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28 items tagged "Microsoft and adCenter"

Related tags: Bing [+], MSN [+], Search, ContentAds

Search Engine Roundtable

• 

  Microsoft To Power Yahoo Search Ads In UK, France and Ireland Starting Wednesday

  Fetched: April 16th, 2012, 8:21pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Microsoft announced the UK, France and Ireland search ad transition from Yahoo Search Ads to Microsoft adCenter ads will begin this Wednesday and should be 100% completed by the end of this month.

  Microsoft explained:

  Next week, we begin to shift ad serving for Yahoo! Search over to Microsoft Advertising adCenter. This means that adCenter ads will gradually be displayed on Yahoo! Search result pages in the UK, France and Ireland. This process will begin as early as the 18th of April and is expected to conclude during the last week of the month when 100% of the Yahoo! traffic will be made available in adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts will go in read-only mode.

  As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and impressions in that account begin to increase, youâll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. It is thus important to continue managing your campaigns across both platforms throughout this transition phase, in order to avoid missing out on any potential clicks. To help you prepare, I wanted to share the following guidance to assist you through this transition.

  This transition has been happening throughout the various regions, first with the US in October 2010 and is still lingering on and on.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Delays Expected For adCenter Bing Search Ad Approvals

  Fetched: April 11th, 2012, 12:03pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  There is a thread at the Microsoft Advertising Forum where one advertiser is complaining about his ads not being approved in the adCenter console. The issue is not his but rather a delay in the ad approval system.

  Ricky Poole, Microsoft adCenter representative, said:

  Thanks for reaching out. We apologize for the delay, we have been experiencing some system delays in our approval system. I have gone in and approved your ads, and everything is now live. Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any additional issues in the future.

  The advertiser said their ads were in review for a week or so with no status update.

  So if you have the same issue, post in the Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  
  

• 

  Bing Shopping Merchants: FTP URL Change

  Fetched: April 4th, 2012, 1:55pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Microsoft's Ricky Poole announced in the Microsoft Advertising Forums that if you are using the numeric FTP address to upload your feeds for Bing Shopping, you need to update it immediately to the normal address.

  Ricky said the new FTP address is feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com and use that, not the numeric one.

  Here are the full details as Ricky from Microsoft posted:

  Whatâs changing?

  • IP Address-based FTP delivery of your feeds:  If you are sending your feeds via FTP and you are sending via a numeric FTP address, you will have to change to the recommended text FTP address âfeeds.adcenter.microsoft.comâ

  What is not impacted?

  • FTP uploads to feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com (non-numeric address) will not be impacted, other than intermittent delays of 2 hours or less.  Simply retry your feed upload. 

  What do I need to do?

  • You donât need to do anything if you upload to feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com  

  • If you use Shopping.com to send your feeds, you donât need to do anything.  Both issues are being handled separately by Shopping.com.   If you would like to learn more about sending offers to Bing via Shopping.com, see our Getting Started page or contact merchantsupport@shopping.com for details.

  • If you use a numeric IP address to upload your feeds, you will have to update your upload scripts/jobs to the recommended setting of (without quotes) feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com    
  • If you have a technical issue blocking this change, please contact Bing Shopping     Merchant Support.
  • If you see delays in your feed uploads:  Please just retry your feed upload, with our apologies.  This delay is temporary and will be resolved as soon as possible on or after 4/13.

  Why this is happening:  Here at Bing Shopping, we continue to make improvements to our processes and infrastructure.  For a small number of merchants who use a numeric IP addresses to upload their feeds, one such change, a data center migration, will interfere with their upload scripts/jobs. 

  Still have questions?:  

  • Contact Bing Shopping Merchant Support.
  • Learn more about sending offers to Bing via Shopping.com, see our Getting Started page or contact merchantsupport@shopping.com for details.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forums.

