MSN / Microsoft adCenter Archives

A WebmasterWorld thread reports a search advertiser receiving an email from Microsoft's adCenter team about his ads not showing up in Bing. The email basically said that his site was reviewed by the QBR (Quality Based Ranking) team and they were deemed low quality.

Here is a copy of the email, as reported by the advertiser:

I have been looking over your account and can inform you that the resultant drop in traffic has been due to the websites that you advertise being reviewed by our QBR (Quality Based Ranking) team who have deemed them to be of a low quality. The QBR team determines quality and relevance of sites by assessing:

The advertiser said that the same ads and content passed the AdWords quality score, with no problem, so why not Microsoft's adCenter quality requirements?

I don't believe I have ever heard of the Quality Based Ranking team before, I know adCenter launched the quality based ranking algorithm in April of 2007, but I never heard of a human team that monitors it. It makes sense that there are humans, so I am not surprised by this, but I thought it would be nice to document such an email correspondence.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Even though I kind of mocked Bing's spam tests as being the cause for many people seeing the search share of Microsoft's Bing as seizing market share, it is not the case in most situations. In most situations, the search share you see coming from Bing is legit and search marketers are taking notice.

I track a lot of web sites and in some cases, not all, Bing has overtaken Yahoo as the number two search engine sending traffic to those sites. Google still dominates, but the number two search engine for some sites I track is Bing, not Yahoo anymore.

In a 15 day period, Bing sent this site over 1,000 more visitors then Yahoo did. Of course, this is just one site and who knows, maybe Yahoo doesn't like this site too much. But a lot of webmasters and search marketers are noticing that Bing's share is exceeding Yahoo. Again, not in all cases, but in some. So what does this mean?

If you have not done so already, go to your analytics package and see what search engine is driving you traffic. Note, in Google Analytics, the Bing traffic doesn't really show until June 9th, so maybe adjust your date range to reflect that. Then see the search traffic reports and see where your visitors are coming. Then reallocate your budgets accordingly, based on traffic, conversions and ROI.

Don't get me wrong, I love Yahoo but you have to do what is best for the bottom line.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The New York TImes reports Microsoft has filed suit against Eric Lam, Gordon Lam and Melanie Suen, of Vancouver, British Columbia. The suit comes after a year of investigative work by Microsoft in tracking down reports of click fraud.

According to the NY Times, these defendants allegedly:

Microsoft said it found a pattern of click fraud on its search pages, where lists ranked by relevance and popularity appear alongside a handful of paid results. Advertisers bid on what they will pay to appear in the paid-search results for certain keywords. The more an advertiser pays, the higher they are in that list, and advertisers usually pay for each click on their ad.

Why is Microsoft doing this? Maybe to send a warning to those who are involved in click fraud to stop doing it or else. Or maybe Microsoft wants more buzz about their search ad network, adCenter?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft has been beta testing adCenter Analytics since 2007, but yesterday, they announced they will be closing the tool down.

They really didn't say why. All they said was, "The Microsoft adCenter Analytics team announced today the end of the adCenter Analytics beta program." Current users can continue to use the service until December 31, 2009 but are urged to export their data to one of the many analytics packages available and cease using Microsoft adCenter Analytics as soon as possible.

Microsoft added:

Our team would like to sincerely thank you for your participation and your invaluable contributions to the program. Our objectives at the outset were to serve the needs of small and midsize self-service customers, as well as evolve the Microsoft strategy to address the Web analytics space.

The insights you’ve contributed through your feedback and your use of the tool have served an invaluable purpose in shaping Microsoft’s future in this space. You’ve helped us work towards making an informed decision about building a general Web analytics solution, and despite the end of life plan, the beta was very much a success.

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.

Then they listed a number of companies offering analytics, including Google.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

It has now been a year since adCenterEU, the official Microsoft adCenter representative at WebmasterWorld, has posted at the forum. His last post can be found at a thread named Microsoft To Serve Ads On WSJ Digital Network where he said:

Thankyou pageoneresults!

Nice comments like that get us all fired up!

:-)

Cheers

adCenterEU

That was on January 29, 2008 at 12:12 pm (EST). Since then, not one peep from adCenterEU.

How about adCenterEU's US counterpart, adCenter411? Well, that representatives last post was on February 18, 2008 at 11:36 am in a thread named Is it posible to split test ads with adcenter.

So why aren't adCenter representatives still participating at WebmasterWorld? I know they have launched a major initiative to education at the adCenter Community, but should they ignore where they got their start? I hope not.

Forum discussion, well - it doesn't exist.

Discovery in a Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports that Microsoft adCenter now gives advertisers the basic feature of allowing advertisers to plug in custom dates into the reporting engine.

To see the custom date range option, go to the campaigns and at the top right of the report, click on "change." Here is a screen capture:

Then, it will open up to let you enter in a custom date range:

Discovery said, "Well it's one of those "features" you would expect to have because Google has had it for so long now. However, Adcenter just got this into their system."

I am sure advertisers will appreciate this small, but important addition.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Brett Tabke with Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, MSN Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft.

Brett welcomes everyone and does some quick house keeping.

Satya Nadella is now up, it seems like he will be speaking, no back and forth with Brett.

(1) Evolution of Search
(2) Services that Microsoft is providing for publishers

He starts with the web ecosystem, you have publishers and you have advertisers and then you have services; the ad platforms, audience platforms and infrastructure platforms.

Evolution of Search, he said how we had directories, to machine learn ranking algorithms. We had CPM/Paid inclusion, larger reach, and reactive customers, Consumers now query as oppose to browse.

The evolution is driven by the feedback loop of data. One of those data points is what are users doing on search engines. There are two things that are indicative of the next big shift in search. Close to 50% of time spent on search engines, about 50% is spent about 30 minutes on them. About 50% of queriers are returning.

50% of the time spent on a search engine, has behavior to look, find and then buying. Fundamental thing, is no one does queries in isolation, they do it in search for task completion.

Search engines have to get much better at understanding the queries, understanding the content and understanding the actions, in order to take search to the next level. Going forward then get better at getting to the action of search, making sure to take that click and finishing the task and then providing more visibility in that process to the advertiser. Better to bring a place, person or thing and bring them together to provide a better search experience.

That is the evolution of search, there is a lot of innovation to be done, a lot of test, etc.

Live Search is focused on (1) delivering the best search results, (2) Simplify the tasks and (3) innovate in the business model. Microsoft is "on pace" with the race on "core relevance." Microsoft is committed on this going forward. Core relevance improvements is to come up with new relevancy metrics and concepts. Powerset is an example of this. They also look at image search and video search and they have some of the industry leading in that. Microsoft wants to create more richer experiences that understand more user tasks in the commercial domain (product, travel, health, etc.) On the business model, live search cash back is a method for this. The next step is to introduce more efficiency in the CPC/CPM model.

Alexandra Mickel from the Live Search team takes the stage to show a demo. She shows off the home page and shows off the "hot spots." She then searches for "bellagio," which shows auto complete and then goes to images - they have integrated Virtual Earth. Plus they have "infinite scroll," so users don't have to hit next, you just scroll and it shows you more images and more.

She then showed a search result for flights from seattle to las vegas which shows details of Farecast, here are those details (I love Farecast).

She then shows a search for canon digital camera and how it shows product search results, and deeper links into Canon's web site. The product results have number of filters, rating, reviews, pricing comparison and Cash Back. Notice of the ad from eBay on the right has a Live Search cashback link (you can save a ton of money this way guys).

She then shows the updated Hotmail screen. Using their Live Search API, they integrated features on the right to insert details from Live Search.

Video Browse just started at Live Search Video. Hover over the images for a play back.

Satya Nadella is now back up.

150-200 relevancy improvements are made every quarter. They measure this stuff every month. If you have not used Live Search in a long time, give it a try and let him know your thoughts.

He now brings up Cash Back. A bigger criticism was that they didn't tie in the research mode into the buy mode with cash back. So they are bridging the two together more and more every day. They measured progress on three levels, consumer choice, advertiser ROI and query growth.

Consumer Choice: 30% increase in number of product offerings, 20 of top 50 US retailers and lot of merchants.

Advertiser ROI: eBay is shifting their spend to Microsoft. 50% better ROI because of the cash back model. Lots of these retailers are seeing great conversions. So give it a try.

Query Growth: User engagement is up in being more loyal and more click yields. They got a good unique growth. This is all substantiated by the comScore study coming out today.

Project Silk Road - Services for Developers and Publishers:

Lots of the technology they built up can be useful to developers and publishers. Project Silk Road is a broad project, all about opening up their data and technology more transparent. We care about: Increasing engagement, to generate traffic and drive insight (tools and analytics). It is all about boosting agility and control with turnkey solutions for storage, site management, merchandising and advertising.

They have Virtual Earth API, Webmaster Center, Video Syndication, Live Search API, adCenter for pubs, Custom Web Error Toolkit, Instant Answers, FAST ESP, adCenter API, Excel add in and so on. These are all bring brought together.

Live Search API 2.0, unlimited calls, easy integration, monetization methods and flexible:
Available today at search.live.com/developers/

Alexandra Mickel is back on stage to demo:

Fabrikam.com web site was put together in a single day from the Live Search API. It is a blog, with contextual ads, the ad in the top right is an interactive ad - this is a new concept to engage in the ads, the plan a trip link and it has many of Microsoft's APIs plugged in there. Maps, Images, silver light, encartra, and so on. She then goes to webmaster tools, she shows the crawl issues page, she then shows off the Excel add in tool for adCenter (pretty powerful add in for excel, in terms of keyword research, quickly).

Satya Nadella is now back up.

He then reinforces what she said. How important it is that they are opening up their data.

Overall they are excited about the progress they have made.

Danny has his write up on this at SELand with Silk Road and Cash Back.

These are the days of cut backs. We've seen it at Yahoo and now we are hearing about it at Microsoft's adCenter team.

adCenterRep posted a thread at DigitalPoint Forums announcing the support details for the Microsoft adCenter product/service. The representative did drop a new detail that they are discounting support for US advertisers on Sundays. If you visit the phone support page, you will notice the new hours are 06:00 - 18:00 PST Monday - Saturday.

So while they are updating their logo and adding a bunch of features, if you have a problem on Sunday - you are out of luck. Some support documents for US advertisers still say seven day support, but they should be updating all the documents soon to say Monday through Saturday email and phone support.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Two days ago, we reported that adCenter has a new logo. It looks like Microsoft is not stopping there in terms of giving adCenter new enhancements. These include:

• Campaign Management: you can now pause/resume ads/keywords. There's more geo-targeting options, and performance reporting has gotten enhanced.
• Editorial Improvements: You'll know much sooner why your ad has not been approved and get inline notifications on exceeding limits imposed by the system.
• User Management: You can now add more than one user!
• Content Ads: In the US only, you can get keyword suggestions/performance estimates for Content Ads

Initial feedback is that this is good stuff, but many wonder when adCenter will catch up to AdWords.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

If you visit adCenter's home page you will notice that Microsoft now has given adCenter a logo. The logo is a oval like blue symbol, next to a small "Microsoft Advertising," with a larger "adCenter" imprint below. Here is a picture:

The logo seems relatively new. WebmasterWorld member rehabguy called the logo, "a tornado or a drain," depending on which you find "more relevant" to the brand.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The adCenter blog announced that they will be releasing an update prior to the holiday season. The update will include the following features to their search ad product, adCenter:

• Expanded your billing and payment options
• Simplified your campaign management experience
• Improved the way you create and analyze reports
• Updated your keyword research capabilities.

If you want a sneak peak at these features, you can apply to the adCenter beta program over here.

Forum discussion at adCenter Community but there was a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums that was removed.

Numerous WebmasterWorld members are reporting that they have been invited to the Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta.

If you need any help with the Microsoft adCenter Desktop beta, adCenterRep has announced that there is a community forum for assistance. If you have been added to the beta, that's a good place to go.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

We have been tracking a Search Engine Watch Forums thread on feature requests for Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta. That thread has just been updated by adCenterRep with a promise of new features.

The new features coming soon to adCenter Desktop Beta includes:

• Enable us to change the status of an ad group from "draft" to "active" within Desktop. If there is a way to do this, I couldn't find it - I had to log in to adCenter to activate my draft ad groups - a major pain!
• Find duplicate keywords and allow easy de-duplication (select highest/lowest clicks/imps/avgpos/CTR/avgCPC, etc.). See AdWords Editor.
• Search based on criteria like clicks, impressions, cost, CTR, avgpos, avgCPC etc. Again, see AWE.
• cannot search for more than one keyword at a time. As far as I can tell, adCenter Desktop only allows searching for one keyword at a time. I need to routinely perform bulk searches of a few hundred keywords at a time. See AdWords Editor for how they implement bulk searching in their Advanced Search.
• I cannot specify if I am searching for keywords that match my search string exactly, or keywords that contain my string, or keywords that contain my string as a full word. See AdWords Editor's Advanced Search.
• adCenter Desktop fails when trying to download a large account with tens of thousands of adgroups and a hundred thousand keywords. A desktop editor is especially useful for advertisers with large accounts, so it's disappointing that it can only handle relatively small accounts.

All these issues should be addressed in the next update to adCenter Desktop.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday we talked about how Yahoo is lacking a desktop editor for their search marketing platform. Today, there is a nice thread at Search Engine Watch Forums on the topic of improving the adCenter Editor Beta application.

Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, Mel66, said offered up five pieces of advice:

1. Don't require us to hit "save" to save the changes, it is too easy to forget
2. Add help content in the tool
3. Give better warnings as to why something might not be working
4. Enable status changes from "draft" to "active"
5. Allow us to mass edit the parameter based keyword destination URLs.

Of these five suggestions, the official adCenter representative confirmed items number one and two are coming soon.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

On the Microsoft adCenter blog, we're informed that there is a brand new "keyword research tool to help you more efficiently find keywords and plan campaigns in adCenter."

The tool will provide suggested keywords, the ability to add keywords to an ad group, and also provides "audience insights" which are demographic tools.

All of these additions sound great, but the demographic information should be especially useful!

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

According to The New York Times, Microsoft will soon be advertising within Facebook. Perhaps this is because Microsoft currently has an ad deal with Digg and Digg might be acquired by Google soon, possibly nullifying the contract (though I don't really know the legal ramifications of such an acquisition).

