a given website. You can run the report by clicking on the reports tab and clicking on "Site performance" under basic settings. From there, you can select account, view, and date range. Reports can be downloaded, if you so desire.

Obviously, these two features work hand-in-hand. Use the site performance report to see which sites perform best for your ad campaign, and then add the poorly performing ones to the Website Exclusion list.

The features are only available in the browser version currently - and also only available in the U.S. The desktop version of adCenter will get these features in a future release.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 19, 2009

Microsoft, hakia Launch Contextual Ad Networks

Two new contextual ad networks are available for online publishers and advertisers. First up, Microsoft has removed the "beta" label from its Content Ads network. Participating online publishers include WSJ.com, FOX Sports, and RunnersWorld.com.

Meanwhile, semantic search engine hakia has also launched their contextual ad network, dubbed CONTEXA. ReadWriteWeb.com is their first publishing partner.

"We are excited to keep the wheels of innovation turning at hakia as our industry has plenty room for improvement. Today, Web users are overwhelmed with the quantity and suffer from the quality of display ads and quickly learn to ignore a good portion of the Web pages they visit," wrote hakia Chief Architect Kartal Guner. "In the long run, the industry's focus will have shift to increasing ad quality and limiting the supply to increase value. The path to this promise goes through enhancements to both contextual and behavioral ad targeting technologies."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 18, 2009

adCenter Releases New Conversion Tracking Options

Microsoft's adCenter has released new converstion tracking options. They are, according to the adCenter blog:

Count One Conversion Per Click: adCenter will only count the first conversion to occur after the click. Any subsequent conversions will not be counted unless they originate from a new click.
Count One Conversion Per Unique URL: Under this mode, your site will "tell" us when a new conversion event has taken place. This allows you to synchronize adCenter's conversion counts very closely to your own system. To take advantage of this method, you will need to be able to update your site to generate a unique transaction code to represent the conversion. This is a more complicated option for some advertisers, but it can deliver better results.
Count All: Some advertisers want all of the events to be reported, and they already have sites that are designed to eliminate repeat-visit problems. This option ensures that all conversion events are reported.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 12, 2009

Microsoft Closes adCenter Analytics

Microsoft announced it has closed its analytics program - adCenter Analytics beta - and at the end of the year all current users will no longer have access to the program.

Microsoft is recommending that all current users download all their information prior to the December 31 closing. The adCenter Analytics blog stated this program was a success and gave them insight into the analytics process.

"It enabled us to confidently determine that we can be of most value to advertisers and publishers by offering a tailored solution that meets more specialized needs."

Guess they plan on offering an alternative some time in the future.

Posted by Frank Watson at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 9, 2009

Well, raise my rent. Microsoft is the good guy!

There is a memorable moment in Blazing Saddles, when Sheriff Bart says, "Well, raise my rent. You are the kid."

I had a similar ephiphany last month at SES London 2009, when David Naylor of Bronco said that Microsoft is the good guy in the search engine industry during a session on "Brand & Reputation Management."

Now, I should disclose that I was the director of corporate communications at Lotus Development Corp. back in the late 1980s, when our relationship with Microsoft was -- ah -- "complicated." They provided the operating system that our applications ran on; while they offered applications that we competed with.

During the 1990s, I was the director of corporate communications at Ziff-Davis. And our relationship with Microsoft was also -- ah -- "complex." On the "church" side of Ziff-Davis, our 400 editors and reporters wrote comparative, lab-based, product reviews that treated Microsoft "without fear or favor," like any other vendor. On the "state" side of Ziff-Davis, Microsoft bought a ton of advertising in our magazines, on our websites and for our cable TV channel. Plus, Bill Gates was a frequent keynote speaker at our conferences, and Microsoft paid a chunk of money for big booths at our trade shows. So, when I got into the search engine industry in early 2002, I admit that I had some preconceived notions about the folks from Redmond. And I secretly chuckled when I heard that Google's informal corpate motto was "Don't be evil." I knew which company they were taking a jab at.

But that was then and this is now.

During the past seven years, Microsofties have been model citizens. Heck, even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has impressed me by working globally to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and working locally to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

Still, it came as a surprise to me when Naylor said such nice things about Microsoft. It reminded me of another memorable quote from Blazing Saddles, "I think Mongo here's taken a liking to you."

So, I interviewed Naylor right after the "Brand & Reputation Management" session. In the early part of the video interview, he shared a few tips. He also emphasized the importance of identifying who is posting negative material about your company or brand. But half way through the video interview, I asked to Nayor discuss Microsoft's reputation and why it has improved. He says Microsoft now excels at handling not just business to business but business to consumer and Google has challenges they have not yet resolved.

David Naylor, CEO, Bronco Internet, on reputation management at SES London

As luck would have it, one of the people who attended the "Brand & Reputation Management" session was Mel Carson, the adCenter Community Manager in Europe for Microsoft. Carson joined Microsoft back in the summer of 2005, so we never crossed swords in the old days. As part of Microsoft Advertising, his role is to build relationships within the online advertising community to support, educate and evangelise through Microsoft adCenter industry forums, and to speak about internet marketing at conferences, trade shows and other events.

For the last year Carson has been writing a digital blog for Media Week and at his own site, Mel Carson. You can also follow him at http://Twitter.com/MelCarson. He is a credit to his company.

In the best tradition of ambush journalism, I interviewed Carson about his favorite panel sessions from SES London. He cited panels on topics such as social media, SEO, search behavior, and keyword research. But about half way through the interview, I asked Carson about the changing reputation of Microsoft and why Microsoft is now seen in a more positive light.

Mel Carson, Microsoft adCenter, highlights panels at SES London 2009

So, there you have it. You may have noticed this before. But that was the first time that I recognized that Microsoft wasn't evil. It's the good guy.

Both Naylor and Carson will be speaking at SES New York 2009 in two weeks at the "Extreme Makeover: Live Ad Copy & Continuity Clinic" on Thursday. So, you can ask them about this topic, before or after they examine your ads and landing pages "without fear or favor."

Well, don't just stand there looking stupid, grasping your hands in pain. How about a round of applause for the Redmond Kid?

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 16, 2009

adCenter Offers Limited Release of Desktop Application

Microsoft launched an adCenter desktop application last June, but only to a closed beta. Now, the tool is opening up to a larger number of advertisers.

U.S. and Canadian advertisers with 100,000 keywords or less in their combined adCenter campaigns are now eligible to use the tool. Advertisers in the U.K. and France will get the tool soon, as well.

Microsoft is also prepping the adCenter desktop for advertisers with a larger number of keywords. They hope to have it ready by this summer.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 12, 2009

adCenter Rolls Out New Custom Date Range & Filter Options for Performance Data

Microsoft's adCenter has rolled out a couple of new options to sort and filter your data. First up is custom date ranges. Now, you can access data for up to 31 consecutive days from the last two years without running a report.

Secondly, adCenter has brought custom filters, similar to what you might find in Microsoft Excel. For example, you can display keywords with a high spend but low click-through rate (CTR) in order to optimize them for better performance.

Writing on the adCenter blog, Mel Carson says, "Finding the information that is most important to you by applying column filters to your campaign performance grids can help you hide low-performing keywords and let you focus on the high-performing ones."

What do you think of adCenter's updates? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 16, 2008

59% of Small Businesses Don't Do Paid Search Marketing

59% of small businesses with a web site don't do paid search, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft adCenter. 90% of that number haven't even tried. To which I say, "What is up with that people?" That is just leaving money - potentially gobs of it - on the table.

I can't say I'm surprised. Recently, on a trip to the beautiful North Carolina mountains, I was appalled at the lack of paid search listings for small businesses.

Not a single resort conducts a paid search campaign "ski North Carolina" on Live Search, Yahoo or Google. Even the ones from West Virginia could be snagging tourism dollars out of the state, but they're not. None of the resorts are great at optimizing organically either. The first ski resort appears at number 3 in the natural results for both Live Search and Google and #5 on Yahoo!

Perhaps it's because, according to the survey, 70% of small business owners would rather do their own taxes than do paid search.

Now, if you're a small business owner out there who maybe has heard that paid search is something you should do, but you'd rather become an accountant, let me give you some assurance.

I experimented with paid search for the first time this fall. That may sound crazy for someone who blogs on Search Engine Watch, but my background is copywriting, not paid search campaign conducting. I was nervous, but once I did it, I wondered what I had waited for. It was much easier than I anticipated and I can assure you that it's not even close to the awful experience of doing your own taxes.

Besides, like taxes, there are paid search marketing professionals who can do it for you. They know the tips and tricks to help keep costs low and maximize your marketing dollars.

So jump right in, the water's just fine. Or at least, it's frozen enough to ski on.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

November 24, 2008

adCenter Offers $1000 in Free Clicks for SEMPO Members

Microsoft's adCenter is launching a new offer for Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) members: $1000 in free clicks. Campaigns created through the promotion will be placed on Live Search and the MSN portal. Those who wish to become SEMPO members to take advantage of the offer must join the organization by December 31, 2008.

"SEMPO members, both agency and corporate search marketers, represent some of the most knowledgeable and innovative search marketing leaders in the industry," said Valerie Bolduc, senior global product marketing manager, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions, Microsoft. "Working with SEMPO provides Microsoft with the opportunity to engage and learn from the search marketing community, which enables us to enhance our products and offerings to better serve our mutual customers."

SEMPO President Jeffrey Pruitt noted, "SEMPO's continued growth is tied to the strong support of its sponsors. Microsoft has long been our lead sponsor and advocate on several fronts including the SEMPO Training Institute, as well as for special programs like the adCenter search advertising promotion. Our industry association greatly appreciates Microsoft's strong commitment and ongoing participation."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 28, 2008

New Campaign Management and Editorial Updates for Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter has released a slew of updates for the fall to aid you in your paid search campaigns. The updates include:

Campaign Management: ability to pause and resume ads and keywords, geo-targeting enhancements, and improved performance reporting on the Ads page
Editorial Improvements: faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed character limits
User Management: if previously you were only able to have one user, now you can create multiple account users
Content Ads (U.S. only): get keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for your content ads

What do you think of the updates? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 25, 2008

Microsoft adCenter Launches Learning Center

Microsoft's adCenter has launched a Learning Center. It's pretty self-explanatory what this feature does, but specifically you'll find articles, videos and other content that can help you as you navigate your adCenter campaigns.

