WebProNews

Tag: AdCenter

  • Bing Ads Get Keyword Destination URLs

    Microsoft announced today that it has added keyword destination URLs in Bing Ads for all markets. Bing Ads now support a dedicated field to manage them, and it lets advertisers set specific landing pages for each keyword and match type combination.

    The feature, Microsoft says, has been one of the top requested features from its customers. The company’s Ravi Modalavalasa writes on the Bing Ads blog:

    Bing Ads has been supporting {param1} as an interim solution to store keyword specific destination URLs in addition to supporting {param1} as param replacement (similar to param2 and param3) in other parts of ad creative. The use of {param1} for keyword URLs requires {param1} to be referred to in the Ad Destination URL field, which is considered an additional task for users (and was often prone to human errors). The use of the Keyword Destination URL feature, however, does NOT require any reference in ad destination URL, as keyword destination URL by default overrides ad destination URL by default.

    bing destination urls

    The feature is available in Bing Ads and Bing Ads Editor.

    A report released by Kenshoo last week found that Yahoo Bing Network CTRs and CPCs are consistently higher than Google.

  • Bing Ads Get Sitelink Extensions

    Bing Ads Get Sitelink Extensions

    Microsoft announced today that Bing Ads now offer sitelink extensions to advertisers throughout the Yahoo Bing Network. The extensions, according to Microsoft, will drive deeper engagement with potential customers by letting them connect with relevant portions of advertisers’ sites.

    They’ll let advertisers create and update additional messaging and info without modifying text ads or keywords, and will be available on both Yahoo and Bing search pages.

    Bing Ads with sitelinks

    “Over the last few months, we have worked closely with our advertisers across many different industries to build and fine tune our Sitelink Extensions experience,” says Microsoft’s Rishi Bal in a blog post. “A special “Thank you!” goes out to our beta customers for helping shape this offering.”

    “It is worth noting that during our pilot phase of Sitelink Extensions, most of our advertisers experienced an increased click-through rate of 15-25% compared to a standard search ad without Sitelink Extensions — many did much better than that,” Bal adds. “These additional text + URL pairs have the capability to help you drive improved ROI, so I encourage you to try them out today.”

    The ads can be created through the Bing Ads user interface, the latest version of the BIng Ads Desktop Editor and through the Bing Ads API.

  • Bing Ads Launches Keyword Suggestions

    Bing Ads Launches Keyword Suggestions

    Bing announced the launch of a new keyword suggestions feature for Bing Ads (formerly adCenter). Advertisers can now apply suggested keywords customized, based on the ads and keywords they’re already using.

    “On the Bing Ads Opportunities page, we now provide you with exact match keyword suggestions that we think are relevant to your campaigns and will help your ads serve more often,” says Microsoft’s Manu Aery. “The suggestions are based on the keywords and ads you’re already using in each ad group.”

    Bing provides an estimate of how many monthly searches you could reach by using the recommended keyword, a suggested first page bid, a recommended ad group and campaign, an “easy” accept option to apply the suggested keyword, and an option to add unique destination URLs and parameters.

    To access the feature, go to the Opportunities tab, and then the Keyword Suggestions tab.

    Microsoft notes that API users will call the GetKeywordOpportunities API to get the list of keyword suggestions that are relevant to the specified ad group.

  • Bing Ads Get Editorial Exceptions (And Accompanying API)

    Microsoft announced today that it is releasing Editorial Exceptions and the Exceptions API to all Yahoo Bing Network advertisers.

    The feature will let advertisers request exceptions to resolve editorial disputes, monitor progress of ad and keyword reviews, and easily filter editorial disapprovals and submit a request for exception within the advertiser’s Bing Ads account, Microsoft says.

    “If you’re using the Bing Ads API, you’ll have full access to this feature, including proactive and re-active appeals submissions in bulk,” says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher. “To learn more about managing Editorial through the API, visit this page on MSDN (scroll down to the “Appeal Editorial Rejections” header). In the coming releases, you’ll see more support for Editorial Exceptions in Bing Ads Editor, stay tuned to the blog for updates as they become available.”

    Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the rebranding of adCenter to Bing Ads, and the rebranding of the Search Alliance to the Yahoo Bing Network.

    According to a new report from comScore, Microsoft sites and Yahoo sites are both up in U.S. unique visitors, while Google is down. Likewise, Bing’s search market share is up, while Google’s is down.

  • Yahoo And Microsoft Introduce The Yahoo Bing Network, adCenter Becomes Bing Ads

    Microsoft and Yahoo have announced the Yahoo Bing Network as the official name for their combined search marketplace, which came about as the result of the companies’ “Search Alliance” partnership. Likewise, Microsoft adCenter has become simply Bing Ads.

    “Bing Ads is not only a new name, but an improved experience with new features to help you better manage your campaigns and complete tasks faster,” says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher. “Recent improvements include: a new web interface, improved ad rotation controls, and agency enablement tools that make it easier for agencies to manage multiple accounts.”

    David Pann outlines the changes as:

    Historic Quality Score helps advertisers closely monitor their campaign performance trend and proactively respond to the competition.

    Negative Keywords Conflicts Report allows advertisers to identify negative keywords conflicts in scale with ease. As a result, advertisers will receive more targeted traffic and increase their ROI.

    Share of Voice reporting quantifies missed impressions and classifies them in detailed buckets, allowing advertisers to take precise action to regain lost share.

    Ad delivery status and ad preview tools enable advertisers to more quickly identify issues hindering ad serving at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.

    With ongoing enhancements to the Bing Ads Desktop tool, advertisers have an additional resource for tracking performance and identifying growth opportunities.

    The Bing Ads Intelligence tool provides access to customizable marketplace level information that allows advertisers to make proactive decisions regarding their campaign management.

    Pann also notes that there is a new Import Campaign feature (for importing from AdWords), and a new Editorial Exceptions feature for resolving editorial disapprovals during and after the ad submission process.

    Additional updates are on the way, Kelleher says.

    Microsoft and Yahoo say that the network (in the U.S.), consisting of Yahoo and Microsoft’s core search sites, accounts for 30% of the search share, and reaches 151 million searchers who are likely to spend 124% more than the average searcher, and 5% more than Google searchers. The companies say advertisers can reach 46 million unique searchers in the U.S. who aren’t using Google.

    “A similar result holds true worldwide, with 489 million unique searchers, 92 million of whom do not use Google; and worldwide the Yahoo! Bing Network represents an audience who is likely to spend 124% more than the average searcher and 78% more than Google searchers worldwide,” the companies say.

    “In addition to Yahoo! and Microsoft Core Search sites, the Yahoo! Bing Network represents partner sites like Facebook, Amazon, Monster, WebMD, CNBC, and Viacom, plus networks like The Wall Street Journal Digital Network,” the companies add.

    Advertisers would do well to note that Bing has been revealed as the default search on Amazon’s new line of Kindle Fire devices.

  • Microsoft adCenter Now Let’s You Rotate Only Ads With the Most Clicks

    In order to help marketers to amass more clicks from targeted ads, Microsoft adCenter has announced a new feature today called Ad Rotation. The new tool will allow advertisers to select from two ad-serving options so you can either rotate only the ads that are getting the most clicks or distribute all of your ads evenly with no regard to how many or how few clicks the ads are getting.

    The new tool, which adCenter users will be able to find in the Advanced Settings of your account, will give advertisers a chance to test out ads to see which ones click (hah) with searchers and which ones fizzle out. Once you’ve established what ads are doing well, you’ll be able to optimize the ad rotation so as to only serve the ads that people are clicking the most.

    Microsoft adCenter Ad Rotation

    According to the blog post that announced the new function, “Your ads will continue to serve based upon the settings you choose without any time restrictions because we acknowledge that different keyword/ad copy combinations need different amounts of time to establish a performance history.”