There's no forum discussion just yet, but the writer of this article wonders how well-targeted those Microsoft ads are ... considering she used to see weird ads on Digg.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft has re-announced its ContentAds program last Friday. The program is currently in private beta, as we have reported at the end of 2006, but we have covered it since the beginning of 2006 Microsoft's post seems like more of a clarification, based on the recent TechCrunch post, which called the launch new.

About 11 months ago, ContentAds was rolled out to US publishers but Microsoft acknowledges that it's in a "private pilot phase."

Many publishers, particularly as voiced at WebmasterWorld, are excited to try this program out. They don't, however, have access yet. You can see the login/signup page here.

I, too, can't wait to hear the first impressions of ContentAds.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Since the tide seems to be shifting and more and more advertisers are opting for Microsoft adCenter over Yahoo Search Marketing, I thought I share with you a recent adCenter related thread from WebmasterWorld.

Let's say you wanted to track your adCenter search traffic differently from your adCenter content network traffic. How do you do it? Well, in Google, it is easy. You just add {ifsearch:} and {ifcontent:} parameters to the URLs and it is done. With adCenter, it may not be that easy.

The official Microsoft representative, adCenterRep, said this cannot be done with Microsoft. Instead, you need to set up two different adGroups for each campaign. Let me quote you:

At this time, the only way to keep the data seperated is by having two adGroups. Although I have submitted your feedback and will have the developmental team review the idea.

May I suggest that you use the 'Give us Feedback' link from within your account requesting this as well?

So if you want this feature, login to adCenter and suggest it by clicking on "Give us Feedback."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

First there was Goto.com (aka Overture.com) as the leader in PPC by advertiser spend. Then Google outpaced Overture. Overture was bought by Yahoo and Yahoo's Overture (now Panama) secured the second place in advertiser spend. Well, now, it seems like a couple advertisers are beginning to report a major milestone for Microsoft adCenter. Two very well respected and seasoned PPC specialists have announced that Microsoft adCenter has accounted for more spend then Yahoo.

Is this the beginning of Yahoo falling behind Microsoft in search ads? Google still secures a strong lead in the area, but Yahoo has been experiencing a slow death.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a post from a senior member, Beren, who has been at WebmasterWorld since 2003. Beren explained why Microsoft is beating Yahoo:

June 2008 was the first month when our MSN AdCenter spending exceeded our YSM spending. A milestone has been passed as YSM becomes our number 3. And it wasn't because MSN spending rose; it was because YSM spending sank. I almost feel sorry for this company when I look at how they have fallen. (But I'm not really sorry because I don't like spending money and because they brought it on themselves.) A few years ago, our AdWords and YSM spending were about equal. In June AdWords spending was 35 times YSM spending. Our YSM spending went from six digits per month back in 2005 to four digits in June 2008.

Is the lower spending because we are getting fewer clicks, bidding on different keywords? No. It is almost all due to the collapse in price at YSM. The competitors in this industry realized the poor quality of traffic out of YSM and drove the bids down, down, down.

Yes, that is a true shame.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post from moderator Discovery, saying the same thing:

For the past 3 years or so Adcenter has provided a nice but small supplement to our daily conversion count. Decent conversion costs and good quality customers. The only issue we had was that the volume of traffic and conversions were low. No matter what we tried, traffic didn't budge and Adcenter sat as a distant 3rd to Google and Yahoo.

Last month we saw an uptick in traffic as well as conversions at Adcenter. This trend continued for the last two weeks of June. Our latest numbers show that Adcenter has outpaced Yahoo in both conversions and CPL over the last 30 days.

Wow, the tide is turning and it seems like Microsoft is well on their way to beating Yahoo at the search ad business. But is it because Microsoft is doing something right or because Yahoo is doing something wrong?

Forum discussion at and Search Engine Watch Forums.

I have been tracking a very sensitive thread at High Rankings Forum for the past several days. The original thread creator is fairly cryptic in his details, due to privacy reasons, but I think I have a grasp of what is going on. Again, I might be wrong, but I think I might be right. Here it goes...

It appears that Siemens, the huge technology engineering company based in Europe is teaming up with Microsoft to sell search ads to their client base. The thing is, Siemens knows nothing about SEM, so they are looking for willing SEM consultants to aid them through the process.

What makes this even more interesting is that it seems like Siemens will only allow these third-party SEM companies to sell Microsoft Live Search ads to their clients. They won't allow them to sell Google ads or other search ads, outside of Live Search, to their client base.

What is this an issue? Well, Google holds the majority share of search traffic and by telling Siemens's clients that all they need to do is be on Live Search, might be considered immoral. On the other hand, if Microsoft sold direct, it would be a no brainer, but by masking themselves through Siemens and then a third-party SEM agency, it seems a bit unethical (for lack of a better word).

Again, I am not sure if this company is Siemens, but it makes logical sense based on the details in the thread.

Forum discussion at High Rankings Forum.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a member complaining that after he signed up with Microsoft adCenter, he noticed his site was removed from the Live Search index. For those that do not know, adCenter is the search ad product that goes along side the organic, pure and unbiased search results at Live Search.

To my surprise, an official Microsoft adCenter representative came into the thread and said:

I can understand the importance of this matter and I am happy to assist in this.

Can you please contact support and have this documented so that we can launch an investigation. Thanks so much.

Does that mean that if you are an adCenter advertiser, Microsoft will assist you with your ranking issues in the organic search side? If Google or Yahoo ever did this, all hell would break loose. I hope this was a miscommunication on the Microsoft side, because this implies, strongly implies, that there is not separation between the paid side and organic side of their search services. (Or maybe I am still sick and I missed something).

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Like most PPC campaign systems, there is a default cap at how many keywords, ad groups and so on you can have per account. Microsoft adCenter has their limits to:

• Keywords: 10,000 per adGroup
• Ads: 20 per adGroup
• Keyword Account Limit: 100,000

So you can basically max out your keyword list on a per account level to 100,000 keywords. I suspect a phone call to Microsoft, if needed, can help increase that limit, but I am not 100% sure about that.

adCenterRep adds he is "I am happy to assist" those with questions at a WebmasterWorld thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread says Microsoft is inviting some adCenter advertisers to beta test a new ad editor. The acronym for this product is ACE, standing for adCenter Editor (Beta).

According to the member in the thread, it appears to be an Internet Explorer browser plugin that helps you manage your search ads. I assume it speeds up the process as well as gives you more data as you edit them.

Here is the exact post from WebmasterWorld:

I just got an invite to try the beta version of the software called AdCenter Ace.

If you have firefox set as your default browser you may have trouble installing this program. I had to make IE my default browser to install Adcenter Ace :)

Hopefully it will become a bit easier to use AdCenter.

I don't have official confirmation from Microsoft on this new beta nor do I have screen captures at this moment.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that several Microsoft adCenter advertisers are recently unhappy with the quality of traffic they are seeing from adCenter.

The conversion rates on adCenter, as reported by a few advertisers, has been as low as ever. WebmasterWorld senior member, ByronM, posted some recent stats showing his concern. Based on over 200 clicks (not impressions, but clicks):

• Google has a 3.9% conversion rate
• Yahoo has a 2.2% conversion rate
• Microsoft has a 0.0% conversion rate

Two other members concurred with ByronM saying:

My experience is the same, for a time I was doing quite a lot with Adcenter but it's value seems to be diminishing and so is my spend with them! Certainly seeing much better conversion with Yahoo & Google at the moment.

Quality was great 2 years ago when it launched, then 6 months later CPC prices were higher than Google Adwords so I shut my clients campaigns off. I hear the traffic has gotten even lower in the last year, and I did not think that was even possible.

At this point, the thread is not large enough to say if this is a wide scale issue but it does seem to be ticking along.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Good news adCenter advertisers, Microsoft has finally fixed the broken dynamic keyword feature in adCenter.

We first reported the news back on February 21st, but even then it was an issue that was fairly old. But it should now be fixed.

adCenterRep posted last night saying:

I am happy to say that this issue is now resloved.

If you do experiance any errors, please contact support so that we can get it resloved quickly for you.

No adCenter advertisers have confirmed this statement, but I think we can trust the Microsoft representative. If things change, I will keep you posted.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft adCenter has allowed dynamic keyword insertion pretty much since they officially launched the program. But for a while now, the keyword insertion feature has not been working properly.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if the feature has been fixed yet. The answer is no.

adCenterRep, the official Microsoft representative, confirmed the fix is not yet available:

I understand the importance of having the {keyword:default} working correctly and we are still investigating into this.

adCenterRep offers some "work arounds" for this issue:

• Not to use {param1} as a destination U if using {keyword:default} in ad titles
• Use static ad titles
• Use the same syntax for the dynamic insertions throughout the ad (for example, use {param1:default})

I guess don't use dynamic keyword insertion if you are using Microsoft adCenter.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Many of you probably already know that Microsoft's Live Search has been displaying "Sitelinks" under the first search result for some queries for a while now. In fact, they have been doing this since the Microsoft Searchification Day 2007 in September 2007. Here is an example.

Search on microsoft at Live Search and you get little links under the main search result:

Search on microsoft at Google and you get the same thing:

Yes, both Google and Microsoft do this. Yahoo does this with Quick Links more on how to earn or buy them over here. Ask.com does not appear to use a form of site links.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

On January 7th, we asked you to vote on the most improved PPC program of 2007. Your votes are now all in and I wanted to share the 76 responses.

Overall, most of you felt Yahoo Search Marketing was the most improved PPC program of 2007. Yahoo launched Panama, the code name of their new PPC program, in October 2006 but really didn't start having Overture account (the old PPC system) migrated for a few months after that. Yahoo, in 2007, began also migrating the new system worldwide. Yahoo's new PPC system is a total overhaul of the old Overture system, and that is why most feel it is the most improved.

Here are the raw results:

As you can see, Google came in a fairly close second. Google has made several significant upgrades to their AdWords system, including dozens of quality score updates, smart pricing, demographic bidding and much much more.

Thank you for taking the poll.

Continued forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday, Microsoft showed off new forms of advertising, including demographic targeting and ads in video clips, according to Forbes.

Some of the proposed ad changes include targeting advertisements around key ideas rather than hundreds or thousands of keywords. The ads are not so search-centric and rely on browsing habits, such as watching videos.

One crunched a clip, looking for the most appropriate stretch of time and spot on the screen for an advertiser's 'bug,' or logo. For example, if a car company wanted to show its logo for 10 seconds in the bottom-right-hand corner of the screen, the computer program would find the 10 seconds in which the logo interferes least with the action in the video.

Other possible implementations include text links that correlate to what someone is saying.

Sounds like a promising future in advertising for Microsoft.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

The Microsoft adCenter blog has announced that it has partnered with the Wall Street Journal for offering exclusive advertising content.

We're pleased to announce that on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, Microsoft and The Wall Street Journal Digital Network reached an agreement in which Microsoft will become the exclusive provider of contextual and paid search ads for The Wall Street Journal Digital Network (WSJDN), which includes WSJ.com, Barrons.com, Marketwatch.com, allthingsd.com along with other sites.

What this means: Microsoft will partner with the Wall Street Journal and any advertisers using Microsoft adCenter ContentAds will now get their ads on the highly-trafficked Wall Street Journal.

This is very promising, according to some.

I always like seeing "positive" Microsoft news. I'll have to say that MS have been "kicking it up a notch" over these past 90-120 days. TV advertising appears to be stepped up and earnings reports are good.

I'm rootin' for ya MS. We need some balance in our space and between you, Yahoo! and Ask.com, you're all we have left. :)

Looks good. Let's see how it plays out!

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld member is disgruntled with Microsoft adCenter. Ever since his ads were optimized, adCenter stopped displaying them. He writes:

I have been running some campaings for 2 months. When I started optimizing bids my ads stopped being shown on msn and live. I have no impressions at all.

Rep says my site is not banned, but I need to change ads and increase bids which are not copetetive.

My bids ARE competetive, I change my ads I still have no impressions or just a few while before I had thousands and CTR apx 2%.

Unfortunately, he's not alone. Another member dropped adCenter in favor of Google.

They did the same to some of my accounts. I just pulled all my own and my clients' accounts out of adCenter and shifted the budgets back to Google - nine accounts in all - I don't have time for this, and the returns haven't been worth it.

It seems that while the same thing may happen on Google. Google's AdWords representatives tell the advertiser that they have to raise their minimum bid prices so that they get better traffic.

And all of these advertisers comply -- because they get a lot of traffic if they do.

The difference, then, between Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter is that the subscribers are willing to pay top dollar for Google's traffic. They can't say that they will get as good traffic from Microsoft, so they just drop Microsoft instead.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread is discussing if some companies are taking vanity search ads too far. Typically, the vanity search ads companies should own are for their own name and domain name. But some are going further. Some want to own it all and become synonymous with the product line they are selling. At what point is it too much?

For example, a search on computers returns ads from Microsoft, HP, Dell, Gateway, BestBuy, Circuit City, etc. BestBuy, Circuit City and their kind are buying the ads to sell. Microsoft, HP, Dell and Gateway might be trying to sell - but they might also be buying it for branding and vanity reasons. I don't see an Apple ad there.

How about the ultimate vanity ad for a search on god:

Nah, I made that up but something like that would be kind of crazy.

In any event, do you think some companies are taking it too far with vanity searches?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

WebmasterWorld moderator, Receptional, says in a WebmasterWorld thread that Microsoft has invited him to participate in the adExcellence accreditation program in the UK. It seems like it was just launched, however we did expect an adExcellence UK launch in 2007 and not 2008. I guess being 15 days late isn't all that bad.

In any event, we first began hearing about this program in April 2007. You can sign up for the UK program over here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last month, Microsoft announced an adCenter Excel 2007 plugin. Well, boys and girls, it's finally a reality. The Microsoft adCenter Excel Add In is ready to download. Note that it's a beta version as Microsoft continually improves on the product.

