If you have a successful pay per click advertising campaign running at Google AdWords and you want to export to MSN adCenter, it’s pretty simple. The first step is to export the files in Google adWords to a CSV file. That’s easier to do with the Google AdWords Editor. But it’s a fairly simple process.

Next, you have to import the CSV file to MSN adCenter. Inside the MSN adCenter management area you’ll see a link above your campaigns that says “Import campaigns”. Click that button and upload your file. Then you can start making changes and creating ad groups within MSN adCenter.

This is a good thing to do if you’ve used Google AdWords to tweak your pay per click campaigns and get them to making you money. You wouldn’t want to export a campaign that isn’t doing well. But those campaign that are heavily optimized and making you money, those you want to keep and use with other services. Be prepared to tweak the optimization a little to match the specific algorithm of the search engine you are importing to. But you shouldn’t have make sweeping changes.

I love how the search engines are always trying to tell us how to increase ROI from our advertising. Should we trust them?

Microsoft adCenter recently shared a blog post on increasing your pay per click advertising ROI. In a nutshell, their five tips are:

• Test ad copy
• Bid on keyword match types
• Add or update negative keywords based on current news
• Include 20 or less keywords per ad group
• Apply geographic and demographic targeting

This is a good list. I’ll buy the five. But there are some missing from it. The list is primarily purposed to sell Microsoft adCenter features and not to help advertisers make money. What should be added to the list to increase your ROI are:

• Use a strong call to action in your ad
• Ensure that your landing page is optimized and ready for traffic
• Make your ad content and landing page keyword-compatible
• Bid the right amount on your keywords
• Delete underperforming keywords as soon as possible
• Group your keywords effectively

Making money from online advertising is a science. It takes some creativity and careful forethought. You can’t just wing it. You need a plan. If you have a good plan and you act on it with a purpose, you can achieve a high ROI from pay per click advertising.

MSN adCenter pay per click advertising network is always trying to improve its service for advertising. They’ve recently announced that they are rolling out new options for conversion counting. Here are the three conversion options and how they can benefit you:

• One Conversion – Suppose you just want to count one conversion click per user visit. You can do that and you don’t have to do much to make it happen. In essence, you only count the first conversion from a visitor that clicks through to your site.
• One Conversion Per URL – What if you want to count conversions for each page of your website? This is the option that you’ll choose and it can provide you with some useful tracking benefits as well. Works real well for tracking conversions on dynamic URLs.
• All Conversions – If you want to count all conversions on all of the pages of your website, this is your best option. The problem is, you could be counting duplicates if you don’t do it right. In that case, one of the other two option might be better for you.

To learn more about your conversion options at MSN adCenter and to find out how to change them, visit the MSN adCenter Blog.

Microsoft adCenter Analytics is preparing for its final day of breath the last day of this year. The program was in beta and according to the adCenter blog, the beta was a success even though Microsoft will no longer continue the service. If you are a current user of the service, there are instructions on the adCenter blog for exporting your data. If you were planning to sign up for the service, don’t bother.

Website analytics is very important for anyone doing business online, but particularly important for pay per click advertisers. If you do any pay per click advertising then measuring your results is an essential piece of your business. This move makes me wonder what will become of MSN adCenter. Will the pay per click part of Microsoft’s business continue?

If you are looking for a replacement analytics program then I recommend Google Analytics, which is free. But if you prefer a third-party solution then there are some programs that are worthwhile. Compete.com is one solution you may find useful. Whatever you do, you need to make a point to pick an analytics solution that will help you measure your advertising results. Don’t advertise without one.

The MSN adCenter Blog reports that a user encountered a snag with his negative keyword usage. Specifically, the snag involves an error code when you enter a negative keyword for a keyword that contains only an exact match bid.

A blogger by the name of Sudhir said this:

So what the error basically means is that “Negative keywords are only allowed on keywords that have a broad or phrase match bid specified”. If you try to add/update a keyword with “Not Keywords” and only exact bid specified then you would get this error. In my case this was being caused by a different scenario. We use Apache Axis for our webservice calls and Axis treats a blank string as a valid content string when compared to a null string. So even if the “Not Keywords” was set to blank it was generating the “Negative Keyword” soap element.

MSN adCenter says it will fix that error “in the future”. Meanwhile, take note, you cannot use negative keywords on keywords for which you have an exact bid only. But if you have bids on phrase match and broad match then it’s OK to use negative keywords at the pay per click advertising network MSN adCenter. I hope they fix that soon.