    Optimizing the use of your ads might not be a bad move for adCenter users since, as of March, you’ve got about 10,000 less cities to target with your campaign. With a narrower window, hopefully the Ad Rotation tool will help you make the most of your precious ads.

    The new feature will be rolling out over the course of the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled.

    [Via adCenter Blog.]

  • Microsoft, Yahoo Search Alliance Transition Complete in UK, Ireland, France

    In mid-April, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft-Yahoo Search Alliance was nearly final in the UK, Ireland and France, after announcing the expansion into these countries in February. The ad transition began on April 18.

    Today, Microsoft announced that the transition is now complete in these countries.

    “Yahoo! Search is really an important part of our business and we have invested a lot of time to make the transition as efficient and as seamless as possible for our advertisers and publishers” sid Jon Myers, Director, Account Management UK and Ireland “Now we can focus on delivering compelling content for our users and customers to build relevant online experiences.

    “We’re delighted to successfully reach this important milestone in the UK, France and Ireland,” said Microsoft’s Mark Richardson. “As a result of this transition we believe Bing users will see more useful advertising while presenting advertisers with an increasingly compelling alternative in search advertising. We look forward to this rolling out across the next set of European markets.”

    Microsoft has indicated that Germany, Austria and Switzerland would be the focal points for the Search Alliance, following the UK, Ireland and France. The transition on the paid search side has already been completed in North America and India. For organic search, it’s already been completed globally.

    Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that it has rebranded its ads for SMBs as “Bing, powered by Bing and Yahoo! Search.”

  • Microsoft Rebrands Ads To SMBs As “Bing, powered by Bing and Yahoo! Search”

    Microsoft Rebrands Ads To SMBs As “Bing, powered by Bing and Yahoo! Search”

    Microsoft announced that it is rebranding its advertising product for SMBs as “Bing, powered by Bing and Yahoo! Search”. The company says that this is to simplify the way small business search advertisers do business with Microsoft.

    “By aligning with the Bing brand, SMBs will better understand that they are buying traffic on Bing and Yahoo! search,” a spokesperson for Microsoft tells WebProNews. “Many of our advertisers find us through the Bing homepage, where they click on ‘Advertise here.’ This shift helps those customers follow a more intuitive path to what they are looking for.”

    The change is effective today.

    “With one ad buy through Microsoft Advertising adCenter, search advertisers are able to reach 158 million unique searchers using Bing and Yahoo! Search (including Microsoft and Yahoo! Core Search sites), providing a sizable volume of 5.6 billion monthly searches and a 29% search share, which is nearly one-third of all queries in the US,” says Microsoft’s GM of SMB Advertising, Matt Lydon, citing comScore data.

    “Our audience is significant in size and in online purchase activity,” he adds. “The unique searchers on Bing and Yahoo! Search (including Microsoft and Yahoo! Core Search sites) are likely to spend 26% more than the average searcher, and likely to spend 9% more than Google searchers in the U.S.”

    He also notes that advertisers can reach 49 million unique searchers using Bing and Yahoo, that don’t use Google in the US.

    The “search alliance” between Microsoft and Yahoo continues to roll on. Last month, it finalized in the UK, Ireland and France.

  • Microsoft /Yahoo Search Alliance Nearly Final In UK, Ireland, France

    In February, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they were expanding their “search alliance” in the UK, France and Ireland. Today, they announced they’re about to enter the final stage of its implementation in these countries, and will start combining Bing and Yahoo search audiences on the Microsoft adCenter platform.

    The ad transition officially begins on April 18.

    “Next week, we begin to shift ad serving for Yahoo! Search over to Microsoft Advertising adCenter,” says Microsoft’s Cedric Chambraz. “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, you’ll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account,” he adds. “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.”

    There’s a “transition portal” in the adCenter tab when you sign into your Yahoo account, which you can use to complete the transition, which the companies are urging you to do sooner rather than later, if you’re in one of these countries.