The Learning Center is designed to help users at any point in their experience with adCenter. From figuring out where your ad is in the Live Search results to tracking conversions, the Live Team wants the Learning Center to help with every step of the process.

Have you checked out the Learning Center? What are your first impressions?

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 19, 2008

adCenter Introduces Dynamic Text Insertion

Microsoft's adCenter is introducing Dynamic Text Insertion into its offering.

Similar to using {keyword} insertion, Dynamic Text Insertion works by using these placeholders: placeholders {param1}, {param2} and {param3}.

adCenter gave four tips on how it works:

If submitting keywords via a spreadsheet – Dynamic Text should be placed in the ‘Dynamic Text {param2}' column
If submitting keywords via Microsoft adCenter click into the relevant ‘campaign' and ‘ad group' and then once you've reached the ‘keywords' tab, click on the ‘edit keywords' button./li>
Alter {param1}, {param2} and {param3} as appropriate. The ‘Bulk Edit' function can be used by ticking next to the keyword parameters you wish to edit and then clicking ‘Bulk Edit'.
{param1} is typically used for destination URLs as it offers more characters with which to ensure the link is as detailed as possible. {param2} and {param3} can be used to include as much of the keyword and other engaging information (e.g. price points) as possible. The bulk editing function makes it really easy to update your dynamic text when required.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 12, 2008

Microsoft Increases Mainline Ads on Live Search from 3 to 4

AdCenter customers requested more clicks for their ads. Microsoft ran tests that found adding a fourth mainline ad (the ads that appear above the organic results) increased clicks. So, the Live Search team is implementing those changes, and advertisers should notice the change beginning today.

The top 2 mainline ads will continue to get an extra placement at the bottom of the page as well. This is something that also proved successful in the ad placement testing.

What do you think of these changes? Will they increase your clicks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 19, 2008

Microsoft adCenter Updates Credit Card Options

Over the weekend, Microsoft rolled out an update to adCenter. The update released new credit card options for users.

One of the changes has to do with paying your adCenter bill. Now you can pay an outstanding balance anytime - not just during the regular monthly payment.

Another change has to do unused credit cards. You're now able to remove credit cards that you're not using for adCenter payments.

Last but not least, Microsoft says the process for adding a new credit card has been streamlined.

What do you think about these updates? Tell us your perspective in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2008

Microsoft Unveils AdCenter Desktop Beta

Microsoft on Tuesday took the wraps off a new application for webmasters: the AdCenter Desktop Beta.

The tool extends the capabilities of Microsoft online tools for adCenter, especially in the areas of bulk campaign management, research tools, and "Creation Wizard" functionality for creating new campaigns through a simple interface.

"From a platform standpoint, we've taken leaps in what we offer. A lot of what we're doing on the ad platform side gets lost in the question of volume. But the platform is well poised to take advantage of the volume as it builds," Brian Boland, director of adCenter for Microsoft, told SEW.

Microsoft will continue developing its Web-based tools alongside the offline application, although some functionality will only be added to one or the other, Boland said. For example, the wizard functionality and bulk management tools are only available in the desktop application. But many users will continue to prefer the simplicity and portability of the online tools, so they will not be abandoned, he said.

Microsoft began offering offline tools with its adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007, which launched in December.

The adCenter Desktop tool, which Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platform & Services Division, first mentioned during his keynote at SMX Advanced, is currently in closed beta. To be considered for participation in the program, users can fill out an interest form at Microsoft's site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 8, 2008

adCenter Advertiser Blog Explains Keyword Match Types

If you've been in need of an explanation of keyword match types for your PPC campaign, you're in luck. The adCenter Advertiser blog has published a post that offers up a detailed explanation of keyword match terms as well as some tips for your paid search strategy. Let's dig in:

Exact match - Your ad only shows for an exact match of your keyword phrase. so if you're bidding on "big red dog," then your ad only shows up if someone searches for that exact phrase

Phrase match - This is when your ad will show up for a phrase that contains your keywords. For example, if someone searches for "big red dog for sale," then your ad will show up.

Broad match - In this scenario, your ad will show up if the three words in your keyword phrase are in any search. So if someone searches for "red house with a big yard for a dog," then your ad will show up. Also, adCenter will sometimes expand to include "puppy" to maximize your searches.

Lauren Taft-McPhee, author of the blog post, recommends bidding on all three match types unless you have a very narrow target audience. In that case, you might want to use exact match only, though she advises that your traffic volume will be low despite the better quality.

Once a bidding strategy is in place, Taft-McPhee recommends running a keyword performance report and including the "delivered match types" column. This will help you know if your keyword is matching up with what searchers are querying.

When you've established a bidding strategy that maximizes ROI, then you might try bidding on the adCenter content network to extend your paid search reach even further.

Like organic optimization, paid search should be monitored on a consistent basis. Be prepared to make tweaks as needed due to changing search queries and bid competition.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:37 AM | Permalink

March 17, 2008

adCenter Cooks Up a New Community Site

What do you get when you mix œ cup of paid search with Œ cup of blogs, Œ cup of videos and a dash of user profiles? The new adCenterCommunity.com is fresh out of the oven and it is a new PPC cake with Social Media icing.

adCenter has created one home for marketers, developers and analytics users. Not only will customers participate in communication with adCenter staff, but they will now have the ability to mingle with other adCenter customers as well. The new forums will help facilitate discussions about all things adCenter, from the advertising platform to the API.

"In order to contribute to our credo of delivering world class service, we have been working diligently to deliver an online experience that enables our advertisers through a variety of interactive communication channels," wrote the adCenter team in an email announcing the new site.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:56 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2008

Microsoft & Yahoo - Shotgun Wedding

I have been following the unfolding developments regarding Microsoft/Yahoo since they were announced with only mild interest. This is not because the potential alliance would not have an effect on the industry - clearly it would shake things up quite a bit. But there has been actually very little of interest since the initial buyout proposal. Despite the posturing on all sides, events have unfolded in an entirely predictable manner. In the latest development, Nathania Johnson blogged about Yahoo! Goes on a Date with Microsoft, and wondered if there would be a second date to follow.

To me, there is no drama. This is not a first date - it's a shotgun wedding.

The only reason that two companies with such completely different philosophies and business cultures would even consider such a deal is because they have no choice. Yahoo!Search (Overture/GoTo) was an early innovator in the PPC space, but has clearly fallen behind. Microsoft was late to the party, and is once again finding it hard to establish dominance in the Internet arena (outside of its comfortable desktop monopoly).

There may be more posturing in the next few weeks, with crying, chest beating, and histrionics. But the final act has already been written. The only question to be settled is how many goats and chickens Yahoo will get in the dowry. The alternative for both companies in the search advertising arena is unthinkable: to languish and lose market share as perennial also-rans to Google.

Posted by Tim Ash at 1:46 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2008

Microsoft Expands its PPC adCenter Content Network

Launched with little fanfare late last year, Microsoft's adCenter Content Network initially only included Microsoft web properties. Now there are signs they're opening up the network to include high-quality publishers like financial data provider EDGAR Online.

As far as I know, this is the first non-Microsoft web property to carry adCenter ads. Microsoft execs told me early last year that they were planning to build their Content network slowly and selectively, to ensure publishers were high-quality so that advertisers would achieve better ROI than they now do on Google and Yahoo's Content networks.

Though its click inventory is miniscule compared to Google's, adCenter's Search network regularly produces astronomical conversion rates. If Microsoft can deliver the same kind of ROI advantages as it grows its Content network, advertisers hungry for click inventory will flock to it.

Microsoft's entry into the PPC advertising fray has been quiet and cautious - but never underestimate the behemoth's capability to come from far behind and win. Anybody remember former titans Visicorp, Lotus and WordPerfeect?

Posted by David Szetela at 7:06 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2008

Microsoft adCenter Add-in for Excel - Keyword Research Gold

Microsoft released a monster 64-mb keyword research tool tonight - download it here. The free tool, still in beta, is a culmination of research conducted at their Pac Rim adLab. It's called the Microsoft adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007 - and (obviously) you'll need Excel 2007, which Microsoft offers as a 60-day free trial.

Plans for the product were discussed in December at Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Posted by David Szetela at 11:31 PM | Permalink

December 18, 2007

Microsoft adCenter Offering Affiliate Program

Linda Buquet, president of 5 Star Affiliate Programs, announced the launch of Microsoft's affiliate program today.

adCenter will pay a bounty for each new advertiser people bring to the Microsoft PPC program. The current payment is $35 per sign up - seems all the big engines prefer this one time payment to any ongoing percentage deal.

5 Star Affiliate Program currently offers two Microsoft affiliate programs. "The network encompasses all of Microsoft's premier affiliate opportunities. Today there are two Microsoft services you can promote and profit from: MSN AdCenter and Windows Live OneCare. Over the next few months more Microsoft products and services will be added," the press release noted.

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:10 PM | Permalink

December 3, 2007

Can Better Tools Make Up for Less Traffic for Microsoft?

The old saying goes that it's not about quantity, but quality. Can that be true for search marketing as well? Microsoft is hoping that new tools it's launching today at Search Engine Strategies Chicago will allow advertisers and webmasters to make the most of limited traffic.

In today's SearchDay, "Microsoft Adds More Tools for Search Marketers," we look at the adCenter Add-in for Excel and adExcellence accreditation program for search advertisers, and a new Webmaster Center for organic search optimizers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:59 AM | Permalink

October 29, 2007

Microsoft adCenter Adds Immediate Editorial Updates, Daily Spend Limits

Microsoft was busy over the weekend upgrading the features at adCenter. The editorial changes you make to ads will now go live immediately similar to Google and Yahoo, according to their blog.

You will also be able to establish daily spend limits for your campaigns - which will help tighten spends.

The Big Three seem to be getting closer and closer to being mirrors - guess that will be easier on us when Google buys Microsoft and Yahoo....

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:50 PM | Permalink

October 1, 2007

Microsoft Updates Top Ad Algorithm on Live Search

Along with the recent organic ranking improvements Microsoft has made to Live Search, it has also tweaked the algorithm it uses to rank ads. The quality-based ranking algorithm is now less rigid, according to a post on the adCenter blog. This will allow more advertisers to get their ads into one of the top positions above the organic results, which Microsoft refers to as "the mainline."

Ads must meet a certain quality score to be considered for the top spots. Among those contenders, the algorithm will consider a combination of click-through rate and maximum bid. Microsoft warns advertisers that ads may move in and out of the mainline position, which may or may not be affected by max bid.

