adCenter Blog for Advertisers

Microsoft Advertising: Insights Podcast - 15 Minutes With David Szetela

Jason Yormark — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:54:00 GMT

Welcome to Microsoft Advertising: Insights, the official podcast of Microsoft Advertising. Insights will cover all things digital advertising, primarily focusing on search out of the gate. We'll discuss the state of the industry, what's happening...(read more)

2008 adCenter Recap & What 2009 Will Bring...

Mel Carson - MSFT — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:09:00 GMT

Happy New Year! Here's hoping many of you are refreshed from the festive break. The holidays fell well enough for many of us to get a good ten days with family and friends before recharging the batteries post-New Years Eve. It's been snowing here...(read more)

adCenter Study: SEM Potential Unrealized by Most SMBs

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:59:00 GMT

As a follow up to yesterday's post about the adCenter QuickLaunch Program, I thought it fitting to bring your attention to a newly-released Microsoft adCenter study highlighting how hesitant many small business owners are when it comes to taking the plunge into search marketing.

According to the study, out of 400 US-based small businesses with 250 employees or less, 73% said they'd rather prepare their own taxes than set up their own search engine marketing plan. Reasons for the hesitancy included things like believing SEM to be too complex, too time consuming and fearing that keywords would be too expensive.

Other key findings of the study were...

· 59% of US-Based small businesses with an online presence don’t currently invest in paid search marketing

· Out of that 59%, 90% of them have never even tried paid search marketing

· Nearly nine in 10 (86%) feel they could be missing out on opportunities to grow their business online

· 72% of small businesses who use paid search marketing report an increase in sales inquiries and 68% consider their search marketing efforts successful

Just last year, a similar study done in the UK yielded similar results.

Between acronyms like CTR, CPC and CPA and new concepts like match types, dynamic text and AB testing, no wonder getting started in SEM seems like such a daunting task. Just learning which data points help paint a picture of SEM success or failure can make it seem like you're starting a new business all over again! Getting into the SEM game doesn't have to be difficult though, and we don't think it should be.

Whether you're starting off with "What Is adCenter?" on the Learning Center site, honing your skills with the free online tutorials through adExcellence, or looking for campaign optimization tips here on the Community site, we want to make sure you have the resources you need to be successful with your SEM efforts.

If you're new to SEM and adCenter, I highly recommend the QuickLaunch Program (also offered in the UK). Having a search expert available to assist with getting you up and running and to answer any questions you may have has proven to be an invaluable asset for many of our new advertisers. If you haven't stopped by there yet, another great resource for getting answers to your questions is the adCenter Forums right here on the Community site.

In closing, please note that this will be the final post for 2008 here on the adCenter Advertiser Blog. Like many of you, we'll be taking some time off to spend the holidays with family and friends -- we'll be back in January.

As always, you can keep up with us by becoming a fan on Facebook or through following us on Twitter.

Happy Holidays and we'll see you in 2009!

adCenter QuickLaunch: Getting Started and Optimization Services

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I remember my first exposure to search engine marketing (SEM). My boss tossed me a binder full of SEM articles and newsletters, told me to read through all of them, learn as much as I could and then start working on building out Client X’s campaigns. If ever there was a trial-by-fire situation, this was it! I would have loved to have an SEM expert guiding me through everything for those first few weeks as I got my bearings, much like our advertisers have with the adCenter QuickLaunch program in the US and Canada, as well as in the UK.

If you’re new to adCenter and could use some help in getting your campaigns up, running and firing on all cylinders, the QuickLaunch program may be just what you’re looking for:

To have one of our QuickLaunch search experts to contact you, complete this online interest form for the US and Canda or for the UK and someone will respond to your inquiry shortly. For those in the UK, please note that while the above footnote indicates a budget requirement of $500, for the UK that figure is £250 per month.

If you have already completed the QuickLaunch program, be sure to bookmark these QuickLaunch resources to help you in continuing to get acquainted with adCenter. Should you be interested in getting some optimization suggestions from one of our search experts, advertisers can take advantage of the Performance Improvement program as well... just as your search expert for details.

