adCenter Releases Features Aimed At Improving Advertiser Time-Efficiency

The adCenter team recently released some features aimed at improving Advertiser Time-Efficiency. These features are live right now, though they may not be officially announced at the time this post is published.

During a recent trip to adCenter headquarters, Eric Enge was able to get some insight into these new features, and what we can expect from adCenter in the near future, which he shared in his recent post Can Bing & adCenter Bring More To The Table For Large Advertisers?.

Here is a quick synopsis of the new features:

• Browser Compatibility with Safari and Chrome, and mobile devices
• Mobile Device Targeting
• Ad Description Lengths Increased

Browser Compatibility With Safari & Chrome

Status: Live

AdCenter silently released browser compatibility with Safari and Chrome this week, including mobile device support for iPad and other devices. Compatibility with Mozilla Firefox was also improved.

From our sources and anecdotal testing, the support appears complete and fully functional. This release supports adCenter’s efforts to increase the ease of access of the online marketing platform by enabling Advertisers to access the site from a wider variety of browsers and devices.

My Take: Manage adCenter from your iPad!

Manage adCenter from whichever browser or device you prefer. While this feature doesn’t seem at first like core functionality (like a change to Negatives or Device Targeting would be), it is one of the top-requested features on adCenter’s Feature Suggestion Forum for good reason; as Advertisers we want to maximize our time efficiency.

Advertisers want to work where we are comfortable, and this helps us do that. Many of us have come to expect ubiquitous access from a premier online business as a matter of course, but those of us who use Chrome / Safari, or who have ever wanted to check on a client off-hours from the nearest mobile device that is handy, will probably appreciate this release the most.

I also see this release as more evidence that adCenter is really listening and taking steps to actively improve the adCenter experience.

Device Targeting

Status: Live

AdCenter silently released support for device targeting recently. Device targeting enables Advertisers to choose which Devices their Ads will, or will not, appear on.

By offering this functionality, adCenter empowers Advertisers to create separate Campaigns to bid on devices with different Bids, Keywords, and Ads optimized for each Device.

Device targeting support now includes:

• Smartphones
• Android
• BlackBerry
• iOS
• Windows
• Other
• Tablets
• Android
• BlackBerry
• iOS
• Other

Barry Schwartz previously reported on this release: Microsoft adCenter Increases Ad Description, Adds Budget Widget & More Mobile Targeting Options

My Take: Include this in your 2012 plans

Mobile search is growing rapidly, there is no denying that. I tend to take future predictions with a grain of salt though, as the atmospheric trend lines tend to imply there will be more mobile searches than grains of sand on the planet Earth sometime during the next President’s term of office.

What I do know is that amongst my clients, mobile devices account for roughly 10-15% of our searches happening today, and that number is growing.

Mobile device traffic can have a wildly different Cost Per Acquisition, and may represent a prime candidate for optimizing your bids accordingly. You could also try different Keywords, Ads, etc., and you might be in a unique situation where you actually only want to target one Device vs. another.

For the majority of Advertisers considering carving out separate Mobile Campaigns and weighing that against the cost of implementation and long-term manageability, I’d recommend something like the following equation:

Potential = ((% of total Account Value) * (% increase in Value for new Campaigns)) – Cost of Implementation and Management

Of course, you will have to define what value means for your business. You might start with PPC Profit, Conversions, etc.

Ad Description Length Increased To 71 Characters

Status: Live

AdCenter silently increased the Text Ad Description character limits to 71 recently. This feature makes importing Ads from AdWords easier by accounting for the extra punctuation often required to import Ads from AdWords to adCenter.

My Take: The Little Things Really Do Matter!

Many Advertisers develop on AdWords first then copy to adCenter. Working with AdWords first is a simple matter of prioritizing time and focusing on what will deliver the biggest bang for the buck. This feature fixes a problem you have most likely come across if you have ever imported Ads from AdWords to adCenter.

When you import a Description Line 1 and 2 from AdWords, adCenter adds a space between them to form the single Description used in adCenter. This space accounts for the fact that usually AdWords Ads are crafted to work with a line-break in between them.

However, if you have two Descriptions from AdWords totaling 35 characters each, the extra space brings the total to 71 characters, and ultimately causes the Ad to be rejected in adCenter.

For a process that was supposed to be easy (importing from AdWords to adCenter), this was quite interruptive. Many Advertisers found that it necessitated maintaining different sets of Ads for the two platforms, or adjusting the Ads on AdWords to make room, etc. Going forward, this problem goes away.

In my opinion, this is more strong evidence that the adCenter team is making progress towards making our lives easier and increasing Advertiser time efficiency.

Resources:

• Can Bing & adCenter Bring More To The Table For Large Advertisers?
• adCenter Blog
• Microsoft adCenter Increases Ad Description, Adds Budget Widget & More Mobile Targeting Options