All of our quality-based ranking improvements have been made in the context of the overall search experience -- we will take both the paid and organic listings into account when assessing the overall experience for the searcher, while at the same time endeavoring to balance the needs of the advertiser.

Over time, we will continue to improve the paid search listings on Live Search, specifically focusing on:

* Quality of ads – that the ad copy aligns with offer, landing page and search term

* Quality of advertisers – that the advertiser is offering unique and valuable goods, services or information

* Quality set of overall listings – that the overall result set is unique, extremely relevant, high quality and the best value for the searcher

Google made a similar move to change the way it calculates ad placement for its top ads in AdWords. For Google, the Quality Score continues to be weighted heavily in the calculation, but now the formula uses the advertiser's maximum bid CPC instead of the actual auction-driven CPC to determine which ad will be shown in the top spot.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:59 PM | Permalink

September 11, 2007

Details Of MSN adCenter Changes

I missed this when it came out at the beginning of the month, but I have not seen a blog about it here.

MSN did an interesting release about the recent changes to the adCenter.

Nothing like getting it from the source with pictures and some details.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:45 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2007

Microsoft to Update Trademark Dispute Handling in adCenter

While Microsoft's trademark policy for adCenter advertisers is not changing, the way Microsoft deals with trademark infringement accusations against advertisers will change starting on September 10, according to the adCenter Blog.

Microsoft will stop generating its lists of advertisers approved by the trademark owner who can bid on trademarked keywords, but will continue to respond to complaints from trademark owners and investigate reported trademark infringement.

Microsoft is taking a step back from its involvement in compliance, but it is not leaving it up to advertisers and trademark owners to work things out on their own. The company promises to "support trademark owners in their efforts to protect their intellectual property," promising a faster response without the extra layers to review before acting on a complaint.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:49 PM | Permalink

August 24, 2007

Microsoft Changing Trademark Policy For PPC Advertising

The Microsoft adCenter announced it will be changing its trademark policy in September.

While "[t]he heart of the trademark policy is unchanged". adCenter reported, but they will not keep lists of approved affiliates etc.

They seem to be moving towards the Google model.

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:41 PM | Permalink

August 6, 2007

SEW Experts: Microsoft adCenter Could Win the Search Battle

In today's Search Ads column, "Microsoft adCenter Could Win the Search Battle," Tony Wright explains why he thinks Microsoft adCenter can win the search wars -- if it can scale the audience.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2007

Microsoft Committed to Advertising Success

At its annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond yesterday, Microsoft laid out its plans to succeed on multiple fronts. Notably, CEO Steve Ballmer said the company needs to do five things to succeed:

Hire and keep the right people
Drive innovation in the company
Embrace disruption
Build and maintain multiple competencies
Take a long-term approach

Going forward, Microsoft will continue to focus on advertising and devices: We're investing today in two new capabilities. We are going to be an advertising company, and we are going to be a devices company. Being an advertising company means learning about online and operational efficiency. Advertising is a new business model. Now we don't just talk about ISVs, we talk about publishers. What's a publisher? It's an ISV in the modern world who also wants to accept advertising. That's kind of the definition. Different business model, different concern. We need to embrace that. We need to be world-class at that.

He later added: We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation, to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business. The good news is, we're the number three seller of Internet advertising today. We sell primarily on our own sites, but we also sell Facebook, we now signed a deal to sell Digg, and a variety of other people. But we're number three; number three is better than number four, but not as good as number two or number one. And yet I think we'll bring this kind of tenacity that will enable us to, let's just say, make great strides.

Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, went into further detail in his presentation. Speaking about the adCenter platform, Johnson said: The ad platform is really about four key things: It's about the buy-sell process, connecting buyers with sellers, sellers that have inventory with buyers who are looking to buy ads. It's about the ad serving, having the data and having the algorithm to do the appropriate ad serving to meet those particular needs. It's about tools for publishers and advertisers to help improve workflow and help improve their planning and their entire workflow. And it's about doing this across multiple IP-based devices.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:29 PM | Permalink

July 16, 2007

Microsoft adCenter Adds Negative Keyword Tool

After a false start last month, Microsoft this weekend upgraded adCenter and gave advertisers the ability to add negative keywords at the campaign level, instead of just at the ad group level within campaigns.

According to the adCenter blog, "Negative keywords are specific words or phrases that help prevent your ads from being displayed to customers who are unlikely to click them. For example, if your ad sells televisions and you have specified 'TV' as a keyword, but you don't want search queries to produce results on entertainment-type searches, you could specify 'listings,' 'soap,' and 'show' as negative keywords."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:50 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2007

adCenter Gets Click Quality Reports

Microsoft adCenter has added click quality reports, according to a post on the adCenter blog by Brendan Kitts, program manager for click quality for Microsoft adCenter. Because all clicks don't necessarily carry the same value, adCenter categorizes them as either standard quality or low quality. Standard-quality clicks are the clicks that you want, that ordinarily result in conversions, and that you are billed for.

Low-quality clicks are clicks that adCenter classifies as non-billable, including those that adCenter has identified as:

Invalid clicks
Clicks that have characteristics of low or unclear commercial intent
Clicks that exhibit patterns of unusual activity
Clicks that originate from spiders, robots, questionable sources, or test servers
Clicks that should be filtered out for other reasons

Some traffic that adCenter has flagged as low quality might ultimately result in conversions for you, which is why the label “low quality,” rather than “invalid,” provides a more accurate description of this class of traffic.

Kitts also points to a few studies that show adCenter producing a higher conversion rate than other ad platforms, including research from Atlas, Nielsen/Netratings, Compete and WebSideStory (now Visual Sciences).

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:29 PM | Permalink

June 21, 2007

Microsoft Upgrading, Adding Negative Keywords to Category Level

I was informed the Microsoft adCenter will be offline on Saturday to do upgrades. And they tacked on the information about improving the negative keyword to allow them at the category level.

Their press release read:

This Saturday, June 23, 2007, Microsoft adCenter will be upgraded to allow you to manage negative keywords at the campaign level, in addition to several features to improve performance.

During this upgrade, adCenter will be temporarily unavailable for up to 14 hours, starting at 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time. Your ads and keywords will remain live and continue to run as usual, during this time.

To help you better manage your campaigns, I'd also like to share some feature reviews from the previous adCenter upgrade:

· Editing your keywords in bulk and previewing ads

· Creating multiple account performance reports and information on misspelled keyword management

· Importing campaigns from other search advertising programs

UPDATE: The adCenter update was postponed, according to the adCenter blog. No timeline was given for when the ability to manage negative keywords at the campaign level would become available.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:44 PM | Permalink

May 17, 2007

WPP Snaps Up 24/7 Real Media

Ad agency holding company WPP has acquired 24/7 Real Media for $649 million. The company has three main businesses: a CPM-based display ad network, publisher-side ad-serving technology, and a search marketing consultancy.

The 24/7 search business was built from acquisitions of Website Results in 2000 and Decide Interactive in 2004.

On the search side, WPP already owns Outrider, now part of MEC Interaction, and Boston-based Catalyst. According to WPP's statement, 24/7 will increase search spend under WPP's management by $200 million, "taking search volumes to more than $450 million and adding a robust technology platform for managing search."

This acquisition seems to be more about the ad network and ad-serving technology, as that's the focus of much of WPP's announcement.

This is the latest in a string of ad network acquisitions, and another example of Microsoft apparently missing out. Google got DoubleClick, Yahoo got Right Media, and so far Microsoft has been left empty-handed. Microsoft had reportedly been eyeing both DoubleClick and 24/7.

Of course, it's possible that Microsoft is the sane one here, since it doesn't need an ad network, but could have been after the publisher relationships 24/7 had with its ad serving technology, which would help jump-start a base for its adCenter platform.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 PM | Permalink

April 11, 2007

MSN adCenter Update Coming Soon

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be briefed on Microsoft's upcoming adCenter plans. A new release is planned for 4 to 6 weeks, but you can play with it today at the adCenter Beta site. And there is some cool stuff in it.

Here is a summary of some of the things I saw:

Cross campaign keyword search: This is a cool feature where you can search for a phrase at a global level, and adCenter will return all the keywords that use that phrase on a single screen. You can then work on and edit those keywords without having to go in an out of the different individual campaigns.
Pop-up help: Pop-up help will appear next to any item you have questions you have on a topic by hovering over a question mark icon on the screen.
adCenter now supports Firefox: A great improvement for those of us who use Firefox almost exclusively.
Expanded Bulk Upload Capabilities: Bulk uploads can now be done at an individual campaign level.
Tagging and Favorites: If you have a campaign or a set of keywords that need more management than others, these can be tagged so they will automatically show up and be accisble from your initial login screen.
Breadcrumbing: This is a neat new feature that allows you to hover over the breadcrum bar, and then see a list of peer web pages in a drop down list right there. So if you are in a particular campaign, and want to navigate directly to another campaign, you can do that quite easily.
New negative keyword management options: Negative keywords can now be specified at the campaign level

Overall some good improvements in adCenter's usability and functionality.

Posted by at 9:31 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2007

MSN Rectifies CPC Bug

Microsoft adCenter fixed the bug that boosted many people's CPC late last week, a company employee said today.

All CPC and billing errors have been corrected, according to the Microsoft employee. "The problems on the backend have been fixed and all accounts should be credited back the overcharges."

We will keep everyone posted on any further information from MSN and anyone having problems should post them in the forums so the adCenter rep can run them down.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:31 PM | Permalink

February 23, 2007

Microsoft adCenter System Error Causing High CPC Jumps

Posters at the DigitalPoint forum spotted a major glitch in the MSN adCenter. I contacted my reps and they were well aware of the situation.

I was told they will not be charging the accounts these overbidded amounts. Obviously - but I was impressed with the response time and knowledge of the situation.

MSN had this info to share:

Description:

A number of customers have very high Average CPC and spend amounts in adCenter over the last 24 hours which are much above their bid amounts for keywords. This seems to be caused by a system error that we are working on fixing currently.

Status report:

This issue is being worked on by the adCenter team as top priority - No action is needed at this time

Effect/Impact on users:

Users may see high Avg CPC and spend amounts over the last 24 hours.

How long it takes to fix now will be the true litmus test.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:09 PM | Permalink

January 23, 2007

Microsoft Offers Clicking For Charity

Microsoft is setting up a separate area in Live where a percentage of the click income will become charitable contributions.