According to the Microsoft adCenter Blog, here are the features:

1. Keyword Expansion – we have included 3 different expansion algorithms: campaign association, fast contained, and category simulation
2. Keyword Search Volume Historical and Forecast – we have included daily and monthly keyword traffic data, including forecasting
3. Keyword Buzz – you can find buzz keywords in our 300+ verticals
4. Keyword Demographic analysis
5. Keyword Geographic analysis
6. Keyword Categorization
7. Keyword Monetization – you can find all monetization information (CPC, CTR, etc.) for your keyword list

Forum members are seriously impressed:

You weren't lying when you said you would love the tool. This is how it should have been done a while ago! WOW

There are other reactions as well. Dan Zarrella wrote his own impressions after testing it out. He's mostly reporting initial bugs as per the beta release, but it's a good read if you're also looking into the product.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, Sphinn, and Search Engine Watch Forums.

A member posted a thread at WebmasterWorld in the Microsoft adCenter forum asking how he can advertise in the German market with adCenter. Guess what? You can't, not just yet.

However, adCenterEU, the official Microsoft representative in the European market, told this member to advertiser with Yahoo Search Marketing. He said:

It's true that adCenter is not available in Germany as yet, so i suggest you go through our paid search partner Yahoo! Search Marketing.

From the UK just sign up here:

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/en_GB/

Pretty cool! Well, I assume as soon as Microsoft expands into Germany, those recommendations will halt.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Interested on getting some cash? Well, you may be able to with the new MSN adCenter Affiliate Program. For every advertiser you refer to adCenter, you'll get a percentage of their signups.

Cool. It may help others too, as some forum members point out.

The only concern is the domain name and marketing behind the product. It really hasn't gained momentum and there's not much of a marketing push behind the initiative.

Interesting, I stumbled upon the adCenter affiliate program a few weeks ago and thought it was a dummy test site. There was no marketing push behind it and this affiliate program didn't seem to have much resources behind it. I did talk with Jessica Lee who was very kind, but couldn't tell me what the payout was. One reason is the domain name www.microsoftaffiliates.net. Come on Microsoft, you cant get microsoftaffiliates.com?

By the way, Google also has an affiliate program which is nearly three years old. It's good that Microsoft is also taking on the challenge.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter had reported issues with logging into their respective advertising consoles.

The first Google AdWords issues were reported at WebmasterWorld last night at 7:40pm (EST). Similar issues were reported with the AdSense console at DigitalPoint Forums at 7:35pm (EST) last night.

AdWordsAdvisor confirmed the issue at 8pm (EST) last night saying:

OK, yes, this is known to engineering - it's impacting a small percentage of advertisers, and folks here are hard at it to resolve, as you might well imagine.

The Google issue was then confirmed to be resolved at about 8:20pm (EST).

Microsoft adCenter had similar issues, and the first reports came yesterday morning via WebmasterWorld at about 5am (EST).

adCenterEU confirmed the issue was resolved at about 11am (EST) yesterday:

Excellent. Engineering let me know that this is now considered to be resolved - as of just a few minutes before the time you wrote, briggidere.

Again, my apology to those who were impacted. I'm glad it was brief. ;)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (AdWords), DigitalPoint Forums (AdSense) and WebmasterWorld (adCenter).

Microsoft announced a new feature that advertisers can use make their search marketing ad management easier with Microsoft adCenter. The tool is an adCenter add-in for Excel. It will allow you to:

• Easily extract keywords from any website, just by entering the URL
• Quickly understand keyword popularity and trends
• Gain valuable insight on the demographic and geographic information of actual search queries

Some advertisers already got a preview of this tool and they had the following to say at a WebmasterWorld thread:

I've seen this in action... IT'S VERY NICE. I'd suggest getting on the beta asap.

I just got a long demo on the new Microsoft Keyword Research Tools at Pubcon, and it's extremely powerful.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a great run down of the frustration many search marketers have to deal with when it comes to advertising with Microsoft adCenter.

The user interface within the advertising console clearly frustrates most search marketers. They say it takes them at least twice as long to manage a campaign in adCenter than it does with Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing. The page to page load times are slow, the features are sometimes found in obscure locations and the campaign management is not as intuitive, according to some SEMs.

But yet, many SEMs love the ROI they see from Microsoft adCenter and Live Search. Some say they have the best ROI because they currently do not have "low quality affiliates" messing with their inventory. Both Google and Yahoo have large publisher networks, which many advertisers find to mess with their conversions and quality. Microsoft has yet to open their publisher network, aka ContentAds, to the public. They are testing the ContentAds program with internal Microsoft sites and selected and trusted publishers. It is because of that, impressions will be lower than at Google and Yahoo, but some SEMs say the quality is much higher.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft adCenter announced that it has new features for campaign management, including immediate editorial feedback on ads and keywords, a daily budget for campaigns, campaign importing tools that are compatible with AdWords Editor, and reporting access, among other nice features.

This is great, and it's certainly a step in the right direction. Forum members feel that adCenter still needs some of the fundamentals for improvement, however:

They seem to miss some basics I would really like to see such at totals for cost, clicks, impressions ctr etc. on campaign and ad group level pages.

What do you think about the adCenter changes? Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

There are unconfirmed reports from DigitalPoint Forums that Microsoft is going to upgrade adCenter soon to support daily budgeting.

Currently, I believe, adCenter only has a way to set a budget at the month level. You can supposedly set a "daily limit" but that will pause your campaigns based on the monthly average.

This new feature should give advertisers more granular control over their campaign finances.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

In May, Barry reported that MSN adCenter would be offering an accreditation program. At this time, it's only available in beta to customers residing in the US, according to adCenterEU. By the end of this year, it will also be rolled out to UK customers.

The program is called adExcellence. US users interested in opting-in can sign up on the pilot program sign-up page.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

An advertiser using MSN adCenter has a product listed for $69.99. However, he can't actually feature the price in the ad because the number "69" is not allowed.

I tried to update an ad this morning with the price of the product in the ad. I couldn't list the price, $69.99, because 69 is not allowed. Forget that it's part of a price. No 69's allowed. They can't even write their software to figure out this is part of the price.

Oops.

As someone suggests, perhaps this can be flagged for review instead of automatically being filtered.

It does raise an interesting point though - the difficulties of filtering content whilst allowing users to perform basic actions. [space]swearword[space] is a fairly simple one - I think that less obvious issues such as 69 or S#*$!horpe should be 'flagged' up rather than automatically filtered.

I think that's a fair point. Really, not all of us are thinking about what 69 means to some people. ;)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This post was composed on October 1st and is scheduled for publication on October 4th.

On WebmasterWorld, a number of webmasters have seen an abnormal number of clicks from Microsoft's IPs since August 1st. Interestingly enough, the clicks are going to PPC links and not organic links, so it's not simply a spider.

A number of suspicions arose: perhaps AdCenter reps are clicking on these links (since they get a percentage of what their customers spend on PPC campaigns) or perhaps there is some sort of intrusion and a third party is using Microsoft's IP addresses to generate artificial traffic.

adCenter411 then updated the thread and has asked the affected webmasters for information regarding these clicks. adCenter411 adds that some clicks are used to calculate the relevancy of ads.

However, I do want you to know that that there ARE some clicks coming from adCenter that we don’t bill for, such as clicks on ads that originate from our editorial verification system. The editorial verification system routinely checks ads for page relevance and the validity of links and landing pages for ads submitted to the system.

In addition, you can see how we analyze the clicks that come through the system for click quality. Because all clicks might not carry the same value for advertisers, adCenter categorizes the clicks as either standard-quality clicks or low-quality clicks.

-- Low quality clicks are clicks which adCenter classifies as non-billable. Low quality clicks originate from a variety of sources including: clicks suggesting low commercial intent, clicks that have been identified as likely coming from automated bots, or clicks showing unusual and suspicious patterns of behavior.

-- Standard quality clicks on the other hand are of value to advertisers and are the clicks advertisers are billed for.

You can add low-quality clicks to your reports through the adCenter reporting tab in the user interface.

Anyone affected by these abnormal clicks is encouraged to submit a request for an investigation using one of the links below:

U.S.: http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=en-us
U.K.: http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=en-uk
Canada (English): http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=en-ca
Canada (French): http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=fr-ca
France: http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=fr-fr
Singapore: http://support.adcenter.msn.com/contactus.aspx?productkey=Adcenterss&locale=en-sg

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Search Engine Watch Forums member Discovery shares an email he received from Microsoft. In the email, there are a number of features that will enhance adCenter:

Save time with fast and thorough editorial reviews for new ad groups.

Create campaigns with ease by quickly importing campaigns directly from other paid search programs or by copying existing ad groups within adCenter to a new campaign.

Instantly navigate to specific accounts, campaigns, or ad groups with the new adCenter home page dashboard, a one-stop-shop for all of your daily campaign management tasks.

Update keyword bids in bulk and view keyword performance on the same page.

Visualize your campaigns' targeting settings with Microsoft Virtual EarthTM map integration for geographical targeting.

For details on how to use these adCenter improvements view the Feature Release Guide. In addition, the adCenter Blog will highlight detailed feature reviews after the upgrade occurs.

As adCenter411 writes in WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, and DigitalPoint Forums, the downtime is expected to begin this evening (6PM Pacific/9PM Eastern/2AM GMT) and may last up to 8 hours.

But the Search Engine Watch Forums thread discusses these features in more detail.

Forum members are extremely excited about the ability to import campaign data from other paid programs. They're happy that Microsoft is listening to their desired changes.

The only thing left for some is an offline editor. I guess that could be in the works too, right?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums, and announcements are posted at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, and DigitalPoint Forums.

adCenterEU has updated us on the adCenter bulk import draft problem, saying at a WebmasterWorld thread that the problem will be resolved in a "month or so."

Microsoft will be adding new functionality to make it easier and quicker to import campaigns and mark those campaigns from the "draft" status to the live status.

adCenterEU, Microsoft's official adCenter representative, said:

Watch out for this capability in a release scheduled within the next month or so.

So I am expecting the release within the month of September.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In the Copyright & Trademarks: What SEMs Should Know session from SES San Jose last week, adCenter announced they have a new policy on how they will be handling trademark complaints.

Instead of them being the go between, between affiliates and advertisers, they are kind of going to take a step back and let the two duke it out.

Microsoft then announced the change on their blog.

Microsoft adCenter will no longer attempt to mediate affiliate compliance by creating lists of trademark-owner approved advertisers who can bid on trademarked keywords. Support teams will be contacting those trademark owners who have provided affiliate documentation previously to explain this policy update and answer questions.

If you have a trademark issue, you now need to use this form.

WebmasterWorld moderator, Receptional, said:

Not sure this will upset agencies looking after client trademarks too much. This seems to me like the onus is on the advertiser to stick to their trademark rights, but trademark owners will still be able to protect their marks as and when.

Skibum adds an important point:

Microsoft is Microsoft so they can do whatever they want but this sounds confusing and inconsistent.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

adCenterEU confirmed in a WebmasterWorld thread that in the next "couple weeks" they should have an announcement regarding fixing the issue with the draft setting after conducting a bulk import in adCenter.

The problem, as summarized in the thread:

Loving Adcenter but hating pressing 'continue' hundreds of times to get a campaign up and running after a bulk import. To get rid of the 'Draft' setting.

adCenterEU said he/she "should have some news in the next couple of weeks."

Sounds exciting.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you notice dashes in the place of the numbers in your adCenter statistics reports, then no need to worry.

In a WebmasterWorld thread, adCenterEU explained that the dashes represent that there was a timeout failure between the reporting and the database.

All you need to do is refresh the page and hopefully those pesky little dashes will be replaced by real numbers.

adCenterEU said:

If that's in the interface then refresh your page a couple of times.

Sometimes, for what ever reason, there may be a break in the connection to the DB so instead of a timeout message you'll see some dashes.

Try refreshing the page and let me know...

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

Has anyone created any campaigns in MSN adCenter but all keywords and ads are still "pending?" That's what happened to one guy at WebmasterWorld. According to him, the "editorial review [appears to be] grinding to a halt."

adCenterEU confirms his suspicions. There is an increased volume of campaigns lately and the editorial staff is overwhelmed with the requests, it seems.

We are experiencing a large number of submissions currently and the team is working hard to ensure we get everything processed as quickly as possible.

I'll let you know when we're back to normal.

This is good for MSN, I guess, but it's not so good for the advertisers who have to wait. It is nice to see Microsoft getting so many requests, but it is sad that they cannot support an increased volume of requests. This means advertisers have to wait while their ads are being approved which may encourage them to spend more time with Google and Yahoo.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, Digg made an announcement that it dropped Google as its advertising partner and has chosen to sign a three-year exclusive advertising deal with Microsoft. Search Engine Land quotes Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz about the move:

Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web and a true innovator in user-generated content. We believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg's combined strengths to forge more meaningful connections online.

DigitalPoint Forums members believe that this might mean that Microsoft will acquire Digg, but I'm not so sure.

WebmasterWorld takes a more rational approach. They have an understanding of the Digg community (Digg loves Google but is not so keen on Microsoft), and the story on Digg initially reflected that but people started simmering down as their comments got buried. ;)

Cre8asite Forums members echo the anti-Microsoft sentiment. And what Administrator Adrian said is very true:

I expect a lot of Digg fans will find some way to rationalise it. It's how they are, they're a big crowd of sheep in a way. If someone like Kevin Rose says "Microsoft's cool, we're going to use them for our ads", I reckon a decent sized portion of the Digg crowd would go with it.

I totally see that. Everyone follows Kevin Rose. Even I do.

On Sphinn, the story is a bit different. Search Engine Land writers had the story as did many other prominent blogs. But they were embargoed until 3PM EST. Did Kevin Rose break his embargo? It seems that he did -- two hours earlier. Oops.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, Cre8asite Forums, and Sphinn.

Microsoft Office Live's adManager Beta search advertising service will be adding Ask Sponsored Listings, allowing for advertisers to display ads on both MSN and Ask.com. Over at WebmasterWorld, martinibuster links to an InformationWeek article that has more:

The addition of Ask.com's sites to its paid search service will expose Microsoft's customer listings to an additional 5% of search traffic.

That takes Microsoft's network a step closer to Yahoo, which in June captured 25.1% of all search traffic.

Numerous advertisers are looking forward to trying out the new MSN and Ask.com and think that it could even be a competitor to Google in the future if other search engines are included in their advertising structure:

Maybe if Microsoft heaps a few more 2nd tier search engines into AdCenter, and incentivise a lot more searches outside of the gaming industry, then they might be able to contend with Yahoo for a distant second to Google.

