'Net Features : microsoft adcenter

No More Gender or Age Targeting in adCenter

Michael Garrity — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:15:00 GMT

For marketers, targeted ads were the next logical step in the online advertising space, and this was made clear by the rapid rise they have seen over the last few years. However, for many everyday Web users, the idea that advertisers were tracking them based on their personal information wasn’t quite as popular.

There are a number of issues inherent in attempting to target display ads to a specific set of customers, and none is more pertinent than the fact that one simply cannot know how accurate the information that a user submits actually is, and thus, whether the ads are actually reaching the desired audience.

Largely because of this, Microsoft has removed the ability to target ads based on age and gender in adCenter, which provides the pay-per-click ads seen on the Microsoft Network, most prominently on the Bing search engine.

According to a company employee in a Microsoft Advertising Help thread, “Some people add the information accurately, most don’t and even more don’t add the information at all. So if you use age and gender, your [sic] limiting yourself to what information was provided by the searchers when signing up for Windows Live.”

Changes Coming to Microsoft adCenter

Linc Wonham — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:25:00 GMT

Microsoft wrote today on its adCenter blog that budgeting improvements are on the way, a move it said was precipitated by recent user comments. The changes can be expected “in the coming days” and “will minimize the daily budget overspend and deliver a more consistent, predictable spend of your budget dollars throughout the month.”

The blog post stated that the updated adCenter will be tracking campaign budget spend in “near real time” and that there will be almost no lag between a click recorded and spend tracked, making users’ spends more likely to adhere to their budget targets. As a means of “providing a bit of a buffer”, Microsoft noted that ads may not be paused until users are at 120 percent of their daily budgets.

Microsoft also noted in the post that the changes could result in sending campaigns into Budget Pause earlier in the day than what users have previously experienced, and that they may need to adjust their overall campaign budget amounts and settings to ensure that ads continue to be displayed throughout the day.

Other tips for users include:

•    If you have set a low daily or monthly budget in anticipation of overspending, increase it now so that it better reflects the actual amount you want to spend.
•    If you have a higher budget and know your click volume, Microsoft recommends that you set a monthly budget and select the Spend Budget Until Depleted option to lessen the risk that your budgets will run out prematurely.
•    If you do want to set a daily spend target, try setting a monthly budget and then selecting the Divide Budget Across Month option. With this option, the adCenter budgeting system will auto-adjust to spend your budget evenly throughout the month.
•    If you have changing campaign spend needs throughout the month, use the daily target to designate the days in which you would like to see higher/lower spend.

Search Marketing & Small Business

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:05:00 GMT

A Microsoft AdCenter study of 400 small-business owners in the US indicated that a majority invest in developing websites, but do not take steps to enhance their online business presence (throuch paid search marketing). Fifty-nine percent of respondents don't currently use paid search marketing, and of those, 90% have never even tried!

Despite the low participation among small businesses, they still see the value. In fact, 86% of the small business owners surveyed said that they could be missing out on oppotunities to grow their business, while three in four believed prospective customers could be searching online for the type of service their business offers.

The primary concerns most cited by the surveyed group included cost, time and compexity as major hurdles to conducting search marketing campaigns for their business. Other interesting statistics include:

Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

Microsoft adCenter Upgrades

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:39:00 GMT

Microsoft made several noteworthy upgrades to its adCenter advertising platform this past weekend. In addition to a new interface, changes include:

- Campaign Management: Advertisers now have the ability to pause and resume ads and keywords. Geo-targeting enhancements and improved performance reporting on the Ads page are also accessible with advertiser accounts.

- Editorial Improvements: Faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes ads to exceed character limits will now be provided within advertiser accounts.

- User Management: If advertisers were previously only able to have one user, now they can create multiple account users

- Content Ads: Advertisers in the U.S. can receive keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for content ads