BetaNews reported earlier today that Microsoft in conjunction with the United Nations based Ninemillion.org will donate money from their newly established Click For The Cause.

The donation of part of the income generated from the clicks at Click For The Cause will go for education and sports for the over nine million children living in refugee camps around the world.

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:38 PM | Permalink

AdCenter Almost Ready for Prime Time

Microsoft's adCenter platform will get an update in the next 2 months, which will include some small usability and back-end fixes, as well as the launch of a Content Ads pilot. Advertisers gathered in Redmond last week to see the latest demos from adCenter Labs, which we share with you in today's SearchDay, "Microsoft Shows Off AdCenter."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:18 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2007

Microsoft Live Analytics Enters Alpha Stage

Microsoft is working on a Web analytics product that's been spotted in the wild recently, under the code-name Gatineau. It's named for the city in Canada where Web analytics provider DeepMetrix was based for some years, before it was acquired by Microsoft last May.

The project is housed in Redmond under Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions group, with some development in Ireland. Ian Thomas, a planner on the project and a veteran of WebAbacus, provides some details on Gatineau on his blog, Lies, Damned Lies....

According to Thomas, the project is in closed alpha stage, with plans for an invite-only beta in coming months and a potential launch later this year. The product appears to be positioned in the same niche as Google Analytics.

"I can't be very specific at all about the functionality we hope to deliver, but I can say that the target audience for this project is broadly similar to the target audience for Google Analytics - though it's emphatically not our intention simply to replicate the functionality within that product," he writes.

Update: Microsoft is not talking specifics about Gatineau, but did provide us with a statement from Alexandra Tibbetts, Microsoft adCenter director of product management:

“Microsoft is making significant investments to make Web analytics broadly available to help customers improve the customer experience on their Web sites and optimize the performance of marketing campaigns. Microsoft acquired DeepMetrix in May 2006 and began ‘Project Gatineau' to continue investments in this area because it is important to our customers.”

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:56 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2006

Does this MSN Behavioral Search Matter?

Read the latest from MSN about its Behavioral Search, in recent MediaPost interview.

It's interesting that behavioral search produced CTRs up to 76% higher than before. This is still based on whomever signs up for Passport. Call me ignorant, but this seems like a small and maybe even unrepresentative group. Let's say it is better than NOT having a group who self-reports age, sex and even more about their interests. Is it valid to connect the interests and searches back to these profiles for people who don't participate in Passport?

Posted by at 1:28 PM | Permalink

December 14, 2006

Microsoft Improves Monthly Budgeting in adCenter

Microsoft has tweaked the monthly budgeting settings in adCenter to spread a campaign's impressions more evenly across a month. It uses a metric it calls Average Participation Rate (Average PR) to rate how likely it is for an ad to be displayed during the month, which tells the system whether to show the ad or hold off for the next occurrence of the keyword. When a marketer's budget begins to be exceeded, the system will stop showing the ads, to ensure ads are evenly distributed throughout the month.

To prevent adCenter from slowing down exposures, advertisers can either up their spending level or change campaign settings to set the budget to "Spend until depleted," which will use up the monthly budget as activity demands.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2006

New adCenter Blog & adCenter Lab Features

There is a new location for the adCenter blog, it is now at http://adcenterblog.spaces.live.com/ (yea, the whole live.com thing). Also, adCenter labs released updates for some of the tools.

Search Funnel 1.5: This demo will be updated with over 4 million keywords added to the database.
Keyword Forecast: This new demo will display a search term's impression count forecast and demographic predictions in any format: flash, picture or text.

I have screen captures of the Keyword Forecast at the Search Engine Roundtable - pretty neat stuff.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Microsoft Consolidates Platform, Portfolio In 'Digital Advertising Solutions'

Microsoft announced the launch of "Digital Advertising Solutions" and a related media campaign to promote it. What is "Digital Advertising Solitions?" It's an effort to bring together, in one convenient buying environment, Microsoft's extensive portfolio of consumer properties in gaming, mobile and online. According to the press release, "Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions offers advertisers the ability to reach more than 465 million consumers each month across the MSN network and millions more through Windows Live, Xbox Live and Office Online. Microsoft's advertising portfolio extends its reach across some of Microsoft's latest releases such as Live Search and Live Local Search, through relationships such as those with Facebook, and the acquisition of in-game advertising pioneer Massive Inc."

I have a slightly longer post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 1:51 PM | Permalink

September 6, 2006

Correction: Microsoft Adds Behavioral Targeting Feature

MediaPost reports that Microsoft has added behavioral targeting features to the adCenter product. Microsoft has broken down Internet surfers into 18 audience segments including; mobile users, Internet power users, gamers, movie watchers, new/expecting moms, parents, and several categories encompassing travel searchers, and auto buyers and researchers. This now helps Microsoft stand apart from Google's AdWords product and Yahoo's Search Marketing product, PPC engines that currently do not have integrated behavioral targeting capabilities.

Postscript: Just got an email from an MSN rep that this story is not true. I quote; "The incorrect information is that you state BT (Behavioral Targeting) is available through adCenter, our paid search platform, where as BT (Behavioral Targeting) is only available for display ads."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:43 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

Microsoft adCenter Now Live In The UK

The adCenter blog announced that Microsoft adCenter is now live, Tuesday, August 15th, in the UK. 100% of the ads served on Microsoft's properties will run adCenter ads, including MSN Search and Windows Live. Be prepared to see search volume and budget change requirements in your ad campaigns.

Want to discuss with others? Join our forum thread named Microsoft adCenter Launches in the UK.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:01 AM | Permalink

August 1, 2006

Microsoft adCenter Upgrades Include Firefox Support

Microsoft adCenter has a new release launching Saturday, August 5th, and one of the upgrades includes the long awaited Firefox browser support.

Microsoft sent out an email to their premium adCenter customers, which included the following:

Now, use Microsoft adCenter with the Firefox 1.5 browser!
Daily, weekly and monthly data will be updated every hour to help you view results and optimize campaigns in real-time.
Select the time frame for which you want your campaign and order summaries to show, instead of viewing them in the life-to-date format.
User-interface changes to the reporting tab will make usability simpler.
API customers will now have access to more procedure calls. Detailed API communications will be sent to API customers.
For more details, there is also an adCenter Pre-SES community briefing being held Wednesday, August 2nd on all the changes.

And join the forum discussion on the new changes on the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 12:53 PM | Permalink
MSN Assigns Names To Vertical Search Crawlers
I covered news at my blog this morning that MSN has assigned names to all their robots or crawlers. When MSN Search first launched, they had one robot named, msnbot. MSNbot did the work of all, from normal web search to image search to news and images. Now, MSN has clarified the roles and assigned names to each robot.

The MSN Shopping bot is msnbot-products, the MSN News bot is msnbot-news, the MSN Image Search bot is msnbot-media and the MSN Search bot is still msnbot. This is important for SEOs, now you can define in your robots.txt file if you want msnbot-media to index your images or not.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:53 AM | Permalink

July 19, 2006
Reporting Data Delayed At Microsoft adCenter
I covered at Search Engine Roundtable that Microsoft adCenter has been having some reporting issues, where data in your adCenter reports are delayed as far back as the 14th (almost five full days). Microsoft is aware of the issue and will have things working properly as soon as possible.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:26 AM | Permalink

June 30, 2006
MSN Search To Officially Not Use Yahoo Search Marketing For Sponsored Search July 1
I reported over the Search Engine Roundtable that Yahoo's and MSN's relationship is coming to an official end this month. The official Yahoo announcement can be seen here and it states, "MSN's U.S. search distribution agreement with Yahoo! Search Marketing ends this month, and Yahoo! Sponsored Search listings will no longer appear in MSN's U.S. search results." MSN has been displaying mostly Microsoft adCenter ads on their search results pages for a couple months now. So the transition has been pretty gradual for advertisers and searchers.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:42 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2006
Microsoft Promotes adCenter In Full Page New York Times Ad
ClickZ reports that Microsoft has a full-page color ad in this morning's New York Times that promotes Microsoft adCenter, Microsoft's PPC engine. The ad has a link to msftadcenter.com/nyt that notably prompts you with a few security warnings on the redirects to the final landing page. The ad headline reportedly reads "She found your furniture ad on Google." Then there is an "image is a little girl and her dollhouse." The ad continues by explaining the difference between a customer and a click. The ad also touts a "2006 study by WebSideStory shows that Microsoft adCenter converts customers at a rate that is 48% higher than Yahoo and a full 57% higher than Google."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:28 AM | Permalink

June 5, 2006
Windows Live Mail's Active Search: Gmail-Like Contextual Ads Next To Your Mail
Two years ago, Gmail launched with the idea of showing ads contextually based on your email. Soon after, the shit hit the fan, with one California state senator even backing a special anti-Gmail law that failed to pass. Fast forward to last week, with Microsoft rolling out Active Search within Windows Live Mail. Just like Gmail, it will deliver ads based on what you're reading. Unlike Gmail, there's been no privacy freakout that I've seen.

Microsoft's blog post on the new service highlights privacy protections meant to make you feel better. Heck, I was never that worried about Gmail. We'll see if places like EPIC feel they need to maintain a new FAQ about the Microsoft service similar to what they started (but don't seem to still maintain) for Gmail.

Microsoft Adds Contextual Ads Alongside Desktop E-mail from ClickZ has more on the new service.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:05 PM | Permalink

May 8, 2006
Microsoft Acquires DeepMetrix To Enhance adCenter Metrics
ThreadWatch release that shows Microsoft has purchased DeepMetrix, a Web analytics company. The purchase is to enable Microsoft to "deliver new Web analytics applications in future releases of Microsoft adCenter." Last year Google acquired Urchin, and then renamed it to Google Analytics in November and began AdWords integration soon after. Microsoft will possibly do the same.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:01 AM | Permalink

May 4, 2006
MSN adCenter Officially Launches & Changes Name to Microsoft adCenter
While MSN adCenter has been in pilot mode since mid-October, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is announcing the official launch of adCenter at Thursday's MSN Strategic Account Summit... as well as the new name change to Microsoft adCenter.

Along with the launch comes news that adCenter will launch in the UK market on a limited basis in June, begin testing their contextual advertising this summer, provide ads on multiple Live products and drop Yahoo! Search Marketing ads from all US-based searches on MSN Search.