  
  

• 

  Microsoft adCenter RAIS For Premium Advertisers Only

  Fetched: March 20th, 2012, 9:38pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Yahoo has offered rich ads in search (RAIS) for a while now and since Microsoft has taken over control of search ads, Bing is working on incorporating that feature.

  Pamela Parker at Search Engine Land reported that the Microsoft pilot is now over and this feature is now available to "premium advertisers" for their "brand and navigational terms" to bid on.

  What does a RAIS look like? Here is how it looks on Yahoo:

  An advertiser wanted to participate and asked why he couldn't in the Microsoft Advertising Forums, he was told by Microsoft rep, Ricky Poole, after a long struggle in getting the answer:

  What I found was this came out of pilot in October and is currently being offered to premium advertisers for their brand and navigational terms.

  Ricky Poole added:

  Yes, RAIS is a limited offering at this time but stay tuned to the blog for updates as they become available.

  How soon? Who knows.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forums.

  
  

• 

  adCenter 2+ Month Data Bug

  Fetched: January 19th, 2012, 7:09pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  I believe we reported this in November 2011, where advertisers using Microsoft adCenter haven't seen updated search volume data since early November.

  The issue is specifically with the Excel Ad Intelligence plugin, where there is no new data since November and the November and October data was "questionable" to many advertisers. Since then, Microsoft said they are working on the problem, but two months later, still no fix.

  Ricky Poole from Microsoft updated several forum threads saying:

  I will reach out to the engineers and try to get an ETA. Please note, they are working on this fix and it is definitely a priority to have MAI functioning correctly.

  More info to come.

  Thank you for your patience :-)

  How much longer do they have to wait? Who knows but not a good thing for advertisers looking for more ways to spend their budgets with adCenter.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Help.

  
  

• 

  Microsoft To Allow Macs & iPads To Use adCenter

  Fetched: January 10th, 2012, 8:23pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Mac and iPad users are in luck - or will soon be in luck - if they want to work with Microsoft adCenter to advertise on Bing and Yahoo Search.

  A Microsoft Advertising Help thread has Ricky Poole, an Microsoft adCenter Web Support Specialist, saying they are actively working on making the adCenter console compatible with macs and iPads.

  If you read the complaints in the advertising forum, you will see the frustrated Mac users. Ricky from Microsoft said:

  Thank you for your feedback. I also apologize for your frustration as I can understand you needing to be able to work on different platforms. The good news is we are working on this and will be fixing this. :-)

  Please stay tunned to our blogs for further announcements.

  This is the first time a Microsoft representative said they are actually working on this issue. I am not sure how soon we will have a Mac compatible adCenter console, but it is on their radar.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Help.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Bans Accounts By Accident

  Fetched: January 9th, 2012, 2:42pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  On Thursday there were some reports in the Microsoft Advertising Forum that advertisers were complaining they were not able to manage their accounts.

  In short, they were banned from using Microsoft's adCenter product, which places search ads on Bing and Yahoo Search.

  The reason they were banned was because their ads and sites were mistakenly labeled as serving up malware.

  Ralph David, adCenter Community Team, said this was a mistake and they are working on fixing it. He did not specify how many accounts were effected, but he said:

  We have identified an intermittent system error which has caused some accounts to be incorrectly flagged as 'Malware' and have been temporarily suspended. This issue has been escalated to our Technical Engineering Team with the highest priority in an effort to get your account up and running again as quickly as possible.

  Please be aware that the Technical Engineering Team are in the US, so we may not have a resolution today. We do have support staff in the office on Saturday, so should anything come in from the Technical Engineering Team overnight, they will let you know in the morning.

  As of now, I am not sure if it is fixed or not.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  
  

• 

  Search Volume Data Not Updating In adCenter

  Fetched: November 23rd, 2011, 8:27pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  A Microsoft Advertising Help thread has reports from adCenter advertisers that the search volume reports for daily and monthly search data has not updated since earlier this month.

  One advertiser said:

  I'm not seeing any new data for daily search totals after November 2, 2011 in the Excel Ad Intelligence plugin.