There are definitely increased marketing opportunities for advertisers and the reach should be greater with a larger user base. As Barry quotes James Speer of IAC at Search Engine Land, the Ask.com Sponsored Network reaches 59 million people. Good stuff.

For more information, check this page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In June, Microsoft adCenter postponed maintenance, but it appears that it's about to happen. adCenterEU posted on WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Search Engine Watch Forums about upcoming maintenance to be held on Saturday, July 14.

adCenterEU writes:

Microsoft adCenter will be unavailable during an upgrade this Saturday, July 14, beginning at 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time (18:00 P.M. GMT), and continuing for up to 14 hours. During this time, your current keywords and ads will continue to run normally; however, you will not be able to access adCenter.

Please make any needed changes to your account beforehand if possible.

After the scheduled maintenance, reporting may be delayed for up to 24 hours. On the adCenter Reporting tab please check the timestamp at the bottom of the page to see when the data was last updated.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Search Engine Watch Forums.

According to the MSN adCenter Blog and werty on WebmasterWorld, Microsoft adCenter has released click quality reports to provide advertisers with more information about received clicks.

adCenter has now classified low-quality clicks that will not be billed, which include invalid clicks, clicks that appear to be unusual activity, clicks that have low/unclear commercial intent, clicks that originate from spiders, and clicks that should be filtered out for other reasons.

The adCenter blog walks you through how to access these new reports:

1. After signing in to your Microsoft adCenter account, click the Reports tab.

2. In the Report drop-down list, select either Campaign Performance or Account Performance.

3. In the Report View drop-down list, select Summary.

4. In the Date Range drop-down list, select the date range you want to work with.

5. Under Customize this report, in the Columns and values row, select Customize report layout.

In the Available values section, you will now see several new column headings:

* Low-quality clicks
* Low-quality impressions
* Low-quality click filtration rate
* Low-quality impression filtration rate
* Low-quality click conversions
* Low-quality click conversion rate

Yahoo and Google have also taken steps to take action on PPC quality with quality based pricing and smart pricing for AdSense. Google is rolling out new tools for advertisers, including IP exclusion and performance reporting, so this is a good step for adCenter.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a member saying he has been beta testing the Microsoft alternative to Google's AdSense program, named ContentAds.

He gave the new contextual ad program, from a publisher's perspective, a great review.

To be honest is was actually pretty sweet. I am not going to talk about any specifics until is goes open beta but I feel it is a huge improvement in certain aspects. I am just waiting until I can take it for a spin on some of my websites to really get a feel for it. I wish MS would just give me a job so I can help them step it up some more. For any platform for content publishers you really need to focus on the filtering and reports. Those are the two area I use the most so the most attention should be paid attention to them. A close third of course is the ad creation process. Watch out for MS, they are not going down without a fight.

But as far as I know, ContentAds is only open to very large and trusted publishers and there is no program for smaller publishers. Back in February 2006, I reported that MSN to Release Contextual Ad Program, ContentAds in 2006. That did happen in October 2006 with Microsoft Begins Testing Content Ads Beta, but it was only open to large publishers and to a limited set of adCenter advertisers to opt in. Microsoft continually expanded the ContentAds availability for advertisers but never really expanded the publisher side of things.

In fact, there was a lot of controversy over adCenter advertisers being forced into the contextual program without requesting their ads to show up on the content network. Next time adCenter was upfront about this change, and last week they announced it again.

So is this just a rumor? I am not sure. I sent out emails to my Microsoft contacts in this area, so we will see. I will update you if I find out more information.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Microsoft sent me a response that they are currently still only running ContentAds on their own network. They do not have a release date for a public release of ContentAds just yet.

Last week, I reported that Microsoft adCenter was adding negative keywords on the campaign level. This maintenance would have occurred on Saturday, June 23.

However, in WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, and DigitalPoint Forums adCenter411 updates the threads to inform the community that the scheduled maintenance has been rescheduled for a later undetermined date. The adCenter blog has also been updated.

The Microsoft adCenter June 23 upgrade has been rescheduled for a later date. Your campaigns and keywords are running, sign in to the adCenter UI to manage your account. A future upgrade will allow you to manage negative keywords at the campaign level in addition to several features to improve performance. We’ll keep you informed as to when this future upgrade will occur. We apologize for any confusion that this may have caused and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Reporting is currently delayed, view the timestamp on the adCenter Reporting tab to see when your data was last updated.

Since many advertisers were looking forward to this update, I hope that "later date" occurs soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums, and DigitalPoint Forums.

As I reported yesterday, Microsoft adCenter is adding negative keywords to a campaign level. But a few questions remain. Barry reported on Search Engine Land that adCenter is upgrading more subscribers to the content network on June 28.

Advertisers who are selected will be automatically included and be billed for clicks on ads within Microsoft's contextual program.

According to Barry, you have to opt out yourself if you don't want to be involved in the content network. You can do so by filling out this form.

Discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

According to reports posted in the Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Microsoft adCenter is expanding keyword management to the campaign level this Saturday.

On Saturday, June 23, Microsoft adCenter will upgrade, expanding negative keyword management to the campaign level.

This means that you can add negative keywords not only to the ad level but also on the campaign level.

This must be part of the big upgrade that adCenter411 posted in WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

This is great news for adCenter advertisers who want to have more control on their advertising campaign.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, WebmasterWorld, and Search Engine Watch Forums.

As a result of some questions asked at SMX two weeks ago, the Microsoft adCenter team has clarified its position on trademarks. In a blog post on the adCenter blog, the adCenter team writes:

With this policy advertisers are required to agree that they will not bid on keywords, or use in the text of their advertisements, any word whose use would infringe on the trademark of any third party, or would otherwise be unlawful or in violation of the rights of any third party.

Exceptions to the rule apply, however, if you are authorized to resell the trademarked product, you are providing information about the trademarked product, and you are using any trademarked term in its ordinary dictionary form and are not selling the product (e.g. apples the fruit vs. Apple Computer).

Additionally, the blog post adds that there are three types of dynamic text parameters that can be used in any adCenter campaign:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

About a month ago we reported that Microsoft adCenter Conversion Tracking Turned Off Automatically. The bug continued to linger and linger.

Finally, last night, adCenter411, Microsoft's official adCenter representative, has confirmed they found the issue of the bug and fixed it.

Hi everyone,

I got word from our Support team that they isolated this issue and fixed it - the fix was verified on 6/15.

If you see this happening again for you, please let me know. Thanks for your patience with this, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

--adCenter411

Confirmations of the fix seem to be already coming in. But why did it take one full month to fix?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

According to Brent in the Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Microsoft adCenter is now providing more information into why they are rejecting keywords.

Some of the reasons are:

• Too much ad text (keyword parameter use exceeds character limits)
• Landing page content not relevant
• Website contains forbidden content - Content guidelines
• Incorrect ad format - Style guidelines
• Not enough ad text - The combination of ad title and ad text is less than 6 words

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports a few webmasters received phone calls from Microsoft adCenter representatives.

Both webmasters seemed to have set up accounts in the past, but never fully activated those accounts.

One said,

I signed up several months back never did get around to doing anything with it. At the time they were giving away $20 of free clicks.

Another said,

I got a call a few weeks back - The call dropped & I gave the rep a call back, left a message for him to call me back to continue the conversation, but he never called back.

Does not surprise me that Microsoft is reaching out to these advertisers. They took the time to set up an account. A little push, maybe they will start spending some money with Microsoft.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

I reported this at SES NY but I have now found a thread confirming this at WebmasterWorld.

adCenterEU confirmed there will be some type of accreditation program for adCenter managers.

Thanks for your interest in the adCenter accreditation scheme.

We are working on one right now and hope to have the program out to our customers in the US by late summer.

Keep an eye on the adCenter Blog for more information as and when we have it.

Want more proof? Here is a PPT from one of their presentations in HTML format and here is Molly S. of the adCenter team confirming the same thing at Microsoft forums.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you are a Microsoft adCenter advertiser, I recommend you login to your account and check to make sure that the conversion tracking part is set to the way you like it. Two advertisers noticed over the weekend that the conversion tracking feature was turned off on some of their campaigns, for no apparent reason.

Log in this morning and the conversion tracking is turned off for both accounts. Instead of seeing the number of conversions, it said "Off (Enable?)" and the enable text linked to a page to enable tracking and provided the code snippet.

Gave MS a call and they have no reason as to why this happened...way to go! I have lost important data for my accounts = not happy.

Interesting. So just log in and double check you are set.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The official Microsoft adCenter representative has confirmed that they are using Intellitxt ads "to drive trial and interest in Live Search itself."

Intellitxt is a contextual product that shows ads within the text you are reading for the those keywords in the content.

The thing is, they are driving search queries to their search engine, via the contextual networks.

Imagine you are reading a web site on sports, you then hover over a link that reads "sports" which takes you to a search query on "sports" at Live.com. Then your ad targeted for the keyword "sports" is displayed on Live.com. Is that the type of traffic you want?

Advertiser, Mel, said no:

Here's my issue with this campaign: we've found that visitors coming from this type of advertising tend to behave more like content network visitors than search visitors. In other words, they ran across the ad while reading an article on a content site, and are just idly browsing -- they're not in "buy" mode like someone who purposefully went to a search engine such as Live.com and typed in a query. And these visitors convert about the same (for us, anyway) as content visitors.

However, the ad they were clicking on in this case was our search ad, with bids based on search economics. All of a sudden, our ROI on that keyword plummeted as a result. If these were content ads, I'd have been fine with it, because I'd have set my bids accordingly.

Mel wants a way to opt out.

We know Ask.com has marketed on Google and other engines to drive traffic to their search engine in the past. Here are two examples. I am not sure if Ask.com using the contextual network to advertiser, so the user intent is a bit different.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

I hate to say I told you so, but in this case, I told you so. Tamar reported on Monday, Microsoft adCenter Using Matching Criteria Other than Keyword Searches to Display Ads. In that, she explained how the terms and conditions are now updated to be more abstract. In the forums, there was a lot of confusion as to why.

I gave Tamar a quote, from myself, with my thoughts behind it saying:

This is not the first time Microsoft automatically added their advertisers to the content network program without their consent. When Microsoft launched their content network they did so by switching their advertisers into the program and then requiring them to opt out after the fact. In this case, I believe it may be similar, in that Microsoft wants to cover themselves by saying they "may" display their ads in other areas and via non-keyword searches (hence the content network and possibly via behavioral targeting methods).

Basically, I thought it was directly related to Microsoft wanting to boost up their content network and make sure they cover themselves on the legal side from their advertisers.

adCenter411, the adCenter representative in the forums, explained that the new text in the terms and conditions "allows you to participate in current and future adCenter services, such as Content Ads." The representative goes on to explain;

As we develop and launch new products, you may need to modify your adCenter account to adjust your participation to your desired level (i.e. turn-off participation, modify bids, etc.). We intend to keep you informed about new ad products or services and any significant changes to your service. For example, as we continue to offer our Content Ads product to new participants, we will email advertisers in advance to notify them about how they may turn-off content advertising.

So at first, content Ads. What can be next? Ads in Microsoft applications, ads in Xbox games, and so on. This keeps things open for Microsoft's online ad strategy. What is that strategy? Well, I recommend ready Keynote Conversation with Steve Berkowitz from last month.

Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Members from Search Engine Watch Forums and WebmasterWorld received troubling information from Microsoft adCenter regarding yesterday's new Terms and Conditions.

We're writing to notify you that your Microsoft adCenter Terms and Conditions are updated. The changes take effect on April 30, 2007.

Some of the key adjustments to your Terms and Conditions include:

Microsoft may use matching criteria other than keyword searches to display your advertisements.
Microsoft may display your advertisements on its network of advertising channels operated by the Microsoft network of participating websites and other distribution outlets.
The payment and reporting terms in your adCenter agreement have been clarified to describe your rights.

adCenter advertisers are relatively disgruntled about this "matching criteria" given the fact that it is important for them to understand the criteria being used in Microsoft's refinements. Their hard work into the PPC campaigns are being challenged by this new policy. Some are planning on terminating their agreement with MSN.

The reason that ppc is popular is because it's extremely targeted advertising - I decide which search terms / ads are working and continue to refine them. I do not want Microsoft to 'use matching criteria other than keyword searches' WITHOUT my opt-in.

No word from the adCenter rep on these new changes.

Barry offers some possible suggestions as to why Microsoft changed their Terms of Services. He told me:

This is not the first time Microsoft automatically added their advertisers to the content network program without their consent. When Microsoft launched their content network they did so by switching their advertisers into the program and then requiring them to opt out after the fact. In this case, I believe it may be similar, in that Microsoft wants to cover themselves by saying they "may" display their ads in other areas and via non-keyword searches (hence the content network and possibly via behavioral targeting methods).

That seems to fit with the sentiment at WebmasterWorld:

what it means is that they couldn't sell their content distribution, so it is now bundled into their search product. Plummeting ROI will ensue.

First they auto-opt you in to content, and you have to go in and opt out - if you are aware. Then the choice is taken away.

Discussion continues at Search Engine Watch and WebmasterWorld.

On DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, and Search Engine Watch Forums, adCenterEU of Microsoft has written in to inform the Microsoft adCenter community that adCenter is currently being upgraded to version 3.7.1.

He writes:

We are pleased to announce the arrival of adCenter 3.7.1. As communicated in advance of the upgrade, reporting will remain out of SLA until around Tuesday May 1st 2007 due to the massive amounts of data that we must process as a result of the upgrade.

Users ‘may’ see some partial data in our BI reporting for day, month, year when compared to hourly:

This is an expected side effect of the upgrade and catch up of data.

This is only affecting data after Friday the 27th of April. All data prior is complete for all grains – hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.

This is only temporary. We expect to catch up on the data end of day Tuesday 2nd May 2007.

Users will likely see blanks or ‘-‘ in the Keyword Performance tab (under the Campaigns Tab) instead of the actual keyword data. We are working hard to investigate root cause. The good news – there is a work-around:

Simply run a Keyword Performance report in adCenter and you should get the data you are looking for.

We'll keep you informed as the progress of this post-upgrade data catch-up.

It will only be fair to wait until after the upgrade is complete (tomorrow) before reporting any errors, although members already have concerns and requests for future upgrades.