The name change is a very curious decision. With all search related products branded under the MSN name, why change MSN adCenter to Microsoft adCenter? When going to the adCenter site now, it has been entirely rebranded Wednesday evening to coincide with the Thursday announcement. It will be interesting to watch others weigh in on this topic. I am not sure that rebranding from MSN to Microsoft is the best decision for adCenter, but it is certainly a decision that will get people talking about the possible reasons why for the rebrand.

The launch into the UK market is a natural progression for adCenter, and they seem to be taking a similar pilot route into the UK as they did in the US. However, with the experience behind them with the US pilot, I wouldn't expect that the UK pilot would last very long before fully launching.

It has been known that MSN would eventually launch a contextual advertising product to compete with Google AdSense & Yahoo Publisher Network, so this isn't entirely a surprise. But having a summer target date for testing is something many potential publishers will be watching for when the ads begin running on MSN & Microsoft network sites.

And dropping Yahoo! Search Marketing ads is not a surprise at all. MSN has been cutting back on the percentage of ads they show from Yahoo as their adCenter pilot progressed, most recently dropping Yahoo ads to only 30% of all US searches on MSN Search.

Advertisers will also be able to see their advertisements appearing across a number of MSN & Microsoft properties in the future, including Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Safety Center, Windows Live for Mobile, Office Live and Office Online, and the Xbox® Web site Xbox.com. This definitely ends much speculation about how many of these new free Live branded products would be monetized to make them worthwhile. And it gives adCenter a platform to test contextual targeting prior to launching a product for publishers.

For current pilot advertisers, nothing much will be changed. But for those wanting to advertise, you will no longer have to wait for an invite or an open sign-up day to be able to run ad campaigns on MSN Search.

Postscript From Danny: On the name change, I guess the biggest surprise is that they didn't call it Windows Live adCenter :)

Postscript 2: Microsoft's press release is below:

REDMOND, Wash. ? May 3, 2006 ? Today at the seventh annual MSN® Strategic Account Summit, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer announced the launch of Microsoft adCenter, the company?s online advertising platform now serving 100 percent of paid search traffic on Microsoft® online properties in the U.S. market.

Ballmer recognized the advertising community for its pivotal support of Microsoft?s rapidly expanding digital content network and said the company is set to deliver even richer opportunities for advertisers in the months to come.

?Ad-supported software services are an integral part of Microsoft?s plans to give consumers access to a broader variety of digital media, whenever they want and on whatever device they prefer,? Ballmer told the audience of more than 700 leading innovators in the advertising, marketing and media industries. ?Our close partnership with the ad community is extremely important to us as we evolve Microsoft from a software company into the world?s largest, most attractive provider of online media through MSN, Windows Live? and adCenter.?

Announced a year ago at the sixth annual Strategic Account Summit in March 2005 as a comprehensive platform and set of tools for advertisers, the Microsoft ad platform was launched today by Ballmer in the U.S. (English version only), joining the service?s availability in Singapore and France and serving 100 percent of paid search ads in these markets. Microsoft adCenter also will begin testing with a limited number of advertisers in the U.K. market in June.

As the advertising engine for Windows Live, MSN and other Microsoft online services, Microsoft adCenter is helping advertisers strategically plan their online buys and is designed to help them gain a higher return on investment by utilizing real audience intelligence and advanced targeting capabilities.

Performics Inc., the performance-based marketing division of DoubleClick Inc., is using Microsoft adCenter extensively with its clients. Stuart Frankel, president of Performics, joined Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft senior vice president and chief advertising strategist, in demonstrating Microsoft adCenter?s capabilities at the Strategic Account Summit.

?We are very encouraged by the results of our campaigns in adCenter. In particular, during the pilot, the vast majority of our clients? conversion rates have been better on MSN than the other major search engines,? Frankel said.

Ballmer and Mehdi outlined a broader vision for adCenter at the conference, sharing a road map of how adCenter would be enhanced to address advertising opportunities beyond paid search. Ballmer noted that Microsoft was committed not only to a next-generation advertising platform for its advertising customers, but also to building through MSN and the Windows Live services the largest, most engaged audience on the planet.

Microsoft adCenter is designed to ultimately provide advertisers with a one-stop-shop experience, whether buying search, contextual or display ads across a number of Microsoft properties. Ballmer emphasized the importance to advertisers of accessing powerful tools and audience intelligence in an easy-to-use, accessible way, and that Microsoft?s network of online sites and services will deliver to advertisers a range of audiences with very different demographics that advertisers will be able to reach in one consistent way. Contextual advertising testing begins on MSN in the U.S. market this summer. In addition, the following Microsoft properties are preparing to launch ads in the near future: Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Safety Center, Windows Live for Mobile, Office Live and Office Online, and the Xbox® Web site Xbox.com.

The one-stop-shop experience of Microsoft adCenter will allow advertisers to track ad campaign performance and report results in a holistic and measurable way. In response to advertiser feedback, Microsoft has not only built adCenter to deliver innovative reporting capabilities, but also announced that it had acquired DeepMetrix Corp., a privately held provider of Web analytics and business intelligence tools for online marketers and publishers. Expanding upon DeepMetrix technologies such as LiveSTATS.BIZ, Microsoft will deliver new Web analytics applications in future releases of Microsoft adCenter.

More information about Microsoft adCenter and registration is available at http://advertising.msn.com.

Postscript Barry: Figured I add a bit more to this, since Gary Price sent me a few relevant links. The video of the presentation can be found here and the full transcript here.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 2:03 AM | Permalink

May 3, 2006
Yahoo & Microsoft Have Talked Partnering, Merging
I was talking with Kevin Delaney of the Wall Street Journal on Monday about search things in general and mentioned the sense it makes for Microsoft and Yahoo to get together. Microsoft is behind with the core search technology. Yahoo's been struggling to upgrade its paid search service. Let's get these two kids together! And today in the Wall Street Journal, it turns out that there's apparently a faction at Microsoft that wants to do just that.

Via Paid Content, A Microsoft, Yahoo Tie-Up? from the Wall Street Journal has the details. Kevin and colleague Robert Guth write of there being two factions within Microsoft -- the "let's built it ourselves" group that has been in control so far and the "let's acquire" group apparently led by Microsoft senior vice president Hank Vigil.

Vigil is said to have led the failed negotiations to combine MSN with AOL. Frankly, a Yahoo deal makes more sense than that. AOL would have provided existing traffic but not solid search technology. Yahoo provides plenty of traffic, along with core search technology and a healthy, first-hand advertiser base.

What's not to love? Probably the high price of the acquisition, plus whether Yahoo -- especially cofounder Jerry Yang -- would go for it. But apparently it's plausible enough that both companies have talked informally over the past year.

The Wall Street Journal cites the hiring of Steve Berkowitz by Microsoft as perhaps being a tipping point. I'd certainly agree. Steve is the first serious outside person Microsoft has brought in for its battle in the search wars. Bringing him on was a big sign that what Microsoft has been trying to do internally hasn't been working -- and so something radical such as an Ask or Yahoo acquisition might be in order.

The big downside is that such an acquisition would give Microsoft yet another brand to confuse consumers with. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to push MSN, they've now shifted things behind making the stupid Windows Live brand their flagship. It's stupid for so many reasons. Let me bullet point two major ones:
- Most people I know don't really like the Windows brand. Heck, I'm a Windows person, fairly anti-Mac, but Windows still represents crashes and glitches to me. And this is the label you want to attach to your online services?
- We're moving into a world where the operating system and my web-based services aren't necessarily connected. I love Outlook. I live in Outlook. But online, I might want to sync Outlook with Yahoo or Google's calendar. Forcing me to think -- overtly or indirectly through branding -- that I have to use all your products makes me want to use none of them. Let MSN operate as if it wasn't linked to your operating system or your browser and it will be a stronger service in the long run, not weaker.
So Microsoft's already coping with the confusion of two major brands. Adding in Yahoo further confuses matters, unless they perhaps make a brave, bold move and put everything behind the brand leader in the space, Yahoo.

Meanwhile, via Valleywag, Ballmer defends Microsoft's spending increase from the Seattle Times covers a likely leaked memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer naming Google as one of the company's chief competitors and requiring further "heavy investments" in search. The goal, which we've heard before, is to create "the web's largest advertising network, giving us an engine that twill enable us to monetize our services and compete against Google."

Ah -- but to compete against Google, you don't need an advertising network. You first need a quality core web search engine, which your heavy investment to date has failed to create. And so back to Yahoo, which has exactly what Microsoft needs, that core technology.

Microsoft's AdCenter May Fail to Topple Google From Dominance from Bloomberg covers how advertisers are getting a more formal look at the MSN adCenter service that Microsoft has rolled out over the past few months. Unlike Microsoft's failure in web search, I'd say adCenter is a big success. The service already has plenty of advertisers using it -- and anecdotally continues to draw lots of praise for its features.

Features ultimately mean little, of course. As the story cites, it's about volume. MSN could have rolled out a terrible product that advertisers would have coped with simply because it was the only way to reach MSN's substantial traffic. But to the company's credit, they did not do that. Instead, they've continued to refine and tweak and take advertiser feedback in a way that has earned them raves I rarely hear recently about the systems at Google or Yahoo. Volume remains key, but the features and wooing still certainly help.

And that brings us back to Yahoo, which has been struggling with an antiquated paid listings toolset. The Counterattack On Google from BusinessWeek covers how Yahoo's "Panama" update to its paid listings system has been progressing over the past two years and is nearing completion. But BusinessWeek correctly summarizes, in my view, the changes are more about bringing Yahoo up to Google's level of features rather than leapfrogging past Google and into features like MSN offers.

It's another argument that makes the idea of Yahoo and Microsoft getting together not wacky at all.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Yahoo & Microsoft To Combine.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:00 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2006
More On Amazon Dumping Google & Missing Paid Listings
Barry noted yesterday that Amazon's A9 was no longer carrying Google results. More important, this means that Amazon itself no longer carries Google's search results -- and in particular, Google's paid listings.

Google and Amazon partnered back in 2003 for Amazon to offer Google searches on the Amazon site. Google ads also were displayed there. I'm pretty sure at one point, the Google logo was on Amazon's home page, along with a search box. Unfortunately, the Internet Archive simply serves up pages from 2000 no matter what links I try from the years 2003 through 2005 to check on this.

