Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft adCenter’

How To Import All Your Google AdWords Campaigns Into Microsoft adCenter In Less Than Two Minutes

December 15th, 2010

If you have many Google AdWords campaigns it can be a pain to copy them all into Microsoft adCenter. To Microsoft’s credit their are several tools to help with this process, some easier than others. I will concentrate on the simplest way possible: Using Google AdWords Editor to export a CSV which can then be imported in Microsoft adCenter Desktop. There is one caveat, this process is Windows only and will not work on a Mac or Linux.

Step 1 – Export your campaigns from Google AdWords Editor by clicking File –> Export Spreadsheet (CSV) –> Export Campaigns. This will prompt you to save a CSV file of your AdWords campaigns.

Step 2 – In the Microsoft adCenter Desktop tool you can click on the “Import” button pictured below. This will open a dialog asking you what kind of file you want to import, select “Import from Google.”

Step 3 – Browse and select the file you exported from Google AdWords Editor.

Step 4 – Review all fields to make sure that are mapped to the correct Microsoft adCenter fields.

Step 5 – Review and approve the results.

Once you have successfully imported the campaigns into adCenter desktop, all you need to do is upload the changes to Microsoft adCenter. You should be set!

As always, if you have any questions, please post them below.

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing

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Migrate Your Bing Shopping Account Into The New Microsoft adCenter Self Service Portal

December 13th, 2010

Ever since Microsoft made Bing Shopping free, merchants have been lining up to get their products listed on the new Bing Shopping. The was process was very manual, and every merchant application had to be reviewed by Bing manually. They have recently launched a new tool within Microsoft adCenter for managing your Bing Shopping product listings so that merchants and advertisers can have one interface for both adCenter and Bing Shopping.

Here is a quick “how-to” migrate your existing Bing shopping account or create a new account within adCenter:

Step 1 - Login to Microsoft adCenter and go to the “Tools” tab. Once there, click on the “Bing Shopping Account Management” link pictured below:

Step 2 - For existing accounts, select “Migrate” and enter your Bing Shopping login credentials. For new accounts, select “Create New Account.”

Step 3 - Once you enter your login information or create a new account, you will be taken to the Store Settings screen. You can enter all your store info as well as upload a logo.

Step 4 - Go to the “Catalog Management” tab and choose how you will send the feed. In this new adCenter console, you now have the ability to have Bing automatically import your feed from an HTTP URL. This is a new feature that was not previously available in the Bing Shopping portal. If you choose “Microsoft Download”, you will be prompted to enter the URL where the feed can be downloaded. If you select “Merchant Upload”, you will need to enter the file name and manually upload the file with the FTP credentials specified in the next tab.

You should check back in a few hours to ensure the feed was processed correctly. Additionally, you may want to click the “View Catalog Quality Feedback” link and check for any specific feed errors. At this point you should be done… It’s a fairly simple process. However, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

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Posted in Comparison Shopping, Search Engine Marketing

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How To Setup Conversion Tracking In Microsoft adCenter

November 4th, 2010

Microsoft adCenter Conversion Tracking

Now that Microsoft adCenter is powering ads for both Bing.com and Yahoo.com, it is extremely important to make sure you are tracking your campaigns properly. Here is a quick guide on how to set up revenue and conversion tracking for Microsoft adCenter.

Step 1 – Turn On Conversion Tracking

In adCenter, conversion tracking must be turned on for each individual campaign. You can do this by navigation to your campaign and clicking on the “Change Settings” link. In the top right corner of this page you will find a check box to Track Conversions. Check this box.

If you just want to track the number of conversions, you can click the link to “show code” and paste it into your order confirmation page. If you want to track revenue too, then you’ll want to follow the next steps.

Step 2 – Revenue Tracking

In order to track the revenue generated from orders originating from adCenter, we will need to set up custom code. Start by clicking on the “Open Campaign Analytics Tool”. This will bring you to the Campaign Analytics section of adCenter. The next step will be to set up a goal by clicking “Create Goal”.

It will bring you to a simple form that you will need to fill out. Most of the form is self-explanatory. Just make sure you select “Variable” under the “Revenue to track” option.