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, and Search Engine Watch.

I reported earlier this week that adCenter advertisers noticed a drop in traffic, which we later found out was due to them adding a quality factor to the ads displayed in live.com.

Microsoft claimed that "this improvement will ensure that we maintain a high quality of ads and relevance to the Live Search user. But the folks over at DigitalPoint Forums disagree.

One person explained that his "quality site has plummeted in the rankings, yet there are sites where the url and the landing page does not even match up." Another person added, "the pages that do rank for advertising on certain keywords that I have also bid on have poorly broken english splattered all over them." Yet another agreed, "the sites that rank at the top are utter rubbish and with urls not even matching up."

GuyFromChicago, a respected forum personality in the PPC area, has posted examples at his blog of the relevancy issues adCenter is having right now. He explains that "the ads I'm seeing being served by adCenter now are the worst I've ever seen...on any search engine," and then provided several examples.

This makes me appreciate the quality score updates both Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing has completed in the past.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: The adCenter blog posted that they made an update to the algorithm that ranks the ads. They now take into account relevancy and quality factors such as "content of the ad and landing page, keywords that an advertiser selects in relation to the advertiser’s landing page content, substantive content on the landing page, and duplicative nature of content in overall search results."

A WebmasterWorld thread has very early reports of an unusual drop in traffic from live.com and MSN adCenter. Here are the two reports both stating a drop of about 75% of their traffic from Microsoft's PPC engine, adCenter.

Just noticed a 75% drop in my MSN traffic yesterday. At first I thought It might have been a resuly of changing ads on my account but now I believe its more of a system problem.

Yes big drop around 7 PST. More than 75%. Both UK and US

This is still very early, so it may be nothing or it may be the signs of something big happening with adCenter.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In the old days of the Pay Per Click management days, you used to hear the phrase - "set it and forget it." Meaning, you set up your pay per click campaign in Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and others. Then you watch it for a couple weeks, make some tweaks and when things are running smoothly, you just walk away and let it run itself.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if the "set it and forget it" practice still works? With Google AdWords changing their algorithms every 6 months or so. With Yahoo! recently upgrading to a new algorithm in Panama. With adCenter launching with more features to shake a stick at... Does the "set it and forget it" methodology still apply?

It appears not.

Everyone in the thread seems to agree that for the most part, that concept is long gone. You at least have to check in weekly for even the smallest campaigns. I like netmeg's response:

I have one client who has set a rather small (in my opinion, TOO small, considering the breadth of his product line) daily budget for what he wants to spend on AdWords, and he hired me a couple years ago to fix his existing AdWords account and kind of oversee it. I added as many phrases as I felt I could within the strictures of his low budget, and then I turned the Budget Optimizer on most of his campaigns, and just let it run. He absolutely will not raise the budget, so there was a limit to what I could do with it. Once a week I go in to see if anything looks weird, and anything that has gone inactive I might have to move off to a separate campaign (that's not on Budget Optimizer) in order to raise the CPC, but that's about it. It means a lot of his positions are down in the 5-8 range, or even lower - but it probably gets him more overall clicks for the money, and all I can do is hope that when people click on the ads, if they don't buy what they're clicking on, they'll see something else they're interested in. In any case, we do get conversions, and the client seems to be fairly satisfied with it. It's not the way I prefer to do it, but it's what I could do with what was handed me.

That's the closest to auto-pilot that I can get.

Would love to hear more on this from others.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The adCenter blog announced last week that they will be expanding the content network, to allow more Microsoft adCenter advertisers to bid in the content network.

The thing is, if you get a notification of your account being upgraded into this test, you will have to manually opt out, if you do not want to participate.

Your campaigns will automatically be upgraded to include distribution on content pages within the Microsoft network.

If you want to participate in the test, US advertisers can requested an invite here.

If you don't, and you are upgraded, make sure to disable it within your account.

This does not mean Microsoft is accepting publishers like Google's AdSense or Yahoo!'s YPN program. It means Microsoft is accepting invites from advertisers to advertiser on their content network.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

This is funny, remember the huge adCenter overcharge bug a couple weeks ago? Yea, they did refund adCenter advertisers very soon after.

I am now spotting reports at the WebmasterWorld thread that they refunded advertisers too much!

Well, we were overcharged by about $4k, and then we were credited by about $8k, and then they took back the over-credit, and supposedly TODAY they have it all right. At least, that's what the guy who called me said. I'm going to have to have my customer call his credit card company to be sure. What a mess.

I had 1400-ish bucks in incorrect clicks. They credited my CC the $1400, even though only $400 had been actually charged to my card. So, then they charged my card $1000 to even it out. They did give me a $200 ad credit for the trouble--which was cool.

So they refund everything to the advertiser. Then they remember that the advertisers actually did get clicks and should not be refunded for everything. So they charge the advertiser's cards for that difference. Pretty funny. But maybe it makes it easier for Microsoft to keep track of this way?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There are two separate reports from two different threads that Microsoft adCenter's conversion tracking is inflating their figures.

First, what is adCenter conversion tracking?

The adCenter Conversion Tracking help says:

Converson tracking is a free feature provided by Microsoft adCenter to allow you, the advertiser, to identify how many actual conversions result from users clicking on your ads.

What are the requirements?

Your site must support JavaScript. Other than that, you will just need to complete a few simple steps for this service to work. From the adCenter console, go to the *Help* menu and click on *Start or stop conversion tracking* for complete instructions.

So why are tech savvy webmasters reporting that Microsoft is inflating these numbers by 50% and more?

PPC at Search Engine Watch Forums says "their conversion stats they are providing us are inflated by about 50%! Some days I'll see a term with one single click and four conversions!"

Natekapi at DigitalPoint Forums says "the conversions are obviously off because it told me I had 10 in 1 day, when I really only had 1 conversion from AdCenter."

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums & DigitalPoint Forums.

The huge adCenter overcharging bug this past Friday was patched towards the end of the day Friday. Microsoft promised to refund all the overcharging that occurred throughout the day in their blog post.

After reviewing the threads at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld it appears that everyone has been refunded their money.

I have actually received a refund for this already. It was automatic and happend sometime on Sunday. Support also just phoned me to say everything was sorted and back to normal, but those who still have the paused campaign problem should be fixed asap. Didn't affect me so didn't ask anything more about that.

I have to say that adcenter seemed to do a good job at fixing what seemed to me like a massive problem, and fixed it quite quickly.

Yeah my account averages like $40/day and then I log on a couple of days ago and it is at like $350.

This was realtime via a report so I couldnt see why it spiked but I figured it was just adcenter trying to hit my monthly budget (which they were not even getting me close to it) but then I logged in today to look over my account and it now shows like $61 for that day.

I guess they fixed it without notification. Im happy about that!

People still want to know why this happened in the first place.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Update: This is a very serious issue. Continue reading below...

Reported this morning at WebmasterWorld, was a bug where advertisers reports are showing that they are being seriously overcharged for many of their keywords.

I have a bid. of $0.30 and i was charged on a click for $16.

So this user was overcharged by about 500%.

They charged me $5.10/click on something that is clearly set at $0.44/click!

My daily spend increased almost 10-fold from $140 to over $1350 yesterday!

The official adCenter representative, adCenterEU, confirmed this issue saying:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

This is a known issue and our support team are working on analysing the root cause and providing a solution.

We'll post back when we have more news.

Thanks for your patience.

Regards

adCenterEU

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Not only is there a thread at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums also has a thread with screen captures. Take a look at this:

Notice how the base bid is $0.50 and the average bid is $281.58. Nice Microsoft! Yes, Microsoft is aware of this issue and posted an update in the WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint thread about an hour ago.

The adCenter team are still ascertaining the root cause in order to implement a resolution.

We completely understand your frustration with this issue and are pulling out all the stops to bring it to a swift conclusion.

Once we have fixed the issue we will decide on which and how customers are credited for any overspend due to the error and we hope you'll bear with us while we investigate.

We'll post back in the next 3 hours with further updates.

Thanks again for your patience on this matter.

This is big!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

If you are an advertisers on Microsoft's Live.com adCenter, and you noticed your reports not being updated, you are not alone. A WebmasterWorld thread has details of adCenter reports not updating since 7:00 am EST on February 11th.

adCenter411, the official Microsoft representative confirmed the issue saying:

I just got word that because of the adCenter maintenance this past Saturday, reporting is behind. It may take a couple days for the data to be up to date - I will keep you posted as I learn more, including the expected resolution time for this. Thank you for your patience, adCenter411

So don't be alarmed if you see no data in your reports.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There honestly has not been much discussion in the various forums about the recently released adCenter beta by Microsoft. There is a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums that calls the new beta more confusing and has slightly more bugs. But with that, coincided reports via WebmasterWorld that advertisers in the adCenter program, noticed their traffic from adCenter increase dramatically.

WebmasterWorld adCenter moderator, Receptional, said:

It's morning now and apart from one of our accounts being on pause for no discernable reason (yeh... they are still looking into it... come ON Microsoft!) we are piling on the bids so fast that we are experiencing really dramatic increases in volumes but can't directly attribute this to a change in the query share.

People suspect the increase in traffic is due to Microsoft switching on content network by default for all these campaigns.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday there was some confusion on if Microsoft adCenter Advertisers Being Forced into Content Network?

The official adCenter representative at WebmasterWorld, adCenter411, has replied with more details, to clear things up.

A select number of adCenter customers are being migrated to the beta site so that we can expand our Content Ads pilot and gather feedback on the next version of the adCenter User Interface. All advertisers selected for migration will be given access to the beta site and an improved set of campaign management tools, reporting tools and navigation. We selected advertisers based upon their match to the MSN inventory we have available and to provide access to a sampling of advertisers.

I also wanted to clarify that you can modify your content ads distribution – so if you don’t want to participate in content ads, you don’t have to. Once you have migrated to the beta site, you can turn off content ads. We'll be posting detailed instructions with screen shots on our blog on Monday.

So, you will be able to turn off content ad inclusion, how that is done, will be revealed at adCenter Blog this Monday.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Here are instructions to opt out via adCenter411 at the thread above:

Here are the instructions for those of you who would like to turn off ads on the content network entirely. After your account is migrated on Jan. 25, after signing into your account: 1. Click the Campaign you want to edit. 2. Click the ad group you wish to modify. 4. Click the Ad Group Settings tab. 4. In the Targeting section, locate "Select a distribution method for this ad group." 5. Uncheck the box labeled “Content” and Click Save.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that notifications are being sent to advertisers that on January 25, 2007, they will be automatically included in the Microsoft content network. Other members confirmed the email, but I do not have a copy myself.

One member said:

The email stated that my current settings will be changed and I will HAVE to start using the new Content Beta. With NO option to opt out, just stating that it is going to happen on 1/25/07.

I suspect there must be a way to opt out, but maybe it is not clear. He said he called adCenter support, but they "tried to show [him] how to opt out, but had no clue themselves."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports Microsoft adCenter advertisers receiving emails saying that they may undergo an account audit. I suspect these account audits are random and allow Microsoft to see if there advertisers are complying with their terms of service.

The email also had a promotion aspect, encouraging advertisers to opt in to their contextual ad network.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread links to a story named Microsoft adCenter can't bill correctly. It goes through how the individual used a $100 promo, ran up a bill of $111 or so and was billed the whole $111 instead of just the $11 (i.e. $100 minus the $100 promo).

December 21st - Spoke to a customer service rep (CSR) who thought that I had to pay the full $111.85, and then I'd get another account credit of $100. He really wasn't sure, however, so after arguing with him on how to read an invoice, I was finally transferred to a supervisor. The supervisor told me the same exact thing that the first CSR told me about paying the full $111.85 and not $11.85.

If you want a laugh, go read that post, kinda incredible.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports that Microsoft adCenter is inflating the conversion metrics by 30 to 40 percent.

Member, PPC, says:

For those that track conversions at MSN, does anyone else see inflated numbers? MSN consistently reports 40-50% more conversions than we are actually getting from MSN. I don't see how this is possible since the conversion code is only on our confirmation page and that page only displays for successful orders. Yet every day, MSN reports tell me that I have sold more units through this outlet than I actually have. Sometimes, one term will show 8 sales when in fact only only one unit of that specific product has been sold and there actually was only 1 click on that term!

Another member came in to confirm the same bug.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld reports that Microsoft's adCenter PPC product has a very delayed reporting engine, for about two days now. The official adCenter representative, adCenterEU, explains;

I've recieved an alert over night (GMT) that reporting is behind SLA by around a day or so.

The adCenter team is working on a fix and we will update you as soon as we have any news.

Cheers

adCenterEU

So only "around a day or so" of delayed reporting. Is that acceptable?

I am still not showing any data at all for yesterday. Would like to see how much I spent yesterday. :)

I guess not.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday I reported at Search Engine Land that Microsoft China To Display Baidu's Search Ads. Yes, Microsoft asked Baidu if they would run and manage the ads on their China properties. My reaction and the communities was something like, wait a second, shouldn't Microsoft be powering Baidu's PPC ads? But no. Baidu is the powerhouse in China, so Microsoft decided Baidu is the best bet for monetizing their Chinese properties.

WebmasterWorld senior member, walkman, said;

am I missing something or should it be the other way around?

But Quadrille feels this is just a way for Microsoft to learn from Baidu and as soon as the contract expires, they too will enter the Chinese PPC market.

It's just Bill poking his tongue out at Google China! More seriously, it's probably a fairly short contract while MSN develops its own China search.

Win or Loss for Microsoft? Time will tell.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread shows an issue where an advertiser saw his average position drop from position five to position 195.6. adCenterEU, an official Microsoft representative explained that this is indeed a bug in the system and Microsoft is working on a fix.

There is a known issue with some advertisers where the average reported position is higher than expected.

The adCenter team are aware and hope to release a fix as soon as possible to recitfy the behaviour.

So if you see your ad position drop like that, do not fret - it is a known issue.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

WebmasterWorld adCenter moderator Receptional, has an excellent post at WebmasterWorld where he goes over tips and common pitfalls you may experience using Microsoft's adCenter.

In his detailed and easy to read post, he goes over the editorial process, the acceptance policy, and how Microsoft handles trademarks. He also reviews some "basic tips" including; Keyword relevancy, Landing pages work, Include keywords in titles and you should use adlab.microsoft.com's keyword tool.