Microsoft adExcellence Updates

Jason Yormark — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

We've recently updated our Microsoft adExcellece experience by migrating to the Microsoft Advertising site. You can still access by using http://www.adexcellence.com/ , however rather then require additional username creation, we are now taking advantage...(read more)

Optimizing your adCenter Search Marketing Campaigns with the Add-in Beta for Excel 2007

Eric Duerr - MSFT — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

More and more adCenter advertisers are discovering the adCenter Add-in Beta for Excel 2007, a unique toolset available for free from Microsoft adCenter that allows unparalleled visibility into the performance potential for your keyword list. The impact it can have on your paid search optimization efforts can be significant.

While there have been posts in the past regarding its use for keyword discovery and expansion, I'd like to share a couple of quick and easy uses of the Keyword Monetization module that can help inform your optimization efforts.

The first step I'd recommend taking is making sure your settings will give you the most granular information. Start by selecting the 'Options' button in tool ribbon. Next, select 'Monetization' from the menu on the left, and make sure your have 'all' selected.

Next, highlight the keyword(s) that you’d like to optimize and select ‘Monetization’ from the drop down menu as show below.

The tool will return impression, click, clickthrough rate (CTR) and average CPC data for each match type and position available based on the keyword’s historic performance over a trailing 30 day period.

Now run a keyword performance report in adCenter that covers the same time period, and you can compare your keyword metrics against the overall auction’s performance. Some ways in which you can use this data are:

Match type analysis: Are you only bidding on Exact match? There may be significant opportunity to increase your ad distribution by bidding on Phrase and Broad match types.
Bid analysis: How much should you increase your bids to reach a desired position? Please note, the CPC’s indicated above are the actual amount paid by advertisers when their ads are clicked on, not the bid amount they’ve set for that keyword. You’ll want to build in a ‘cushion’ on your bids to ensure your ads get to the desired position.
CTR analysis: Take a look at your individual keyword’s performance against the same match type and position on this report. Is it on par with the auction overall? If it is lower than that of the auction, there may be room for improvement of your ad copy.

Of course, these are only a few of the ways in which you can leverage the data to squeeze the most efficiency out of your adCenter account -- stay tuned for more Add-In tips and tricks in the weeks and months to come. As always, if you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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Pause and Resume Ads and Keywords in adCenter

Mairead McCarthy MSFT — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:51:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to pause your Ads or Keywords in adCenter?

Well now you can!

Following from Carolyn’s adCenter Upgrade post on October 27^th I wanted to call out this new feature to all our adCenter Community readers. At Microsoft Advertising we have taken on board your feature requests and this functionality is a result of your feedback.

Why would you want to pause an ad or a keyword?

Ultimately testing your ads will allow you to play around with different variations of ad copy to analyse which ad speaks to your customers and converts the best.

This is sometimes called ‘split testing’ or ‘A/B testing’. I would recommend that you keep testing your ad copy to ensure that you find the best copy that works for Live Search users. It’s easy to pause your ads and paused ads retain their historical performance data benefiting performance!

The feature can also be used for seasonal ad copy which can be paused and resumed at specific times of the year.

Most of our advertisers will have Christmas/holiday specific ad copy – this functionality will enable you to pause your seasonal ads and resume your New Year special offers.

Note: Please ensure you pause anything that’s holiday-related once the actual holiday days have passed.

You may also have specific discounts at different times of the year, e.g. 20% off, 40% off; you can now load all of these discounts into adCenter and just run the appropriate ad copy when the deals are running.

When pausing keywords make sure you pause costly, non-converting keywords to ensure you are getting the best ROI possible from adCenter.

How do you pause and resume in adCenter?

Pausing your keywords and ad copy is really easy in adCenter.

1. Choose the Ad Group you wish to work on.

2. Tick the box beside the keywords / ad you wish to pause.

3. Click on the pause button and save.

Tip: The holiday season is fast approaching us if you want certain ads to continue to be displayed in 2009, please ensure that you extend those Ad Groups with expiration dates of December 31^st.

