Microsoft AdCenter has introduced a new program for pay per click advertisers who want to become more proficient in the use of their pay per click tools. It’s called Microsoft adExcellence.

You can’t say they aren’t trying. MSN has taken all kinds of criticisms from every corner of the Web for its search technology, search engine marketing platform, and everything else under the sun. Now the search engine is offering education for pay per click advertisers. This is a good idea. One that Google and Yahoo! would do well to follow.

While Google AdWords offers free tools for advertisers to use, I don’t know of a Google AdWords training program. The tools at Webmaster Central are good tools, but there’s no training program. Yahoo! Search Marketing also fails to offer a free training program despite having some useful tools for advertisers to use. Not only can you get training in pay per click from MSN, you’ll also get a certificate at the end of the training to prove that you are certified. If you’re serious about pay per click advertising at MSNs adCenter then I highly recommend you take their training.

Advertise your Web site with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit into your new account. Learn more.

Following in the wake of the last two blog posts on Microsoft AdCenter upgrades, today we’ll cover some improved reporting capabilities. These changes include:

• Access up to 20 of your reports more easily
• View graphs and other details for each recent report more quickly
• Download reports as zipped CSV (comma-separated values) files
• Access saved report templates
• Create new reports easily

Microsoft AdCenter will now allow you to create customized reports. You can choose the accounts that you want to customize and do it quickly and easily. Microsoft AdCenter customization allows you to select specific columns and values to display, reorder columns with drag and drop, filter values to surface the data you want to see. You can also schedule automatic reports by e-mail, which will be sent to your inbox and to the inbox of any others that you specify.

Finally, the new changes at Microsoft AdCenter will allow you to interact with reported data more easily. You can view multiple graphs with a single click, view new details like Totals and Averages, and use advanced filtering.

All in all, Microsoft AdCenter is improving its user experience. Though some of these changes may seem trivial or small in comparison to what Google or Yahoo! have done, they are a big step for Microsoft AdCenter.

Advertise your Web site with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit into your new account. Learn more.

Yesterday we introduced some new features of Microsoft AdCenter and discussed the first change on editorial compliance with regard to your ads and keywords. Today we’ll talk about campaign management enhancement at Microsoft AdCenter.

You campaigns now will go live faster. I like this improvement. In the past, if you changed your campaign settings then your ad campaign would be reviewed all over again and it would take some time before your campaigns went live again. But according to the new changes at Microsoft AdCenter, if you make changes to an existing campaign then your campaign will be reactivated more quickly. This includes changes that do not require an editorial review.

Included in this update are some different ways to make ad campaign adjustments, including:

• Setting a daily budget target
• Setting default dynamic text
• Enhanced campaign imports

I think these improvements should make life better for advertisers who use Microsoft AdCenter. Tomorrow I’ll cover improved reporting capabilities at Microsoft AdCenter.

Advertise your Web site with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit into your new account. Learn more.

Microsoft spent the weekend upgrading its AdCenter with new features. They’ve broken the change up into three categories:

• Editorial
• Campaign Management
• Reporting

The first change, editorial feedback, includes new features that allow users of Microsoft AdCenter to receive immediate feedback on their ads and keywords. Microsoft AdCenter, in other words, will provide you with immediate feedback on whether your ad and keywords meet their editorial guidelines. If they don’t then you can make adjustments right away instead of waiting until you are notified and resubmit your ad without delay. This is a big improvement over the previous version of Microsoft AdCenter and I can hardly wait myself to see how this improves user experience at Microsoft AdCenter.

Tomorrow we’ll cover other changes and new features of Microsoft AdCenter. I hope you’ll return for more.

Advertise your Web site with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit into your new account. Learn more.

There may be good reasons why you’d want to use Microsoft AdCenter rather than Google AdWords. The primary reason is budget concerns.

Depending on your ad variations and keywords, it is highly likely that you can bid a lot cheaper on your keywords at Microsoft AdCenter than you can at Google AdWords. A test study using the keyword phrase “childrens poetry” revealed that Google AdWords’ minimum bid is $5.00 for that keyword. That’s well outside the range of most small businesses. But the same keyword at Microsoft AdCenter only costs .20 for a No. 1-point-something average placement. Why is that?

The obvious reasons keywords are most expensive at Google AdWords is supply and demand. Google pioneered pay per click advertising and has been successful in supporting pay per click advertisers who use it. Therefore, Google AdWords became the No. 1 choice for most pay per click advertisers. More users means more competition for the keywords, which drives up prices. It also means that Google is capable of sending more targeted and qualified traffic, which is why there is more competition for the keywords.

Does that mean you can’t be successful at Microsoft AdCenter? No. It just means that you likely won’t be in front of as many eyes. You’ll still get targeted traffic to your website. You just won’t get as much as you could by using Google AdWords. And you’ll pay less for the traffic that you do get. That’s one good reason why Microsoft AdCenter might be a better solution for your small business if you have a small budget.

Microsoft AdCenter is a little different than Google. You’ll likely be able to bid lower on your important keywords. That will save you some money if you are on a tight budget. But be aware that you will likely get less traffic, although, depending on the business you are in, it could be more targeted traffic.

The interesting thing about Microsoft AdCenter is, if you want to pause certain keywords in your campaign while keeping the others active, you can’t. If you don’t want those keywords affecting your CTR then you’ll have to delete. That’s different than Google because Google AdWords allows you to pause certain keywords while keeping others active. It’s a minor nuisance with Microsoft AdCenter, but if your campaign’s performance makes it worth the nuisance then don’t make a big deal of it.

There are two ways to change your bids for keywords in Microsoft AdCenter. You can change the bid for all keywords or for just certain keywords. I prefer to bid differently on all my keywords because some are more important than others and, based on popularity, some will appear higher in the ad rankings than others. I recommend bidding based on where you want your ad to appear in the rankings and that will be different for each keyword. That part is same in Microsoft AdCenter or Google AdWords.

Log in to Microsoft AdCenter and go to your Ad Group page - the one you want to change your keyword bids for. Click on the Keywords tab and scroll down. You’ll see your list of keywords. Halfway across the vertical chart you should see a column labeled “Current bid (max. CPC). Change the bid amount in that box for each keyword you want to change. Next, click on the “update performance estimates” link just above the chart. It should tell you (in the blocks to the right of the column in which you entered your bid amounts) what the expected performance of each of your keywords is based on current performance.

Look at the “Avg. pos.” column. That stands for “average position.” This is the ranking that your ad likely will achieve based on the bid amount you just entered. If you want to go higher then change your bid again to a higher amount. If you want your position be lower, say No. 2 or No. 3 rather than No. 1, then lower your bid amount and click “Save” again. It’s really that simple. Now you can play around with it until you get it just right.

I found it a little off putting at first - being forced to create my PPC ad at the Microsoft adCenter before even filling out my profile. But the process was relatively painless. It does cost $5 just to set up a profile and get your first ad approved. But once you go through the process you can cancel or delete the ad you created or pause the campaign.

One feature I particularly like about the Microst adCenter is the ability to import ads from other campaigns. For instance, if you are a regular Google AdWords user, you can import your Google ads into the adCenter and use them there. You have to do it using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet so if you aren’t familiar with using spreadsheets you’ll need to learn. It is simple, however. The file extension is .csv and is quite common.

Another thing you can do is import keywords. So you can use Google AdWords’ keyword research tool, download it as a .csv file then upload that file to Microsoft adCenter for use with your PPC campaign there. It’s nice when you can take your campaign from one PPC provider and use it in another. That makes running advertising campaigns much easier.