Windows Live Search to Go.. well Live!!!!

Got an e-mail from the adCenter Team a few minutes ago saying...

"Over the next 3 days, we plan to take the beta tag off of Live Search. All search boxes and toolbars on the MSN.com and Live.com properties are scheduled to be completely migrated to send users to the Live Search Engine Results Page--including those who search on Hotmail®, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, on all MSN.com properties, on http://search.msn.com/ and on http://www.live.com/. "

and in a sentence unlikely to win the "Plain English" award, the notable features of Windows Live include: -

"Windows Live Search lets us augment our search-engine investments with a customisable user experience."

Which means what exactly???

The SERPS do look a lot neater than the current MSN offering and there's a related search panel which is a useful addition.

The "advanced" option gives the user a few useful tools such as the ability to exclude sites from the search results (OUCH!) and to rank sites according to popularity, freshness etc.

Interesting stuff! Wil report back on how this affects my campaigns.

Have a look at Windows Live Search

Changing Match Options

One of the most irritating things about adCenter is the fact that in order to set match options for a whole load of keywords in an order you have to click the little check box for each and every keyword!!!!!

If you have a lot of keywords in a single order this can be infuriating to say the least.

There's a much easier way to do this that also allows you to set different prices for different match types.

Why would you want to do that? It's pretty much the rule that and exact match keyword will convert better than a phrase match and a phrase match will convert better than a broad match. You may decide that whilst exact match is ideal for your market you still want to bid on Phrase match but that it's worth a little less per click. Let's say the exact match is worth up to 15p per click but phrase match is only worth 10p.

This will show you how to kill two birds with one stone…
How to avoid repetitive strain Injury by clicking thousands of little check boxes AND how to set different bid prices for different match types.


From the Keywords screen click Manage Keywords…

In the keywords panel click "Show Match Types" to reveal those little check boxes…


From the keyword drop down, choose "Import or export keywords".
You'll now see an option to "Export to CSV file"

Click the link and "hey presto" a spreadsheet will open with all your keywords

Simply fill in the bid amounts in the first row for the match types you require and copy down using "Click and Drag" to complete for all your keywords.

Save the spreadsheet and close the file!


Back in adCenter, click the Browse button to locate the spreadsheet

And click the import button!

Voila!!! AdCenter has imported your keywords with the match bids as you specified in the spreadsheet