Email
RSS
CAT | Bing
Don’t be alarmed if you are not seeing your own ads! Here is a great explanation straight from Bing…
“Recently there was a system improvement implemented to enhance our current search algorithms. Part of this enhancement detects the likelihood of a particular user clicking on ads based on their preferences, history, and other quality factors. The search engine learns about the users and how likely they are to click on an ad. Users who are more likely to click, see more ads, while users who are less likely to click, see fewer ads.
Advertisers might not be able to verify that their own ads are showing on Bing as easily, due to their usage patterns or history. Searching for ads without clicking on them may prevent advertisers from seeing their own advertisements when they look for them. If you are unable to view your ad, please be aware that it does not mean your ad is not serving. In fact, this helps to verify that the system improvement is in place to ensure your ads are shown to quality users who are most likely to click on your ad, providing you the best value for your advertising strategy.
I understand that advertisers would like to see their advertisements to validate that their ads are showing and to check their competition. We are hoping to have a tool that allows advertisers to validate whether their ads are showing and where in the near future.“
-Bing Representative
I recently returned from Bellevue (Seattle) ,Washington after being invited for the second time by Microsoft to participate in the 2009 Search Summit (formerly known as AdChamps). This is an invite-only summit in which the programmers, designers, and executives engage the advertisers in an attempt to align their goals with each other.
The big news this year was obviously BING.com, Microsoft’s Live.com rebirth and rebranding. All the employees there were fantastically excited and oddly enough, so were the advertisers there. If you read my blog from last year’s event: http://blog.engineready.com/microsoft-adchamps-2008/ you will see that Microsoft done the near impossible, caused excitement from the Search Engine Marketing community.
In ’08 the climate was much nastier. There was pure anger in the eyes and knuckles of many advertisers, including myself. We felt abused by all of the technical problems, poor customer support, and overall horrible user experience. And all the time, a small army of adCenter employees scurried to document every comment, suggestion, feedback and criticism. For nearly a year, it appeared that nothing had been done, then slowly releases started to appear which specifically addressed some of the more major issues brought up during that meeting. 15 months later, I have almost every tool I need to manage my account with the same efficiency as I do a Google account* Less: Negative Keyword Character Limit & CPA/Conversion Rates displayed in the UI.
I’m not saying that bing.com is going to dethrone Google, but I am saying that Microsoft has positioned themselves in an excellent position compared to where they were 15 months ago. Let’s take a look why:
Advertising: Let’s face it, the commercials are pretty clever and funny. http://www.youtube.com/user/bing
Branding: BING is a pretty catchy, fun and easy to remember name. Compare that to Live.com. Not sure what they were going for with that one.
Competition: More and more people are getting out of the “Googolie-eyed Dating Phase” with Google and are looking to see other engines. The question is, does Microsoft have it going on upstairs to make a serious impression or will it be simply dismissed as ditzy eye candy?
Quality: Many have said, including myself, MSN provides some of the cheapest and most qualified leads or highest ROAS. We all just get very little of it.
Traffic: It has been increasing. My AdCenter spending has surpassed that of Yahoo in many of my accounts.
Tools: AdCenter has provided us with two tools. Excel-Ad-in and the Editor.
While the Excel Ad-in provides some nifty features, it nowhere near compares to the operational efficiency you can enjoy when using an editor. Like the AdWords editor, you can build & optimize an account completely offline. In less than 10 minutes, you can import and upload an existing Google account structure into AdCenter. This now leaves me with one less reason I would migrate from Google to Yahoo before doing so with MSN.
Content Transparency: AdCenter has added a new report to their interface which allows you to run a CPA based report highlighting all websites which AdCenter has shown your content ads on. Once you isolate a poor performing domain, you can then exclude it to further tighten up your campaigns. Anyone who has had experience with Yahoo knows how what quality a black box system produces.
Yahoo: Whom I believe is a lame duck. There have been no updates, only layoffs. Bing is the newest buzz word in the online community. Once luster diminishes from this shinny new search engine, I believe Microsoft bring it right back into the lime-light by making a final (and successful) bid to overtake Overture.. err.. Panama.. err.. Yahoo Sponsored.. err. Search Marketing Solutions.. oh whatever, that last one standing which has neither an identity nor direction.