For more information on pausing your ads/keywords, check out the adCenter help file on this topic.

If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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Cheers, Mairead

UK Credit Crunch Event Wrap Up & Presentations

Mel Carson - MSFT — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:29:00 GMT

Earlier this week, we held a half-day conference at our London offices designed to help advertisers navigate the credit crunch by giving some insight and advice specifically tailored to the finance sector. Finance is a hugely popular and competitive area...(read more)

Q and A with Qi Lu, Microsoft's new President of the Online Services Group

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:42:00 GMT

Since the announcement on December 4^th, there’s been a lot of buzz around Microsoft’s newly hired President Online Services Group, Qi Lu. Although he won't start his new job until January 5th, Lu has already begun to get acquainted with the company, the culture and the campus.

Dr. Lu joined Steve Ballmer for an employee Town Hall event in Redmond on December 8th where both expressed their excitement and eagerness to work together to move the Online Services Group business further. Following initial introductions, Dr. Lu took employee questions ranging from his perspective on Microsoft’s place in the online services space to his vision for the group’s future.

Shortly after this Town Hall Meeting took place, the Microsoft PressPass site posted their own Q&A session with Qi Lu that gives a small glimpse into what factored into his decision to come to Microsoft, what “having an impact” means to him and where he sees opportunities for Microsoft in the search and online space.

If you’d like to start a conversation about what Qi Lu’s joining Microsoft means to you, feel free to share your thoughts on the adCenter Forums.

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Customizing Your Holiday Ads with adCenter Dynamic Text

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:30:02 GMT

Credit where credit is due: This post was written by Media Specialist Lara Hanif, but as she just welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world, I'm posting it in her stead while she's on maternity leave. Congratulations, Lara!!

Using dynamic text in adCenter can help you create ad copy that stands out from the crowd and may entice buyers to click on your ads, thereby improving your CTR. With the holiday season in full swing, now is the time to optimize your ads by making them customizable with product-specific information through the use of dynamic text. You can quickly update multiple ads simultaneously with dynamic text, which allows you to customize your ads that are more likely to attract your target audience.

In the past keyword insertion (formatted as "{keyword}") has been a scalable way to customize ads and increase the chances of a potential customer clicking on your ad. However, keyword insertion isn’t very flexible; it can result in editorial disapprovals and can negatively impact campaign performance if:

• Keyword is longer than the 25 character limit for titles
• Keyword is misspelled or contains grammatical errors
• Keyword consists of grammatically incorrect phrase

The dynamic text functionality utilizes the placeholders {param2} and {param3}, and can mitigate the shortcomings of keyword insertion. Dynamic text lets you specify which parts of the ad will change by instructing adCenter to pull your pre-determined text variables, based on the search query.

During the holiday season you may want to create main ads that vary by the product and discount being offered. Try including attractive offers like “free holiday shipping”, “overnight delivery” and “free gift wrapping” as your param2 dynamic text and complement with offer end dates or terms such as “12/20” or “on orders over $50” as your param3 to put some urgency, which will be inserted to the ad copy when the associated keyword is searched. It is pretty easy to set up and it can increase your click-through-rate at this very critical time of the year!

Here are some really good ad copies that were recently posted on Microsoft Advertising website in “Best Search Marketing Practices for the Holiday Season”

Follow these steps to create your dynamic ads:

In summary, dynamic text allows you to customize your copy to create a more relevant ad for your customers, increasing your click-through rate (CTR), positively impacting your search result page ranking, decreasing editorial disapprovals and helps to ensure that the clicks you receive are coming from the right customers ultimately converting to a sale or lead, which may improve your return on investment (ROI). Param2 or param3 is a word or phrase that can be unique to each keyword and dynamically inserted in the ad text to make the ad more relevant, have correct formatting/capitalization, or replace a misspelled word.

