Microsoft adCenter
- official adCenter website
- official adCenter blog
- official adCenter forums
- adCenter blog entry on adExcellence Program launching in the UK
- adCenter UK promo
- adCenter Help & FAQ
- adExcellence Classroom
Being the latest to be developed, Microsoft adCenter had the benefits of learning from Google and all the other self-destructing PPC systems that came before it. in the wise words of the Internets, "despite the fact that a cloud of suspicion looms over corporate marketing initiatives, and that Microsoft is entering into a space during a turbulent and uncertain period, it does stand to benefit greatly from Google's blunders. More specifically, Microsoft's AdCenter can incorporate into its vision a degree of lattitude that will allow them to determine which hill they want to die on." (adCenter crawling over broken glass)
There are more than 90 million MSN and Live Search users.
Contents
Editorial Guidelines
- Editorial Policy Text Lessons
- Editorial guidelines may differ from country to country.
- Point of Editorial Guidelines - to improve positive user/advertiser experience for everyone
- Capitalisation should be normal (no ThINGS like THEse)
- Special characters only usable in price and in brand names. No accents or other
- No excessive punctuation !!!!
| ad element | text ad | mobile ad |
| ad title | 25 | 18 |
| ad description | 70 | 18 |
| display url | 35 | 20 |
| destination url | 1022 | 200 |
| phone number | N/A | 20 |
| business name | N/A | 20 |
- Spelling should be correct and readable grammar.
- & is allowed and 50%.
- Phone numbers may be allowed in text only if it doesnt include call to action.
- Prices mentioned must be on landing page.
- No superlatives for call to action.
- Adult personals and sex education materials are allowed as long as not sexually suggestive.
- Links to adult material must be at least two clicks from your landing page.
- No porn, escort or prostituition services, or the names of porn stars.
- Wine, beer and food items are allowed.
- Tobacco accessories are allowed if no tobacco is sold along with it on landing page.
- Selling Hard alcohol, tobacco itself, and illegal drugs/paraphernalia not allowed.
- Legal guns parts and accessories are allowed.
- Paintball guns, stun guns, clearly marked imitation firearms, knives , traditional martial arts weapons, bows and pepper spray are allowed "as permitted by law" - depending on location and laws in those parts (ooh looks like someone is trying to cover their ass, oh its not me, its by law!! the law permits it!!!)
- Fireworks, pyrotechnic devices, potato guns, BB guns, cannons, flares, switch blades, knuckles, military weapons and grenades are not allowed.
- see also Firearms and fireworks
- Hotels and casinos which offer gambling in their venues but not online
- Poker chips and playing card items
- Free offers only if the terms and conditions are mentioned on the ad or on the landing page
- Online gambling, pyramid schemes and spam is not allowed no matter how many pages deep from landing page
- Advertising for casinos and betting agencies (incl UK National Lottery) is allowed in UK provided it does not accept bets from US residents
- No hate speech, profane terms, violence or defamatory content allowed
- Pharmaceuticals info and devices are allowed.
- only pharmacyCheker-verified advertisers allow.
- Medicines Act 1968 - No prescription pharmaceuticals are allowed to be advertised in UK
- No illegal activities/ fake docs/ descramblers allowed
- Religious content and political advertising is allowed
- but ads with politically religious agendas are not allowed
- Content also cannot use "Hot Button" political issues for commercial use
editorial disapproval
if you are rejected twice you must change it. it can take up to more than 10 business days for your review to happen.
Landing Page Requirements
qualities of a good landing page
- should load quickly and be stable
- relevance: page should have relevant page content / keywords (not in images)
- url: frames/session specific url should not be used or else it will be hard to access same site consistently
- construction: under construction pages are not accepted
- registration: no registration should be required before viewing content
- content must be relevant and the relevant part must be in text and you must find it very easily when landing on the page
landing page behaviour
- popups: no popups upon entrance/exit (note: will be allowed if its to ask for language/region/country preference)
- browser buttons: backbutton cannot be disabled
- browser dialogs: fake browser dialog box images/buttons are not allowed
- downloads: page is not allowed to trigger automatic downloads (downloads are allowed if its user initated eg: flash)
landing page and privacy policy guidelines
- lead generation-type businesses: if page is of the insidious sneaky lead generation/direct marketing nature, then it must follow microsoft guidelines (oh ho ho so dodgy.) PII Personally Identifiable Information.
