How To Change Your Keyword Bids In Microsoft AdCenter

Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 25 of October , 2007 at 1:23 pm

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.

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Category: Microsoft Ad Center

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