  Another advertiser added:

  The tool it reporting zero searches for October (which should be showing reported search totals by now), November and December. If anyone has any information on the problem and if/when it will be resolved, I would really appreciate it.

  Microsoft support representative, Ricky Poole said he sent the information over to the tech team but did not give an ETA for a fix. He said:

  I have asked our Engineering team to look into this further. As soon as I hear back I will provide you both an update in this forum.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Help.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Bug Fixed But What Should You Expect

  Fetched: August 31st, 2011, 3:44pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  There are reports in the Microsoft Advertising Forum that advertisers can't login and when they can, the reporting is delayed.

  Here is the error advertisers were getting:

  Microsoft adCenter is experiencing problems Microsoft adCenter is experiencing a problem that prevents it from continuing. Information that can help resolve the problem is now being sent to the adCenter site maintenance team. You can return to the Microsoft adCenter sign-in page now, or sign in again later. We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience. Return to the Microsoft adCenter sign-in page.

  Microsoft blogged about the issue and then late last night updated the post to say it was resolved. But it will take time to catch up.

  Tina from Microsoft said:

  The adCenter UI issue has been resolved as of 11:45 PM PDT today; your account and campaign details are now accessible. Issues with the API are still being addressed and report data may be delayed up to 24 hours. We will update this post with additional information as it becomes available.

  So keep this in mind when checking your reports today.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Changes Search Ad Relevancy & Quality Scoring

  Fetched: August 31st, 2011, 3:44pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  The adCenter blog announced ongoing changes being made to how they score ad's relevancy and quality.

  The changes include:

  • There's an expanded definition of relevancy, and a higher standard of relevancy required for extremely popular or 'trending now' keywords.
  • In the Landing Page and Site Quality section thereâs more detailed definitions
  • In the Landing Page and Site User Experience section, the following has been added as a scenario that may be considered a low-value user experience.
  • In the Marketplace Exclusion section there are two new/expanded definitions.

  There are more details at the adCenter blog.

  I should note, there is a WebmasterWorld thread with complaints about his ad prices soaring recently. He said:

  One by one this change is sweeping through my various AdCenter accounts... last month there was a change made to the broad matching algorithm that loosened match criteria. In our case, the volume of impressions shot up by 25% in two days and our CPA went straight to hell because the new traffic is irrelevant, untargeted bunk. I know from friends in other companies that we're not the only ones having this problem. Frankly I think a rollback and a refund are in order but who listens to me lol.

  Do you feel the same way? Let us know.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Bing Search Ads Leading To Malware

  Fetched: August 12th, 2011, 6:37pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  A few days ago, ZDnet reported that some Bing search ads, i.e. adCenter ads, are leading to malware and viruses.

  The author wrote that shortly after he notified Bing, Bing removed the ads. But he spotted more the next day. He wrote:

  Yesterday, I showed you details of an ad on Microsoft's Bing search engine that led unwary visitors to a site serving up malware.

  Several hours after I reported that ad to Microsoft, it was removed, and a spokesperson told me that Bing's ad network will "continue to directly work with our agency media partners to verify and confirm any suspicious orders."

  Looks like there's more work to do.

  This morning, I've found multiple ads on Bing that go through seemingly innocent intermediary sites to the same malicious server in Russia.

  As many of you know, Google is big into malware detection. But sometimes, it can be really hard to detect and block in such an open auction environment.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Updates Coming: Notice Of Possible Downtime

  Fetched: April 4th, 2011, 2:36am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  As to not upset advertisers, Microsoft has issued a big heads up that they are performing maintenance on Microsoft adCenter tonight through tomorrow morning.

  The update doesn't seem to be significant. In fact, they said the "adCenter Engineering team will be rolling out some improvements to adCenter." Those improvements are expected to be "minimal internal upgrades." But it may result in "latency and timeout issues within adCenter and pubCenter" console. So be aware.