Check out the remainder of the post for:

• Improving Your Campaign Management
  
• Demographics Tips
  
• Reporting Tips
  
• What to expect in 2007
  

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Reportedly, via a WebmasterWorld posts, there has been a significant drop in ad impressions noticed from sources in the Mid Atlantic to the Northeast areas of the US. There are literally a couple threads on this at WebmasterWorld, including here and here.

What caused the outage? A huge fire in one of the large data centers that house and power that region of Microsoft adCenter (Windows Live Search ads).

After much prodding and some fairly heated exchanges, the support rep, whom I will not name, told me there was a big fire in one of the major data centers in the east coast that feeds adcenter ads, all servers were burned and data destroyed. This does not mean your ads and data were lost. It means the distribution part of the service is disrupted.

WebmasterWorld's official adCenter representative, adCenter411, claimed the fire was not true. adCenter411 said, "adCenter did not experience a fire in any of their data centers." But she did add what she feels is the issue.

There was/is a delivery issue, now partly resolved, that adCenterEU and I are still looking into for some of you in the UK. I'm sorry for the confusion and misunderstanding, but please be assured that no servers or data was lost.

They say no data has been lost, historically. But lots of potential business has been lost since the fire. I am sure neither side is happy, Microsoft and the advertiser. I just hope they get things going again soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread points to a PPC Discussions post that shows how Microsoft adCenter is converting the & to & (the HTML entity) on the fly.

So if you have tracking URLs set up that use &, then you may not be able to track them in your analytics package. Because if your analytics package or server does not translate back the & to & then the data won't be captured.

So it is important for the advertiser to know about this change and it is important for Microsoft and the other PPC engines to work with the advertiser before making these changes.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Microsoft has updated their adCenter Labs tools including;

• 4 million new keywords added to the Search Funnel 1.5:
• They added Keyword Forecast that shows "the impression count forecast and demographic predictions of your search terms." It is pretty cool. I plotted Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN against each other and got these.

Pretty cool charts.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Big conference is taking place now, named eComXpo. In any event, a bunch of PPC engines are there giving away coupons. One accessible coupon for you is from MSN adCenter, they are giving away $50 in free clicks for new users. The coupon is available as a PDF document over here for now.

Go to www.msftadcenter.com/events and sign up today!
Enter promotional code: ecomxpo1006
Open a new search advertising account by November 15, 2006
and get a $50 credit for ad clicks when you start an account for $5 today!*

Reading the fine print is almost impossible for me.

Also get your AdWords Coupons.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Does Microsoft adCenter, like Google AdWords & others have an API (application protocol interface) for developers to build software around? The purpose of an API is to help streamline, automate and easily access data from a 3rd party application. They are used all the time for many reasons, but in this case, account automation, reporting and integration into your own backoffice solutions.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Microsoft adCenter has an API. I dug up some things and discovered a MSDN Forums thread with links to the adCenter API.

Here it is:

The following are the WSDLs used for the Microsoft adCenter API.
Production WSDLs:
V3 (released 10/7/2006)
https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v3/Administration/Administration.asmx?wsdl https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v3/CampaignManagement/CampaignManagement.asmx?wsdl https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v3/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement.asmx?wsdl https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v3/Reporting/Reporting.asmx?wsdl

V2
https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v2/Administration/Administration.asmx?wsdl
https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v2/CampaignManagement/CampaignManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v2/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://adcenterapi.microsoft.com/v2/Reporting/Reporting.asmx?wsdl

Sandbox WSDLs:
V3
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v3/Administration/Administration.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v3/CampaignManagement/CampaignManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v3/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v3/Reporting/Reporting.asmx?wsdl

V2
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v2/Administration/Administration.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v2/CampaignManagement/CampaignManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v2/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement.asmx?wsdl
https://beta6.api.idss.msn.com/v2/Reporting/Reporting.asmx?wsdl

We anticipate retiring the V2 WSDLs January 7, 2007, so plan your migration to the V3 WSDLs now!

Thank you,

The Microsoft adCenter API Group

Hope this helps some people.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

adCenter411, the Microsoft adCenter representative at Search Engine Watch Forums said a bug in the system auto rejected a bulk of keywords a while back. But they are working to fix the issue and reach out to those to resubmit. Here is the message;

Hello everyone, It has come to our attention that, since our last release, some keywords are being erroneously rejected. We are currently looking into the situation and are hoping for quick resolution. If you have submitted keywords on or after November 13th, and received large rejection volume, please be aware that we will reach out with more information soon.

Thanks for your understanding,
adCenter411

Pretty big. This goes back to almost last year? November October 13th? Wow.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: adCenter411 said that November was a typo. Phew!

It appears that if you try entering a bid for less than $1 in Microsoft adCenter, the interface pushes that up to $1.00. Reports come from WebmasterWorld stating this.

Anyone seeing new keywords submitted not allowing the bid amount you want to be accepted? i.e. if you are trying to submit a new keyword with a bid for, say, $0.15, the UI keeps returning $1.00 or some other higher amount. Seeing this across many, but perhaps just 5% or so, of new keywords I am trying to submit.

Several other people confirmed this to be an issue.

The adCenter reps have confirmed the issue and stated that it is a high priority and they are hoping to fix is asap. The issue was first reported on the eve of October 9th. It is four days later now. So I guess Yahoo! isn't the only one with problems.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This is shocking, if true. A Search Engine Watch Forum thread has two accounts reporting the same issue.

I decided to use Phrase match for the whole campaign except one keyword. To my surprise, their system automatically added the Exact match types as well! Instead of a cute 40 keyword campaign, it balloned into 80-something.

One SEW member confirms this to be true;

Yes - this has been a big problem for me too.

He says this not only costs him money but also puts him at legal risk for trademark and copyright PPC claims.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

The use of forums and blogs as a platform for customer outreach and communication is common practice by Search Engines such as MSN, Google, Yahoo, and Ask. It can be argued that this is one of the many ways that search portals have provided an example to other major corporations about how to effectively use the Web to conduct public relations efforts.

Short threads at WebMasterWorld Forums and Search Engine Watch Forums from last month indicate that this practice is becoming more specialized, with MSN providing a new separate employee to address Europeans that seek additional information about their adCenter product. WMW Moderator "Receptional" introduces the latest MSN forum outreach specialist:

AdCenterEU has joined the forums to provide a European “voice” for MSN. He will compliment AdCenter411 in the US and will hopefully mean that we don’t always have to wait for America to wake up if something urgent hits the boards.

Europeans and EU-marketers: please read the full introduction and welcoming comments at WebMaterWorld Forums. Also see Search Engine Watch Forums' adCenterEU self-intro.

BlackbeardSEO writes that when he tried to bulk upload 3,000 keywords to Microsoft adCenter, it returned an error and does not upload the keywords. BlackbeardSEO explained that this only started happening with the new update of the adCenter product this weekend. He also posted this at DigitalPoint Forums, where he confirms that he "called Microsoft about it and they are working to fix it." Microsoft told him that there "is no ETA on when this will be done, but hoepfully soon."

WebmasterWorld explains exactly how many keywords can be uploaded.

You are limited to adding around 500 keywords per time using the normal way.

So the bulk upload feature is not too bulk these days.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Several folks at WebmasterWorld have reported an issue when using Microsoft's adCenter product. The issue they reported was that when they change a bid and hit the save button, an error message is returned, saying;

Microsoft AdCenter cannot process your request. Please try again. If the error continues please contact MSN adcenter support.

Official adCenter411 Microsoft representative confirmed the issue last night and said that "they're (Microsoft tech team) working to resolve it. I don't have an ETA yet but I will keep you posted as I learn more."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Tracking your metrics is vital in today's world of marketing, no one would argue with that. But when it comes to tracking PPC campaigns down to the phone call, it can get expensive and cumbersome.

Discovery, Moderator at SEW Forums said in a Search Engine Watch Forums mobile ad thread;

We apply this same method to all of our marketing campaigns down to a pretty granular level. We have a unique phone number tied to every marketing campaign. In PPC and at Google for example we tie it down to the campaign level, in some circumstances down to the ad group level. The webpages dynamically display the proper number based on passed variables.

It is import, so import, you should probably also automatically associate that call to your PPC metrics, through integration of that data.

Today, it is really doable by most quality developers to get this done at a reasonable cost.

With open source phone systems and PBXs such as the Asterisk solution, you can easily build out a custom solution for your dynamic PPC campaign, even your organic campaigns.

Dynamically, your web pages can assign a unique phone number or phone extension to dial, that will automatically route and track that call for what it truly is. Setting a cookie, can be done over the phone in this sense and it doesn't have to cost you a million dollars to set up.

Who knows, maybe I or someone else will come out with a plugin for Asterisk that does this?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

WebmasterWorld has a new Microsoft representative named adCenterEU who will be the European arm of adCenter411. adCenterEU explains his/her role...

I've just joined the Microsoft adCenter Community Team and will be based out of our London office. The idea is to make sure the support we offer is on a global scale and that our adCenter Community programs are run in all markets.

So I'll be helping adCenter411 support you where I can, basically while they're asleep!

Having been on the adCenter client service team for over a year now and having seen the product launch in France, the US and now the UK, I'm thrilled to be taking up this new role. I'm also looking forward to meeting a lot of you at the Trade Shows we'll be attending in the UK/FR over the coming months.

Cheers

adCenterEU

Very cool.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

WebmasterWorld has a bug report that describes how since last Friday morning, September 15th, adCenter had a security issue. Basically, as I understand it, the conversion tracking script from Microsoft was using an expired secure site certificate. What happens when you go to a URL with an expired secure site certificate? You may get a security warning pop up on your browser. What do people do when they get a security warning? Either ignore it or close the browser.

Yesterday afternoon, adCenter411, the adCenter representative confirmed it was an issue and said it has now been resolved.

The adCenter support team has confirmed that the security certificate issue is now fixed. If any of you are still experiencing this, please let me know. I'm sorry about this inconvenience.

Almost four full days? Seems pretty big to me... It happened only to those merchants using the conversion tracking script.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Actually been an issue since the 14th... A second forum thread at WebmasterWorld with more discussion.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread accounts a Microsoft adCenter advertiser getting billed over $1,500 after having paused an ad he was running. Not only that, he paused the ad over 60 hours ago and the ad has yet to be paused. This means, that until the ad pauses and is removed from MSN Search and Windows Live Search, the advertiser will continue to be billed.

The advice given?

get aggressive! Just cancel your credit card. Or take a much more drastic action, close down your account and contact help center to open a new account.

Wow!

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: Also more frustration at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, I reported at the SEW Blog that Microsoft Adds Behavioral Targeting Features To adCenter;

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.

There is barely zero buzz about this in the forums, go figure - a ground breaking feature in the PPC market and virtually no one is talking about it except for a starter thread at WebmasterWorld.

Hey! You are now able to say, I want to target those interested in travel with my travel ads, at this time during the week, for males between the age of 30 and 40, who earn between $50,000 and $115,000 per year. How much better can it get? They reportedly added the behavioral component, i.e. "those interested in travel" based on their web surfing behavior.

So where is it? I logged into my adCenter account and I cannot find the feature for the life of me. I did everything, started a new campaign, a new order, new keyword or ads - I even edited old ones. I cannot find the answer. Maybe that is why the buzz is low? Or is it because of all the adCenter bugs or maybe it is because they drive a fraction of the traffic Google does?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Well, I didn't see it in adCenter because this story from MediaPost was a mistake. I got an email from MSN just a short white ago saying, "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." So I take back everything I said. :)

A thread at WebmasterWorld has a recent chronological time line of the technical issues Microsoft adCenter advertisers had to deal with since August 28th. It got better and then got worse and then got better.

The system went down again yesterday at 11:30am and came back online about 1:30PM the same day.

I guess these things are just beginner kinks that still need to get out of the system.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We thought in the past that the keyword limit at adCenter was about 40-50 thousand keywords per account. We now know that the limit is 100,000 keywords and 20 ads per order. Of course, like last time, you are allowed to request up to "3 account per credit card, which may include one or more campaigns and one or more orders." You may also request an increase to the 100,000 keyword limit. Here is an email posted in WebmasterWorld from a Microsoft adCenter representative.

At this time, Microsoft adCenter will allow 3 account per credit card, which may include one or more campaigns and one or more orders. The limit for keywords is 100,000.00 and 20 ads per order. You may submit a request to increase the keyword limit. To do this, I will need the following information:

1. Customer name and account number

2. Customer service level (Standard, Select or Premium)

3. Requested limit

4. Business justification for request

Once we have received your request, it will be looked into and will take up to and including 7 business days to complete.

You also may create another account using the same credit card. You would then have an additional 3 accounts to use and create additional campaigns and orders. You would still have a keyword limit of 100,000.00 in total for this new account.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

An excellent WebmasterWorld thread named Top 3 PPC: Where does AdWords Rank for You ranks the three top players, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing & Microsoft adCenter against each other. The ratings are broken out by (1) Traffic Volume, (2) Quality of Click, (3) Ease of Use, (4) Lowest Cost per Conversion, (5) Technical Support, (6) Has the Options for Your Needs, (7) Versatile and (8) Overall Rank. We have a nice amount of responses so far, but I would love to see more, currently, here is how they rank.

G = Google, Y = Yahoo and M = Microsoft. Each letter represents a vote for that slot. Ties are represented /.

(1) Traffic Volume:
#1 G G G G G G M G G
#2 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
#3 M M M M M M G M M
(2) Quality of Click:
#1 M M M M M M M Y G
#2 G G G Y G G G G M
#3 Y Y M G Y Y Y M Y
(3) Ease of Use:
#1 M Y G G G G G G G
#2 Y G Y Y Y M Y/M Y M
#3 G M M M M Y X M Y
(4) Lowest Cost per Conversion:
#1 M M M M M M M G G
#2 G Y/G G Y Y G G Y M
#3 Y X Y G G Y Y M Y
(5) Technical Support:
#1 M Y G Y M Y M G Y
#2 G M/G Y M Y M Y Y M
#3 Y X M G G G G M G
(6) Has the Options for Your Needs:
#1 G Y/G G G G G G G G
#2 Y M Y Y M M M Y M
#3 M X M M Y Y Y M Y
(7) Versatile:
#1 G Y G G M G G G G
#2 Y G Y Y G M M Y M
#3 M M M M Y Y Y M Y
(8) Overall Rank:
#1 G M M G M G M G G
#2 M Y/G G Y Y M Y Y M
#3 Y X Y M G Y G M Y

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Two days ago we reported on What Would Cause "No Such Link" to Display on adCenter Click? The answer has now been provided at the Search Engine Watch Forums thread by the adCenter rep.

