Satya Nadella, VP of Search & Advertising was the keynote speaker. Only speaking on the topest of top-level initiatives being undertaken, he provided little content which we all were so desperately craving. Perhaps if Satya closed the conference as opposed to kicking it off, his talk would have complimented the material later provided by the developers. But alas, this was not the case. My fellow attendees (including myself) smelt blood in the air and were ready to pounce. After deflecting several technical related questions, Satya concluded his presentation with a diminutive impact on us.

The next session was the arena we were all waiting for Product Briefing & Feedback.

Before opening up table for client feedback [read: criticism], we were shown a list of issues already well known to them. Being an AdCenter advertiser since the Beta release in Q1 2006, these represent about 50% of the issues we’ve had to endure since the get-go:
- Pause/Resume Ads
- Ad Preview Tool
- Offline Campaign Management
- Better Ad Relevancy
- More Robust Geo-Targeting
- Editorial Rejection Reports
- Immediate Go-Live Ads
- Ad Diagnostic Tools
- Totals on Grids
- Bulk Management
- Easily Add/Delete Keywords

Some hands went down when it came to the Feedback portion of the session while others went up higher.  How can you only allow us 3 MSN accounts per credit card? Why is there no Agency Login or support? Where is the traffic volume?€ – Why is editorial so hard to deal with? – so on and so forth.

The following session discussed new tools already developed and being developed that are on the horizon. These tools alone should help revolutionize how every advertiser will manage their accounts. Not only am I impressed with what is going to be coming, frankly I am excited. I will only say this: any advertiser knows that there is a clear division between AdCenter and Microsoft. The look, the feel, and the functionality is all wrong for a Microsoft product. What we can soon expect is a product that clearly shows a collaborative effort of improvements; a red-headed stepchild no more.

Later sessions included discussions on the current state of editorial, how customer service has changed over time, insight into popular MSN verticals, the direction LiveSearch is headed in, Gatineau AdCenter analytics, and the future of AdCenter.

I was selected along with 4 other individuals to participate in an agency focus group where we spoke with one of the lead developers of the interface. Together we helped flow-chart the functionality and needs of an ad agency. I must say, AdCenter should have had us there earlier as we most definitely helped align their priorities.

There were 2 main areas which really irked me. The first was the total lack of understanding of the metric CPA (Cost Per Action). Every time this metric was mentioned, the engineers thought we were talking about Pay Per Action. All new previewed grids, software and layouts completely ignored this KPI. It actually took 3 fellow advertisers to explain not only the meaning, but the actual formula to calculate it.

The second involved the current and future layout of LiveSearch. They had two analysts discussing how CTR drops dramatically between 3rd position and 4th position. As an advertiser for many different clients and verticals in Google and Yahoo, I can say that there is not a drastic difference between 3rd and 4th position. Why is that? I firmly believe MSN suffers from this anomaly because of two words: œRelated Searches

Clearly, 4th position in MSN is equal to 6th – 7th position in Yahoo or Google because of this annoying and highly unprofitable box. I was dumbfounded when I asked the analyst if they evaluated the effect this box has on the 4th+ position. He had not considered it.

All-in-all, Microsoft was extremely forthcoming with their weaknesses. Everyone was very open to critique and not once did I get the feeling we were bruising their Microsoft ego. I truly appreciate that.

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