  The maintenance window is between 4pm EST (1PM PDT) today and 8PM EST (5PM PDT) tomorrow, April 1, 2011. It is a very big window, 28 hours to be exact. I am not sure if a 28 hour window is normal for typical upgrades but this is the information we have from Microsoft.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Community.

  
  

• 

  IE9 Bugs With Microsoft adCenter Forums

  Fetched: March 24th, 2011, 4:49pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  You can understand that when Apple or Google or Mozilla release new browsers and they don't work with Microsoft web sites. You can also understand when Microsoft releases a new browser and it doesn't work fully with Apple or Google web sites. But I cannot understand why Microsoft will release a browser and it not work with Microsoft web sites.

  A adCenter Forum thread has complaint from Microsoft adCenter advertisers that Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft's latest browser, does not work with the adCenter Forums.

  Basically, if you are using IE9 and trying to post a question in the forums, you are completely out of luck.

  One advertiser said:

  I recently upgraded to IE9 and have been unable to post to the Adcenter forum. It works fine with another browser. When you hit post everything you enter disappears never to be seen again.

  Microsoft said they are working on a fix but until then they recommend:

  Workaround is to click 'compatibility mode' (symbol next to the address link).

  Also this should be fixed also in final release of IE9. But if you still can't post use the 'compatibility mode'.

  Forum discussion at adCenter Forum.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Console Missing Advertisers Campaigns & Ads

  Fetched: March 24th, 2011, 4:49pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Go login to your Microsoft adCenter account and try to see if you can manage your search ad campaigns, the search ads that are displayed on Bing, Yahoo Search and their partners. Can you? Do you see anything? If not, you are not alone.

  Starting this morning, adCenter advertisers have been complaining about the issue in the Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  The first report came at 12 minutes after midnight. The advertiser said:

  Once logged in, All the adgroups and campaigns are disappeared as if it's a new account. All the recent reports are not there as well. However, once I checked the ad preview tool, they're all still running.

  So the ads are still running but you cannot manage them, change them, pause them or delete them? I guess not.

  Several other advertisers came in this morning to say they are having the same issue.

  As of now, Microsoft has yet to reply to advertiser concerns, but I suspect the issue will be resolved as soon as they find out about it.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  
  

• 

  Microsoft adCenter Sandbox Issues Resolved?

  Fetched: January 28th, 2011, 12:48pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  There have been reports at the Microsoft Advertising Community with complaints from advertisers of adCenter who use the adCenter API.

  The specific complaints are around the Sandbox v7 Campaign Management Service. The service seems to return an error, "Connection reset by peer - SSL_connect."

  Others are also reporting other errors such as "500 read failed."

  Eric Urban from Microsoft said the issue should have been resolved, but was it? Eric said:

  Is anyone still experiencing this issue? My understanding is that it should be resolved. Please let me know otherwise.

  Are you using the adCenter Sandbox API and having this issue?

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Community.

  
  

• 

  adCenter Goes Offline During Winter Storm

  Fetched: December 28th, 2010, 3:05pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  Yesterday morning Microsoft adCenter, Bing's search marketing product, went offline for a period of time. Microsoft confirmed the outage in the Microsoft Advertising Forum yesterday and this morning confirmed it was fixed.

  The first report came yesterday morning, Monday, December 27th at 7:30AM. Microsoft then confirmed the issue about 20 minutes later. This morning, almost 24 hours after that report, Microsoft confirmed it was fixed.

  Paul K. from the Microsoft team said:

  Currently the issue has been resolved. If you are experiencing anymore issues please contact support with screenshots and description of what is occurring. We will be glad to investigate further.

  Exactly what caused the issue is unknown. I doubt it was related to the big winter storm we had here Sunday and Monday but hey - you never know.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum.