As I suspected, "there was no ad associated to the keyword because there was no keyword destination URL for param1."

So it is good that MSN doesn't send the click to a blank page. I suspect the advertiser isn't charged, but I have not heard from MSN on if that is true or not.

What is disturbing is that there is no error checking in place (or it is not incredibly visible) to prevent an advertiser from leaving the destination URL blank.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

BrianM at Search Engine Watch Forums posted a thread explaining that some Microsoft adCenter ads in MSN Search are landing to an MSN page that has no content, outside of this html produced:

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>No Such Link</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY><H1>No Such Link</H1></BODY>
</HTML>

Here is the example ad, but I am told there are others. Please do not click on the ad.

A search on MSN for masterspas brings up an ad for "Relaxing Hot Tubs - www.besthottubs.com" Clicking on that ad, takes you to the following URL (I broke the URL so it will wrap on this page)

http://0.r.msn.com/?ld=2vwZU2MrVfPoOhdE2D2KbClf+bgr8g5Yci4yiMa/
uJDYJnUB5DraxL4D7sHV/TNt6vbhuzZ8sT9RQ9wX/
16eJrZM18Qqq6Ks4uMNyH0GD2MxoG8lqmIhJHA5cjETCq1WCtl8Gj
2LvM3HO56HElE28mQUoTzg0SvKcZdVPlCw==

and brings up the content, "No Such Link"

What can be the problem here? Is it a bug or a feature?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

MSN's Microsoft adCenter now appears to be live in the UK. To sign up go to adcenter.microsoft.co.uk. WebmasterWorld member, inbound, said he received an email at 8am announcing the launch. The launch happened when it turned Tuesday, in the UK, I believe.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The MSN adCenter blog announced that "Microsoft adCenter will launch in the U.K. this week!" Got that right, starting Tuesday 15th August, the Microsoft properties, aka MSN Search and Windows Live Search, will be serving up adCenter ads 100% of the time.

So make sure your campaigns are ready for the shift in volume.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread notes of a BusinessWeek report that Ask, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are coming together to form standards on what is an "invalid click."

The Internet's leading search engines are teaming up with an advertising trade group to find a better way to identify and measure "click fraud," a scam that has raised doubts about the Web's trustworthiness as a marketing vehicle.

The initiative, announced Wednesday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, will draw upon the expertise of Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- the owners of the top online search engines -- to attack a problem threatening to erode their profits. Combined, the three companies control 86 percent of the lucrative U.S. search engine market, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Danny at the SEW Blog also covered this with a quick recap of the News.com story.

Definitions are incredibly important and without it, you won't know exactly SEMs and PPC Engines are trying to prevent.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

AussieWebmaster started a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums listing some of the features we should expect from the August 5th upgrade.

- 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.

The upgrade will be taking place on August 5th between 8 A.M. and 3 P.M. PST.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread shows that Microsoft is conducting some focus groups for the adCenter product this August. The thread creator notes that this is run by an independent agency that is "conducting a user interview session in my area (San Francisco) that is sponsored by Microsoft Adcenter in August."

Yahoo! has done this in the past and also sent out recent paid surveys, and I hear they may be doing focus groups during SES time (but not 100% sure).

Nice to see MSN Search doing the same.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

On July 19th, we reported that Microsoft's adCenter's reporting features were severely delayed. Today, reports come from WebmasterWorld that the daily statistics are back to normal.

No other reports have been published in forums, as far as I can see.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It seems like no PPC engine is on good terms with their advertisers these days. A WebmasterWorld thread shows how not only does it take a day to start a campaign, but when you want to pause or resume a campaign it can take more than 24 hours. For the PPC market, a 24 hour delay, is simply not acceptable. One hour, ok, that is doable, but seriously, just pausing and resuming campaigns, that must be an hour or less. 24 hours or more, not acceptable.

One member reported that the ad scheduling feature is even affected by this.

I have one site set to display ads four days per week - Thr, Fri, Sat, Sun. Last week they never resumed after the three days off.

So Google is ripping off advertisers, Yahoo! took a hit by delaying the new ad system launch date, and MSN can't run a proper PPC engine. Not good.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you use Microsoft's new adCenter product that displays PPC ads on the MSN Search network, then you may have noticed your reports are a tad behind the dates. Pretty much everyone is reporting that they have no reporting data since 7/14, um, today is the 19th. Microsoft is aware of this and they have posted messages in the various SEM forums saying.

Hi everyone, I'm sorry I didn't post here sooner about this, but I have an update for you. There was a larger reporting delay earlier, but currently, hourly reports are 1 hour behind normal turnaround time, and daily reports are 1 day behind. Normal turnaround times for report data are: by 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time for previous day on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly reports and within 3 hours for hourly reports.

I will let you know once the normal turnaround times are back in effect, and I'm sorry about this inconvenience.

Thanks,
adCenter411

Ok, so those are the details.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.

ShoeMoney started a thread at WebmasterWorld documenting that like with Google AdWords, MSN adCenter also has a keyword limit.

The keyword limit seems to be "somewhere around 40-50k." But you can set up about nine different accounts with that limit each. You can have up to three credit cards per account, and 3 accounts per credit card. Max that out.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: See Microsoft adCenter Allows 100,000 Keywords Per Account posted on September 4, 2006.

Yahoo! sent out a newsletter this month notifying customers that U.S. Sponsored Search Listings No Longer on MSN. And I quote,

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. Although we regret the loss of MSN as a distribution partner, it was not unexpected, and we do not anticipate a significant change in the total amount of traffic to our advertisers as a result.

We expect that MSN will continue to display Yahoo! Search Marketing Content Match listings in the U.S., and Sponsored Search listings in non-U.S. markets, beyond June 2006.

As you know, MSN has been powering the sponsored search side of MSN Search and Windows Live Search with Microsoft adCenter. So, is this the official end of the Yahoo! & MSN relationship. Looks that way.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread rightly asks Why does it take 3 hours to see ads - pause ads? Normally, when one wants to pause an ad, they want it paused virtually immediately. Google works that way.

One member reports, "We paused several high traffic orders and 5 hours later there's still no slow down in our traffic."

The official response from Microsoft?

The average time to pause or resume a campaign is 3 hours, it's sometimes more, sometimes less. The product team is working to make this shorter, and once we get this resolved I'll let you know.

So they are working on it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night the MSN Search folks at Microsoft adCenter sent out an announcement about new features coming along. The features are mostly reporting in nature and include;

A new Reports page user interface

Create a New Report tab
Recent Reports tab
Report Templates tab
Customize date ranges
Schedule and save reports
Download reports

Additional reporting upgrades

Schedule and run multiple reports in the background while you are working in adCenter
Run more than 10,000 rows of report data (downloadable in .ZIP format)
Run reports in multiple formats .TSV (Tab Separated Value) and .HTML formats
View the previous 20 reports in the Recent Reports tab

We’ll also be launching our new Video Help that will provide a variety of step-by-step videos explaining adCenter tasks and information.

There are a few other goodies in there so be sure to check in after 10PM PST (or whenever the last “golden popcorn” is handed out) to explore the new features.

Because of that, last night adCenter was unavailable between 4 P.M. Pacific time until around 10 P.M.

Forum discussion on the features at Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Search Engine Watch Forums moderator Discovery reports that updating match types in Microsoft's MSN adCenter is now easier. Discovery details the new simplified process;

Select your campaign
Click "manage keywords" button
Wait a moment of your current keywords to fully load into the right window.
Check the check box of the keywords you want to work with
Now at the top of the keyword window select "Match Option" and select "show match types"
The Keyword window will now display a column for each match type option along with a check box to toggle on or off the match option for each keyword.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

eWhisper reports at WebmasterWorld on adCenter Labs. Microsoft has a suite of tools available for us that include;

+ Search Funnel: Analyze and visualize user search sequence in the form of funnels.
+ Search Volume Seasonality Forecast: Forecast seasonality patterns of search queries.
+ Content Categorization Engine
+ Keyword Categorization Engine
+ Demographics Prediction: Predict a user's demographic information such as age and gender based on online behavior (query searched or Web page viewed).
+ Local Ads: Detect a customer's location by their IP address, and list relevant local ads based on this location.

Pretty neat tools for SEMs to play with.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Discovery posted a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Top 10 Adcenter Fixes. The list includes;

• Firefox and Safari support for a Mac
• "Organize the site navigation according to a date or date range."
• Copy and paste feature buggy
• Bugs with conversion reporting?
• Weird editorial review process
• UI browser max width and height issues
• Timeout issues with functions

adCenter representative replied to all of these requests at the thread.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Microsoft's adCenter is now out of beta but the support team doesn't think so. You should read some of the reports at this or this and even this thread from WebmasterWorld Forums.

The first thread has six of six members complaining about how poor the adCenter customer support is. Here are some quotes;

If I had to rate adCenter support on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being best, I would be generous at giving them a 2.

Yes the telephone support people are horrific - I actually kind of feel bad for them because look how bad the product is. I'm just not going to call them anymore

Overall it has been a terrible experience. 1 outta 10.

Yeah this program has no business being in business in its' current state.

The second thread shows how an old help page had a number for pre-beta period for Singapore-English support. He called the number and got someone's, what appears to be, a Nextel cell phone voicemail box. That page has now been removed.

The final thread reports the help feature on the adCenter page does not work.

Discovery reports at Search Engine Watch Forums that MSN adCenter, now known as Microsoft adCenter is to pilot in the United Kingdom in June 2006. Microsoft adCenter recently came out of beta and part of that beta launch was the announcement that the UK can play with it in June.

g7submit at the forums warns that UK advertisers are "conservative," and he wonders if Microsoft can compete with Google.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yes, we reported that Microsoft adCenter is out of beta but since it is out of beta, it does not mean it works in anything else but Internet Explorer. I am sorry for not clarifying that in my previous post. MSN / Microsoft adCenter does not currently work in Firefox and Safari.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

PPC (member's forum name) started a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums asking How To Do Automatic Keyword Insertion With adCenter?

In the past we discussed how Google handles keyword insertion and I believe Yahoo! currently does not allow it. But MSN does.

werty replies to the question with many useful links to the Microsoft adCenter FAQs.

(1) What is dynamic text?

Dynamic text is a placeholder that automatically pulls in custom text you want displayed in response to certain search queries. You define what text should show up, and under what circumstances, and add the dynamic text placeholders to your advertisement where you want certain text to show up automatically in your ad title or description...

(2) How do I use dynamic text?

To use dynamic text, you define the location for each placeholder when you create your ad in the Ads tab. On the Ads tab, you can also insert the {keywords} placeholder in the Ad title or text, to display the keyword the customer uses in the Search. Then you may assign up to three dynamic text placeholders to each keyword, and define their content, in the Keywords tab.

(3) Can I use a dynamic text placeholder for my destination URL or landing page?

Yes, you can. The {param1} placeholder can be up to 1022 characters in length, which makes it ideal for use as a dynamic text placeholder for your destination URL. You associate this placeholder with a keyword on the Keywords tab, just as do would any other dynamic text placeholder. In fact, so many Microsoft adCenter customers are already doing so, that this placeholder is named "Keyword Destination URL {param1}".

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday we reported that MSN adCenter results were 100% propagating over to MSN Search & Windows Live.com. We suspected that something was up and it is. JenStar at the SEW Blog reports that MSN adCenter has fully launched and was renamed to Microsoft adCenter. Danny Sullivan wonders why it was not named "Windows Live adCenter," seriously, why wasn't it?

You can begin using adCenter in the US right away by visiting https://adcenter.msn.com/ and signing up.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.

There is some speculation over at Search Engine Watch Forums that MSN has dropped Yahoo! Search Marketing ads completely for its own ads, MSN adCenter. jbgilbert in the thread notes that he has yet to see a YSM ad on MSN since May 1st.

He asks if this is for real or a temporary glitch. It is unlikely that MSN would switch over 100% to their ad network, prior to leaving beta.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) through the use of Pay Per Click advertisements within search results has been made famous by Google - although the process was invented and originally patented by Goto.com, which became Overture and was acquired by Yahoo Search Marketing. MSN recently introduced its own portal for paid search advertising, known as MSN adCenter. They are phasing out of their relationship with Yahoo Search Marketing, which has traditionally provided the sponsored listings within MSN Search results.

Since the launch of the product in the USA, various members of the SEM community have had a chance to participate in the pilot, including SEW Moderator Aussiewebmaster, a very talented in house search marketer based in New York. On the 11th, he posted some interesting changes coming to the system which have been predicated by user feedback. Having been involved in the pilot myself, I can vouch that MSN has been very proactive about communicating with its advertisers. However, there have been problems associated with this system, as could be expected for any advertising platform of this magnitude.

With MSN's recent increase in exposure discussed in March, advertisers will be anxious to see improvements in the system.

To learn more about the changes, see the thread at Search Engine Watch. This thread is in the SEW adCenter area. Other forums with areas dedicated to discussing MSN adCenter can be found at Webmasterworld, and Digital Point Forums. Various threads can also be found at High Rankings Forums and Cre8asite, among others.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) through the use of Pay Per Click advertisements within search results has been made famous by Google - although the process was invented and originally patented by Goto.com, which became Overture and was acquired by Yahoo Search Marketing. MSN recently introduced its own portal for paid search advertising, known as MSN adCenter. They are phasing out of their relationship with Yahoo Search Marketing, which has traditionally provided the sponsored listings within MSN Search results.

Since the launch of the product in the USA, various members of the SEM community have had a chance to participate in the pilot, including SEW Moderator Aussiewebmaster, a very talented in house search marketer based in New York. On the 11th, he posted some interesting changes coming to the system which have been predicated by user feedback. Having been involved in the pilot myself, I can vouch that MSN has been very proactive about communicating with its advertisers. However, there have been problems associated with this system, as could be expected for any advertising platform of this magnitude.

