MSN AdCenter Rough Start

[Jaeded]

Is MSN AdCenter for Internet Explorer only...? I've tried using it with Mozilla 1.7.8 and Firefox 1.5 and couldn't get any further than the lobby screen. Trying to get past there got me pushed back to the login screen...

I had another look with IE 6 and everything worked fine, if a little... basic. Any idea when the Keyword Estimator tool will come online...? I tried with a set of keywords I thought would give traffic/suggestions but repeatedly got "No Data".

Its a nice effort from MSN, but I'd expect a bit more from the worlds largest software developer...!

[adCenter411]

Hi All,

I wanted to make sure to get answers to all your questions before I posted again. The adCenter team is super excited to see so much feedback! We appreciate all the great suggestions and helpful comments. So let me answer your questions…

Our targeting feature is a cool option that really sets adCenter apart. Our demographic information is culled from Passport registrations. Statistics on MSN’s search audience can be found on the following page: http://advertising.msn.com/msnadcent...chaudience.asp

We do offer detailed reports on your targeting stats. Here is a step by step how to.

1. login to your account

2. click on the ‘report’ tab

3. under ‘report group’ choose ‘targeting’

4. under ‘report’ choose either ‘age and gender’ or ‘metro area demographics’

5. choose report range and date and then click the ‘run report’ button…voila!



There’s no difference between targeted ads and all other ads. Ads shown to targeted groups are the same ads shown to all audiences. For more info on targeting check out the following pages:

targeting strategy: http://advertising.msn.com.sg/MSNKey...spx?pageid=252

targeting features: http://advertising.msn.com.sg/MSNKey...spx?pageid=235

We hear your feedback on customer service. This is exactly the type of feedback we’re looking for. It’s our goal to provide awesome customer service to all clients. We’re working to get you the most recent information available, and we are learning new things every day the pilot is live that allows us to work through some of the kinks and learning curves. This is a pilot and we're expecting to have some bumpy spots. But we’re doing our best to smooth everything out for our US launch and we’re extremely hungry for feedback. I will make sure everyone’s comments get to the right department for sure.

Our editorial process is very much a work in progress. A ‘pending’ status means the ad is pending review to make sure it complies with our editorial policy. You can find more info on this policy here: http://advertising.msn.com/msnadcent...guidelines.asp.

Let me address an important point that is sometimes misunderstood. Right now there is a forking method for displaying ads. MSN ads are shown for a small percentage of our customers while Yahoo! ads are shown the rest of the time. Ads will not be a combination of the two sources. The number of ads shown differ for each search query but in general, we usually display no more than 8 ads per page (3 at the top of the page and 5 in the right rail).

Currently only IE is supported in adCenter. We’re evaluating offering cross browser support but it may limit some of the rich application-like functionality that we can offer. The new Keyword Estimator tool is being refined and we’re working to get it out as soon as possible.

We’re definitely listening to your comments and requests. In the coming weeks you will be seeing more of my posts and answers to your questions. We know you’re all on the front lines and have valuable information to share. We’re very excited to become more involved in the forums and we’re looking forward to building a great tool and services. Keep the feedback coming!

Cheers,
adCenter and the MSN adCenter Team

[GuyFromChicago]

hey,

If you're the same AdCenter from other forums I have already provided you with some feedback, hope it was helpful.

At the top of my list right now are the support issues. The answers I have received from support (after 10 -15 minutes on hold most of the time) have just been flat out wrong. My last conversation (for some reason my login was no longer recognized) ended with the rep telling me that all accounts were down for the rest of the day - try again tomorrow. It was an obvious "get me off the phone" response since it was apparant she was unable to answer my question regarding my invalid login...that had worked no more than 5 minutes earlier.

10 minutes later everything was working again

I, and I'm sure other advertisers will be a little more understanding with some of the issues if we feel like supoprt isn't just feeding us a line to get us off the phone. Honest communication will go a long way in garnering advertiser support and loyalty.

[adCenter411]

We have been monitoring a bunch of forums so yes, we did get your feedback and thank you!

We hear your concerns loud and clear. I wanted to let you know we'll address these issues ASAP. We hope that everyone can understand the growing pains we're working through during the pilot. Know that we're working hard to build a killer tool and excellent customer service.

In yesterday's post I forgot to answer a question about the publisher network. We do have a vision that adCenter will be a “one-stop shop” for advertisers to manage different kinds of ad products, including a way to advertise on publisher's site's with relevant ads like Google's AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network. We don’t have details on any release of this project yet but we will keep you posted as we get more information.

[Vladimiras]

Originally Posted by AdCenter

Our targeting feature is a cool option that really sets adCenter apart. Our demographic information is culled from Passport registrations. Statistics on MSN’s search audience can be found on the following page: http://advertising.msn.com/msnadcent...chaudience.asp

We do offer detailed reports on your targeting stats. Here is a step by step how to.

