MSN Adcenter Beta - Preview
Microsoft has begun its paid search pilot program by rolling out its' beta pay-per-click interface, a product they call AdCenter. In order to review thier product I signed up for an account via their Singapore page.

At first glance, AdCenter is reminiscent of Google's control panel, but further inspection shows us it is way more then just a spin-off of the Adwords interface. Microsoft has obviously spent time doing market research finding out what users would like in their console and taken it a step further by adding features that are unprecedented in the search space.

Some of the features that I find most astounding and that I believe users will find most helpful are:

Geo-Targeting - Which will allow you to target from the country level all the way down to the city level. A feature that local business will find very helpful in maximizing their online advertising budget.
Demographic targeting (age and gender) - Adcenter also lets users add additional increments to their bids based on the age and gender of a user search. Providing you additional exposure to the user-profile that best fits your business.
Time-targeting - pretty straight forward, bid a little bit more during your business hours, instead of wasting money when your business is closed.
Bid Matching - Adcenter makes it easy to bid on exact, phrase and broad matches of keywords which is more of a time saving instrument for account managers.

I know what you are thinking 'Hey this is a Microsoft product, there has to be bugs' well you are correct, but being that it is only a beta program I won't be too hard on them.

Here are my perceived negatives:
No Content Targeting - Not that I am a big fan of content targeted ads but some people swear by them.
End Date - While I like the end date feature, it is inconvenient because in order to specify an end date you have to select it from the calendar. It should be an option that you can turn on or off.
FireFox compatibility - I should say lack of compatibility, be prepared to fire up IE.
Secure as Windows - A Adcenter Hack allows a way around the invite-only pilot program.

I believe these things will be addressed before the platform is open to the public and from my initial look at the platform I am very impressed and I am looking forward to digging deeper into its features.

Microsoft Adcenter Report Card = A-


Here are some screenshots:

The Orders Page

Targeting Page 1

Targeting Page 2

Keyword Research Tool


I've taken a few other screen shots and have posted them here. Microsoft Adcenter! If you have any questions or screenshots requests feel free to post a comment.
Evan | permalink | +marktd |