Geo Targeting in AdCenter Desktop

Setting Targeting Options in the AdCenter Desktop

Setting geographical targeting options in the Microsoft AdCenter web interface is painful to say the least. AdCenter desktop makes this time consuming task pretty easy.

In AdCenter, targeting settings are at ad group level so you should make sure the campaign you want is selected in the browser window.













Then click into the Manager Window and select CTRL & A to highlight all the ad groups in that campaign…















Next, click the Targeting link at the foot of the Manager Window











Choose the targeting options you require and click “Ok”.


















REMEMBER TO SAVE!

Don’t forget that AdCenter Desktop requires you to save your changes before you upload.











All Done!

Google Launches Chrome Browser

Just what we need... another web browser!
Google's Chrome browser is now available for download. Google is touting it's new web browser as "One box for everything - Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages."

AS you enter a search term in Chrome's address bar, the browser will "suggest" keywords for you as well as showing you recent sites you have visited that are related to your search term.

I guess the immediate impact of this will be that users will be tempted to use more generic phrases. If you're intending to search for "Cheap Holidays to San Antonio" and after a couple of key strokes, chrome suggests "cheap holidays" the temptation must be to hit the return key and avoid all that typing. It'll be interesting to see what impact this will have on PPC campaigns built around spelling errors as Chrome seems to correct these for you.

AdCenter Desktop Favourites

Another of AdCenter Desktop’s “simple but useful“ features is the ability to set ad groups as “favourites” and then access them quickly from the Dashboard.

This is useful when you have large accounts with hundreds or even thousands of ad groups. With Google AdWords Editor we tend to setup “Primary Focus” campaigns and manually move good performing ad groups into this campaign so we can focus more of our attention and effort on these groups. Whilst this method has some advantages, the Favourites feature is much easier to manage as the ad groups remain in their existing (and hopefully well themed) campaigns.

Setting an ad group as a favourite is simply a matter of right clicking the ad group in the Browser window and selecting the “add to AdCenter favourites” option. All favourites are then listed in the Dashboard.

AdCenter Desktop Alerts

The AdCenter Alerts functionality within the AdCenter Desktop is a really neat idea particularly if you are managing a number of accounts.

AdCenter alerts allow you set thresholds for CTR and CPC. Let’s say that you want to monitor any ad group where the average click through rate is below 5%. The AdCenter Desktop allows you to set 5% as the threshold for Ad Group Average CTR and Desktop will list all ad groups that fall below that threshold in the Desktop Dashboard.

Setting the alerts is pretty simple; just select the Alerts icon form the Ribbon at the top of AdCenter Desktop and a dialogue box will appear allowing you to set the thresholds.



















Any Adgroups that fall below that threshold are then listed in the Manager screen.













The alerts dialogue box states that you can set alerts to notify you when values drops below or rises above the set threshold but I couldn't see how to implement this. It would be useful to trigger an alert when the CPC is above a set amount but that didnt seem to be an option.

It would also be useful if AdGroups which triggered an alert were highlighted in the main Manager screen rather than tucking them away in the Dashboard.

Adcenter Desktop Beta

At last we have our hands on the new AdCenter Desktop Beta!

At first glance the interface looks surprisingly (and refreshingly) different to AdWords Editor. The navigational elements are very similar to those found in Office 2007. At the top of the application you'll find the "ribbon" which is grouped into three main tabs called Home, Manage and Research.

The home tab features panels for uploading and downloading data plus a handy "preview" tab that totals the number of changes you made since downloading your data. This feature also allows you to quickly check your ads for potential editorial issues before uploading.

The export function allows you to export your account in AdCenter format, a 3^rd Party format, as HTML or as an adCenter archive (acea). What would have been fab would be a direct export to Ms Word (if you want to spell check an entire account export as a HTML file, open in IE and then choose the File > Edit with Word option).

I guess the most eagerly awaited feature would be the import function. It's not unfair to say that most ad agencies would want to manage their accounts in Google and then port across to adCenter. Maybe the adcenter desktop is good enough to switch that around but for now a seamless import from AdWords Editor would be a boon. I'll confess that this is the first thing I tried when I got the desktop and importing direct from an AdWords Editor export didn't work for me but I've not had much time to play yet.

Next along the ribbon are the stats options allowing you to view stats for a series of preset time ranges and although changing the setting does prompt another download it worked pretty quickly.

Live Cashback

In an attempt to increase search volume Microsoft Live Search has been running its cashback system in the states for a while now.

Described by some cynics as "Microsoft paying for searchers" the move would appear to be a genuinely innovative way of generating much needed traffic.

The idea of offering rewards for loyalty is not new but having spoken to a number of people over the past few days, cashback may well prove to be the incentive needed for users to switch from Google particularly when they are considering a making purchase rather than just browsing.

You can preview the system (it's going to take a while to bring cashback here to the UK) by going to Live Search and changing your country option from United Kingdom to United States (English) in the right hand menu bar (or simply click this link).

Search for DVD Players and you'll probably see one or more Live Search Cashback icons in amongst these ads. These icons tell you that the vendor is offering a discount for Live Search visitors. What you'll probably find right now is that most of these icons link either for the Cashback site itself or to Ebay.

Couple of points that may be worth noting...

If the discounts offer a genuine incentive for those looking to buy and not just browse, the impact on ROI could be very interesting.

Is there a conflict between Microsoft's claim to want to increase the quality of ads compromised by clearly differentiating and highlighting vendors who are willing to participate? Presumably the CTR for ads featuring the icons will increase substantially.

Don't the icons look very similar (in shape and position) to the Google Checkout icons and will consumers confuse cashback with checkout?

From a PPC marketers point of view Cashback seems to be a great idea and a clear demonstration that Microsoft can be innovative and creative in its struggle to gain search query share.

How do you compete with a verb?

As previously mentioned AdCenter’s main challenge is in generating search volume.

Google has such a large share of the search market that it’s hard to see how Live Search can compete. Microsoft talk a lot about “disruptive technology” and how producing something that is better than the competition or markedly different can de-throne a market leader.

I guess here in the UK a good example of disruptive technology would be Dyson Vacuum cleaners. There are parallels in that Hoover was the dominant brand and indeed the brand became a verb as in “to Hoover the carpet”. Very few people in the UK talk about “vacuuming the carpet”. Likewise people talk about “Googling” when they are referring to Search. Dyson entered the vacuum cleaner market with a new and innovative product that undoubtedly stole some of Hoover’s market share.

LiveSearch has two challenges...
How to come up with disruptive technology that is markedly different (and better) than Google.

How to compete with a verb. Despite Dyson’s disruptive technology, we still don’t “Dyson the carpet”.

Part of the Live Search strategy revolves around Live Search Cashback which is already underway in the US but more of that later.

AdCenter Desktop

Those of us in the UK who have yet to get our greedy little paws on the new AdCenter Desktop application can check out some grabs at the PPC Hero blog.

I had a sneak preview at a recent AdChamps event and will be posting a review and step by step tutorials as soon as we can get hold of a copy.