1. login to your account
2. click on the ‘report’ tab
3. under ‘report group’ choose ‘targeting’
4. under ‘report’ choose either ‘age and gender’ or ‘metro area demographics’
5. choose report range and date and then click the ‘run report’ button…voila!

There’s no difference between targeted ads and all other ads. Ads shown to targeted groups are the same ads shown to all audiences. For more info on targeting check out the following pages:

targeting strategy: http://advertising.msn.com.sg/MSNKey...spx?pageid=252

targeting features: http://advertising.msn.com.sg/MSNKey...spx?pageid=235
...
Cheers,
adCenter and the MSN adCenter Team

And this gets us not a single step closer.

You confirmed the obvious "Our demographic information is culled from Passport registrations" - but how can I see how many visitors do have their MSN Passport and how many do not in a specific area at a specific time?

I assume that when you have 100% of visitors with 20% of MSN Passports in a specific area/time - your new targeting works bad, because you either:

1) Show my targeted ads only to the 20% of visitors that have MSN Passports - then I miss 80% of audience on that particular campaign - so I need to double each campaign twice, one time with this specific targeting and another - without it (to reach the whole audience).

2) Show my targeted ads to all 100% but then - this feature is bad and useless.

100% of traffic = 1000 visitors
20% have MSN passports(targeting works) = 200 visitors
5% are my targeted visitors (let's say 18y old) = 5% of 200 = 10 visitors

So, among 1000 overall visitors my ads will be shown to the 800 untargeted and 10 targeted ones. Great.

And again - no such numbers in reports. I need the information as following:

Impressions: 1000
Clicks: 50
Targeted Impressions: 200
Targeted Clicks: 20

If you do not target ads by 100% - then you must show parts and targeted/untargeted ads percentage. Will it be done somehow?

[adCenter411]

Chris Boggs: We hear you loud and clear and we are implementing additional training for the adCenter team.

Vladimiras: I'm working to get an answer to your questions - just want to make sure I have all the right info before posting. I hope to have an answer for you soon.

On a side note, adCenter currently accepts ads only in English and French (in France only). In the future adCenter will accept ads in Spanish.

Thanks again for all of your valuable feedback - I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

[adCenter411]

Vladimiras – Sorry about the delay here. In spite of how long it took me to get back to you, it turns out that we just don’t have that info in our reports. Which, um, you already knew. So I'm taking this down as a feature request, and I'll pass it on to the team.

Everyone - okay so I didn't have a good answer here. Or maybe should I say, I had a disappointing answer here. Either way, keep your questions coming so I can hit one I have a good answer to...

Thanks,
adCenter

[Vladimiras]

Originally Posted by AdCenter

... it turns out that we just don’t have that info in our reports. Which, um, you already knew. So I'm taking this down as a feature request, and I'll pass it on to the team.

I think it's not enough.

Take my case above:

100% of traffic = 1000 visitors
20% have MSN passports(targeting works) = 200 visitors
5% are my targeted visitors (let's say 18y old) = 5% of 200 = 10 visitors

Let's say I have a super CTR of 10% on my banner.

Then I will get 10% of 10 visitors = 1 targeted click + 10% of 800 visitors = 80 untargeted clicks = 81 clicks in overall.

But how AdCenter will it show them in your reports? Just: 81 clicks. How should we call that?

Your system lies in reports - that's what I think. Tell me I'm wrong.

I'm amazed at the poor support I've received for adCenter so far. I've submitted two different questions, and the responses (or lack thereof) have been laughable.

Question 1: I haven't been able to see my ads. I sent a question to support, and they made some suggestions about my budget being too low. I increased my budget and turned off the daily cap, but still no ads. I e-mailed them back to let them know I still couldn't see my ads (I want to test how well the keyword insertion feature works...truncation, what happens when keyword is too long, etc...before I start writing and deploying ads on a wide scale). The response I got was "your query is still being investigated." It's a week and a half later, and still no answer. I've even sent a couple replies asking for a status update, but no response at all -- not even a "we're still working on it" e-mail.

Question 2: I asked a question about printing out some type of receipt that my company's accounting department will accept for reimbursement, since I'm putting these ads on my personal credit card. Their suggestion was to print out the Billing page (the page with the columns for charges and credits). I wrote back and said that my accounting department would be hopelessly confused by all of these "adjustments" for .05. I just need a receipt that summarizes the total that's been charged to my credit card, and the date it was charged -- which can be printed out easily in both Google and Yahoo. The response from MSN adCenter support? "You could copy your credit card statement." Gee thanks...big help.

I'm amazed. These are questions that shouldn't be difficult to answer. But nobody has responded to my first question, and the response to the second question is about as user-unfriendly as you can get.

[szetela]

We've just launched a free weekly newsletter for adCenter users. Each issue will cover one marketing topic (e.g. keyword research secrets) and one adCenter-feature topic (e.g. using Parameters to personalize ads).