For more on dynamic text, you can either view previous posts and forum topics by searching for "dynamic text" in the Green "Find an Answer" box on the right hand nav:

Or you can click on the entry for dynamic text through the categories section located at the bottom of the adCenter advertiser blog main page:

If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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adCenter Bulk Changes and Uploads

Kristee Bingham - MSFT — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Hey friends! Got a bunch of changes that you need to make to your adCenter account? While you can certainly do these individually, adCenter does provide you with the option to make changes in bulk. I’ll walk you through a few of these options here.

Creating New Campaigns in Bulk

Some of you may not have campaigns in other search engines, or perhaps you want to start fresh in adCenter. adCenter provides you with templates that can help you easily create your campaigns in bulk.

1. Upon logging into your account, go to the Campaigns tab.

2. Click on Import Campaigns.

3. Click on either the Excel or CSV template (whichever you prefer) to export the template to your computer.

4. Here is a screen shot of what the template looks like. You will be able to add campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords all on the same bulk sheet.

5. When you finish editing the template, save it to your computer.

6. You can then return to the Import Campaigns section, click on Import file…, locate the file you just created and your new campaign(s) will be uploaded into your account.

Importing Campaigns into adCenter from other search engines

Alternatively, you can also export a report from another online advertising program, save it to your computer, and use the adCenter Web UI to import those campaigns into adCenter.

1. From the Campaign section of your account, click on Import Campaigns.

2. You can click on Import file… and search for the exported report on your computer. Select the report and click Open. Your newly imported campaign will now appear in your campaign list.

3. Click on the Campaign that you just imported.

4. Click on Edit Campaign Settings to add a budget.

5. You’ll see the list of ad groups here in Draft status.

6. To advance the ad groups from Draft status to Active, select the ad groups you want to Submit, and click on Submit.

For trouble shooting or more information on importing third party campaigns, check out the adCenter help file on this topic.

If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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Microsoft Advertising: Insights Podcast - Fall '08 Microsoft adCenter Release Overview

Jason Yormark — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:54:00 GMT

Welcome to episode #3 of Microsoft Advertising: Insights, the official podcast of Microsoft Advertising. Insights will cover all things digital advertising, primarily focusing on search out of the gate. We'll discuss the state of the industry, what's...(read more)

adCenter Feedback: How Are We Doing?

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The adCenter upgrade in October included several features that had been requested by our advertisers, such as a more user-friendly campaign management experience, improved keyword research functionality and expanded billing and payment options.

Because improvements and new features like these are a direct result of the feedback we receive from you, our advertisers, we’d like to take a moment to remind you of the options you have for letting us know how we’re doing!

1.) The adCenter Feedback Form

This quick and easy form gives you several feedback options to choose from as well as a comment field where you can enter your thoughts, comments and suggestions. Whether you have feature requests, bug reports or you’d just like to tell us about your experience with our user interface, we’d love to hear from you!

2.) The adCenter Feedback & Feature Request Thread on our Forums

Our forums are monitored by Microsoft staff, so whatever comments, questions or suggestions you have are sure to get in front of the right people. While you can post feedback on any forum, this particular thread is dedicated to collecting feedback, so it’s the best place to share your thoughts with us.

When submitting feedback, it would be especially helpful if you could detail why a certain feature, functionality or improvement would be helpful to you. Additionally, if you have more than one request to submit, please indicate which request is your highest priority and so on down your list.

Providing information like this can help us better understand which requests we’re seeing in the number one spot most often, which will increase the likelihood that it will be addressed in upcoming releases.

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Credit Crunch Survival and Opportunity for Finance Advertisers

Craig Brown MSFT — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:00:00 GMT

The credit crunch has led to increased uncertainty amongst finance advertisers, but it has also opened up opportunities.

Finance Product Trends

As the general public becomes more concerned with their financial security, adCenter accounts in the banking sector have seen average YoY increases of over 200% in impressions and 190% in clicks (September ‘07 vs. September ’08). These increases have been steady since January ’07.