- must have opt out: must have explicit OPT-OUT for this or any future communication and if they select to not have you contact again you must not market to them again within the same session
Trademarks
you may use the trademark if you:
- the owner
- authorised affliate/reseller who distributes authentic products/svcs
- you service or support the trademark owner's products
- you provide information about the product (description, information)
special exceptions:
- you offer replacement products for consumables (eg: Epson-compatible printer cartridges)
- you are using dictionary definition of a word that may also be a trademark for different services
it it will be trademark violation if you're a competitor of the trademark term and you use it competitively. you are personally responsible to ensure your ad does not infringe. advertisers are responsible for obtaining any necessary permission on their own.
- ALLOWED: Sentimental Movie DVDs for sale - We'll make you wet your kleenex or your money back!
- ALLOWED: Deskjet Ink replacement system - Our inks work with Canon and Brother printers too!
- NOT ALLOWED: Can't find your Kleenex? - Try Wipenex instead, the best tissue in the world!
- NOT ALLOWED: Looking for Nike shoes? - We have shoes which are better than Nike!
adCenter Affilate Policy
- microsoft only shows one ad with the same display URL per search query
- if two advertisers have the same display URL the ad with best performing clickthru rate will be served
- this means that the affiliate's ad may be shown over the actual trademark owner's ad -- its the responsibility of affiliate and trademark owner to settle differences if they not happy about whose ad got shown in the end.......
trademark concerns
- remember that competitor's ads may sometimes be delivered on search query for trademarked term which is not trademark infringement but just product of broad match keyword. this is not violation of policy really.
- go to the submit trademark concerns page and fill out the Online Trademark Concern form. you will receive and email and you can respond to it with a copy of your official form either by scanning it and emailing or mailing a photocopy of yr confirmation email.
Click Quality
- you are not billed for low quality/invalid clicks.
- monitor your ad click traffic for uncharacteristic clicks
- but natural fluctuations will have to be expected as well (holidays, etc)
- use external web tracker to understand normal traffic.
- contact ad center support if you think u have low quality/invalid click activity.
- provide campaign name, ad group name, ad group number, ad id number, keywords affected, and brief description of the trends from your reports/logs.
- a support rep will contact u and your bill will be adjusted depending on outcome of investigation.
Dynamic Text
- dynamic text displays in bold font
- character limits for ad components still aply and if the ad component exceeds character limit then the entire ad is just not going to be shown (Disapproved)
- add some default text to each type of dynamic text so it wont exceed character limits
Fresh {keyword:flowers} online All {keyword:flowers} {param2:on sale}
Keyword Tools
- click on Keyword research tools on the right hand side of the choose keyword box.
- select on the checkbox in the list you get > actions > add keywords to table
- you can search other websites for your own keyword ideas for your own list - search destination URL of your ads
negative keywords
Setting keyword match type
researching demographic info
charting keyword performance info
adCenter Editor (ACE)
according to rumours, Microsoft has made an adCenter Editor (ACE) which is open to a small group of beta testers only by invitation. little is known of this elusive and mysterious creature. as of june 2008, few recorded sightings have been made of the slippery ACE, but usage of the ACE has been said to induce the desire to hit your head on the wall repeatedly. very dangerous. i wait with bated breath till i can try the beta.
Targeting Market Segments
- Age
- Gender
- Geography
- Day of week
- Time of day
if you target say for example france at a certain time on the signup form, you will be targeting it at their time of course, not your time.
Setting up Account
adCenter plugin for Excel 2007
Dynamic keywords
- {keyword:default} syntax works like in google.
where "default" is a value used if the dynamic keyword violates editorial rules, then it's already in place. It works just like you would expect in Google except that the {keyword} doesn't control capitalization. {Keyword}, {KeyWord}, and {keyword} are all the same in adCenter.
- {Keyword}
- {MatchType}
- {QueryString}
- {OrderItemID}
- {AdID}
- {Param1}
- {Param2}
- {Param3}
http://www.ewhisper.net/blog/microsoft-adcenter-supports-dynamic-parameters-for-links/
