microsoft

Microsoft adcenter – A beginner’s guide to Microsoft Pay per click

As most of us are aware, Pay per Click (PPC) search engine marketing is an advertising strategy where you, as an advertiser, pay a search engine every time a potential customer clicks on your ad. These ads appear either on search engine results pages or on sites within a search engine’s network of partners. The growth of the search industry worldwide has resulted in a big market for paid search advertising and hence most search engines have developed some type of PPC related, of course, to performance.

To appear in the PPC results, advertisers sign up for the PPC program and create short text ads, image ads or videos describing their product or services shown on their site in a way that will tempt searchers to visit it. While setting up the program, an advertiser will determine which trigger keywords/phrases they wish to bid on and how much they are willing to pay when a visitor clicks on their ad.

If you study at a search engine results page (SERP), you will be able to distinguish between search results that are regular organic search listings and PPC search results which are actually paid advertisements. These paid ones are generally listed under “sponsored results” or “featured listings” and consist of specially designed text, image or video ads that are triggered to display when your target keywords are used in a search query.

Microsoft AdCenter (formerly MSN adCenter) has brought out the latest PPC. Microsoft adCenter is the division of the MSN entrusted with the task of providing Pay Per Click advertisements. Microsoft has joined the Big Three league the other two being Google and Yahoo – develop its own system for delivering PPC ads.

Strictly speaking, Microsoft is not a stranger tp PPC as till recently, all of the Microsoft ads displayed on the MSN search engine were supplied by Overture and later Yahoo!. MSN claimed a percentage of the ad revenue in return for displaying Yahoo!’s ads on its search engine. As search marketing expanded and presented great opportunities, Microsoft has now developed its own system, Microsoft adCenter, for selling PPC advertisements directly to advertisers.

Microsoft adCenter lets you to offer bids for keywords or phrases you associate with your ads (See this : http://advertising.microsoft.com/wwdocs/user/en-us/adexcellence/flash/18_Bidding/index.html). This bid is the maximum amount you are willing to pay if any user searches for one of your keywords and clicks your ad. You can also increase your bid if you wish to reach specific audience target that fits your buyer profile. Generally, the higher the bid, the more likely their ad will show above their competitor’s

It is good to know that Microsoft sets store on the ability to build brand awareness with their PPC program, permitting the continued exposure of your brand to a wider audience, regardless how many clicks your ad attracts. This is an important feature of most PPC programs though Google or Yahoo is reluctant to use this strategy.

Borrowing ideas from Google adWords, Microsoft adCenter avails the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay per click as well as the advertisement’s click through rate (CTR) to determine how frequently an advertisement is shown. This dual operation is said to encourage advertisers to write effective ads and makes them advertise only on searches which are relevant to their advertisement.

Microsoft adCenter lets advertisers to target their ads by restricting their ads to a given set of locations. Similarly, adCenter allows advertisers to run their ads on select days of the week or at specific hours of day.

New Features Added To MSN adCenter Analytics Interface

On 29th of July, MSN adCenter announced that they have updated their analytics (formerly known as “Project Gatineau”) interface and added new features.

Here are various features added to adCenter Analytics.

Dashboard Changes – New changes to the dashboard at MSN adCenter Analytics include a fresh new look highlighting the following default views:

– Top pages
– Top keywords
– Top referring websites
– Traffic summary
– Page views
– Visits

Path Reports – This feature allows you to find how visitors come to a particular page in your website. That means, what link path they take to arrive at Page Y if they started with Page X.

Top Entry & Exit Pages – This feature allows you to get details about the top entry and exit pages of your website.

Treemap Tracking – This feature allows you to see who is using your website from an age and gender viewpoint.

It is nice to see MSN adCenter making useful changes to its analytics product.

adCenter and Free Credit 75$ for running ads

A forum member is willing to help with any MSFT adCenter related questions in SEO chat forums. If you want to see his website visit adcenterweb.blogspot.com

His post


I am a little disappointed to see the lack of interest in the adCenter threads. I am wondering if this is because of lack of experience with it, or if some have had bad experiences. I have been working with MSFT and adCenter to assist anyone who would like to start using adCenter, but has questions or concerns. Feel free to PM or respond to this thread, and I will be happy to assist you in any way I can. Both good and bad experiences with this program are welcome. For those not familiar with adCenter, it is Microsoft’s pay per click program, similar to Google adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing. While it has been true that it may not bring you the volume of traffic that these other programs can, but we have found consistently that adCenter brings more targeted traffic, and has lead to a better conversion rate. With adCenters cost per click running MUCH lower in many areas, this means that you can have more sales with less money spent on advertising!I also have a $75 Free adCenter Coupon at adcenterweb.blogspot.com that anyone is free to use. Unlike some who choose to spam forums with their free credit links and run away, I will gladly stay around to answer any questions or help out however I can. If I don’t know the answer right away, I will ask my MSFT contacts and get your answer. Right now, this offer is open new account holders in the US, and there is a $5.00 charge to activate the account. After setting up your new account and making the payment, your $75 credit should show up in your account within a couple of days (most times, it is there in a few hours).”