Anyway, these days, there's a small A9 Web Search box in the upper right-hand corner of the Amazon site. Until last week, that box brought back A9 results that were powered by Google. Now they are powered by Microsoft's Windows Live Search.

Few people use A9 -- but many more use Amazon. How many did web searches at Amazon is unclear, but in either place, they are no longer seeing the paid listings that Google also used to provide.

In addition, I'm also pretty certain that an ordinary Amazon search (which lots and lots of people do) used to bring up Google paid listings as part of Amazon search results. Today, I don't see these at all. Over at Threadwatch, others report not seeing these either.

MSN syndicates Search to Amazon from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has more on the new Amazon-Microsoft agreement. The issue of who is providing paid listings isn't covered, but since the Amazon-Google agreement wasn't renewed, I'd assume these are to come from Microsoft.

Amazon Search Finds Microsoft from the Washington Post also has some details on the move, including the inspiring answer to whether Amazon felt Microsoft was providing better search results: "It will be up to users to try that out." So more a business move than a relevancy issue, fair to say :)

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Amazon Ditches Google For Microsoft.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Amazon Ditches Google For Microsoft.

Postscript: See also Nearly 10 Percent Of Amazon Visitors Clicked Off To Google.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:15 AM | Permalink

April 18, 2006
Search Ad Providers Gaze into their Crystal Balls
Is search advertising slowing down, or just getting started? What new distribution channels are likely to open up in the coming months? Will traditional ad agencies dominate the business? And just how big a problem is click fraud, anyway? Answers to these and many other questions from executives from Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and IAC in today's SearchDay article, Divining the Future of Search Advertising.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:24 PM | Permalink

March 24, 2006
adCenter Now Tracks Conversions By Firefox Browsers
MSN adCenter fixed some of the bugs with Firefox Danny reported under the title MSN adCenter: Firefox Users Need Not Apply; Customers With Firefox Might Not Get Tracked. The adCenter representative posted an update in our forums, saying "we fixed the issue with conversion tracking."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:47 AM | Permalink

March 15, 2006
Microsoft Begins Testing Advertising In Live Products
Microsoft has announced advertising will be added to a variety of their Live products, including Office Live, Windows Live Mail and most notably, MSN Spaces. Twenty beta advertisers are included in the initial advertising launch offering a variety of creatives.
The multimarket tests include advertisements from such global companies as Coca-Cola Brazil, JCPenney Co. Inc. and Monster Worldwide Inc. and mark the beginning of providing advertisers with broader access to Microsoft's valuable online audience. This effort will help generate revenue to provide consumers with a wide array of free and low-cost online services such as Web hosting, e-mail and Web services.
Adding advertising to MSN spaces is an interesting decision, especially when competitive services such as Blogger are not only ad-free, but provide tools for bloggers to earn revenue through easy implementation of Google AdSense. However, bloggers will be relieved to learn that initial advertising in MSN Spaces is limited to Australia and Italy at this time.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 2:21 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2006
MSN To Launch Click to Call Soon?
MarketingVox reports on a BusinessWeek article that shows signs that Microsoft will launch a click to call service within its search engine. The article suggests that Microsoft will launch the service this week and it allow users connect to businesses via web-based calls by clicking on MSN search links." I would assume this will be integrated into MSN AdCenter but it is possible they use a third-party PPC engine for the feature.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:43 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2006
MSN adCenter: Mac users need not apply either
Hot on the news that adCenter fails to support Firefox users, particularly by giving security warnings when Firefox visitors land on a page utilizing the adCenter conversion tracker, comes news that Mac users are completely excluded from AdCenter.

None of the browsers available for the Mac platform are compatible with adCenter, including the version of IE that Microsoft previously made available to Mac users.

Carolyn, an adCenter rep, stated "At this time, all advertisers must use Windows to access adCenter, but the need for Mac support is clear to us and it's on our list for future iterations of adCenter."

However, there is no timeline for when Mac will be supported, so Mac users could potentially be waiting many months - or even longer - before being able to utilize adCenter, depending on just how high this issue is prioritized. This problem is also something that can exclude many of the large ad agencies that tend to use Mac as their platform of choice from advertising through adCenter.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 9:25 AM | Permalink

March 6, 2006
MSN adCenter: Firefox Users Need Not Apply; Customers With Firefox Might Not Get Tracked
It annoyed me a few weeks ago when I signed up for the MSN adCenter pilot that Firefox wasn't supported. That was still the case with the open adCenter sign-up today and annoyed one of my readers Paul Holstein, as well. Firefox users also get treated to a warning that Firefox is "unable to verify the identity of adcenter.msn.com as a trusted site" if they try to enter adCenter. Paul came across a similar but more serious warning that could alienate Firefox users, one that may appear if advertisers make use of adCenter's conversion tracking script on their own pages.

Here's what Paul emailed me:

Did you know that MSN ad center is not Firefox compliant? This should come as no surprise but the kicker is that the conversion tracking is not compliant either. Therefore, any merchant using the conversion tracking script will run into problems with their Firefox customers.

When they purchase something, they will be told that the merchant is pretending to be r.microsoft.com. Needless to say, this will be a problem for at least 10% of a merchant's customers.

We called MSN and spoke to them. Their official solution is that we should switch all our customer service reps to IE6 and alert our customers that they should only use IE6 to purchase from us. Hmm, that doesn't sound like a practical solution to me.

To be clear, if you're using the conversion tracking script that MSN adCenter provides, those visiting pages with this script may see this warning pop-up:
Click to enlarge image
Here's the actual email one of Paul's colleagues was sent from MSN adCenter's support team:

It is my understanding that the customer service reps for your company are experiencing an issue when trying to place orders for customers, mainly due to a Security Certificate appearing on their screens, which announces that "unable to verify the identity of *.r.msn.com as a trusted site." I understand that you have concerns regarding customers who might see this certificate and come to a conclusion that your company's website is not a true site. I would be more than happy to assist you in alleviating those concerns.

To summarize our phone conversation, I would like you to use IE6 as a browser, clear cache and cookies, and add MSN adCenter as a trusted site. Furthermore; conversion tracking not only needs to be disabled, but also "commented out" on your website, if Firefox is still used.

If your CSRs still encounter this issue, I would appreciate if you could reply back to this email with screenshots of the error message they receive.

We appreciate your patience and perseverance during this time.

Paul's colleague also gave him this further rundown on the discussion:

I explained to her that we could technically do that for our CSR?s machines? "BUT? what about our customers." She promptly replied, "? they won?t call you?? At which point I sighed and sat back in my chair, "No they won?t call us, our web site just informed them that we are a hoax and are probably trying to steal their confidential information."

At this point there was an awkward pause for about 5 seconds?.. then she replied, "Well if they do call you could tell them to switch to IE6 because its completely compatible with MSN ad center. And if they get the error you could inform them that if they clear their cookies and their cache and set MSN ad center as a trusted site, then they should be alright." The worst part is she wasn?t joking? I just sighed and said "Okay." With a chuckle.

She proceeded to ask me questions as I disabled the module from our web site. Her final question being "would you say that I satisfactorily solved your problem today?? at which point I paused for a few short seconds and replied ?Let?s just say it?s not your fault?? at least we both got a chuckle out of that.

Want to comment or discuss? Turns out, we've had this come up on our Search Engine Watch Forums back in December, in our MSN adCenter & Conversion Tracking Warnings In Firefox discussion. Please comment in that, and I'll also see if I can get someone from MSN to comment more on the issue.

Postscript: MSN's since posted to our thread and also sent this statement:

We are aware that MSN adCenter is currently not compatible with certain web browsers such as Safari, Firefox, and the latest Internet Explorer Beta (IE7). We are currently testing adCenter using multiple browsers. As compatibility grows we will announce this to the public. Meanwhile, we would like to apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

MSN also said it is still checking on the issues with tracking.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:58 PM | Permalink
MSN adCenter Open Sign-up Now, Um, Open!
Been wanting to try MSN adCenter, the new program allowing you to buy search ads directly from MSN? Until now, participation has been by invite only. However, the open sign-up period that Jen previously mentioned would happen today is now live. Sign up at MSN adCenter from now (9am Pacific) through the next three hours. Open signup is supposed to close at noon Pacific time.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:00 PM | Permalink

March 1, 2006
MSN AdCenter Offering an Open Sign Up For Advertisers
The MSN AdCenter team announced they are offering a brief open sign up period for potential advertisers to get an AdCenter pilot account without having to wait for a formal invite or the larger release in June. The open sign up period lasts for only three hours beginning at 9am PST on Monday March 6, and people will be able to signup and begin creating campaigns right away.

Discussion at Search Engine Watch.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 2:06 PM | Permalink

February 24, 2006
MSN adCenter To Increase Traffic For Advertisers
Good news for adCenter publishers was announced by MSN today. Starting Monday, advertisers will see a 70% increase on ad impressions being served on MSN search results.

I talked with Carolyn, the Community Support Analyst with adCenter about the traffic increase for advertisers. "Increasing adCenter traffic is one of the most common requests we've heard from our pilot users in the community so we're excited to share this news."

