Using the horrible MSN interface to your advantage

We all know that MSN adcenter has a horrible interface. But the traffic from the network is conversion gold. This paradox sets up an excellent opportunity for the hard working search marketer. Most people are understandably frustrated with the interface, therefore don’t put a lot of effort into their campaingns. So I have always seen this a benefit. You have this great traffic source that is difficult to use, so if you are willing to put the time into it you can dominate your niche. If it were slick and easy like Adwords, everyone would be using it.

That being said, there are ways to make it a little easier to work the current interface. First of all the import tool works fairly well. You can directly import a campaign that you exported from Adwords or YSM. Also for repetitive edits like changing bid prices on adgroups, you can automate the task using a program like imacros with firefox. This can really speed up campaign changes.

The window of opportunity is closing though. Their new offline editor currently being tested is going to rewrite the MSN playbook, making it extremely easy to upload ads, make changes, monitor reports and do everything it takes to make a successful campaign. (I don’t have a copy yet but I have seen advanced screenshots – it looks awesome). When this becomes available to the general pubic, I predict a huge rush of competition to MSN which should drive up bid prices and lower ad posistions. Thus ending the competitive advantage to be exploited now.

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6 Comments »

Comment by Ken Savage

2008-06-04 21:01:29

Totally agree. Some times I even do well with the ol ringtones offers because people are too lazy to update their existing campaigns with new keywords that happen to break into the space.

Did I just give something away. $200/day cant be wrong.

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Comment by Chad

2008-06-05 17:42:39

You mean people still promote ringtones?

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Comment by Franklin

2008-06-05 01:36:15

Thanks for telling us about imacros Chad!!! My biggest issue with adCenter is this: say I have a campaign that has 20 ad groups. And say that I want to set the end date of each ad group. I have to do this one by one for all 20 ad groups, and it’s incredibly boring. To add insults to injury, their really slow interface also makes it even more painful to do….

Can imacros help do this? I mean, would it have any way of detecting those 20 ad groups whose end date I want to set?

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Comment by Chad

2008-06-05 17:41:52

You’d still have to hit each adgroup, but the macro should pick up the change process.

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Comment by John Hasson

2008-06-05 04:55:41

Chad… MSN is *supposed* to be hard to use. People shouldn’t use it. The last thing we want is more people driving up the bid prices on converting keywords.

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Comment by Ilya

2008-06-05 05:33:21

Actually, I think AdCenter has the easiest import process. Their bulk upload template has only a fields and is pretty easy to use. The web interface is awful but somehow, amazingly, the bulk upload doesn’t suck, unlike the nightmarish hellscape of arbitrary fields and undecipherable error messages that is the Yahoo bulk upload template.

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