MSN AdCenter Review

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Oilman has a review of the MSN AdCenter up. I finnally managed to sign in, my review will be somewhat less enthusiastic.

• Thanks to comments from one of my readers I found out you can’t sign up when you are using firefox, you need to use IE. BIG MISTAKE!!! This set the tone for my whole interaction
• They have an area called Order and this is the explanation:
  An order consists of a related list of keywords and ads. Within each order, you define when and where your ads will be displayed.
  clear as mudd.
• Start and end date is preset for 1 year. What if I want my add to run until I say so? I now have to remeber to go and extend it. You can’t set the date for something like 12/28/2099 by typing in the field, you have to use the cutesy pop up calendar wizard
• The keywords were a little vague on broad match, phrase match
• When you enter the ad you have no idea whether you are #1 or #100, so putting in a bid is pure guesswork

In MSN’s defense this is a beta system so I could deal with it being rough around the edges. However FORCING ME to use IE simply makes my blood boil.

Technorati Tags: msn, msn.adcenter, search.engine.marketing

5 Responses to “MSN AdCenter Review”

1. Chris McMahon Says:
   December 28th, 2005 at 8:48 pm

   I was able to complete the sign-up and create an ad in firefox. *shrug*

2. Administrator Says:
   December 28th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
   I’m on version 1.5, don’t know if that was the issue or if it was roboform and firefox together that caused it to crapout, but either way never had this problem with Adwords or Overture (not so subtle hint).
3. Michael Teper Says:
   January 26th, 2006 at 1:37 pm

   How long did it take your ads to get approved and served?

4. Administrator Says:
   January 26th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
   It depends if you submit them late at night or on the weekends it takes longer up to 12 hours, but usually it’s less than a few hours. They seem to have some kind of hybrid human/automated system. Either that or I just bid on some questionable keywords. When you get rejected you get no feedback as to why.
5. Justin Says:
   January 9th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

   MSN adCenter is still having the same type of problems. I have been using Google AdWords for quite some time. I decided to give MSN adCenter a try, as I heard it has a better ROI. The #1 complaint I had was the response time; the entire process was more waiting than anything. #2, with Google AdWords, I never had to wait (6) hours for my keywords to be approved. On top of that, the majority of my RELEVANT keywords were rejected. I do not think I will be using adCenter anytime soon.