    The companies also suggest increasing your adCenter budget (go figure) to prepare for increased traffic, once Yahoo search traffic starts to flood adCenter.

    According to Microsoft, Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be getting the search alliance treatment in the coming months.

  • Microsoft adCenter About To Have 10,000 Less Cities To Target

    Microsoft announced some new location targeting changes that it’s getting ready to implement in adCenter, which provides the ads on not only Bing, but Yahoo in an increasing number of countries.

    The changes are only coming to the U.S. and Canada for now, however. Microsoft is removing about 10,000 cities from adCenter targeting, starting in mid to late May.

    “Because these cities have seen no measurable traffic, this change will have no negative impact on the performance of your campaigns,” says Microsoft’s Peter Yang. “If you are targeting a city that will be removed, we recommend that you update your settings to target a city supported by adCenter to gain more traffic.”

    Microsoft provides a downloadable spreadsheet, where you can see all of the locations that are going away, and their corresponding locations that you should be targeting. Find the ones you need to be targeting, then simply go into adCenter and replace the non-supported ones with the corresponding supported ones.

    Microsoft will pause any campaigns or ad groups that only target cities that are being removed. The default target will be set to worldwide. In other words, this probably isn’t something you want to ignore. If some supported cities are sprinkled in, those cities will still be targeted. If you’re using the API to call non-supported cities, an error message will appear.

    If you think that losing some of these cities will hurt your campaign, Microsoft aims to convince you otherwise. The company says you are likely to see an increase in impressions (though you probably know your campaign better than anyone, and it might depend on your reasons for targeting select cities).

  • Microsoft adCenter: New Changes Live, More In Testing

    Microsoft is discussing some changes it has rolled out to adCenter over the past few weeks. They should be improvements to the platform, as the company says they’re all based almost exclusively on customer feedback.The company runs down the list of changes in a blog post.

    Changes include:

    • Ease of navigation in Web UI and Desktop: Menu redesign to allow for easy discovery of features
    • Browser Compatibility: adCenter support for Chrome and Safari
    • Improving Desktop Performance: Faster and more reliable experience in managing bulk tasks
    • Historical and Aggregated Quality Score: Improves campaign performance by having greater visibility into quality scores

    In addition to these, they have several features currently in testing with select advertisers:

    • URL by Match Type: Beginning this week, we are introducing new functionality that will provide more precise control over advertiser campaigns. In addition to the ability to assign unique destination URLs for each keyword match type within the same ad group, advertisers may also assign unique parameters. The team is releasing this feature in waves beginning this week continuing through the end of October. Advertisers will receive a notification email at least one week before this feature is enabled for their account.
    • Improved Location Targeting: Advertisers may now reach more relevant users in targeted locations with fewer steps. Also, advertisers can now leverage new advanced location options to target users by physical location or by their physical location and intent.
    • Broad Match Modifier: A targeting feature that lets advertisers create keywords which have greater reach than phrase match, and more control than broad match. Adding modified broad match keywords help advertisers get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if they mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.

    • According to the company, advertisers should expect these features to be generally available soon. On top of all of this, the company is working to launch more interactive ad formats for mobile.

    Last week, Microsoft announced an update to how it handles negative keywords.

    adCenter, of course provides the paid search ads behind not only Bing, but Yahoo. Tthe adCenter portion of the companies’ search alliance is still rolling out to more countries. Last month, Microsoft announced the migration of Yahoo Search Marketing accounts in the UK, Ireland and France. IT has already been complete in the U.S. and Canada (though the organic search part is already worldwide).

    In a recent announcement, Yahoo declared that Yahoo/Bing clicks are 14% more valuable than Google clicks, while also having 9% more ROI. This was based on data from Efficient Frontier (Global Q4 2011 Digital Marketing Performance Report).

  • Microsoft adCenter Negative Keywords Get Update

    Earlier this year, Microsoft announced an update to negative keywords in AdCenter. This would make it so that negative keywords loaded at the campaign and ad group levels would be combined to filter ad traffic. Before, negative keywords at the ad group level would override the ones at the campaign level.