With MSN's recent increase in exposure discussed in March, advertisers will be anxious to see improvements in the system.

To learn more about the changes, see the thread at Search Engine Watch. This thread is in the SEW adCenter area. Other forums with areas dedicated to discussing MSN adCenter can be found at Webmasterworld, and Digital Point Forums. Various threads can also be found at High Rankings Forums and Cre8asite, among others.

MSN Search began increasing the volume of its AdCenter PPC ads on the MSN Search portal this past Wednesday. They expect to reach a 70% distribution volume within "several days." On February 24th, we reported that MSN increased the ads by seventy-percent on the MSN Search portal. Here is an other push, to get the AdCenter PPC ads out there more. PPC Discussions posted the verbiage of the email notification, which I will quote here.

ust a short note this time: on Wednesday, March 22, we’ll be raising AdCenter traffic levels to 70%. AdCenter customers should start to see an impact to their campaigns beginning Thursday, March 23, however it may take several days to reach 70%. Just like last time, your budget may be impacted due to the increase. Also, as more traffic is directed to adCenter, you should expect a decrease in traffic from your Yahoo! Search campaigns.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Jenstar reports at this thread that MSN AdCenter has reopened the open sign up period until tonight at 6PM (PST). So if you missed the first open sign up period you can catch this open sign up period today. To do so, visit http://adcenter.msn.com/ and click the sign up button.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: Also being discussed at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Danny has an excellent write up on the issue with Firefox not being supported for the adCenter console as well as for tracking conversions. You would think that adCenter would get it working in a browser that is now widely used. Especially by the "early adopters" that want to beta test the product, all have to switch to IE to comply. Microsoft's response? Tell your customer service people to use IE 6 and post a message on your Web site to tell your customers to use IE 6 (or don't use the conversion tracking script).

What is extremely funny is that at the Search Engine Watch Forum thread, a couple people who upgraded to IE 7 can not sign up with adCenter, because only IE 6 is supported. So they either have to uninstall IE 7 and revert back to 6 or buy a new computer with IE 6 on it, because third party browsers won't work either.

MSN adCenter is having signup period today, starting at 12 (EST) or 9am (PST). Before you sign up, or after you sign up, you may want to know what to expect from the program. Werty, a moderator at WebmasterWorld, started a thread just for that, named MSN AdCenter Primer for New Users. He lists off many tips and concepts you should be aware of, including what to expect, how adCenter differs from AdWords, known issues and much more.

For more information check out WebmasterWorld.

If you have been dying to get into the MSN adCenter pilot program, Monday - March 6th is your opportunity. If you get in early, you will have already conquered any learning curve to the adCenter control panel, you will have the opportunity to get in while the CPC prices are still relatively low and you will be part of a small number of beta testers.

To sign up without requiring an invitation, Monday, March 6th after 12 (EST) (9am PST) go to http://adcenter.msn.com/ and more information will be there.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

This session covers what's new in the world of paid listings and other search advertising programs with moderation duties handled by Dana Todd of SiteLab. Dana and the panel give this session a "fashion" theme since it was fashion week recently here in New York, hence the photo above. Speakers include: Misty Locke of Range Online Media, Brian Mark of Toolbarn.com, Michael Sack of Inceptor and Joshua Stylman of Reprise Media.

This session is very different in that it is a forum, with no PowerPoint presentations. Dana Todd starts out with "news" including, click prices are up, Ask is sexier, Looksmart says they're better, MSN draggin out launch, pay per call is getting some attention and no more trademark ads on Yahoo.

A SEMPO survey reported that only 33% of respondents were happy with their SEM agencies for PPC, down from 62% last year. 25% were unhappy and 42% report mixed results.

What's keeping Dana up at night?
- Erosion of the search bubble, margins and SEM workforce
- 2nd tier engines are losing the trust battle
- Where is vertical search going?
- Small businesses are underserved. Their budgets are too low for most agencies to be able to justify taking on.
- A very large % of companies reported in the SEMPO survey want to take SEM in-house. Are SEM's better off being absorbed into agencies, companies?
- Are SEM firms going to become the service bureau's of the future?

Dana now walks the audience.

What kind of ratings would you give search engines for their input?

Misty: Room for a lot of improvement. Overall, rates them a 6.
Brian - a 6 is generous. We're not seeing a lot of service as an end buyer. No rep, no service.
Dana - is no rep better than a bad rep?
Michael - who's creating the strategy? Laments search engine ad reps, wet behind the ears, mis-advising clients. Gives an example involving Google. -1
Josh - Agrees that some "fresh off the boat" people at search engines are advising clients. Yahoo seems genuinely interested in SEMs buying their product. MSN is making an effort towards better customer service, their service "has been outstanding".
Misty - AOL is actually making an effort. What is the "next level" of service we need?
Michael - You should be getting your research from 3rd pary entities, not from search engines that have an interest in competitors bidding on the same terms.

Dana - What about the technical availability. Horror stories about systems being down, little lead time for system maintenance. Asks panel:
Misty - How many of you use APIs as a way to upload mass updates. Yahoo has done well to communicate technical issues. Google gets negative points. They are still in the habit of making changes and not telling anyone. "Oops it didn't work". MSN gets five stars.
Josh - Agree on Yahoo/Google communication. That said, Google's system is a more stable platform.
Misty - When APIs go down, has anyone noticed that you can't update your bids for 3-4 days?

Audience: You mention Ask's API. The question about ASk is distribution. That's a difficult call because some ads will go out to tier one partners some to tier two. Ideally we would segment.
Josh - Wonders wheather Ask will go the route of Google and allow advertisers to build their own ad network and cherry pick sites. "Ask is the RC cola of search."

Audience: Can you address the fee structure for clients?
Misty: It varies, but flexible. It needs to be enough to cover of the assigned ad team. Usually % of media. Hybrid of % and flat fee. Hybrid of $, flat fee and CPA.
Josh - We're a public service, we do this for the love of the craft - audience laughs.

Dana - We're in the communication industry. Are the search engines good communicators?
Black box - when you're bidding in the Google system you don't get 100% disclosure of all data related to that ad and how the ad is served and when.
Michael - When I think of paid search advertising, I think of it in terms of a calculated risk. When Google doesn't communicate how they are going to rank or serve your ads, you leave the realm of calculated risk and move into just risk.
Josh - Google has made some controls available - separating contextual from search. It's the auction process that's the issue. The fact is, no one knows how Google works. It's a matter of time before Yahoo implementing it's own complex marketplace.
Misty - Describes how when you upload terms to Yahoo, behind the scences, Yahoo relates some of your phrases behind the scenes to other phrases. Example: "travel" to "budget travel". For other media, you "know" where your ads are going to be placed. With search, you do not have those kinds of controls. Scores search engines negative 25.
Michael - Being able to test all the intermediary variables that affect conversion is part of good marketing. Doing so is part of the value that SEM agencies bring to clients. Scores search engines a zero.
Brian - Describes how he cannot control the ad placement is frustrating, particularly with Google.

Audience - I find it hard to believe that the companies and agencies don't tell the search engines about their disatisfaction and issues with "black box" ad serving.
Misty - They do have advisory boards and councils. They are also running a business. There have been improvements.

Audience - I sit on one of those boards so this is good to know.
Michael - Can you imaging what would happen to have a sit-in and pause your ad campaigns? They might listen when that happens.

Audience - I'm one of those advertisers that wants to bring SEM in-house. If your compaign cannot be executed according to the strategy, why would I outsource?
Dana - MarketingSherpa did a study on agencies vs in-house. Agencies do it better because it's all they do. The other part is maximizing the campaing, the linguistic part of it. Those are not typically the skills of an in-house marketer.
Josh - A lot of that heavy lifting happens through technology. Agenciesy can focus on analysis and getting strategic value out of the data. In house marketers do not always have access to that technology and do not get to spend the time on the strategy.

Audience - It seems last quarter Google's revenues were up over 100% and therefore your revenues are up over 100%, yet there is some disatisfaction in what you're saying.
Josh - I don't think this is a concern about revenue slowdown. Our businesses are growing as fast as any sector. You're sensing frustration of the changing nature of the industy. Understand, PPC used to be about 5% of pages and now with contextual it's about 100%. Soon print and radio will come into the mix.
Misty - Service has to set you apart. The fact that over 50% are not happy with SEMs, there's confustion about hwo you can trust.

Money Makeover - How do you think the search engines are doing handling your money, the advertisers' money?
Who do you think is the best money manager?
Panel- MSN

Click Fraud
SEMPO just released info that the number of advertisers concerned with click fraud has increased substantially.
Michael - Surveys audience 20-40% citing click fraud
Josh - Yahoo and Goolgle do a tremendous job at detecting click fraud. We've seen an amazing response to detection and getting credited. Tier twos are not as responsive. Marketers need to account for a pecentage of their ad spend to click fraud.
Michael - I have a friend that owns a sweatshop that has employees click on his clients' competitors ads. Search engines should get together as a consortium and share data anonymously and find the fraud.

Is it Google, Yahoo or MSN?
Showed screen shots of anonymous search results pages - they seem very similar.

Dana - Is anything creative happening?
Michael - MSN AdCenter people are saying AdCenter is "just like Google". It is exactly like Google. Where's the creativity?
Josh - Brings up trends towards offline integration such as dMarc and Google print.
Misty - Looking forward to enhancements such as display of the ads.

Audience: What about second tier search engines. Enhance, MIVA? Are they worth considering?
Michael - There's a reason you don't hear talk about tier 2 engines.
Josh - You can get value from tier 2 engines but be careful.
Michael - Shopping search engines are a different category than tier 2 engines like Kanoodle, Miva, etc.
Misty - Second tier engine campaigns are up/down up/down.
Josh - To use the financial metapor, tier two engines are the "over the counter" stocks.

SES NYC Tag: sesny2006

I got an email an hour or so ago from MSN adCenter representative, Carolyn informing some of us that on Monday February 27th, MSN adCenter will be "increasing traffic by approximately 70% from our current levels." So this will effect your budgets and traffic, probably by Tuesday February 28th. So less Yahoo! Search Marketing ads and more MSN adCenter ads. Email excerpt in the extended entry.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.

Continue reading "MSN adCenter to Increase Volume by Seventy-Percent"

Yesterday, at the SEW Blog I wrote about the MSN adCenter 3.0 Demo in New York and outlined the prime features of the adCenter PPC product.

• 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."
• Extensive Demographic Data: This allows you to tailor your ads based on demographics and not just keyword phrases and geographic data.
• 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.
• 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.
• Day Parting Bid Tools: You can "display your ads on specific days of the week, specific times of day or a combination of each."

Here I wanted to add the forum perception of this demo. A Search Engine Watch thread named MSN Team Gives First Public Demo of MSN adCenter 3.0 presented to DFW SEM has six posts in regards to that coverage. Here is some extra information;

• "I tried working with 2.0 an ya it was pretty bad. 3.0 is a Beta product it is NOT perfect. The term suggestion tool needs some work but it isn't bad, I would not rely on the search count too much right now etc."
• "I saw the demo at the meeting here in Dallas and it looks great--when the MSN reps went through it live I didn't see any issues or problems, although it was a little slow (perhaps that was due to the wifi connection at the hotel here in Dallas."

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

How does one view MSN's adCenter ads only? That was the question posed at a Search Engine Watch Forum thread just yesterday. A very specific question, you can expect a very specific answer.

Go to : http://adcenter.search.msn.com/

Type in your query and look for the ads on the right and top.

As announced, we were expecting adCenter maintenance soon, and it did occur as announced on Saturday, 2/18/06, starting at 3am (PST) for about 24 hours. However, even though the ads should have not been affected, Jenstar posted a thread No ads being shown during AdCenter maintenance.

She reports that no ads were being displayed for a specific time frame, even though the ads should not have been affected. Jenstar is not the only one who reported this. At WebmasterWorld tbird reported;

I don't see adcenter ads, and my ads have sure not been served as I haven't received a single click in over 10 hours.

No word from MSN yet on this.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

There is a comprehensive thread at DigitalPoint forums named Adcenter - Horrible Customer Service where adCenter beta users discuss the issues they have with MSN's adCenter customer service. This is not the first time forum threads have been started complaining about features or service at MSN's adCenter. We have coverage of this back in November of 2005.

That is not to say adCenter wont get better. I have seen a strong effort in the forums by MSN to resolve issues. But does it always take a public display of disappointment to encourage good customer service? We have seen the same with Google and Yahoo!

Time will tell. Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

adCenter411, the official representative of MSN adCenter at the forums, has been watching different forums, answering questions and giving updates about adCenter related topics. The latest news is that New adCenter Release Coming Up where you "will not be able to sign into adCenter, but your ads will continue to be served" during the release update. adCenter411 promised to keep everyone updated at the forums threads; at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, DigitalPoint Forums, Cre8asite Forums and Search Engine Watch Forums.

When I was checking out DigitalPoint Forums, I found a thread named New AdCenter Blog which links to http://blogs.msdn.com/adcenter/. This blog has the updated information as well, so you can subscribe to it for more updates.

Exciting news here at the brand-new adCenter Blog, and we know you've been waiting for it: we're in final testing of a new adCenter release. You'll be glad to know that several design and feature changes in the new version are due to user feedback.

You may be asking yourself, "Why a new version?" Well, our goal is both to make your adCenter campaign management easier and to improve your user experience. We've learned a lot from the customer feedback we've gotten so far, and now we're ready to share our ideas with you.

Updates include:
1. Order creation process simplified into 4 steps
2. Broader differentiation between campaigns and orders
3. New pricing tab includes all budget, bidding, and incremental pricing
4. Negative keywords can be applied at the order level
5. Keyword / ad rejections include reason codes…

…and lots of other cool changes - I'll post more details here later in the week so you'll know what to expect when you login after the release - and when the release will happen.

During the release, users will not be able to sign into adCenter, but your ads will continue to be served.

Thanks!

Carolyn, adCenter Community team

A Forbes article released today named Microsoft Plans Launch of Search Ad System has in the first paragraph that the system is going live by June.

Microsoft Corp. plans to launch its system for selling advertising alongside regular search results by June in the United States, giving the company its next piece of ammunition in the battle with rivals including Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Forum members ponder this 5 month deadline at DigitalPoint Forums.