We are preparing our 2008 Marketing Plan which includes where we want to focus our marketing efforts. We all have so many advertising opportunities to pursue but limited resources to persue them with; so I am curious.

In 2007 did your campaigns in Adcenter increase, stay the same or decrease in comparison to your other campaigns in say Google or Yahoo?

What has been the main deterrent to expanding your presence via Adcenter in 2007?

What specific feature/advantage does adcenter have that you like which no other SE has?

In 2008 will you be looking to expand in MSN's Adcenter?
What is your overall strategy for MSN Adcenter in 2008?
Expand, Stay the same, Leave it alone unless something significant changes?

If there was just one thing Adcenter could do to make advertising on msn/live.com more attractive what would it be?

I dont want to steer this thread with my answers so I will wait to post my own thoughts until I have seen a few others.

Thanks for sharing your input.


Discovery

I get great customer service from MSN Adcenter

I am hoping that MSN can provide a utility similar to the offline ADWORDS editor. Not all of us have API programmers who can drop everything to make tools do this. If you make it easier for users to post, manipulate etc..Fast. More people would port over campaigns....

My 2 cents.

Search Engine Man

We are preparing our 2008 Marketing Plan which includes where we want to focus our marketing efforts. We all have so many advertising opportunities to pursue but limited resources to persue them with; so I am curious.

In 2007 did your campaigns in Adcenter increase, stay the same or decrease in comparison to your other campaigns in say Google or Yahoo?

What has been the main deterrent to expanding your presence via Adcenter in 2007?

What specific feature/advantage does adcenter have that you like which no other SE has?

In 2008 will you be looking to expand in MSN's Adcenter?
What is your overall strategy for MSN Adcenter in 2008?
Expand, Stay the same, Leave it alone unless something significant changes?

If there was just one thing Adcenter could do to make advertising on msn/live.com more attractive what would it be?

I dont want to steer this thread with my answers so I will wait to post my own thoughts until I have seen a few others.

Thanks for sharing your input.


Discovery

I would like to see a new UI for AdCenter. The difficulty in using the system combined with the relatively low volume makes it difficult for me to justify spending my time trying to create, update, optimize, test, etc. There are just too many bugs, its too cumbersome, tracking is not accurate, ads/keywords sit inactive after being submitted with no explanation, etc.

Just blow it up and give us Microsoft AdWords. Include a few enhancements if you really feel the need to give us demographic targeting or whatever.

That being said, as long as AdCenter converts, I will continue to devote some time and $$ to it.

I would like to see a new UI for AdCenter. The difficulty in using the system combined with the relatively low volume makes it difficult for me to justify spending my time trying to create, update, optimize, test, etc. There are just too many bugs, its too cumbersome, tracking is not accurate, ads/keywords sit inactive after being submitted with no explanation, etc.

Just blow it up and give us Microsoft AdWords. Include a few enhancements if you really feel the need to give us demographic targeting or whatever.

That being said, as long as AdCenter converts, I will continue to devote some time and $$ to it.

Hear hear. Most of our clients who use adCenter get great ROI. However, as an agency SEM managing multiple client accounts in multiple engines, time is always an issue. Due to the horrible interface, adCenter often gets the short end of the stick - which is a shame b/c of the good ROI.

Improving import/export features would be a start. An offline editor would be even better. I like Yahoo's campaign import feature, where you can quickly convert and import campaigns from other SE's. This makes it really easy for me to get clients up and running on Yahoo. MSN has no such feature, so startup takes forever - and because of MSN's low traffic volume, it's often very low on my priority list.

Back to the original question..... my 2008 adCenter plans include securing a regular MSN rep who can help us circumnavigate some of these issues, so we can help our clients get the ROI MSN offers.

Melissa

Completely agree with Chris and Melissa. Our plan for 2008 will be to not utilise adCenter for anything but essential campaigns, because the interface is so bug-ridden and such a pain to use. Will come back to it only if they improve the interface.

I want to encourage AdCenter to continue using and refining the demographic and targetting features. These are the key components to getting the high return on AdCenter that every user brags about.
I still agree that there are a number of bugs in the UI and these should be fixed: Reports are lacking detailed info, very slow, and bidding interface is very tedious.
That said, please continue with the demographic and targetting research/functions as they help tremendously in optimization. Also, please continue with your excellent customer service. I have not had an issue that was not resolved quickly and effectively.