    Today, that update is live.

    “If you have negative keywords applied at both the campaign and ad group levels you may experience lower traffic volume, as the negative keywords you assigned at the campaign level will now be applied in conjunction with the ad group level negatives.,” Microsoft says in a blog post. “It is highly recommended if you closely review your campaign-level negatives if you have negative keywords uploaded at both the campaign and ad group levels to make sure you aren’t blocking wanted traffic at the ad group level. There is no change to the 10k negative keyword limits at either the campaign or ad group level.”

    The company provides the following comparison for how negative keywords used to work, with how they work now. I’m not sure whey they went with such a low quality image, but that’s what they posted, so sorry.

    Negative Keyword Comparison

    The company says you should establish negative keywords in each hierarchy based on category in each hierarchy. You should also apply the common negative keywords at the campaign level, Microsoft says, so they could be shared across the lower ad group. Also, keep monitoring the Negative Conflicts Report.

    Earlier this week, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL started offering each others’ display inventory.

  • Yahoo and Bing: Look How Well Our Ads Are Doing

    As you may know, Microsoft and Yahoo have a “search alliance” which sees Microsoft powering Yahoo’s organic search results, as well as migrating Yahoo Search Marketing to Microsoft’s adCenter.

    The organic transition has already happened worldwide, and the ad platform transition is still in the process. In fact, the companies just announced that it’s rolling out in the UK, Ireland and France.

    In a post on Yahoo’s Advertising Solutions blog, Yahoo is pointing to four recent studies from Efficient Frontier, Marin Software, Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG) and Ignition One, and pulling out some points made in these about the momentum of the search alliance’s paid side:

    According to Microsoft, the transition should be complete in the previously mentioned European countries by the end of April.

  • Bing And Yahoo Advertisers Get New Tools

    Bing And Yahoo Advertisers Get New Tools

    Microsoft is talking about some new features it has for adCenter.

    “Over the last two weeks, adCenter has released its latest round of pre-holiday features, all delivering on advertisers’ wish lists of improving campaign performance, increasing volume, and simplifying processes to help save time,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    Features include a redesigned web user interface, an upgrade to the adCenter Desktop, and the release of several performance reporting tools.

    Microsoft outlines each of these.

    The interface:

    • Simplified Campaign Set Up for creating campaigns and ad groups, and a sleek, new single-page view with real-time previews and keyword suggestion, enabling quicker campaign deployment.
    • Improvements to Navigation & Discovery to help advertisers manage across their entire account by viewing and editing keywords and ads across multiple campaigns and ad-groups at once.
    • Improvements to Campaign Reporting with new multi-metric trend charts, delivery status notification features and positional bid estimates.
    • Improvements to Editing with in-line editing, in-line bid editing, and best position estimations in the keywords grid.

    The desktop:

    • New Welcome Screen takes advertisers on an end-to-end tour of the Desktop tool to help them get set up and started quickly.
    • An expanded Import Campaigns feature to allow advertisers to easily and directly import their Google AdWords campaign data into the Desktop.
    • Clipboard support to enable basic copy and paste functionality so that advertisers can quickly and easily copy data and move it to, from, and within Desktop.
    • Bulk bid suggestions to offer more than 1,000 keywords and let advertisers easily apply changes in order to increase traffic.
    • Simplified Targeting with a default set to the advertisers’ account location, determined by the language listed in their Desktop settings.

    Tools:

    • New, improved Opportunities Tab that includes bid suggestions for exact/broad match and in-line editing. With this new feature advertisers can easily address underperforming bids to target more volume.
    • New Share of Voice feature that quantifies missed impressions in Account, Campaign, and Ad Group performance reports, and helps prioritize optimizations more effectively.
    • Improved historical and aggregated Quality Score data to allow advertisers to view aggregated quality score by summary or by time frame, including hour, day, week or month.
    • An upgrade to Change History reports so advertisers can view targeting changes and gain better insights into campaign performance related to those changes.