If you are an advertiser, you will begin to see the impact on Tuesday, February 28th as the change is performed. It might also be worth revisiting your campaign budgets and making sure they are appropriate to what you are willing to spend as the increase is rolled out.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 2:02 PM | Permalink

February 22, 2006
Displaying MSN adCenter Ads
Barry Schwartz (that is me) explained How to View MSN adCenter Ads Only. To view MSN adCenter ads only, all you need to do is go to http://adcenter.search.msn.com/ and search on a keyword phrase. The sponsored results at the top and right hand side of the page, are only MSN adCenter ads.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Any way to see MSN ads?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:04 AM | Permalink
MSN adCenter 3.0 Demo in New York
The Dallas Search Marketing Blog has documented a review of the First Public Demo of MSN adCenter 3.0. MSN sent Celena Kingson, Search Marketing Specialist and Robyn Raybould, Search Marketing Analyst to present adCenter to the group. Jack Spirko, who wrote this review, listed five features that make MSN adCenter stand out.
1. Dynamic Keyword Insertion beyond Google AdWords: She explains that you can "set up to three dynamic parameters that allow you additional control over you ad copy and even allow for dynamic destination URLs."
2. Extensive Demographic Data: This allows you to tailor your ads based on demographics and not just keyword phrases and geographic data.
3. Bid Based on Demographics: You can place a higher bid on a keyword phrase for a searcher who is 26-35 year old males, as an example.
4. Estimate Average Positions: Unlike Yahoo which shows max bids, and unlike Google that makes it very hard to know a rank, MSN enables you to see estimated position based on max bid and CTR of each ad creative.
5. Day Parting Bid Tools: You can "display your ads on specific days of the week, specific times of day or a combination of each."
I personally was unable to make the demonstration, but I am glad they accounted for what took place.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:02 AM | Permalink

January 30, 2006
Kanoodle Gets MSN Spaces Contextual Deal
Kanoodle has announced it will be providing contextual ads to the MSN Spaces service. What's odd about this is that MSN has their own contextual ads program apparently in the works (see here and here at JenSense). Then again, it could be that Kanoodle will serve as a stop-gap for MSN until it has its own program online, when Kanoodle might then shift to being backfill.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:52 AM | Permalink

January 13, 2006
MSN To Run All Its Own Ads By End Of June 2006
Paid Content points at Microsoft Plans Launch of Search Ad System from the Associated Press, where MSN said it expects to begin using its own ads fully as of the end of June. Currently, about 25 percent of ads come from MSN's own system, as we're reported before. The MSN adCenter pilot program opened last October. FYI, we've even got a new adCenter section of our Search Engine Watch Forums, moderated by Todd "Oilman" Friesen. AdCenter is the official MSN rep who is pretty active in the area, as well. Want into the pilot? Sign-up here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:17 AM | Permalink
MSN Launches adCenter Incubation Lab: adLab
MSN is unveiling a new research center in Beijing today that has the the mission of developing tools for its adCenter platform. Called the adCenter Incubation Lab, or adLab for short, members of the new service are to show some of their developments to Microsoft employees during the second annual internal adCenter Demo Fest. More details below in the press release from Microsoft:

Microsoft adCenter Incubation Lab Unveils Global Technology for Digital Advertising Industry

adCenter Demo Fest exhibits leading-edge advertising technology.

REDMOND, Wash. ? Jan. 12, 2006 ? Microsoft Corp. today unveiled the Microsoft® adCenter Incubation Lab (adLab) during its adCenter Demo Fest, an exposition of industry-leading research and innovation in the field of digital advertising technology from Microsoft researchers.

adLab, a joint effort between Microsoft?s adCenter and Microsoft Research, is a state-of-the-art incubation lab in Beijing with a mission to research and incubate advanced technologies for Microsoft?s adCenter, providing advertisers with rich targeting capabilities based on audience intelligence information while giving consumers a more relevant online experience.

adLab?s top-notch group of more than 50 researchers will develop advertising solutions that connect marketers with consumers in more relevant, innovative ways unseen in the industry before now. Today at the adCenter Demo Fest on the Microsoft campus, the researchers gathered to present prototypes of more than 15 of the approximately 40 advertising technologies they are currently working on for long-term implementation, including online advertising solutions, video opportunities, as well as television- and mobile-based-advertising products.

These prototypes hold the promise to change online advertising dramatically in areas such as paid search, behavioral targeting and contextual advertising. Also shown were projects addressing areas of incubation in their earliest stages of investigation, such as ad bar-code readers, social network mining, image and video and large-display ads.

?The exciting work being shown at adCenter Demo Fest and the new Microsoft adLab reflect Microsoft?s commitment to innovation in the field of ad products,? said Tarek Najm, general manager of adCenter at Microsoft. ?The Microsoft team of top researchers in this field is unsurpassed and certain to produce compelling advances that will impact and ultimately change the game in online advertising. With this long-term applied research, we will continue to improve advertisers? return on investment by delivering rich audience intelligence information and enabling simple and complete control over all aspects of the advertising campaigns.?

One of the innovative technologies highlighted at this event was video hyperlink ads, which can detect product items displayed on a television screen during a show or commercial, allowing consumers to zoom into products featured on the television screen and click through to detailed product descriptions and information on where the products can be bought.

The adLab will be headed jointly by Ying Li of Microsoft adCenter in Redmond and Jian Wang of Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, and will consist of a team of dedicated scientists with specializations in the areas of data mining, information retrieval, statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, auction theory, visual computing and digital media. Together, this group of internationally renowned researchers have published more than 80 articles on a range of topics including information retrieval, data mining, visual computing and smart devices.

Postcript from Gary
Pam Parker over at Clickz has more in the article: Microsoft Establishes adLab as R&D Center One more near-term prototype, which [MS spokesperson Karen] Redetzki said was coming in six months, was a capability to let marketers target ads by behavioral segments. She added that advertisers would also be able to create custom segments, which would let them more accurately target their prospects. Postcript 2 from Gary Those with an interest in Microsoft research in online advertising advertising might find the following tech report of interest: + Targeted Advertising with Inventory Management (2000) In this paper, we describe how to use a linear program to identify a schedule, based on known attributes of each visitor, that maximizes the expected number of clicks given all of the inventory-management constraints. We present experimental results using real data that demonstrate that a delivery schedule from our system realizes more clicks than a schedule that was hand constructed.
If you're interested in what patents Microsoft has recently applied for that deals with online advertising, here's a list of a few that were filed in 2005. It's NOT a comperehensive list.
Patent Applications
+ Assigning textual ads based on article history Published: September 29, 2005
+ Targeted advertising based on consumer purchasing data Published: September 15, 2005
+ System and method for optimizing paid listing yield Published: July 14, 2005
+ System and method for optimizing search result listings Published: July 14, 2005
+ Methods and systems for selectively displaying advertisements Published: January 27, 2005
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 AM | Permalink

November 11, 2005
MSN's AdCenter: More than Just Keyword Advertising
Ina Fried's News.com excellent overview article: Microsoft's ad pitch underpins Net moves, offers a look at Redmond's foray into selling search advertising (and beyond) with their AdCenter program.

What We Already Knew Being beta tested in Singapore, France, and in a limited "invite only" pilot in the U.S. with a long line of people wanting in.

On Future Plans "I will admit we were late," Microsoft's [Joanne] Bradford said. "If we are going to catch up in any meaningful way, differentiating and adding value was critical." Earlier this week posted about MSN's new CTO, Ray Ozzie, telling "Microsofties" that "we knew search would be important."

Later, Bradford tells News.com that MS hopes to serve display ads on Windows Live and Office Live and then is considering sending ads (they better be careful here) to mobile devices and Xboxes.
"Today, it's keyword," said Joanne Bradford, Microsoft's chief media revenue officer. "We believe in the future it will be about display (ads), video and all that is advertising." "There is a significant growth opportunity for us, as we tap into the growing market for online advertising," CEO Steve Ballmer said at this week's shareholder meeting at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters. "There will really only be a few big players in the online advertising market, and our company aims to be, and will be, one of them."
How Will adCenter do it? Microsoft's effort to outflank its main rivals is centered on giving advertisers more targeted information about the people it is serving up advertising to--things like age, gender and ZIP code, as well as the time an ad will be delivered, and other data.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Google, YSM, and the new Ask Jeeves/IAC program will sit still (ha!) and also not expand to offer this type of info.

Differentiations: On Targeting In a pitch to a consumer goods company this week, Bradford pointed out the difference between what Microsoft is offering and today's keyword search. Buying the keyword "bleach," she said, would seem to be a targeted purchase for someone that makes the household product. But, Bradford said, two-thirds of the people who query on that term are men aged 18 to 34. It turns out that many of the searchers are looking for a popular form of Japanese animation that also goes by the term "bleach."

More from MS's Bradford Today's search ads make no distinction of who is doing the searching. "Right now, we're just firehosing everybody," Bradford said.

Giving and Getting More Demographic Info Chris Winfield from 10e20 says, "I'm willing to pay more if I know that I am getting a demographic," Winfield said. "This is where paid search is going--it's getting more personalized and more localized. With that will come higher prices."

Winfield goes on to say said that Microsoft's demographic abilities are far from perfect, but says even information that is 25 percent accurate is useful. "I'd still rather that, than the zero percent Google is giving," he said.

Fried's excellent overview article goes on to talk about what Google and Yahoo are up to.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:28 PM | Permalink

October 21, 2005
Letting MSN Search Know About Trademark Concerns
I noticed a new page today on the MSN Web Search Help site titled, "Submit a Trademark Concern." It offers a step-by-step guide on how to contact Microsoft over these types of issues.

From the site: We require our advertisers to comply with MSNs trademark guidelines and to refrain from infringing upon the trademark rights of others. Occasionally, however, we are notified of an advertisers potentially improper use of someone elses trademark. If you notify Microsoft of your concern that an advertiser's listing or associated keyword represents an improper use of a trademark, Microsoft will review the advertiser's keyword and listing for compliance with our trademark usage guidelines. If appropriate, Microsoft will remove the advertiser's keyword and/or listing, or require that the content of the listing be modified.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:15 PM | Permalink

October 18, 2005
MSN's "Invite Only" adCenter Pilot Launches in the U.S.
Word from Redmond that the MSN's invitation only adCenter pilot that Danny blogged about on October 13th, was officially launched in the United States today. Again, it's invite only at this point but you can apply for an invitation here. MSN will select participants in the program on a "rolling basis." An intro to adCenter and more about the program here.

Want to discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, MSN adCenter Pilot Program Notification.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:17 PM | Permalink

October 6, 2005
MSN adCenter Pilot Program Opening In US
Todd "Oilman" Friesen finally wakes up my newsreader with a post to his long dominant blog with a great post. MSN adCenter Pilot Program from him repots an email from MSN saying the US pilot program is now looking for takers. The pilot is invite only, but you can hope to get picked by signing-up here. The email covers stuff we've reported before, how ads will rotate in on a portion (25 percent) of MSN's pages, with the rest still coming from Yahoo. See also Microsoft Opens adCenter & MSN Keywords To Singapore & France and More Details On New MSN Keywords Program from the blog. Want to discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, MSN adCenter Pilot Program Notification.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:28 PM | Permalink

September 26, 2005
Microsoft Opens adCenter & MSN Keywords To Singapore & France
Microsoft has officially launched its adCenter system to sell paid search in France and Singapore. More details in this company press release. More info on the program in general here.

Actually, the release notes that Singapore officially launched on August 30, so it's France that gets rolled out today. MSN lance sa plateforme de liens sponsorisés en France from Abondance has more details on that, and the new French program can be found here.

Microsoft Plans to Sell Search Ads of Its Own from the New York Times has some overview coverage of the rollout, with some reaction comments from Google and Yahoo. MSN reiterates previous timing of hoping to replace Yahoo ads on its own sites entirely by next spring.