Sign up by going to msn-genius.com.
Cheers,

David

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by szetela

We've just launched a free weekly newsletter for adCenter users. Each issue will cover one marketing topic (e.g. keyword research secrets) and one adCenter-feature topic (e.g. using Parameters to personalize ads).
Cheers,

David

This is some clever marketing....oes anyone know this group? As much as I would love to read the articles I hate to be added to another list.

I really have to agree with the blogs about not being able to view ads

The customer service is abismal. I called into the help center to ask about why my ads were not being displayed and was told that my set of keywords was not strong enough. Additionally she told me that it may be because my URL's could not be used and that my ad (though approved) didn't make sense. So why am I spending money on this when I can't see what results are being displayed?

I am reaching the point of frustration where I don't think I want to use this program even when it goes live.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by bigsespend

I really have to agree with the blogs about not being able to view ads

The customer service is abismal. I called into the help center to ask about why my ads were not being displayed and was told that my set of keywords was not strong enough. Additionally she told me that it may be because my URL's could not be used and that my ad (though approved) didn't make sense. So why am I spending money on this when I can't see what results are being displayed?

I am reaching the point of frustration where I don't think I want to use this program even when it goes live.

There have been some minor hassles but it is profitable and to ignore it is letting other people make the money

[adCenter411]

MichaelIW and bigsespend - i'm sorry you are unhappy with adCenter support. i will make sure your feedback gets to the right people on the team so that we can make improvements.

MichaelIW - did you ever get an answer? please let me know, if not i will follow up and get answers for you. you can send me sticky mail if you'd prefer.

bigsespend - i presume you're still not seeing your ads since you just posted yesterday. please send me a sticky mail to confirm it's still a problem and i'll try to help figure out what's going on.

thanks,
adCenter

[PPC]

I have found the support for AdCenter to be good so far. And also, the ROI on these ads has been great in the limited time that I have been live on AdCenter. This was when I had only 2 keywords live and it was easy to manage.

However, the user interface needs a lot of work. I have absolutely no idea how I am supposed to manage thousands of keywords in 100+ ad groups, all with different ads, urls, bids, etc. I feel totally lost now that many more of my listings have been uploaded. It would be great if MSN provided us with an interface similar to Google's, where campaigns are easily organized into ad groups and conversion data is provided right there. It seems like there is no organization to AdCenter and the layout of everything makes no sense. Maybe with more practice I will figure out how to navigate the interface - but as of right now, I am completely lost.

[AussieWebmaster]

I love the ROI for what they do offer.... it is just not enough right now.... and the interface sucks.

[Mel66]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

I love the ROI for what they do offer.... it is just not enough right now.... and the interface sucks.

I agree with you and PPC - the interface is painful to use. And without the support of third party bid management tools, managing bids is next to impossible. I've had to do it through my rep via a spreadsheet - not exactly the most efficient means, IMHO. We've been in since the beginning and I am still lost every time I log in.

The ROI is excellent, though. Just give us more traffic and I will be even happier!

[adCenter411]

hey everybody--
if you could tell me some specific things you dislike about the adCenter interface, or some suggestions, i can pass your feedback along to the UI team and see what they think.

thanks,
adCenter

[AussieWebmaster]

I have gone through this with someone from MSN already.

The id numbers versus naming, the ability to open campaigns and adgroups (using recognised terms), the bid system - go Yahoo not Google here, support and teaching not like the Google system (best of breed)...

and a few other things but am off to happy hour... will post more tomorrow!!!

TGIF

[PPC]

Originally Posted by AdCenter

hey everybody--
if you could tell me some specific things you dislike about the adCenter interface, or some suggestions, i can pass your feedback along to the UI team and see what they think.

thanks,
adCenter

Just revamp the whole system to match Google. The hierarchy should go:
accounts->campaigns->orders and should be able to be grouped by such, similar to Google (accounts->campaigns->ad groups).

When you click on an order, the screen should have the following information/functionality... impressions, clicks, CTR%, average position, average cost paid, current bid, conversions, converstion rate and cost per conversion for each term in the order. Also from this screen you should be able to change bids for all terms as well as sort data by date (similar to Google).

Currently, in the only screen where you have the functionality to change bids, the information given is useless in determining bids... negative match, parameter 1, parameter 2, status, etc. Plus why is it that you have to scroll over to even get to the bids? Why does adCenter seem to only use a very small amount of my screen space?

Also, the parameter 1, parameter 2, etc. stuff makes no sense to me for the ads. Again: see how Google displays ads, even with dynamic keyword insertion.

Also, if I hit the back button on my browser, I always get taken to a page which is not the page I was just on. ?????

These are some of the things that have made navigation and account management almost impossible for me due to the large number of term, ads, orders, campaigns, etc that I need to run.