    For those of you who aren’t advertising with adCenter, remember that these things apply to Bing and Yahoo advertisers.

  • Microsoft adCenter Getting Some New Local Features

    Microsoft adCenter Getting Some New Local Features

    Microsoft adCenter plans to launch new local features for Bing in the U.S. aimed at helping businesses reach local audiences. These include radius targeting for search ads, new local search ad attributes, and “Bing VIsion”.

    “These new mobile local ad offerings build off of the momentum generated from the recent Bing Business Portal and Bing Mobile Deals announcements,” says Microsoft’s Dennis Glavin.

    The Radius Targeting will let advertisers target a specific segment within a 5-100 mile radius of the address displayed in the ad copy.

    The new attributes let advertisers define certain things in their ad, such as the merchant’s address or phone number. “Those attributes will be served to local queries and within advertisements, both on the PC and mobile,” says Glavin. “Local Ad Attributes will begin rolling out in adCenter in the second half of the calendar year, depending upon publisher and mobile device.”

    “Bing Vision taps into the idea that once a customer is inside a store, the brand’s goal is to get them to ‘marry’ its product,” he says. “Bing Vision utilizes the camera on a customer’s smartphone to provide the customer with additional product information, reviews and prices. The system is easy: all a customer has to do is take a photo of the product and Bing Vision will detect the text, QR Scanner or MS Tag, returning the product results – helping the customer further engage and hopefully purchase the product.”

    As far as scannable codes go, WebProNews recently spoke with Mike Wehrs, former Chief of the Mobile Marketing Association (and a Microsoft Vet), who now runs ScanBuy. He brought up some good point about using open formats vs. proprietary formats (like Microsoft’s Tag) Watch the interview:

    Bing Vision is already available on the Bing iPhone app, and the company says it will be available on other platforms later this year.

  • Yahoo-to-Microsoft Ad Transition Period Drawing to a Close

    The deadline for Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers to transition their campaigns to Microsoft’s adCenter is approaching. You’ve had ample time to do, but there are no doubt some procrastinators out there. 

    "Given what a busy time of year this is for everyone, both personally and professionally, you may have the feeling that there’s something you’re supposed to do, but haven’t yet. Did you forget something?" asks Microsoft’s Ricky Poole. 

    "With all of the holiday hustle and bustle, I wanted to take a minute to remind any of you in the US and Canada who may still have campaigns in Yahoo! Search Marketing that the transition tool will be closing on January 5, 2011," he adds. "If you have not yet transitioned your PPC accounts from Yahoo! to adCenter, after January 5th you will need to do so manually through exporting and importing your campaigns."

    Yahoo/MIcrosoft transition period coming to end

    Yahoo and Microsoft completed the search transition in the U.S. and Canada in October. Microsoft even extended its adCenter support hours during the transition. 

    If you still have questions about the transition, you should be able to find your answers here. 

  • Yahoo on Bing/adCenter Transition Through Eyes of an Advertiser

    At PubCon Las Vegas, WebProNews spoke with David Roth, Yahoo’s Director of Search Marketing, who has an interesting perspective on the recent Microsoft/Yahoo search advertising transition (or “Search Alliance“), because not only does he work for Yahoo, he does Yahoo’s own search marketing. He’s an advertiser himself.

    “It’s been really exciting to be in Yahoo while this is happening,” Roth tells WebProNews. “I mean, there’s a lot of tracking of everything that was going on, and there were daily emails going out about the transition really validating that we could make the transition evaluating quality every step of the way. So there’s really a lot of effort being put in to make sure that things went smoothly through the transition.”