For more, see also
- Coming in October: Microsoft To Begin Testing Paid Listings Program in US: Points to Wall Street Journal article about planned rollout in the US.
- More Details On New MSN Keywords Program: Covers how the system has been in a closed beta in France and Singapore and how will partially open to US advertisers in October and be rolled out overall.
- Details About MSN's AdCenter Begins Emerging: Points to a review of someone who has been playing with the system.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:17 AM | Permalink

September 13, 2005
Details About MSN's AdCenter Begins Emerging
Via Gary Stein, we learn that info about MSN's AdCenter have started to leak out on WebmasterWorld. Barry (aka RustyBrick) offers a review of what's been posted so far.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:16 PM | Permalink

September 1, 2005
Microsoft Acquisition To Lead To Pay-Per-Call Ads?
Microsoft Buy Opens Pay-Per-Call Possibilities from ClickZ looks briefly at how Microsoft's acquisition of VoIP firm Teleo might feed into a pay-per-call system to integrate into its planned paid search service. It picks up from the brief observation Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein made about this on his blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:47 PM | Permalink

August 3, 2005
More Details On New MSN Keywords Program
Chris Sherman and I have been up at MSN today talking about a variety of things, including the new MSN Keywords program that Gary blogged about earlier. Here are some additional details on the launch, how things will roll out and so on.
- The system is already live in France and Singapore, but in a closed beta. Ads come from MSN in both places, and Yahoo serves as backfill in France.
- In October, a "holiday pilot" will begin in the US. This is the aforementioned program that will involve 500 of MSN's top advertisers and some others, such as key SEM firms, that have been approached. Ads from these advertisers will be "preloaded" in September.
- Why "holiday pilot?" Because the program is designed to let MSN get started with some advertisers through the holiday period.
- Over the weeks after October, more and more advertisers who have applied for the MSN adCenter program will be rolled in. Currently, there are over 5,000 people registered, MSN said.
- Ads will follow a "Google standard" of being 25 characters for a title and 70 characters for a description, though descriptions will wrap rather than be broken up on two lines. Since Ask Jeeves is also following this standard, perhaps it would be better described as the "25/70 format" or "short format" standard.
- MSN ads will be shown to a sample of those within the US. In other words, you might do a search and see ads only from MSN. Do it again, and it might be ads only from Yahoo. Ads from both sources will not be mixed, and when the program formally launches, there will be no backfill from Yahoo.
- There is an API for the ad system, and MSN is working already with about 30 ad management vendors who will implement it.
- MSN won't say when the program will formally launch, but it reiterated that it said in March that the program would go live within 12 months. So, expect it to happen by March 2006 or sooner.
- FYI, "MSN Keywords" was also the name of a navigation system used for the MSN 8 browser that may still be in place. This ad program is something completely different.
- Fake "MSN Keywords" were also sometimes pitched to companies by various third parties in 2002, something I've not seen happen for some time. Such pitches might reappear and should be avoided. MSN is selling these direct through its ad management system.
For more background on MSN's move into paid listings, see our MSN To Launch Its Own Paid Listings Program article from March. Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, MSN PPC Coming Next Week.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:23 PM | Permalink
Coming in October: Microsoft To Begin Testing Paid Listings Program in U.S.
This week, new advertising programs from Ask and Yahoo. Next week (can you say SES announcement), this WSJ story (available to non-subscribers) says it will be Microsoft's turn to announce that they'll begin testing a paid listings program, MSN Keywords, with 500 advertisers and search marketers in the United States beginning in October. Silicon.com also has a story about the MSN launch. In March, Danny wrote about MS beginning to test a paid listings service in Singapore and France.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:40 PM | Permalink

March 16, 2005
MSN Announces Paid Listings Program Is Coming
The rumors are finally given official confirmation. MSN has announced that it will launch its own self-serve paid listings program similar to those run by Yahoo and Google. It will be tested in France and Singapore within the next six months. Dates for worldwide rollouts beyond this haven't been set. Today's SearchDay article, MSN To Launch Its Own Paid Listings Program, provides more details.

Search Engine Watch members should read the longer version of the story that goes into more details on the program's features, ad targeting capabilities and how targeting is done, how the program makes automated ad management even more important and the challenges in rolling the program out in the US market, among other things.

Postscript: See also MSN To Debut Sponsored Search Listings from MediaPost for some nice quotes and reaction from marketers and others on the program. Also see MSN vs. Google and Yahoo, Round 3 from News.com and MSN's adCenter: More Control and Better Results from ClickZ.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:01 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2005
Bloomberg: Microsoft Launching "Pilot" Ad Program Wednesday
We've posted a couple items in the two weeks about Yahoo officials (Semel and Meisel) commenting about the possible end of their ad deal with Microsoft. This new Bloomberg article: Microsoft Plans Service to Sell Internet Search Ads, says that Microsoft will launch a pilot program this Wednesday (March 16). The article goes onto say that the prototype is in the "early stages" and will not be completely ready for six months to a year. Microsoft isn't commenting today but will be briefing reporters tomorrow.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:17 PM | Permalink

March 8, 2005
Yahoo Execs Talk About the Possible End of Ad Relationship with MSN
Last week I blogged an item about Yahoo CEO Terry Semel predicting that Yahoo's advertising deal with MSN will end when Microsoft launches their own ad network. A new AdWeek article: Yahoo! Sees End To Its Deal With MSN, includes a comment from Ted Meisel, Yahoo senior vice president and head of its Overture Services (aka Yahoo Search Marketing Solution) division.
"The right thing for us to do, as a business, is assume one day that MSN will develop its own ad network," Meisel said. "I don't know when that day is or if it will come. Until then, we're going to continue to serve them well."
The article points out that the current Yahoo/MSN advertising contract runs through June 2006.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:49 AM | Permalink

March 1, 2005
Yang and Sullivan Chat, Semel Says that MSN Ad Network Likely
The keynote session here at SES in NYC today was a "fireside chat" between Danny and Yahoo Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo!, Jerry Yang. You can read Barry's detailed summary here. Later in the day, Yahoo's CEO, Terry Semel, shared some thoughts during a presentation at the Bear Sterns Media Conference in Florida. A webcast is available here. The AP story: Yahoo's Semel Brushes Off Talk of Movies, offers a few highlights from Semel's presentation.

Key Passages:
+ Semel said it would be ridiculous for Yahoo to produce its own movies or television shows - because the Internet requires more interactive experiences than traditional media.
+ Without providing specifics, Semel indicated Yahoo believes it can provide more compelling material simply by developing additional ways for its 345 million users to create and share more of their own content.

+ Whatever content Yahoo produces, "it has to be more unique and hopefully more clever" than other mass media, Semel said.

+ Semel predicted Tuesday that Microsoft is likely to break away and form its own advertising network to compete with the ones run by Yahoo and online search engine leader Google Inc.

In November, MSN extended their contract with Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions (formerly Overture) through June 2006.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:05 PM | Permalink

January 14, 2005
MSN Search To Gain New Technology Feb. 1
SEW forum moderator AussieWebmaster passes along news that he's heard from an high level MSN contact the new MSN search engine currently being beta tested will move to the main MSN Search site on Feb. 1.

That fits in well with some timings we've heard in the past. MSN had promised the new technology would be integrated into the service by the end of last year. But after the beta launch, various dates were being cited by those quoting MSN, including the Wall Street Journal saying the end of January 2005. We were told by MSN it would be at the latest in early 2005.

MSN has already warned that more people using the regular site will begin getting results from the new beta technology, which has long been a precursor to a major switch with the service.

Paid listings from Overture are also said to be continuing through the end of the year. Rumors that MSN might be gearing up to run its own self-serve paid listings program circulated earlier this month -- but this suggests that any timing of that won't be immediate.

See our forum thread MSN Search Out of Beta Feb. 1 for the news and discussion following it.

Postscript: Our forum thread IMO New MSN Search is NOW LIVE! looks at how the rollout might come even earlier than the official announcement.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:52 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2005
More On Rumored MSN Search Ad Program
DMNews.com has a follow up to the story yesterday's blog post by Andy Beal sparked off, the rumor that Microsoft may be launching its own paid listings program in the near future.

Microsoft Job Pitches Hint at Paid Search Ambitions provides more details about a recruiter working to help MSN "hire pay-per-click account executives, marketing analysts and marketing specialists."

MSN isn't commenting. Comments in Andy's original post have an anonymous person saying MSN is planning something. The DMNews article also highlights an MSN bid management tool called "Moonshot" mentioned in one of the job descriptions.

From what I've read in the job descriptions, I'm still dubious that this activity means we'll see in the near term (two-to-four months) a full-blown self-serve program such as Google and Overture offer. Microsoft has yet to roll its editorial product out the door and live onto the main site. Running a major self-serve program is a huge technical challenge, and it seems likely they'll want to finish fully digesting the editorial project first.

I have no doubt -- none what so ever -- that we will eventually see a full-blown self-serve program come from MSN eventually, as I've written many times before. It's just something I'd expect more likely to happen toward the end of this year.

This activity sounds more like some type of middle ground of trying to help largely clients into an expanded version of what MSN already offers -- and perhaps MSN trying to help those clients manage campaigns outside of MSN.

FYI, any self-serve program that does launch will be the second time MSN has done this. It first had a program back in Feb. 2000. My timeline on MSN developments covers this, plus the hiring, then departure of Overture's former chief technology officer. If anything was a sign MSN wanted to revive its own self-serve program, that hiring was.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:50 AM | Permalink

January 5, 2005
MSN Looks For PPC People
Andy Beal got some email about job openings at MSN relating to paid listings, which he posts at his blog: MSN Search Staffs-up for PPC Product. A sign that MSN is planning its own paid listings product? They've long had one already, the Featured Sites program. I have no doubt in the future they'll also move into a full-blown self-serve system in the way that Google and Overture have -- but I'm not sure that these openings are a sign that this is happening yet.

Postscript: Andy's updated his original post to note that the email that came with the job postings mention the jobs being part of a "new search engine initiative being launched in the near future." Whether that is a reference to the new MSN search engine itself being launched (that definitely will happen in the near future) or a new self-serve PPC program from MSN program in the near future remains to be seen. I wouldn't expect a self-serve program from MSN until late 2005, at the earliest.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:18 AM | Permalink

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