  
  

• 

  Bing Adds Bing Shopping Merchant Self Service Portal To adCenter

  Fetched: December 11th, 2010, 12:49pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Microsoft Bing adCenter  

  The CPC Strategy blog reported Bing has migrated the Bing Shopping Merchant portal to the adCenter portal. This is a new Merchant Self Service Portal linked to Microsoft's adCenter, making it easier for adCenter customers to serve up their product data to Microsoft.

  He also started a WebmasterWorld thread where he asked:

  Just curious of your thoughts about Bing Shopping's merchant portal migration to Microsoft's adCenter. There is now seamless integration and data feed optimization reports to utilize, seems much easier to work with than the old system on Bing Cashback's merchant center.

  He has additional screen shots of the process and reports at his blog.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Microsoft adCenter Reports Impressions Drop Bug?

  Posted: October 29th, 2010, 3:55pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  There are two threads on the topic of a possible bug with Microsoft adCenter. It seems like some advertisers are reporting seeing a major drop in the impression reports displayed for their search ads. A Microsoft Advertising Forum thread and a WebmasterWorld thread have reports from two advertisers.

  Here is one report:

  In the last few days several of our adcenter accounts have suddenly stopped generating spend. These are accounts with hundreds of adgroups and thousands of keywords. It's a sudden issue, but I suspect its somehow related to the migration. My reps have said they have other clients facing similar issues, but I can't find anything on the forums about it.

  My server logs show short bursts of traffic for maybe an hour in the early morning and then not a single impression the rest of the day. Bids are not the issue, as I've tested raising some bids to 400% of their current levels and the ads still aren't showing.

  In the Microsoft Advertising Forum thread, a Microsoft representative did reply telling the person to call in. The person did and was given information stating this is a bug, but the forum rep said it likely isn't a bug. Let me quote them.

  Just got off the phone with a support engineer - this is a known system-side bug impacting a subset of advertisers. Starting this week, and occurring "randomly and intermittently", some accounts had their Ad Distribution setting set to "Not set", basically pausing all ad groups and campaigns in the account. This can be seen in the Medium column on the Ads tab. Unfortunately manually setting ad distribution to Search Network or other does not fix the problem. No known estimate to fix this...sigh...

  Microsoft's forum representative replies:

  There may be another reason as to why you are not receiving impressions or clicks in your account. When the Ad Distribution dispalys "Not Set" it means the distribution has not been determined as search or content yet because you have not received impressons in the adgroup. The Ad distribution in no way causes your adsto not show, there will be an underlying reason as to why this is occuring.

  I understand our support team may have provided misguided information previously but I will have to recommend that you contact them again to have them look more in depth as to why your account is not performing.

  So who is right? Microsoft or Microsoft? Oh wait?!

  Of course this is a bigger issue now, cause Microsoft gobbled up Yahoo and now powers about 30% of the search ads in the US.

  Forum discussion at Microsoft Advertising Forum thread and a WebmasterWorld .

  
  

• 

  Gobble Gobble: Microsoft Bing/adCenter Swallows Yahoo Completely In US & Canada

  Posted: October 28th, 2010, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  As you know, Yahoo was planning on migrating everyone in the US and Canada over from their search ad platform to Microsoft adCenter by the end of this month. As Yahoo said, mission accomplished, Yahoo has successful handed themselves over to Microsoft on a platter. Ironically, well before the Thanksgiving holiday, which was their goal. Gobble Gobble!

  I summed up the news and what this means at Search Engine Land but I'll bullet point it here.

  • US/Canada organic and paid search on Yahoo now fully powered by Bing.
  • CPC prices will increase, as we have seen, on Microsoft adCenter due to increased competition
  • You will be able to access your Yahoo reports in read only mode for 5 months at Yahoo
  • Historical data will remain for 13-months
  • Those spending a nice amount still will have their Yahoo reps, everyone else gets managed by Microsoft
  • Mobile ads will be migrated by the end of this month, which is now

  Those are the key points.