    “Now, for me, I’ve got kind of an unusual view on this because I am not only an advertiser, but Yahoo’s also a publisher, so we transitioned all of our advertising like everybody did,” Roth added. “So now we’re using adCenter to manage our Yahoo and our Bing buy, but we also monetize search results all over Yahoo, and so we transitioned in two different ways. So for me it was really interesting to see how metrics shift, you know, as the market place shifts, and now all the work that we have to do to try to re-optimize our campaigns and adjust to how the new ecosystem works, as opposed to the old one.”
    (more…)

  • Microsoft Extends adCenter Support Hours During Transition

    Microsoft just announced that it is extending its support hours for adCenter during its paid search transition. 

    "Whether you prefer to tweet, post a question in our forums or pick up the phone and speak to a real person, you’ve got several options for getting help with all things adCenter," says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher. 

    The transition is of course already underway, but may take some time to be completed globally. Right now, they have contact information posted for the US, UK, Canada, France, and Singapore markets. 

    Microsoft Extends AdCenter Support

    Nielsen announced today that Bing has surpassed Yahoo in search market share for the United State for the first time, and that is not even taking the partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo into consideration. 

    Microsoft began powering Yahoo’s organic search results on August 24.

  • Yahoo Advertisers Can Begin Transitioning to Microsoft adCenter

    Yahoo and Microsoft announced today that Yahoo advertisers can begin their transition to Microsoft’s adCenter.

    "Last week, we completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada," says Yahoo. "This week, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account, in anticipation of the Yahoo! ad serving transition which we expect to start mid-October. We encourage you to transition your account before the ad serving transition begins, so that you are ready to reach more than 159 million searchers in the U.S. and 15 million searchers in Canada on Yahoo! Search, Bing and our partners."

    Yahoo says there are 3 stages to completing the transition, which are preparing the account for transition, actually transitioning, and continuing to manage the Yahoo account.

    "The last stage in the transition process will occur when Yahoo! Search ad serving moves to adCenter, which we expect to begin in mid-October and be completed by the end of October," Yahoo says. "During this period, you should expect traffic from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to decrease, and increase in your adCenter account. But until this process is complete, you’ll still need to actively manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to have your ads displayed on Yahoo! and our partner sites."

    There is a transition checklist available here.

  • Microsoft Increases Bing Crawl Rates

    Microsoft Increases Bing Crawl Rates

    Microsoft announced today that it is making some ad relevance improvements, namely, a temporary increase in Bing crawl rates. The adCenter team writes:

    Along with our consistent efforts to increase relevance for your adCenter campaigns, we will be temporarily increasing the rate at which your sites will be crawled to 20 to 30qps. This is within the accepted standards for crawl rates, and is vital to continuing to provide the most relevant advertising experience possible.

    The team adds that if you have any concerns with the increased rate, you should contact your account management team as soon as possible. Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher adds that you can also leave comments on this blog post.

    Keep in mind that Bing results have overtaken Yahoo results now in the U.S. and Canada, and the companies have begun testing the adCenter transition for pad results.

    Last week, Microsoft announced that it has expanded negative keyword limits for adCenter, so advertisers can now add thousands of negative keywords.

  • Microsoft adCenter Expands Negative Keyword Limits

    Microsoft announced that it has expanded negative keyword limits in adCenter. This should be of particular interest now that Yahoo and adCenter are coming together.

    If you’re not familiar with negative keywords, advertisers can prevent their ads from appearing in response to certain search queries using negative keywords (specific words or phrases that help prevent ads from being displayed to customers who are unlikely to click).

    Advertisers can now add thousands of negative keywords t both the campaign and ad group levels. The company notes that you’ll need to delete negative keywords at the keyword level, because the list limit hasn’t been expanded there yet.

    adCenter Negative Keywords

    "Doing so will also keep your keyword-level negatives from overriding your newly expanded lists at the higher levels," says Microsoft’s Tina Kelleher.

    Advertisers need to upload their expanded lists of negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level with the negative keywords migration wizard in the Desktop, then remove keyword-level negatives, the company says.

    "Unless, of course, you’re perfectly happy with your campaigns as they are now and don’t need the increased capacity for negatives at the higher levels, then there’s no action you need to take at all," Kelleher adds.