Once you fill out the form, click “Save and generate code”. Copy and past the code and…

Step 3 – Inserting Revenue Variable

At this point you should have code that looks kind of like this:

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

At this point you need to generate the order total from your eCommerce system and pass the variable in the two places it says revenue. Here is an example, look at the word revenue on lines 3 and 4.

<script type="text/javascript">if (!window.mstag) mstag = {loadTag : function(){},time : (new Date()).getTime()};</script>
<script id="mstag_tops" type="text/javascript" src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/site/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/mstag.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> mstag.loadTag("analytics", {dedup:"1",domainId:"XXXXXX",type:"1",revenue:"1234.56",actionid:"XXXXX"})</script> <noscript> <iframe src="//flex.atdmt.com/mstag/tag/dexe4973-10a0-2abe-823e-5b2123f42eb0/analytics.html?dedup=1&domainId=XXXXXX&type=1&revenue=1234.56&actionid=XXXXX" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1" height="1" style="visibility:hidden; display:none"> </iframe> </noscript>

Your final code should look something like the code directly above. You can paste this code into your order confirmation page.

NOTE: Don’t copy and paste this as it won’t work, because I removed all the IDs that adCenter uses to identify which account this is for.

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Tracking & Analytics

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Maximize Your Productivity With Google AdWords Editor

August 23rd, 2009

Google AdWords Editor

If you are managing many campaigns with hundreds or thousands of keywords, then Google AdWords Editor is for you.

AdWords Editor is great for many things. It’s main function is to allow you to add/edit multiple campaigns/ad groups/ads/keywords in one shot. It is especially useful for creating new campaigns because your work will not be live until you are done and upload it.

In addition Google AdWords Editor is great for creating backups of specific campaigns or even your whole account. This is useful for times that you need to restructure your campaign but would like to have the ability to go back and reverse your changes at a later date. It can also be used to download campaigns for upload into Yahoo! Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter.

Plug in to the power of AdWords Editor

AdWords Editor is a free Google application for managing your ad campaigns. Use it to download your account, update your campaigns with powerful editing tools, then upload your changes to AdWords.

  • Work offline, then upload your changes any time.
  • Make bulk changes (such as updating bids or adding keywords) in just a few steps.
  • Copy or move items between ad groups and campaigns.
  • Navigate through your account quickly and easily.
  • Circulate proposed changes and get feedback from other users.

Download Google AdWords Editor

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Should I Spend Time On Yahoo! Search Marketing & Microsoft adCenter?

August 13th, 2009

Judgement Day

It is a well known fact that Google AdWords commands more than 80% of the Paid Search market share. With that being the case, is worth the time managing campaigns on Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter? This question is even more important considering the somewhat recent news that Microsoft Bing will be merging with Yahoo! Search.

Cost vs Results

One thing is for sure, keywords on Yahoo and Bing will cost a fraction of what they cost on Google. The main reason for this is that there are much less advertisers on Yahoo and Bing. This can be a benefit to you though because of the keyword bidding competition, or lack thereof.

The Big Test

The easiest thing to do is download an export from your Google account using Google AdWords Editor and upload this into the Yahoo and Microsoft consoles. They both offer the ability to convert Google campaigns.

Once your campaigns are live in the second tier engines, lower your bids and daily budgets and let the ads roll. Keep your eye on keywords that are getting way too many clicks. I’ve seen keywords which didn’t perform too well on Google, get overclicked on Yahoo and Microsoft.

Day Of Judgement

After accumulating 3-4 weeks of data, check your return on investment (ROI), if it looks like your’re making a profit, then go for it. Make sure to calculate the cost of the extra time it takes to manage a triplicate set of campaigns.

What If Yahoo! & Bing Merge?

They have already finalized the deal on paper. However, they still need to get regulatory approval, which can take a while. Even when they do get approval, they will need to integrate their two systems, which can take even longer.

Can’t Handle It?

If you can’t handle managing three sets of campaigns for Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing, try a third party tool that gives you the ability to manage all three from within one interface. Some of the better ones are Kenshoo, Acquisio and Clickable.

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