MSN AdCenter Forum Member Review
There have been a selected number of advertisers testing out the MSN Keywords AdCenter over the past couple months. This morning, one such person has created a thread at WebmasterWorld with several posts, named MSN AdCenter: my review of the new system.. Here is a summary:
– Clean & Easy to Understand User Interface; Similar to Google AdWords
– Ability to manage several campaigns under one username, like the Google Client Center
– Advanced & Cool Metrics; “view demand for each KW/KP, but then also break each of those into charts containing traffic trends (time), gender trends (M/F), and geographic stats (LA, San Diego, Paris, etc)”
– Budget Estimator (Price Estimator) can be better but it is usable.
– Reports are awesome; “create reports on all types of data including dates, performance, targeting, and the neatest of all – by time ranges (AM/PM style!)”
– Time Based Ad Delivery Options; “IE: Serve this ad for the following keywords in the “morning” only please”
– Cost to set up an account, about $5 service fee, then PPC fees onward
– $0.10 CPC minimum, but for some reasons, $0.05 bids can get through
– Bidding works based on keyword phrase and the ad. You basically set a price by keyword phrase and ad. In addition, you can opt to increase your bid to reach a targeted audience, through “targeted bidding,” more often.
– “Targeted Bidding” is cool! It allows you to target based on “(1) Users in a specific geographic location (2) Users searching on specific days of the week or during a specific part of the day (3) Users of a specific gender or age”
For more details on both cool features and bugs please check out the thread at WebmasterWorld. I would be surprised if this thread is not featured within the hour on WebmasterWorld’s home page.
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Barry Schwartz is the Editor of Search Engine Roundtable and President of RustyBrick, Inc., a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.