  I do have to commend Yahoo and Microsoft for completing this transition smoothly and well before the major holiday shopping season. But as you all know, I am still bitter about the whole deal.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  55% Say Yahoo/Microsoft Deal With Increase CPC Prices

  Posted: September 30th, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  About a week ago, I ran a poll asking if CPC prices will increase after the Yahoo/Microsoft search ad deal transitions over.

  Most those who replied said yes. 55% of the 71 responses, yes, not our largest poll, said the prices of the keywords on a cost-per-click level will increase. 30% said the prices will remain about the same. Only 7% said the prices will decrease and 8.5% said they really don't know.

  Here is the break down:

  • CPC Prices Will Increase: 55%
  • CPC Prices Will Remain About The Same: 30%
  • No Idea: 8.5%
  • CPC Prices Will Decrease : 7%

  Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

  Note: This post was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live today.

  
  

• 

  Will CPC Prices Increase With Yahoo & Microsoft Search Ad Deal?

  Posted: September 21st, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  Now that Yahoo and Microsoft are beginning to migrate Yahoo advertiser to adCenter, there are some concerns that the prices of a click will increase when all is set and done.

  A WebmasterWorld thread points to a press release where GroupM Search said advertisers should see a 78% increase in cost-per-click prices. Why? "Increase competition."

  My big question is, are the CPC prices on Google 78% higher than those on Yahoo or Microsoft?

  Do you think prices will increase that much? Take my poll:

  Will Microsoft/Yahoo Search Ad Deal Increase CPC?online surveys

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  If Microsoft / Yahoo Deal Goes Through: adCenter Will Replace Yahoo Search Marketing

  Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in the paid search ad space. If the Microsoft & Yahoo do end up closing their deal, which seems likely to me, Yahoo Search Marketing will no longer exist.

  The Yahoo Search Marketing console and campaigns you currently run will be either automatically imported into Microsoft adCenter or you will have to manually make that change. Microsoft adCenter will power the ads on Yahoo, Yahoo won't power those ads.

  A WebmasterWorld thread seems to have a lot of confusion over this point. Advertisers seem to not want to spend too much time on either adCenter or YSM optimizing their campaigns in fear that the deal will go through and that time would be wasted. I for one think that this is still going to take a really long time, so go ahead and optimize the campaigns. But if the deal does go through and they do begin the migration, the migration will be from Yahoo to Microsoft, not the other way around.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Microsoft adCenter Offering Free Search Ads Over New Years?

  Posted: January 4th, 2010, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  A WebmasterWorld thread and adCenter Forum thread have reports that Microsoft adCenter is reporting that clicks are not being charged. Yes, the adCenter reports are showing a $0.00 cost per click in their reports.

  Here are some of the reports from the advertisers:

  Whilst I'd love this to be real, looks like a bug as clicks priced at 0.00 aren't so common!

  No matter which report I call up - I'm not being charged (according to the reports) for clicks.

  Yes, I'm seeing the same thing. All reports yesterday and today show $0.00.

  I'm guessing we'll see this resolved Monday morning. On the other hand, it might be Microsoft's way of thanking us for our business in 2009 ;)

  Many suspect this is some sort of reporting glitch. I suspect so to. But it would be nice if it was not a glitch and Microsoft gave some of their advertisers a nice New Years bonus.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and adCenter Forum.

  Update: I guess this is a bug, @adCenter tweeted:

  
  

• 

  Microsoft Sends $750K Warning To Click Fraudsters

  Posted: June 17th, 2009, 2:54pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  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.

  
  

• 

  New to Microsoft adCenter: Custom Dates on Campaigns

  Posted: January 12th, 2009, 2:05pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  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.

• 

  Microsoft Plans adCenter Upgrade in Fall 2008

  Posted: October 6th, 2008, 2:24pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  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.

• 

  Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta Feature Requests

  Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  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.

• 

  Tracking Search Traffic Versus Content Traffic in Microsoft adCenter

  Posted: July 17th, 2008, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  MSN Microsoft adCenter  

  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.