Take Two: New Version of MSN adCenter in Preparation
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Written By Reprise Media | February 15, 2006 | Share This
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Because you demanded it: MSN adCenter will be rolling out some fairly big changes some time in the next two weeks, according to the brand new adCenter Blog. First minted Monday, the blog announced upcoming design and feature tweaks yesterday, several of which “are due to user feedback.” Be warned: although your ads will be served continuously, you won’t be able to sign into your adCenter account during the update (whenever it occurs).
The new version looks interesting. Some of the changes:
- Order creation slims to a 4 step process, and users will be able to apply negative keywords at the order level.
- Instead of simply rejecting ads or keywords outright and leaving users in the dark about it, adCenter will now tell users what the matter is.
- Budget, bidding and incremental pricing information will all be accessible via the same new tab.
As the adCenter blog says, “We’ve learned a lot from the customer feedback.”
It’s good to know they’re listening, since it’s been a bit bumpy for adCenter beta thus far. Search Engine Roundtable has been following adCenter customer service misadventures on the forums for months, and they have their doubts about quick improvements. “…That is not to say adCenter wont get better.”[sic] They continue:
“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!”
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, we’re afraid. For the record, we find that the current adCenter user interface is surprisingly counterintuitive for a Microsoft product, and the lag time on campaign data annoys us - if these particular concerns don’t see improvement with this update, we hope they’re a high priority.
But beta tester Evan Roberts at Marketing Shift is cautiously optimistic - with a couple of caveats. He’s still annoyed by the “inability to bulk change keyword bids” (that’s also a major peeve of ours) and “to see which ads are running for which words in a group,” but he’s pleased that two of his favorite features - the keyword research tool and adCenter’s unique demographic targeting capabilities - are getting positive attention. Roberts did some poking around on his own, and has the goods on a bunch of further adCenter changes not mentioned in the official announcement - click here for the scoop.
Topics: Advertising: Online |