Microsoft Live Search Offers Cashback

Microsoft live search is now offering cashback for searching using their search engine and buying products. Currently cash back option is available for US residence above 18 years only. Microsoft is inventing all possible ways to compete with Google which is definitely a great strategy,

What is Live Search Cashback?
“Microsoft Live Search cashback is “The Search That Pays You Back”. Find great deals on millions of products from hundreds of brand name stores that you know and trust. You will be able to earn cashback savings based on a percentage of the product price. Your savings will be paid to you via your choice of a deposit to your PayPal account, direct deposit to your bank account, or a check in the mail. It’s that simple! “

Microsoft live search product URL,http://search.live.com/cashback/
To read more about live search read the FAQ here http://search.live.com/cashback/faq

Craigslist counter sues ebay Inc, Ebay gets fired back by craigslist

Ebay recently had a lawsuit against craigslist now craigslist has counter sued ebay,

Lawsuit by craigslist and its claims read here http://blog.craigslist.org/etc/cl.vs.ebay.html

I am on Craigslist side. I love craigslist and hope they come out of this crisis soon,

Craigslist official blog post

“We filed a complaint in California today, charging eBay with unlawful and unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, deceptive passing-off, business interference, false advertising, phishing attacks, free-riding, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and breaches of fiduciary duty.
We respectfully ask the Superior Court in San Francisco to enjoin this conduct and order eBay to (1) make full restitution to craigslist, (2) disgorge their related profits (3) restore to craigslist all shares of the company acquired by means of, or for the purpose of unfair competition, and (4) pay punitive damages for their malicious behavior.”

http://blog.craigslist.org/2008/05/unlawful-and-unfair/

Microsoft Ready to say Bye Bye to Yahoo

Microsoft is ready to Hostile or even walk away from the bid to buy yahoo since the 3 week long deadline is almost there. Microsoft has repeatedly said it is not willing to Raise the bid value anymore and are fixed at 31$ per share they are willing to Offer Yahoo.

Yahoo on the other hand has been stubborn to raise the bid Yahoo is probably looking somewhere in the range of 35$ per share.

Microsoft has warned before that they will take the case to the Share holders if yahoo does not accept the bid they are looking for. Analysts suggest a proxy fight is most likely and any tough stance from yahoo is not the best for its future since they don’t have much alternatives.

Yahoo seeks higher bid from Microsoft,

According to internal news from yahoo it seems to seek ways to increase the value of its bid from Microsoft. Current value of yahoo stands at 41 billion USD, Yahoo is planning to increase it to 45 billion. Yahoo has predicted its 2010 earnings from online advertising to be around 9 billion about 70% more than its 2007 earnings. If Yahoo is capable of pleasing its investors definitely it will win a increased bid from Billsoft.

But Many Wall Street Investors predict Microsoft will win Yahoo in the current bid. Seeing Yahoo’s potential and the bid value they predict its the right bid from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo.

Top Four Common types of Affiliate program

This information may be helpful for you if you are just starting with affiliate marketing. Know about the various affiliate programs accessible on net and grasp the benefits. However, not everyone realizes that there are various methods to make money online with affiliate programs, so let me summarize the top four common types of affiliate program for you:

1. Pay Per Sale (PPS) – This is one of most common kind of affiliate program online. When advertising your products or services on a pay per sale format, the affiliate only make money when a sale take place through affiliate link. Generally the money earned is a proportion of entire sale, which is commonly known as affiliate commission. With such kind of program, it is very crucial for marketer to choose products and programs that are highly saleable. Otherwise, you may waste lot of time in getting your actually expected sales results.
Tips – if you desire to make sale over and over again in a Pay Per Sale program, the products, the sales letter and the merchant all three must be very good and well established.
2. Pay Per Click (PPC) – A pay per click affiliate is the most famous affiliate program that involves advertising to an extent. Instead of the affiliate programmer suggesting specific products and services, they just incorporate advertisements on their site/blog or in their email newsletters. When website visitors or readers click on to that particular ad, the affiliate marketers make some money through it. Among PPC the most popular is Google Adsense program, which gaining more and more popularity.
Tips – PPC programs are well-liked with many people, at they think they do not really have to in fact try and sell something. Instead of that, you could offer great content/article on your blog or website, so that the visitors click ads with interest.
3. Pay Per Lead (PPL) – Pay per Lead affiliate programs are also trendy as an affiliate market could make money online by just giving away something for free. There is no sale caught up, and the affiliate commissions are frequently quite rewarding.
With this programs, the market generally needs to get the site visitor to complete a form asking for more information, or fill in a study or estimation poll. In other cases, all that a marketer has to do is get the site visitors to sign up for an email list, and they could make money from such actions.
4. Pay Per Action (PPA) – This phrase is usually used synonymously with any of the above terms. With a pay per action affiliate marketing, the affiliate’s profession is to get their targeted site visitors to take an exact action. Sometimes that act is to purchase something; sometimes it is also simply requesting free data or information. Other times the site readers have to take a study or sign up for the email list. The kinds of performance differ from one affiliate program offer to other, but same like the other affiliate payment kinds above, once the action is done, the affiliate earns a commission.
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