(Source: Microsoft adCenter Internal Data)

ISAs, which normally have a short-run seasonal flurry of activity in March and April in the lead up to the new financial year, have recently seen increased levels of traffic that do not conform to traditional seasonality.

Although searches for first time mortgages have dropped substantially, searches for remortgages have increased as many households are finding that their fixed-rate mortgage deals are coming to an end and they are looking to remortgage to find a better deal or equity release loan.

User Behaviour Trends

The credit crunch has had a direct impact not just on what users search for but also on how they search:

1. Users are searching more now than they did before the credit crunch, as they shop around for the cheapest deal. Live Search impressions for financial products have increased by 65% YoY, while clicks have increased 51%.

Using ad copy to prequalify traffic to your site (for example using such disclaimers as ‘homeowners only’ or ‘no tenants’) while attracting the maximum number of relevant customers has become a priority. The use of an extensive negative match list is also an essential way to reduce irrelevant traffic, especially with the increased number of searches for financial news stories in recent months (searches for ‘bankruptcy’, ‘crash’, ‘redundancies’ etc).

2. Users are becoming more sophisticated in their queries. Live Search data shows that the numbers of searches on top product keywords, such as ‘car insurance’, have been going down slightly while searches on the more targeted generics (middle-to-head terms) are maintaining or increasing their search volumes.

3. As price becomes the key factor in financial product purchases, top generic finance search results are increasingly dominated by comparison engines while performance on more targeted terms (middle-to-head) is stronger for direct insurance advertisers.

It may be more cost effective for direct insurance advertisers to adopt a bid strategy that aims to maintain a top 3 position for middle/top generic terms while maintaining a page 1 position on the top terms such as ‘car insurance’ or ‘home insurance’.

Chart: Difference in CTR Performance Between Comparison Sites and Direct Advertisers on Top Versus Top/Middle Insurance Keywords. Source: adCenter Internal Data

Becoming More Cost Effective – Exact Match and Demo Targeting

Relying less on Broad Match bidding and more on Exact Match will make it possible to improve the relevancy of your ads and CTR and help reduce CPCs. Exact Match bids should be at least 10-20% higher than your broad match bids to ensure that the most relevant ad shows.

adCenter’s unique demographic targeting capabilities can represent the most cost-effective way to increase bids as you can increase bids for just your target audience rather than applying a blanket approach of increased bids across all users, effectively minimising waste.

Top Tips to Prosper During the Credit Crunch

· Be aware of new micro trends and opportunities on different financial products, and optimise in a strategic way

· Prepare for and make the most of key seasonal periods

· Focus strongly on mid-tier finance keywords

· Use detailed and attractive ad copy to set yourself apart and prequalify traffic

· Use detailed and extensive negative match lists to avoid irrelevant traffic

· Use Exact Match bidding strategies to grow CTR and reduce your CPCs

· Use adCenter’s unique demographic targeting to up weight your bids to target your desired audience – increasing chances of conversions and improving ROI

If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.

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Holiday Ad Copy Refresher Tips from the adCenter Learning Center

Alejandro de Hoyos - MSFT — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:53:00 GMT

It’s that time of year again!

People all over the world are flocking to their nearest computer, frantically searching for that perfect holiday gift, gizmo, or gadget.

As a savvy retailer, you’ve no doubt already put your holiday advertising plan into action. But, as you probably already know, shopping trends can change quickly—and often.

It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on your ad performance—especially during the holiday season. Take a few minutes each day to quickly review your ad copy, keywords, budget, and conversion metrics. With just a little TLC, you can maximize the effectiveness and profitability of your ad campaigns.

If you need a quick refresher on some of the above topics, make your way over to the adCenter Learning Center for some great articles, tips, and tricks on how to:

· Create effective, snappy, and to the point ad content

· Maximize your campaign budgets to get the most from your daily and monthly spends

· Choose the most relevant keywords for your ads

· Adding conversion tracking criteria to a report

Be sure to visit the adCenter Learning Center for helpful information on many other adCenter topics.

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